New life for an old man

Back in the fall, I started a quest to regain two things I’d loved and lost: running and writing.

When I first wrote about this quest, I didn’t reveal everything behind it. I didn’t want to tell all because I was afraid I was setting myself up for failure, that I wouldn’t be able to achieve the goals I had set for myself. One always wants a happy ending, and I couldn’t be sure that I would have one.

I kept to myself that when I started this quest, I would be reaching a milestone age the next year. That next year is now this year, and later this year I’ll hit the half-century mark of my life. My goals were that before I reached the ripe age of 50, I would run a marathon and finish my second novel.

I’ve always likened writing a novel to running a marathon, and so joining these two goals had a sort of synergism. Both require determination and perseverance, an ability to keep pushing on in the face of adversity. In running, you hit a wall. In writing, you get a block. If you let that wall or that block stop you, you will never finish a marathon or a novel.

I’d finished a novel before, so I knew I had it in me. I’d never even tried running a marathon. The longest competitive race I ever ran was 10 miles, not even half of a marathon. So I was not as confident that I could complete a marathon, especially since I was battling back from knee problems that had sidelined me from running for five years. The odds were definitely against me. A couple times over those five years I had tried to revive my running only to have my knees kick me back to reality.

When you’re staring up at age fifty, you look back at all of the things you’ve done and all of the things you still wanted to do. The two things I really still wanted to do were to run a marathon and finish that second novel. The novel I’d started about the same time I’d stopped running. I seemed to be stuck, and I started to wonder if I’d ever finish it.

Then came the idea, spurred by a book given to me by a dear friend, to bring these two lost loves, writing and running, together. To see if I could get them back.

If you read this blog, you know that I stopped writing about this quest a little over a month after I started it. The last post I wrote about it told of how my running quest had been slowed by a mini-vacation and the sickness I brought home from that vacation. But I was optimistic and eager to start running again and even had geared up for the cold weather to come by buying $300 worth of fall running wear.

I didn’t write another entry after that because, well, as I already noted, no one wants a sad ending to what is supposed to be an inspirational quest. The second day I hit the pavement in my fancy new running wear, my knees gave out on me. I tried resting them. I tried Ibuprofen. I tried hot and cold therapy. I tried a knee wrap. But I couldn’t run without pain. So I quit. I gave up my running quest. My goal of running a marathon was over just like that.

Jump ahead a little over four months. Like a lot of others, we (my wife and I) bought a treadmill right after the new year. Two months later, I’m still running on it. Without pain. It’s a good feeling. My knees can’t take the pounding of the pavement but apparently they can take the tread.

Through all of the running ups and downs, I kept pounding on the keystrokes. All of that pounding has finally paid off.  A couple days ago, I wrote The End on that novel. I know that story is not over, and in some ways, it’s just begun. Trying to find a publisher for a novel can be as tough if not tougher than writing it.

I’ve still got several months before I reach that half-century mark on my life. I’m more ready for it to come than I was before, because I’ve already accomplished one of the two things that I wanted to do before it came. And, best of all, I’ve gotten back both of those lost loves.