Ernest wrote:
Inspirational. Keep up the good fight.
Kempainen92 wrote:
Just wanted to restate how impressed and inspired I am by you Sub 8. To go through the absolute hell you went through and come out the other side with a positive attitude and be pushing yourself physically, despite all the challenges, is simply amazing. Please keep at it, don't give up. Here's hoping that knee gets sorted out and starts behaving and you're back running soon!
Wow, thanks guys. I guess I needed that pick-me-up.
I had a conversation with a recent cancer survivor earlier this week. She said it's 6 months after surgery plus chemotherapy. She feels different, tired and unenergetic, lost the will to participate in life. Everything is hard, so as a result, she doesn't want to do anything that is hard, but just go easy. And she said that she felt embarrassed to be experiencing and expressing this when, in her assessment, I have gone thru much more and since I am, in her view, embracing life and making strides forward.
Well, it's not really like that. I am not some amazing energetic person, brimming with enthusiasm for life. I told her that our journeys may have been different, but we have ended up at the same place.
I encouraged her that it's only been 6 months, that with counseling and hormone therapy and lots of sleep (can't be underrated) and obsessively healthy eating, things will improve. All true, I'm sure, for her.
But for this beat up, worn out 9000-year-old man? No.
Exhaustion, pain, and loud screeching sounds assail me all day, every day. Walking around, sometimes the world is tilted or spinning. Sometimes I have a gap of a few seconds where I "miss time". Sometimes my intestines hurt for hours. My feet always burn, more so when I run.
So why run? Because I can. Because I choose to. Because doing something that I can't do is all I've got.
I rarely if ever want to talk to anyone. For nearly 5 years now, every day I want to disappear from everyone and everything that I know, to go far away into some hinterland and never be heard from. I feel like an injured animal who wants to crawl into a hole to heal or die.
But when I'm hauling a$$ across some grassy field, dizzy as heck, feet hurting every step, gloriously hurtling forward anyway, I effing love every disoriented painful second of it.
A while back, I'm at the track doing drills, strides, and accelerations, and some guy comes over and says "Hey, man, who are you? I been watching, at first I thought you play on one of the local professional teams maybe, and you were here doing an extra workout, but then I saw how you were moving and I said 'No, that's a track guy.' I had to come over and ask your name. I thought you were a young guy, the way you move. But look at you, what are you, 40 something? ... Almost 50? Man, I can't believe it. You are poetry in motion! I hope you don't mind, I'm gonna sit over here and watch the rest of your workout."
Poetry in motion? Hah, I'll take it.
But yeah, like the lady said, everything is hard now.
"You will always recover." Well ... this recovery interval is really something.