Once a Runner

CATCH 22 - A dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.  I get up every morning and think of things I want/need to get done and usually by the time I’ve taken Charlie out and then had a cup of coffee (decaf now 🙄). Depending on how I feel the list of what I actually hope to accomplish is smaller or even nonexistent. And that’s where the Catch 22 comes in.  If I don’t get anything done the list of things I need to get done just keeps getting longer and caused more stress. Then the stress just helps feed the fatigue that keeps me from doing things.  If I try to ignore how I feel and do at least some things it might help lower the stress but the resulting added fatigue usually offsets what little I do accomplish and then the stress and negative feelings are back and probably worse.  Another example of my Catch 22 life has to do with fitness. As I’ve written before I’ve “accepted” the fact th...

After spending two days at the Prefontaine Classic I was filled with so many thoughts about my own running and coaching careers and how much both of those things helped define who I am (was).  Last night I was reading this book and came across a passage that really hit home while I struggle with the idea of no longer being a runner. He was describing an encounter at an aid station during a 100k he was running in Bishop, California. On page 25 he wrote: “The volunteer brought my water bottle back. I thanked him. I also thanked him for being out there.  ‘No problem,” he said. “Glad to be helping out.” “You a runner?” I asked.  “Used to be. I miss it.” “It was a familiar refrain. I heard it all the time from ex-runners. They missed it. Missed running. Missed the magic and the misery of accelerating the human form to a place where comfort is discarded and something approaching anguish and suffering becomes the glorious, detached state of being. As I continued running down th...

Back to irony! I just finally admitted in my last post that after over 59 years, I can no longer call myself a runner. It’s hard to accept because running has been a really major part of my life, more so since turning 60. I had every intention of running races through my 70’s  and hopefully beyond. “Man Plans, God Laughs”. So there it is, I’m saying it again, “I am no longer a runner”! The irony comes from the fact that I found the shirt this weekend.  Charlie and I went to Mt. Hood this weekend to watch Gerald and Kari Romero compete in the USATF National Mountain Running Championship race. It was a fun weekend and definitely fun hanging with the running community again.  When we got to Government Camp they had t arrived yet so we drove up to the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood and saw the place where the outside scenes for The Shining were filmed.  We had lunch at Charlie’s Mountainview Restaurant in Government Camp. The food was good and catching up and visiting was...

 I spent a lot of time since publishing my last blog thinking of a title for this blog. I came up with plenty but they were all pretty dark so I passed on them all. Last night while reading a running novel it came to me. “Once a Runner”. I know it’s not an original title but it captures the feelings that I have been struggling to come to terms with and the reality that I can no longer think of myself as a runner. The title was already taken for a domain name so I chose “A Runner No More” but typed it wrong 😑. The address is: www.arunnernimore.blogspot.com My niece Brandy signed us up to do the Eugene Half Marathon virtual race a few months ago. Even though I couldn’t run a Half I kept thinking there might be a day when I felt good enough to walk one all at once on the course at Alton Baker Park. The way the course was set up in loops I planned to be able to stop at my car as needed every loop and I wasn’t going to worry about time because I knew I could only do what I could do ...