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Published: August 19th 2007
Hello again friends, family, loved ones (and for those of you whom I may never have even met but who have donated to my cause anyway, please know that you are now firmly and forever entrenched in the “loved ones” category). As you may have noticed, I haven’t exactly been updating this blog with any real frequency or, you know, at all really, so it is probably no surprise to hear that I’ve got quite a bit to tell you about (and for those of you who’ve already scrolled down the page to see how long this goes on and are even now preparing to send me a “sound’s great” email before clicking off into other parts of the digital realm, please don’t, I’ll keep this brief(ish) and you may even have some fun).
So to begin…
My training and fundraising at the outset of this little adventure went quite well. In spite of my burgeoning Buddha belly and a real lack of what doctors call a “healthy lifestyle” I found myself doing better than expected. I was running well, seeing improvements in my performance and even trimming up a bit (to the point where one of my more tactful coworkers asked loudly across our crowded restaurant, “Hey Jared, are you less fat?”). In short, everything was proceeding to plan, but then, the unthinkable happened. A travesty beyond my imagination, a horror, nay, a waking nightmare the likes of which few men have encountered and survived. I suffered a wound so gruesome, so devastating that I don’t even know if they’ll let me post it. You may all be reading this with a big black bar where the next line should be. I suffered… (the tension kills doesn’t it?)…
a Shin Splint…
(I’ll give you a moment to calm down and collect yourself. Feel free to go get a glass of water or something. I find chamomile tea often does the job for me...)
The particulars of my shin splint and all the horrors that followed were detailed in a very funny and touching post I titled “Inspiration, Frustration and Thumbs of Steel”. It was a true masterpiece of writing and I think perhaps so great that the Digital-Powers-That-Be could not allow it to exist and caused my computer to suffer a grievous and fatal crash and subsequently, to lose my work. The devastation of losing the century's greatest literary accomplishment so soon after wounding myself in training was more than I could bear and I was forced to go into seclusion (couple that with my immense talents of procrastination and beard-growery and you begin to see why I haven’t been updating in a while).
In any case, here’s the breakdown of my injury and recovery. I got this gnarly shin splint in my left leg that crippled me up pretty bad during one of our Saturday training sessions. During the following week it did not improve and by that Saturday I was, shall we say, frustrated (frustrated not so much in the "Rrrr, this is really annoying" kind of way but more in the "HULK SMASH!" kind of way). I arrived at the training session prepared to give up and go home (shameful isn’t it, that my determination to persevere was so flimsy?). But at that particular session, one of our Captains, Captain Lawrence, announced that he had been diagnosed with Leukemia… again. Lawrence was originally diagnosed in college and tried to deal with it alone before finally confiding in his family and friends. With the help of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society he was able to undergo treatment and has been free and clear for five or so years. Unfortunately, this year, it came back. Few things in life can make you forget a pain in your leg quite as quickly as hearing someone say, “so anyway, I’ve got Leukemia again and I’m gonna head up to Seattle to live alone in a hospital room for six days or so while I get pumped full of poison, but no sweat, I’ll be back in a week or two and I’ll catch up with the training then.” So on the one hand we’ve got me (my leg hurts, I’m going home) and on the other we’ve got Lawrence (I’ve got cancer so I need a week or two off, but then I’ll be back). Pitiful comparison.
Freshly chastised and inspired, I did my run for the day, but it was a shorter run. The reason for that is not the shin splint but my Coach, Cheryl, who didn’t want me to injure myself any worse. After my abbreviated run, I was introduced to the world of sports massage, which I quickly learned, is alarmingly close to the world of sado-masochism. I’d always understood massage to imply, “oh yes, no that’s nice, mmm-hmmm…” but nay my friends, such is not the way in sport’s massage.
To understand what sports massage is like, grab a pencil and put the eraser against your shoulder muscle right at the base of your neck. Got it? Okay, now just go ahead and shove that pencil in there as hard as you possibly can without breaking the skin. Hurt yet? But feels a little good too right? Okay good, now just go ahead and hold it there for twenty minutes or so, and you know what, go ahead and give it a little twist every now and then too. Feel that? That’s kind of what sports massage is like, except having just followed my own instructions, I think sports massage might actually hurt a little more. Okay, so let’s do it again but this time after about ten minutes of pressure, have a friend kick you really hard in the hip. Feel that? That’s sports massage.
Okay, so, I work with the sports massage lady and I back off on my training, and I become good friends with ice packs and ibuprofen, but even so, my shin splint heals slowly. To make things worse, I favor my left leg which leads to injuring my right knee (but only a little) but then I favor that which leads to an injury in my left foot which coach informs me, “sounds like it might be a stress fracture”. Holy Hell, what is the deal? It’s like I’ve got celery sticks for legs or something.
In the end, I had to dedicate myself to hour after hour of rigorous inactivity and long, devastating stretches of not moving. Sure, there were times when my resolve faltered, when I thought, why am I wasting my time laying here on the couch watching Super Troopers again? Why not just give up? After all, if I wasn’t in training all the damn time, maybe I’d have some free time to, I don’t know, relax? Maybe take in a movie? Who knows, right? But, in the end, I persevered, I recovered, I grew stronger, nay, mightier than I’d ever been before. My quads erupted into rippling tree trunks of musculature. My calves became as chiseled granite. They say Michelangelo himself rose from the grave to watch me train and proclaimed that all his sculptures were as lawn flamingos when compared to the glistening revelation striding before him (I didn’t actually see him there myself, but that’s what I heard). Even my belly became flatter (still not flat mind you, but that’s intentional you see. Now it’s like a reserve fuel belt for me to wear under my fuel belt). In short, I’ve become something like Captain America, not only physically perfect, but also the embodiment of all that makes this country great, especially humility.
The first real test of my newfound prowess came today, when I competed in San Diego’s “America’s Finest City Half-Marathon and 5K”. How did I do? Did my lurking injury resurface to take me down right in my moment of glory? Leaving me sprawled and weeping on the pavement to be trampled by the merciless feet of my enemies? Or did I succeed? Knocking aside the competition with my enormous legs? Crushing the inattentive underfoot with my pricey but very comfortable shoes? Rattling apart buildings with the thunderous tremors caused by my footsteps? Or did I perhaps oversleep and in fact, not compete at all? Stay tuned to find out.
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Devan
non-member comment
Wow...
You said nay like, 15 times in this blog. I expect nothing less, good work.