Since 1999, I have actively been involved in long-distance running, and until then it was "easy." Since 2000, it has been with the Atlanta chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training, http://www.teamintraining.org/ga/. Admittedly, there were a couple of years when my aspirations of completing a marathon were not realistic. Still, even when I was in horrendous shape, I found the activity. It did not require any thinking. Yes, the goal, climate, distance and terrain affected how I approached each run, but I knew what to do. Recently, in the past six months, I lost that ease. Virtually every step required me to think, and I started fatiguing when no physiological factors said that I should, especially as my strength has verfiably improved since I was able to start lifting again in the middle of April. Fulfilling that requirement for an easy task is a problem, and I knew that I had to change.
On Sunday morning, July 10th, at the Lovett School track, I took the first steps back to making running easy again, and thus one more step toward recovering from my surgery of August 10, 2010. I met with Kyle O'Day at http://www.continuumsports.com/ for an assessment of what I was doing wrong. He pointed out a simple yet critical element to effective running that our mothers have always taught us, keep good posture. Thinking tall and looking at the horizon were two ways to achieve this objective of a more vertical alignment. I had been bent over too much, and looking more at the ground. That bad change in my form resulted from my conscious decision to focus on things that could cause me to trip.
Last August, I had surgery on my neck to remove 4 bone spurs, a couple of ruptured discs that were touching my spinal cord, a compression of my cord, and correct a cervical column that was bent in the wrong direction. By all rights, I should have been paralyzed. Until I was on the guerney for the last time before going into the operating room, I faced the real possibility of being paralyzed by something as innocous as a simple trip. The nearly three-week period between diagnosed with the condition and the surgery was arguably the most frightening time of my life. Unless located in a safe situation or position, the real possibility of a potential cataclysmic event hung over me. For as much I would have had to deal with a wheel-chair, those close to me would have suffered just as much, but in different ways. My thoughts about them worried me more than my own frailty.
This fear is why, as my surgeon confirmed yesterday on July 11, 2011, that I had developed bad form. Succumbing to it was wrong for two reasons: 1. I know that good form is critical for a healthy spine, 2. Fear causes more problems than the potential one you try to avoid by succumbing to this emotion. Yesterday morning, I started doing what it is right with sprints, and I saw some immediate benefits. Later this evening, at the Lovett track, I expect to see some benefits as I put in miles in training for the Savannah Rock 'N Roll Marathon on November 5th, 2011, http://runrocknroll.competitor.com/savannah with the Atlanta chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training, http://www.teamintraining.org/ga/.
I will continue this essay later. For right now, this is probably enough, especially for those of you who think of me as assertive commercial real estate professional who utilizes social media marketing.
Thank you for your time in reading this blog.
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