Long-Term Goal: Be Around To Run Long Term

Jan. 11, 2013

Today I am 192.4 pounds of rolling thunder. Obviously, whatever gremlin that had crawled inside and was pushing the numbers up the other day has since been exorcised.

Today's Runner's World magazine quote of the day is one worth holding on to:

"My long-term goal is to be around to run long-term."

Jeremy Dobrick

I think we should all pledge an oath to be around long enough to live our lives, running and not running, long-term. That day you wake up on the wrong side of the grass will be sad indeed. So pledge to stay running and living as long as you can.

Today, I got back to running thanks to ice, heat, rest and medication. After a week of walking and indoor bike riding it was good to have that running feeling again. It was good to draw in deep breaths of a runner and let them go. It was good to feel my heart rate elevated in the way only strenuous exercise can do.

It wasn't the greatest run ever, but for an hour I was able to get my legs and arms moving in something of a rhythm for the first time in a week or so. Sure, there were some sore moments, but it felt good to push through and get a good run/walk in.

It was nice to feel the cool breeze on my face and the sweat rolling down my back. It was good to greet other runners as they came rolling in from the other direction. It was good to have a mild day for running in the dead of winter.

So with any luck, I'll be able to have a long-term goal to be around to run long-term. Sometimes it takes being away from something to remind you how much you like it.

 "Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could."

Louise Erdrich

 

Failure Is Not An Option

Jan. 6, 2013

Today I'm still 194 pounds of rolling thunder.

I think somebody out there is trying to tell me something.  Maybe it's the running gods. Maybe it's karma. Maybe it's just serendipity. But somehow I'm sensing a theme here.

I received two inspirational quotes today and both had to do with learning from mistakes or failure.

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself."
Unknown

"The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way."
Dale Carnegie

I hate to admit it, but I failed to listen to my aching back last week and have paid the price ever since. My tweak became an ache and the ache a pain and then a major pain. For a few days after "powering" through my tweak and running anyway, I've been dealing with the effects of an aching back.

And while the back is improving daily, it has been one step forward and two steps back as I continued to try and run/walk my way to recovery.

So after giving in and just walking on Friday and not running, I decided to scrap the pounding that running (and even walking) can do to your back and head down to the stationary bike. I've had a lot of success using the bike to work through injuries and it's a good low-impact way of maintaining fitness while working on keeping a full range of motion.

Riding the bike is great cross-training as well. I promised myself this winter I'd get on the bike more, by the siren's song of the road keeps calling me back to the mean streets and away from the friendly confines of my basement and the stationary bike.

Still, there's nothing like getting out on the road and achieving the feeling of exhaustion that comes with running. Nothing like drawing those deep breaths as you go over the top of a hill or race to the finish of a 5-miler.

But I know better days are ahead if I continue to go slow and listen to what my body is telling my brain. That's hard to do for runners, and I'll loosely lump myself in with that group even if I am the world's slowest human.

Albert Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

So hopefully I can learn something from my mistakes and will be back on the road soon. After three or four days of Einstein's brand of insanity, I'd like to think I've made progress by changing my plan.

So when you see back on the road, give me a wave.