Giving Up or Letting Go?

 In one of my blogs years ago I made the claim that anyone could run a marathon if they were just willing to put in the months of training.   Get out the salt shaker, I’m about to eat those words and they are not going to go down easy.

In the 4 years since my 3-month all-inclusive vacation in luxurious Fox Chase Cancer Ward I have been working diligently to get my running back to where I was before the stem cell transplant.    For those that have followed the blog over those years you may remember I replaced running the Boston Marathon with my own marathon challenge spread over multiple days run at the same time as Boston.   The first year was 3 months after I left the hospital and my challenge was to walk a 5k (3.1 miles) without the bloody walker.   A year later the challenge was to jog/walk a marathon distance (26.2 miles) over 7 days in under 8 total hours.   In April 2020 in the midst of the pandemic I set and completed the goal of covering the marathon distance in 6 days in under 6 hours, jogging the entire way.   Raising the bar again last year, I was able to jog the 26.2 miles over 4 days in around 4 ½ hours.    Using my mathematical wizardry, I calculated if I continued to improve at this rate, I might be able to complete a full marathon in a single day sometime 3 years from now.   

So, it’s a year later and I can honestly say my calculations sucked.   In the last year I’ve consistently run over 100 miles a month (almost 1400 for the year) and I haven’t improved a bit over last year.   Granted we did move from somewhat hilly Pennsylvania to almost mountainous Virginia, but even allowing for the hills, the old legs don’t seem to have the endurance necessary to run even a half marathon.    Is it age, the effects of Parkinson’s or left-over effects of all the chemo?   Certainly, part of it is the Parkinson’s.   It’s like termites in your house, it slowly eats away at your muscles and coordination.  I’ve given up trying to figure it out and just accepted it is what it is.    I’ve also accepted that doing another Boston Marathon is just not in the cards.  

But acceptance is not surrender and I’ll keep going at it as long as circumstances allow.    On those occasions when I get frustrated, I remind myself that is not all about me (It’s not?), it’s also about supporting the children and their families still fighting cancer at a time when the pandemic adds to the risks/challenges they face. 

So, this year I'm again targeting 26.2 miles in 4 days in around 4 ½ hours.  As I've done in the past it is timed to coincide with this year’s Boston Marathon (April 18).    More on the progress with the training in the next blog.

Stay safe!