Shoe Shopping

I have been running - either competitively or recreationally - for a good bit of my life, and I have never spent my own money or my parents' money on a pair of running shoes not made by Nike. However, when you get injured for the first time, you begin to question things, and so here I found myself at the Run For Your Life in Dilworth asking "Ben" to examine my stride and put me in a pair of shoes. Ben said I had a pretty natural stride, which means I could wear a neutral shoe, but having heard me complain about fighting my Nikes to get them broken in, and always re-lacing them, he thought I needed something that would fit the foot a little more snugly. Enter the Brooks Defyance. Now, I realize RFYL has a tendency to push Brooks, so don't worry, I made Ben show me the Nike Lunar Glide and a pair of more comfortable Nike trainers as well. The Brooks just felt so much better. I felt I wouldn't have to obsess over getting the laces exactly the way I wanted them and could just freakin' run. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Let's run!

Booty Loop and Greenway Attempt

Today, I decided I wanted to run the Booty Loop and the Little Sugar Creek Greenway. I started off down Queens Road at a leisurely pace. A Cadillac had pulled out in front of me, forcing me to stop and dodge it, a few moments earlier, and at the next intersection I found myself literally jumping out of the way of this exact same Cadillac. As you can imagine, I did not appreciate this, and I then did something I don't ever recommend anyone doing: I closed-fist smacked the back of the car, and when the astonished driver turned around to glare at me, I let him know exactly what was going to happen to him if he pulled out in front of me again. I am not proud of my actions, and I am certainly not bragging about this; however, I would like to use this incident to show that things are starting to get back to normal - I'm running, thinking about how I can get faster, and trying to save the world one bad driver at a time. I had been in some sort of personal funk for the last four months, and I'm rapidly snapping out of it with every mile on the pavement. I don't know what it is with me and running, but it just makes me a different person. It's like a drug or something. Maybe one of these days I'll figure out how to put it into words. Or maybe I just needed to let out some aggression? Ha.

Anyway, I didn't think about the fact that the previous night's rain would keep me off the greenway - as it was flooded - but I managed to get in a solid six miles. After the run, I downed a Gatorade and a protein shake and realized I needed some new shoes as soon as possible.

Stats

Garmin Glory

No more spending 30 minutes mapping out an exact route before a run. No more guessing my pace until I hit a mile mark. No more not knowing where any of the mile marks are. No more...I could go on and on, but you get the idea: things are going to be different for me from now on. I set the Garmin to record each mile I ran as a "lap" and to alert me each time I hit a mile. It records distance, pace, total time, and maps where I run. All I have to do is hook it to a PC via USB and all the data pulls up.

I ran 5 miles today, and while my splits and pacing were inconsistent, I was able to comfortably average 7:24 pace for an easy run, which is very good. That's about where I was last fall when I was actually pretty fast. The speed will take awhile, but it's good to know I haven't lost too much.

Here are the details. Enjoy.

Week Two

I only ran three times this past week, for a total of 13.5 miles. I finally started using the Garmin GPS running watch that my mother gave me for Christmas. After I get it set to do what I want it to, I'll posting the "stats" for each one of my runs. Suffice it to say that this thing has changed my life. The legs felt all right this week but the body continues to be a bit sluggish. I can tell that I'm waking up the legs, though, and that the system is starting to remember that this is what it's meant to do.

Re-habbing and getting back out there

Well, after four months of not running at all, I decided I couldn't take it anymore. So on the afternoon of March 15th, I slapped on the Nikes and headed out the door, hoping I could complete one of my short Eastover loops without pain in my left leg. I completed the whole thing, running 4.5 miles in all, with no pain. It seems like that shouldn't be a big deal, but it was. My body felt sluggish and lazy, which was to be expected, but I was able to keep a decent pace without straining. I made it back out on the roads three more days this past week, giving me a total of 19.5 miles for the week.

At Tommy John's behest, I've been doing some exercises to build up the muscles in my leg around the area that was injured in the hopes of rebuilding strength and preventing any future mishaps. These exercises include seated calf-raises and phantom wall sits, basically for as long as I can stand it. I haven't been doing the wall sits as much as I should be but I actually love the calf raises. They seem to do a great job of warming up my legs, and I can clearly see the muscle working as I do them, which gives me hope that these exercises really can enable me to keep running and (hopefully) avoid injury.

