Hello,
I have felt often that I should write some feelings about things in my life that are important to me. I was thinking the other day about how many good experiences I have had with running in my life. Currently my knees both have meniscal tears and while I hope to be able to run a marathon again, I am not sure I will be able to. I had a blessing by Ethan and Mark about 3 weeks ago and since then I have been able to run every other day without incapacitating pain so I am very thankful and I am trying to keep running but I don't know if my recovery will be permanent or allow me to run a marathon again. So I though while I am contemplating my running future, I would talk about my running past.
When I was in Ypsilanti High School I always though I should do a sport. I though about the big 3 - football, basketball and baseball. My baseball career ended in little league between my playing outfield always and missing the occasional ball hit to me and not being able to hit the pitches thrown by little league pitchers some of whom could throw 100 miles per hour. I never played football and though I wanted the glory of playing and the locker decorating on Fridays, I did not know enough about playing to know what to do and how to get into it so that was out. I tried out for the JV team in high school for basketball. I was playing on the church team and we were doing pretty well and I knew my job as center - get rebounds, try to get close shots and block the other team in the center. However, during the tryout week, I was one of 80 guys for 15 spots, I was one of 2 white guys and I did not get onto the JV team. So the big 3 were out.
I really wanted a varsity jacket and a letter so I thought about what I could do to get one and track seemed like a good idea. I did not know if I could run fast but I knew I could run so I signed up. I remember that first year. We started practice in the winter and we would run around in the classroom area of Ypsilanti High School which was a big circle with stairs at each end. Our practice in the winter consisted of running down the hall up a long stairway, back down the stair and then around the next hall. There were no boom boxes at that time, no earphones or walkman so we ran in the gloomy hallways up and down the stairs for what seemed like hours. That was my intro to running. There was also the impending hazing I worried about. That did not start till we got to start training at the outdoor track and we were changing in the locker rooms. I don't know how long before it happened but our hazing eventually happened when we were locked in a locker. I don't remember it very well, it seems like I was worried about getting hazed but in the end it was not very noteworthy, but I remember worrying about it. So, anyway running track.
My track running lasted freshman, sophmore and junior year. In senior year my sport was gymnastics and as I had not had a great time in track I decided I would not do it that final year. Each spring we would run the halls of the school and up and down the stairwells. Once the weather was good enough we would practice every day which involved warm up by running from Ypsi high school to the big water tower near Easter Michigan University Campus and back. It was not much of a run but at the time it seemed so long. Now I barely get warmed up running the 2-3 miles that constituted our warm up. Then the rest of practice was to practice our chosen races. At the time, I did not know what to do and my coach was very non directive. His name was Coach Simpson and he was a short black man who was always nice to me but not very involved. He focused as is appropriate on the fastest racers - the sprinters in the 100, the 220, the relays, the 440 and the 2 mile. The starts of the 2 mile were two white guys whose fathers coached track at EMU and they were good. One was named Brian and the other one I don't remember but they were fast and good. Our sprinters were good too. I decided since long distance seemed too much and I wasn't that fast in sprints that I would run hurdles. There was the 330 short hurdles and the 110 high hurdles. Because I was so ignorant I did not know how or what the technique to running hurdles was so I just did my best. I ran hurdles with two brothers - the Newtons and I was not great. The 330 hurdles are just run fast and get over the hurdles. I ran as fast as I could and I jumped the hurdles but I was never speedy enough. I lost a lot. I did come in 3rd once in the 330 low hurdles...when there were 3 people. Placing was 1,2 and 3rd. Other than that time I was never in the top 3. In the 110 high hurdles you were supposed to run three steps in between each high hurdle. I did not know that for the longest time and so I would do 5 steps in between and was always slower than everyone else. I practiced each year as best I could. I ran my races at each meet and did my best but I was not great. I did learn to run. I also enjoyed going to meets, wearing my Ypsi Braves purple and gold track suit. The first year because I was not one of the best runners I had to wear the old track suits which was a bummer but that was the way it was. After my first year. I got to wear the newer Ypsi Braves Track Suit which were much nicer. My goal was to get a letter. In the first year of track, to get a varsity letter you had to get points and the way you got points was to win 1,2 or 3rd. Since I did not win anything I did not get my letter. So I went out the second year and in second year you got your letter no matter what so I did get my varsity letter that second year. My track experience taught me to run, it taught me to keep going, and one of the guys on the team would play his boom box on the bus rides to meets, and one of the songs was Mesopotamia by the B-52s. I loved that song and I remember asking him to play it over and over. I am sure he thought I was weird, but he did play it for me a few extra times and to this day the B-52s and Mesopotamia are some of my favorites.
