Still Love It

Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day; I get to run again! Two weeks turned into three and a bad bone bruise morphed to plantar fasciitis and all my plans to work on core and cross train went flying out the window. Bottom line, I hate the bike. There is just some places a man should not have calluses! (Sorry to all my friends who ride, it just is not my thing.) So that means tonight will be a restless night. To make matters worse, I even bought a new pair of Nike Lunar trainers to celebrate and I can't wait to try those bad boys out on the trail.

Now comes the hard part. The next two weeks I need to reel myself in and limit my running to just a few miles each day. With the Masters World Masters just eight weeks away, as much as I wanted to go into the meet in the best shape of my post 40 self, it just is not going to happen. Six weeks is just to short of a time to round into great shape. However, it is plenty of time to drop a few pounds, put in some really great runs, a few track work-outs and get excited to venture onto the track for the first time since 1993.

Last weekend I watched "The Rookie" with my kids and when the part in the movie when Jimmy Morris' wife asked him if he still loved playing baseball, I literally teared up. My oldest daughter looking at me like I was from some distant planet, blurts out, "are you crying?!" Allergies. Bottom line, I still love this crazy sport. It doesn't matter if I finish dead last and get lapped multiple times, I am going to still love every minute of sweating out lap, after glorious lap in the mid-July Sacramento night heat. I may not get to play baseball, but I do get to run. So tomorrow morning when I wake up and step out the back door, I am going to smile, thank God, and know, once again, I get to do what I love to do. I may have been knocked down with this injury, but not out.

So it is off to get some rest and dream of pulling on that blue USA singlet, lacing up those Nike racing flats and being grateful that after 30 years of running, I still get to be that same 14 year old kid for a few minutes who dreamed big and ran for the pure fun of it. As always, stay healthy and keep running.