Running for Your Life: Week Ten

Tuesday, I turned 55. Funny, back in May, when I was surprised with my 3:47:42 personal best marathon at 54, that for purposes of qualifying for the Boston Marathon, I would be 55, advancing to the 55-59 age category for Boston by five days if I ran in the Steamtown Marathon on Oct. 10. That gives me a reasonable shot of achieving the qualifying time for that group: 3:45. Count those fives (three), my lucky number, along with 10, for October, or two fives.

On my birthday, My mother called 30 minutes to the date 55 years ago that I was born.

“Do you remember what happened just about 55 years ago?” my mother asked.

“No,” I said. “I know what you’re going to say but I don’t remember.”

“Well, I do,” she said.

Mom tells me, as she does every year because I’ve never till this moment written it down so maybe now I will remember, that I was born 8:45 a.m. Oct. 5, 1955 (six fives) – now I’m 55 (two fives). Even the most unsuperstitious person would have to be persuaded that on Sunday, 10-10-10 (six fives), the number five would have some curious power.

In other words Sunday is likely to be a most propitious one, or so loaded that I’d just better get used to the idea that no one single person can reasonably be equipped to satisfy these convergences. (I mean, count ’em from the “Mom tells me” paragraph: I’ve got 14 fives going here; which, to be perfectly honest is my other lucky number – the number of my first favorite hockey player when I was, yeah, five, Davey Keon of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Not to mention the birth date of my best friend from childhood [5/14], an important friend to me when I was in my early thirties, and most important, my wife, M.)

Suffice to say the outcomes on Sunday are infinite, as are all things: the morning walk of our puppy Thurber, M and my dream trip to Morocco, prospects for my novel. All we can do is prepare, and I’d like to tell myself that with the limitations that come with life, I have done a pretty fair job of doing so. It seems a lot to write to say so little. But infinity, you know, goes the other way too, doesn’t it? Infinitesimally small and infinitesimally large.* How many strides will I take on Sunday morning? But even larger is to consider the mechanics that make up each and every stride.

* For more on the infinite, READ! David Foster Wallace, “Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity.” You won’t be sorry.


*

A genteel review: (There will not be a test)

 This is Post No. 20 (four fives) of Running for Your Life.

 I will be continuing this blog, come what may on Sunday. (By the way, my daughter, K, she of the simple touch on the blog’s right side [below "Staying the Course"], will be joining me in Scranton to cheer me on. And perhaps M. She is still deciding. The puppy Thurber will be at home. [I’ll be the Prospect Park runner with a bloodhood on the leash after Sunday, God willing.])

 The blog started on July 25 (five fives) with a clearish premise: to help to inspire young and old, especially those of less-than-ordinary health or physical limitations, to begin to run for their life.

 In 1976 (note, five-less), I contracted deep vein thrombosis: a pulmonary embolism and several large leg blood clots and very nearly died. I left hospital in winter in a wheelchair, less one-third of my body weight. Extreme pain accompanied each step I’d try to take.

 Later that year I started running. Well, hobbling, as a way of strengthening my leg and keeping the swelling down.

 Two years later, I began to read in a serious way, as a night watchman in an apartment tower in Edmonton, Alberta.

 Ten (two fives) years later, I wrote an anecdote from memory about my father flooding the family rink when I was nine years old. That formed the seed of my memoir, “Tip of the Iceberg,” which was shortlisted for a big international prize eventually won by Jonathan Safran Foer (Yes, “Everything Is Illuminated”).

 I never stopped running, always with the view of being ten (two fives) weeks of hard training away from competing in a marathon.

 Sunday I will be at the starting line of my FIFTH! marathon. It will break a tie: to date, I’ve completed two and been forced to drop ouut of two because of injury.

 Thank you for being with me on this quest. (I write this with humble intentions, despite the obscene number of “I’s” and “me’s” and “my’s” in this bullet section.)

*

Oh yes, my sprained foot.

I may just, because it is only seems fair, to break my twice-weekly blog-writing pattern and post a little something about how my visit to the podiatrist goes. I have broken down (thanks to the gentle urgings of M) and will seek professional advice tomorrow afternoon w/r/t my foot issues, as described in previous posts. Hopefully, the doctor will say a light wrap will suffice to safeguard against further damage, or better yet, PAINKILLERS!

Thanks for reading everybody. Know that your support has meant the world to me.

Let the race begin!

Next: Running for Your Life: After Steamtown