Skip to main content
I am not sure what I am going to do come January 15th. Whatever it is going on inside my knee is pretty much inhibiting me from being able to run. I woke up this morning, motivated to go out and run for four miles. But I didn't get 50 yards before I knew that it wasn't going to happen. Not today; maybe never again. This is the biggest let down I've had. To not be able to go through with it... it's not an option. I have to run this thing. I made a commitment that other people for which other people are sponsoring me. To not run it would make me feel like a fraud.

And yet, there is also a sense of relief. For weeks I have questioned whether I would be able to run. And now it seems the decision has been made for me.

My only other option is to cross train the next month and hope that I retain whatever muscle memory I have to gut it out in January. Oh, I know I'll be able to run the 13 miles. It's not an issue of endurance. It's just the pain, man. That phrase, no pain, no gain? It's a crock. That's what they preached to me in 8th and 9th grade when I was still playing football. And that's the mentality that helped me shred the ligament in my knee in the first place.

So, tomorrow I will take my bike in to have it repaired and starting Monday, I'll ride my bike in the morning. It's the only thing I can think to do.

You know, I could easily just not run this thing. But I would feel like a fraud. And I've put in the time, you know?

In other events, Mom and Dad are coming into town in Sunday. The kids are stoked. I'm not sure when we will see them next, so I feel like this will be a pleasant visit before my holiday break. I am really looking forward to the time off from work. This year has had so much going on. And I feel like this will be the perfect winding down of the year to reflect on all of the events of the past year and to just appreciate this wonderful family we have.

Aloha

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MARATHON FOOTNOTES (for those who didn't think I would really footnote a stream of consciousness thought): Footnote #1 Academy Award Winning Best Picture Films from 1969 to the Present: Midnight Cowboy, Patton, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Sting, The Godfather II, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Terms of Endearment, Amadeus, Out of Africa, Platoon, The Last Emperor, Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, Dances With Wolves, The Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Footnote #2 Members of the band YES, from 1969 to the present: In 1969, Yes is formed with Jon Anderson on vocals Peter Banks on guitar, Bill Bruford on drums, Tony Kaye on keyboards and Chris Squire playing bass. This group records...

Basement Songs: "Golden Gates" by John Cougar Mellencamp

I’m not sure when my brother, Budd, bought his copy of John (then) Cougar Mellencamp’s “Uh Huh”. The cassette just showed up in the basement on summer, years after its release. Like most of America, I was a big fan of “Pink Houses”, and I was thrilled that now had copies of his other big hits from that album, “Crumblin’ Down” and “The Authority Song.” At this point in his career, Mellencamp was ready to establish himself as a legitimate artist, hence the use of his real name (the record label wouldn’t allow him to ditch the “Cougar” until years later for fear record buyers may get confused….huh?) In addition, there was the radio staple (at least in Cleveland), “Play Guitar”, on side 2, which borrowed heavily from Them’s “Gloria” (Mellencamp often slipped the “G-L-O-R-I-A”’s into his concerts during that number). The rest of “Uh Huh” is filled with more of the same 60’s garage band type of rock that Mellencamp champions, as well as one of Budd’s favorite tunes, the John Prine co-pe...

In Praise of Kanopy

When I was 17, I worked at American Video, a small business housed in the Great Northern shopping strip. My time there was short, as was American Video’s lifespan. The days of the mom-and-pop video stores were cycling out. Blockbuster had just opened in my hometown and within a couple years, American Video, as well as the store where I first fell in love with movies, First Run Video, would shutter their doors. What I loved about these indie video stores was the variety of choices and the limited number of copies of movies each store had. Come in looking for Back to the Future and it’s already rented? You strolled the aisles until you found something similar like Innerspace , or something completely different, like And Now for Something Completely Different, Monty Python’s first movie. Blockbuster, and its cousin Hollywood Video, may have offered more copies of movies, but they didn’t always have the quality. Maybe your Blockbuster was different.   When Netflix and the stre...