TITLE: I Didn't See The Checkered Flag
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: March 04, 2021  2:34 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 A couple of months ago, I missed a major anniversary and
<a href="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2020-12.html#e2020-12-09T11_22_12.htm">
   almost didn't notice</a>.
 Not so today, on an even more important personal landmark.

 Ten years ago today, I ran for the last time.

 According to my running log, it was an ordinary March morning,
 cold, damp, but no ice on the ground.  I ran one of my favorite
 routes, and 8.25-mile loop I had been running for fifteen years.
 It was the first route longer than 5.5 miles I ever designed
 and ran, beginning an ending at the first house we owned in
 town.  It passed only a few hundred feet from the house we
 moved to in 2008, so I adapted it and kept running.  It
 consisted of small neighborhood streets, some urban trail, and
 a 2/3-mile passage through a wooded area near our new house.
 I ran this route on lots of Wednesdays in marathon training and
 lots of Fridays in the off-season when I was running purely for
 fun.  March 4, 2011, was such a day.

 There was nothing remarkable about my run that day.  I had been
 coming down with a cold, so my time was unremarkable, too.  I
 recorded my time when I got home and figured I'd run twelve
 miles on Sunday, as I usually did at this time of year.

 Unfortunately, the cold turned worse, and suddenly I was as sick
 as I had been in a long time.  I can't remember if I ever went
 to the doctor, but this one knocked me down hard for a week and
 a half.  Just as I was ready to start running again, I felt a
 twinge in my right knee heading out for a walk with my wife.
 I became
<a href="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2011-04.html#e2011-04-03T10_07_16.htm">
   a runner, interrupted</a>.
 I didn't know at the time, but I would
<a href="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2011-04.html#e2011-04-30T10_05_29.htm">
   not be running again</a>.

 Running had become a big part of my life over the previous 10 or
 15 years, and it was a bit of a shock not to be able to enjoy
 the highs and lows of miles on the road.  But we humans are
 resilient creatures, and I eventually adjusted to the new normal.
 I occasionally still
<a href="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2015-11.html#e2015-11-01T10_16_04.htm">
   dream about running</a>,
 which is, to be honest, glorious.  But mostly I get by walking
 with my wife, riding my bike, and trying to stay fit with other
 kinds of workout.  Nothing feels like running, though, and nothing
 has ever made me as fit.  As much as I like to bike and walk, I
 have never thought of myself as a walker or a cyclist.  Maybe one
 day I will.

 I think, though, that I will always think of myself as a runner.
 However, my right knee no longer agrees with me, and I am rational
 enough to weigh benefits and costs and make the right choice.  So
 I don't run.

 Ten years on, that still feels a little odd.  As with so many
 things in life, no one waved a checkered flag at the end of my
 last run.  I didn't know it was my last run until six weeks later,
 so I ended up grieving a loss that had, in a way, already happened.

 I realize that, in the grand scheme of things, this is a minor loss.
 I've been fortunate my entire life, and if not running is the worst
 thing that ever happens to me, I will have lived an insanely
 fortunate life.  Still I miss it and probably always will.
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