A May Day: On The Run

With a new week off and running, I thought I'd recap my eventful weekend. I certainly didn't expect any blog fodder to come from it, but something sure came out of left field.

Read on!

But first, Saturday was scheduled to be my second Indianapolis Half Marathon. I ran my first last year, and I eventually wrote about the experience. I run for weight maintenance, for general health (with a little one at 43 - that's on my mind a lot) and because I tend to love being alone with my thoughts.

There's no better place for that than on a run.

A half marathon is 13.1 miles. There was a time that I couldn't run .1 miles without getting winded. For a healthy stretch of my life, I hated running with a deep passion.

I was the kid who always finished last running the two laps around the gym in school. 

Crossing the finish line last year was extremely gratifying. But what about this year?

Training had been going well until the Sunday prior, when I hurt my heel during my final long-ish training run. I couldn't step on it without a fair amount of pain on Monday and Tuesday and at that point figured the gig was up. I self-diagnosed via Internet and guessed stress fracture - and reluctantly went to the doc.

She wasn't sure and we agreed to hold off on an X-Ray. She thought it could be heel spurs or some such. She prescribed some high dosage pain medicine. Reluctant again, I figured I'd do it and maybe it would get me through the race.

The doc, who also was set to run the same 13.1 miles, said:

"I think you could try running and if you experience excruciating pain then you should stop."

Ya think, I thought? Sound advice when experiencing excruciating pain in general, not just while running, I thought.

I took three of the pills over the next day and developed a constant headache and severe heartburn - and stopped the pills. Wednesday night I tried to run half a block - and the pain was still there.

I had trained for this. I was ready. To get hurt six days before the big day was rough.

At this point in the story, you're asking yourself. Should I keep reading. Is there really a baseball hook? Maybe I should move to the next blog. Why am I following this guy?

All valid questions.

Stay tuned for Part 2 to be published tomorrow at this time.

Wait a second. You're leaving!? What about the race? And what blog fodder came out of left field that you opened this drivel with? What kind of mind games are you playing here? And, can I have the 87 pain pills you've elected not to take?

Patience, gentlemen (and two ladies). The big reveal shall come.

I'm de-following you. You should know this.

For now, how about enjoying these cards I picked up at a AAA game this weekend at Victory Field in Indianapolis - where we watched the Indianapolis Indians (Pirates) blank the Louisville Bats (Reds) 4-0. Coincidentally, it was at this game where the cool thing out of left field happened to me.

This guy is up with the big club this year and doing all right.

They didn't have this year's Indianapolis team set so I snagged the 2011 set. Couldn't leave a baseball game without some cards. Enjoy, and see you tomorrow.

A few more of those I have heard of...including the head coach and former Red.