The title refers to the epic Led Zeppelin song off the album Presence. It’s not the first time I’ve used it. I’m actually a little surprised that it’s only the second time.
Anyway, sometime toward the end of June in 2006, my lingering achilles tendon problems became debilitating. I took some time off and fought my way back for one more season, before finally giving up around the end of July in 2007. It’s been over 4 years of halting recoveries and ineffective miracle cures.
Today, I ran a “race”. I’ve been running about 8 miles a week since May (I actually calculated it)…so it’s not a race like what I used to do, when I was running, say, 10 times that. I had no delusions of victory, or even a decent time. I was doing it for two reasons: a lot of friends from my group at work were doing it, and I became morbidly curious about how poor my fitness really was. Also, my continued health doesn’t matter. If I can’t walk well tomorrow, it’s no big deal. I’m having surgery on the achilles on 10/26 – today I was on house money.
I figured I could probably run something like 26:00 for the 4-mile race. At this point, my body doesn’t remember how to hurt itself and I’m sure I ran 25:58 precisely because that was my goal – I scaled the pain to the time of what I thought I could do, because doing any more would have required more fortitude than I currently know how to muster. I decided not to race anyone – I went out slow, 6:47, then 6:40. I spent the entire race passing people, closing with two straight 6:16 (with the last mile up the hill) miles. I ran 20:27 on this course in 2005, for what it’s worth. 6 years. That’s a long time.
In the end, there weren’t too many people in front of me, maybe 8 or something like that. It really changed my perspective, I thought I’d be in crowds the entire time, but really, even running as slow as I was, it’s still in kind of rarefied air. Competitive runners are so much faster than non-competitive runners that I can degrade 5 and a half minutes, and still be in the former category. I also always thought that I was faster because of how hard I worked. While I think my body remembers the 25,000 miles I’ve run on it, I also think that this proves that I am just naturally talented. You’d think I would have guessed that after my grandfather was an excellent semi-pro soccer player, my father was a scholarship runner, and after my brother rose to the cusp of Olympic caliber.
The idea is not to stay in this netherworld between fast and slow after the surgery. It will be a long process. I’ll be immobilized for 2 weeks, then a long and gradual set of physical therapy will follow. I hope to be able to ride the exercise bike by sometime in December. Maybe I’ll start to jog, really, truly, slowly and shortly, jog by sometime in January. If all goes to plan, I’d go from nothing to 40 mpw by May – 5 months, that’s a slow ramp by any standard. Then to 60 mpw by July. Then fitness by September.
Who knows. I only get to play this trump once, and I’m not going to cripple myself if that’s what is required to run fast again. If running works, then I’ll keep moving up until I can see how well it works. If not, oh well. But I’m more excited than I have been in years – there’s an actual, honest to goodness chance this might work. And if it doesn’t, at least I will have tried – there will be no more what-ifs.
And next time I show up at a race, I’ll use my real name.
Words 
Good stuff. What alias did you go by?
Phineas Gage.
Wow. That’s pretty severe. Is there supposed to be a connection?
Not really.
haha My boy talked to MH and thought that Phineas was a fictional traveler, whereas Gage is a football something. I, however, had immediate visions of a railroad spike through that pretty noggin of yours. Thank goodness your injury isn’t more severe, and is probably more fixable! :oD And, yea, I think you’re pretty talented, gimpy or not. :oP