A Wonderful Season Ends

Probably I had too much invested emotionally in Wyatt's Cross Country season this fall since I was hurt and not running myself.  I was also very heartbroken for him that he had such a bad run in his final race of the season Saturday at the Regional meet.  I am sad, sad, sad.  Sad that I won't get to see anything like this again until the spring.  Love watching that boy run.  Now on to ordinary days through the dark, bleak winter.

A Note About Friendship

Waiting for surgery this summer felt like a cloud of darkness over me.  By the time September rolled around I was finishing up the best running year of my life since 1984.  I entered the Plaza 10k just because I didn’t like that handful of slow 10k times, and no fast ones, staring at me in my running log and I decided I’d try to go out and nail one more PR, a big one I hoped, before the trip to Chicago to get my knee worked on by the cartilage super-doc of America two days later.  I’m now about 22 days post-op and that race was the last time I ran.  Between October 2, 2010 and September 18, 2011 I’ve been blessed to set personal records, exclusive of high school efforts, at 800m, 1600m and 3000m, and lifetime personal records at 5 km, 10km, half-marathon and marathon distances.  Not a bad year’s work, but it really depressed me to anticipate it all coming to an end, especially since I feel that if my knee had been healthy I could have continued to improve.  In all this I’ve found that very very few people really understand how this feels to be a runner forced to lay it all down under the shadow of the possibility that his last race could very well turn out to be his last at that level of performance.  I am blessed that I have at least one friend who really does, however.  Todd does.

Doctor Studly as he is sometimes known has become my runner brother, my comrade and my fellow struggler on the long run.  We met through a mutual friend a few years ago and since then we have forged a strong bond of friendship in the fires of 22-mile runs at 4:30 in the morning, marathons in Boston and Austin, frozen water bottles on 16-degree mornings and humid August thirteen-milers followed by three by two miles at sub-tempo pace, all while sharing thoughts about faith, kids, wives, baseball and dozens of other topics.  We’ve been there to push and support each other, share our running dreams, and see one another succeed and fail.

Now back to the Sunday morning of the Plaza 10k, my last hurrah.  I left my racing flats in the car and took off for a two-mile warm up in the rain without expecting to see a single familiar soul.  Turning the corner onto Ward Parkway there was my comrade wearing his 2006 Boston Marathon jacket, carrying his umbrella.  I could hardly believe my good fortune.  Here the dude had come all the way to the Plaza from Lee’s Summit on a rainy morning not even to run the race himself but only to watch me run and cheer me on to take my crack at breaking 35.  There are so many kindnesses I have received in my life from people who love me that I wouldn’t even know where to start if I were to try to count my blessings.  On that important morning, however, there was really nobody else on earth who could have ministered to my spirit in the way Todd did just by showing up and being there. 

Now I just need him to go out and smoke a fast marathon this fall, and I’ll feel better about hobbling around on these crutches.

Here is the man after one of his favorite races