Life Without Running

And the older you get the longer that road is and the more twists and turns there are in it. The picture is just one example of how I’ve been traveling down that road so much lately. I spent a morning, actually part of a morning until I got to tired, sorting through clothes in my shed. Most of them have been packed since I moved out of my apartment in Colorado Springs many years ago. What should have simply been taking them out of bins and putting them in bags wasn’t that simple. So many memories were stirred up by what various (most) clothing items brought back.  Races I had run, places I had been, things I had done all represented by t-shirts and sweatshirts and even socks and gloves. Each item bringing back memories from those events. I couldn’t get rid of the t-shirts yet that I got from the 25 states where I did my 25 half marathons thinking I might eventually do all 50. Part of me still thinks it would be nice to have a quilt made. 🤷‍♂️. Time will tell but the reality is th...

“To become chronically ill is not only to have a disease that you have to manage, but to have a new story about yourself, a story that many people refuse to hear — because it is deeply unsatisfying, full of fits and starts, anger, resentment, chasms of unruly need. My own illness story has no destination.” (Pg. 270) That was the author speaking about her own experience with chronic illness but it could just as easily have been written by me. It would be so nice if one could simply say, “okay you’ve got a chronic illness so accept it, move on and deal with it”. If only it were so easy. The acceptance is actually the easiest part once the diagnosis is confirmed. Moving on and dealing with it not so much. Especially when it is incurable.  One of the hardest things for me as I’ve spoken about before is how quickly I lost the ability to do more than try to walk fast in a race situation. Finding myself at the back of the pack knowing that DFL (dead fucking last) is most likely going to ...