Ode to Taylor John

I remember March 9, 2010 like it was yesterday. I was supposed to cover a valet shift at the Palm at 11:15 a.m., so I just lounged around the apartment for most of the morning, checking sports scores and other news online. Ben Roethlisberger's latest sexual assault charge had recently hit the news, and I was exchanging witty text messages with my buddy Matthew, a big Steelers fan, making fun of the situation. And that's about when I got the following message delivered to my Facebook inbox:

"Jason, I need you to call me. Can you give me a quick call? Please call me. It's important." -Tamara

Immediately, a chill went down my spine. An urgent message from Tamara, asking me to call her right away, could only mean one thing: something had happened to Taylor. I ignored the message for about half an hour, watching a few funny videos on youtube and ironing my clothes, possibly pretending that nothing was wrong, even though I knew that wasn't the case. I checked again and, surely enough, the message was still there.

I finally called Tamara and received the news: Taylor John, someone I considered closer to me than even my own family, was gone. He was 28 years old.

It's funny how people react when someone dies. I spent the entire day calling people I knew, first my family and then friends from Charlotte Christian, to inform those who needed to hear it from me and compel them to spread the word. I tried to think; the last thing I wanted was for one of Taylor's close friends from high school to find out on Facebook that he had passed away. Josh Holland and Daniel Eggers were probably the first people I called outside my family, and since Eggers' wife was in our class at Christian, she was able to get the word out to a good number of people, as well. I was grateful for that; it made my job easier. But then I started getting phone calls and messages from people wanting to know what was going on, how it happened, why it happened, what Taylor had been up to the last few years. And then I became angry. If you are so curious to know what Taylor has been doing, or why he was in trouble, then why didn't you stay in touch with him all these years? That's what I wanted to say to people. Others criticized me for being too open and personal on my Facebook page. I basically started ranting, and when people criticized me for it I would lash out. "Don't you have someone you feel you can talk to when you're upset? You shouldn't bottle things up, but maybe you shouldn't broadcast them, either."  My response: I did have someone I could talk to. He's gone now. 

I felt I had been loyal to my friend, and I was angry that other people had not. Taylor's death, initially, made me a selfish, angry, and resentful person.

I made a point, once I finally found time to grieve, to use Taylor's passing as a way to analyze my own life. I dug pretty deep and I didn't necessarily like what I found: I had done all right for myself in my first 28 years, made some great friends, had some good times, accomplished some great things...but I wasn't all that happy. I felt I had been trapped in some sort of limbo, where my life was happening and I was not necessarily in control of it. There wasn't really anything wrong with me, but I could do better. I made a point to start doing better. I began to eat healthier. I quit going out uptown every weekend. Eventually, I started running again, and while I'm currently still on the mend from an injury, suffice it to say that I am back as a runner. There were moments on the trails last fall where I couldn't help but look around and nearly shout in exuberance at where I had found myself: for the first time in longer than I could remember, I was once again doing something I loved. Think about that: before, I wasn't really doing anything that made me happy. More importantly, I also feel like I became a better person. I've done a better job of making time for my friends. I've reconnected with people with whom I had lost touch. I make a point to thank my parents for the way they raised me as often as I can. I tell someone like Eggers that he inspires me with his running because, well, he does, and you never know when someone - anyone - might need to hear something like that.

Without Taylor, I don't think any of that happens. Life is just far too short for anger, resentment, or selfishness, no matter how "righteous" or justified it may ever be. It just isn't worth it.

While it may sound like I'm talking about myself, I am not. I am talking about Taylor. I don't know how to really put into words what Taylor was like, how I saw him, or the kind of person he was. I've tried. The best way I know how to express what kind of person he was is to explain what he has done for me.  Correction: what he is doing for me. I wasn't really sure what to make of today, the one-year anniversary of his death. I mean, it's not like I haven't thought about it every day for the last year, anyway.

Through Tamara and Taylor's journal, I learned that Taylor always saw me as a true friend: he said when things were as dark as possible, and life felt hopeless, I had been there for him, and he appreciated it to the very end. I have no idea what to say to that, except this: when I have doubts about myself, or question where life is headed, or just plain get scared...Taylor's watching out for me, too. And you can't ask for a better friend than that.

I love you like a brother, Taylor. Thanks for allowing me to be such a big part of your life.