Everyone knows an ant can’t, move a rubber tree plant

When I’m in the midst of training up for the Boston Marathon, Saturday is my long run day.  As is often the case,  my mind wanders to all sorts of strange topics.    This morning it was the  Academy Awards.  Don’t ask me why, I’m not particularly interested in award ceremonies and I suspect my taste in movies would have the “critics” rolling their eyes.    Normally I haven’t seen many if any of the movies nominated so I wouldn’t have much of an opinion and typically found watching to be  about as exciting as watching a 12 hour cricket match between Sri Lanka and Kenya.    I’m sure it is passionately important to some people but I’m not one of them.    I’m good with just getting the results at the end.

This year however I have actually seen a number of the movies (cancer recovery has it’s perks…Tuesday is movie  day for $5).    This year  I actually have an opinion on both the movies and the actors/actresses, and while I suspect my views don’t match the critics, it will be interesting to see where they are wrong.     Who knows, we might even agree.  Stranger things have happened.  Look at the presidential elections. 

What’s all this got to do with my long run?  Really not much except I was having a particularly difficult time getting through the run today and a song popped into my head that it turns out won an Academy Award in 1959 (and yes I do remember 1959…just don’t ask me about the 70’s).   It was sung by Frank Sinatra in the movie “A Hole in The Head”.  It’s called “High Hopes”. 

A part of the song includes the title of this blog:

Anyone knows an ant, can't
Move a rubber tree plant

But he's got high hopes, he's got high hopes
He's got high apple pie, in the sky hopes

So any time your gettin' low
'stead of lettin' go
Just remember that ant
Oops there goes another rubber tree plant

This week will mark the 1 year anniversary of being diagnosed with Leukemia.   In some ways it’s hard to believe it has only been a year given how much has happened in that time.   Maybe it’s just I’m more keenly aware of each day.  Could be that time just seems to drag when you are living from test result to test result.     There were times in the last year when I wasn’t sure I would ever get to run again.   After treatment was complete and I began to run again it was pretty clear that the road back to running anything like a marathon was going to be long and slow.   But I needed a goal to keep me motivated in my recovery and getting back to Boston carried so much emotional significance, not only as a milestone for my recovery but to give back through Help in the Nick of Time.    Unfortunately the registration for Boston was closed while I was just finishing up treatment and there was no way for me to qualify anyway.     But I had High Hopes.

This week I got word I have an official number for Boston (thanks to a lot of begging and help from friends).    I have a long way to go to be able to make 26 miles and clearly my pace will be a lot slower than my previous times but God willing  in 6 weeks I will be at the starting line (and assuming I don’t come to my senses sooner).     Right now it is riding on the results from the latest bone marrow biopsy.  We hope to have those within the next week.

Will we make it to Boston and can we make it to the finish?  Not sure but I have High Hopes. 

 

Oops there goes another rubber tree plant