"There's only one hard and fast rule in running: sometimes you have to run one hard and fast."








Monday, December 8, 2008

Training (at last)

You take inspiration where you find it. A few months ago, I was asking what the point of racing was when I knew my best days were behind me and, while I got a lot of opinions, I wasn't too sure of any of them.

Saturday, as the temperature never approached the high predicted and I checked weather updates every hour, staring out the window, actually excited at the possibility of running for a change, I saw a story on television about a young woman named Marin Morrison. She was a competitive swimmer who had your typical life-changing problem (blah blah blah) and was told she'd never swim again, but did (yawn). She qualified for the Paralympics (ho-hum). Then she had chemo and radiation. She nearly died, twice. She went to the Paralympics and swam anyway, finishing a very distant dead last in all three events.

Why? Because she could and she enjoyed doing it. And just maybe because it might inspire someone else, some unknown middle-aged guy in the midwest.

If you've got 7 minutes (in a fast browser), check out the video for yourself (you have to watch an armed forces commercial first, sorry to say). I hate sappy feel-good stories, but this one got me.

Training
Thursday 10 miles, 84 min., indoors
Friday 4 miles in 34.5
Saturday 8 miles in 73
Sunday 4 miles in 33.5

4 comments:

Londell said...

Now that makes me cry... What a great video for inspiration... Glad you are getting inspired!

nwgdc said...

Glad to hear things are looking up! What a great story.

By the way, you're still fast.

keith said...

way to get back on the horse. what are you training for? i'm training to eat more cookies.

SteveQ said...

Keith, I'm going to try for the US women's paraplegic swim team, of course - inspiration's VERY specific!