Then for years I did not run. I hadn't liked it in high school, I had not been good and all I remembered was how hard it was so I did not do it. Then on my mission I gained a lot of weight. I went from about 175 to over 200 lbs. I tried to "diet" in Argentina and even got a blessing one time because I could not lose weight and I felt so uncomfortable, but between alfajores, rice pudding, dulce de leche, meat at every meal, pizza all the time and constant appetite stimulating stress and being fed by everyone all the time I was heavy for my 19,20 year old self and so during my mission at different times I worked out and dieted. With one elder, Elder Lucero we went and lifted weights at a gym. During my early months I would run up and down a street in our neighborhood constantly bored without any ipods or walkmans or any kind of mental stimulation, just running. I had to exercise in the morning from 6:30 to 7 because of the strict schedule rules or at night in the heat. It was all I could do to try and lose weight from the exercise standpoint but it did not help. But I did run. Thankfully, when I came home from my mission, miraculously I lost weight and within a few weeks I was back down to my normal 170s range. I don't know how it happened but it did and I felt normal again.
I don't remember much running for a while in my life but I do remember the day I had to take the MCAT, I couldn't sleep so that morning for stress relief I went running.
When I was admitted to the Air Force and I did my Officer Indoctrination Course, we had physical fitness daily. I remember there was some incentive to run, like points towards some prize or something so I would go run in the afternoon in Texas about 4 miles a day. I don't remember now why, but I did. I remember running so much that when I would get done, my legs would feel like they were continuing to run, but I did it.
Fast forward to medical school. The first two years I did not run, I did walk to class but I did not run. During the last two years of med school, we lived in Kalamazoo and Mommy started to go to Powerhouse Gym. She was working out and lifting weights and she encouraged me to do it. The gym was about a mile away from our apartment in Gull Run Apartments and so at some point I started to run to the gym. It was only a short distance away but I did it when I went to work out. Then, Borgess Hospital had a 5 k they sponsored. I was working there and at Bronson Hospital and so we signed up for the Borgess run. I remember that run, I ran as fast as I could and I felt sick I ran so hard and I did ok. I don't remember my time but I ran as fast as I could. I think Mommy ran it too. I can't remember that clearly, I can see an image of the run though running in the sun and around streets in Kalamazoo.
It seems like that was when I began to run for life. I don't remember running after that till I was in residency. We lived in Dayton and I worked at Miami Valley Hospital. When I was on call I started running in the parking structures because they were still part of the hospital. I would also run on the treadmill in the awesome fitness center at Miami Valley Hospital. They had 2 racketball courts in the fitness center, a locker room and treadmills. I would do my rounds in the morning and then go run in the fitness center, maybe 2 or 3 miles and then take a shower and go to morning rounds. It worked for me. Then, came what committed me to running: The United States Air Force Marathon in 1997. It was starting that year, I was a first year resident and Mommy and I decided we would do it. I used to come home from work, play with the little kids, eat dinner, then after they were in bed at 8 go run 5 miles to train. Sometimes Mommy and I would go together, most nights it was just me alone running 5 miles through Oakwood neighborhood streets, most of the time in the dark. I ran to the base a few times in the morning for training runs. It was about 18 miles to the base from home. My first year of Marathon training I ran 3-5 miles a day or every other day and then long runs on Saturday. I did not have gps or any kind of tracker so I would just map out the course with the Car and then run it. We would measure the distance with car drives and usually it was easier and faster to pick a run out and back to do the distance, I would just double the way out to the fixed point and then run back. My three years of residency that is what I did. My first year in 1997 I ran a first time 4:03. The next year I went out too fast and ran a 4:33. Then after that for about 10 years I ran a natural 3:53 in the Air Force Marathon, the Indianapolis Marathon and the Dublin Marathon. I could not beat my 3:53. I would run fast at the beginning and then get really slow at the end and then get done at 3:53.
Then, we moved to Germany in 2000 when residency ended. I did not run the marathon that year because I did not consider leaving one month after I got to Germany to run a race in America in Dayton. I think I ran in Germany that first year but I cannot remember. In the Air Force we had a fitness test and part of that was a mile and a half run. If you did 9 minutes for that run you would get 100 points and I did that every time. After missing the 2000 USAF marathon, somehow I found out that there was a USAF in Europe Marathon Team and I requested membership and was approved. The great thing about that was I got to go to Dayton each year with the team for free. The Air Force would give us the week off, pay for a hotel room, and rent vans to drive us to the race and around. We also got a USAFE uniform for free and it was great. It was during these 5 years that somehow I broke my 3:53 time naturally and got a 3:21 marathon. I don't remember doing anything different with training. I ran daily at lunch, usually about 8 miles with my friends Eric, Trish and Mike. I would also run around our town Preist.
To Be continued.
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