This Was Not How the Script Was Supposed to End

Last fall, while training for Leadville, I had been battling some problems in my right hip just prior to the taper.  A quick visit to a local doctor initially resulted in a diagnosis of hip bursitis so my physical therapist Rob gave me some exercises to do along with my usual stretching.  When my taper finally arrived, dialing back the mileage certainly helped.  Other than a few Ibuprofen and some Max-Freeze at the race, I didn't give it much thought.  The two months of offseason afterward seemed to resolve the issue.

But then training commenced again at the beginning of December and the hip pain came back.  As the mileage built back up, the pain became worse than before until I had to see the doctor again.  This time, we decided to get an unpleasant procedure done called a hip MRI arthrogram.  This was followed up with  X-rays and visits to two other physical therapists who specialized in gait and orthotics.  Feeling a bit panicky and like I had to be more proactive in my healthcare, I once again called upon the services of Dr. Jack Andrish, the same doctor who did my knee reconstruction in 2010.  As anyone who has followed this blog over the past couple of years well knows, my admiration for Jack, both as a person and as a doctor, runs deep.  So, last Friday I went to the Cleveland Clinic with my records to meet with Jack and Dr. Wael Barsoum, a hip specialist.            

There is no conceivable way to find anything positive in the news I received, even for me, the eternal optimist.  I have what is called Femoroacetabular Impingement.  In a nutshell, it has caused some calcification and a bone spur in my hip socket.  Throw in many years of running and some arthritis and you have the grim news: my right hip is not in good shape.  In my case, the initial assessment is that this can't be fixed with surgery (a third orthopedic surgeon weighed in here).  It looks as if I continue to run races and log high-volume/high-intensity weeks of training, I will have to have a hip replacement in an estimated 5 years.  Accordingly, I have made the decision to stop in the next couple of months, if not sooner.  

While I was not told that I had cancer nor lupus, etc., and therefore do not wish to dramatize all that has occurred, this news is very painful for me as running, the way I do it, is a central part of my life.  Obviously, I have some serious decisions to make about 2012 as my competitive running time is now quite limited and drawing to a close.  My quick reaction to this, one that I am sure will change time and again over the next few weeks, is to try to run Boston IF (and this is a big IF) I can be relatively competitive.  What I won't do is cross the finish line fighting to break 4 hours, dragging my leg behind me, a guy who stayed in racing longer than he should have.  Of course, this is an intensely personal choice about competing and doing your best versus finishing, one that I will not let be driven by ego and foolish pride.

It is easy to say "Soldier on!", or "Go out with guns blazing!", but somehow those words ring hollow tonight.  Believe me when I say I would if I could as this has nothing to do with my spirit nor my mental resolve.  The problem is that I am in physical pain when I run, a pain that diminishes my training goals.  And now there is mental pain, the fear of knowing that with each pounding stride and footstep, I am chewing up more and more cartilage in the joint.  Who among us runners would enjoy training under those conditions?  These are the facts and the data and all the tears in the world, all the wishful thinking aren't going to change the way things are.

I have never been hung up on age and death.  I accept the fact that one day I will be worm dust, swallowed up by the chasm of time and history.  However, I cannot help but confess this incident has me thinking about aging insofar as I have had to forecast well into the future as to my health and the way I want to conduct my life.  This was not how the script was supposed to end.  No, not at all.  The script was supposed to have a happy, aw shucks ending, an ending where I rode off into the sunset with my bottle of Nuun and pair of Brooks after having run Mont Blanc, Western States, Wasatch, etc.  In my mind, I was just recently a little kid with my sister out on the swing set in front of my grandmother's house, gleefully dipping my wet finger into a packet of Jello, staring up at the clouds.  Or that teenage boy, rolling around on a beach, in the moonlight, making love to his girlfriend after drinking way too much wine.  And didn't I just give my father a terribly painted and disfigured clay doll I had made in my elementary school class?  Aging isn't something that happens to us.  It happens to "them".  In our minds, we are forever young, with no wrinkles nor gray hair.  And in our running minds, we are forever capable of running a marathon PR or completing a 100-miler.      

     

I told my friend Sarah tonight that this whole mess has really caused me to open my eyes as to how two-dimensional my life has become over the past few years.  If I wasn't working 50 to 60 hours a week, I was otherwise training.  Running mile after mile by myself, for hours and hours, ever the lone wolf.  The trouble is that a day of reckoning comes, over which you have no control, that makes you realize how unbalanced your life can become.  Once I am done grieving, and make no mistake, that is what I am doing, I will close this door, and open other new doors and rely on the positive karma within to sustain me and drive forward and to help others drive forward.  I will fill the void left by running with low-impact sports, like swimming, biking, hiking, and climbing mountains.  There will also be more time invested in music, reading, cooking, and, most importantly, relationships with others.  However, before I fill the void, I must feel the void.  One purpose of this blog is for me to work towards developing and maintaining integrity, and part of that process entails being truthful about who and what I am, bare and exposed, like it or not.  In my opinion we should not always cherry-pick the parts of our lives we present to others.  How genuine is that?

I can't think of any other way I would rather end this post than to take a final look back on 2011 and remind myself of how grateful I am to my sister, my friends, to Jack, and all the wonderful people whose paths I intersected in my travels.  A year and a half ago, I had given up ever running again after my knee reconstruction.  In the truest sense of humility, having tasted fully my wildest dreams with no regrets, I say thank you ... thank you ... thank you ...