RUNNING THROUGH 2015

    You'd think that two surgeries was enough. I mean I had an enlarged prostate. So what? Lots of guys in their 60s have an enlarged prostate. Yes the symptoms could be mind numbing and awful. How would you feel if you couldn't pee and had to go to the emergency room? Terrible, right? But still, it was just an enlarged prostate. A single TURP surgery to cut it down the size should've done the trick. But two? That would DEFINITELY do it! No peeing problems for sure. FOR SURE.

Except it didn't. So when my new urologist said that he didn't understand what my first guy had done and how my prostate was still enlarged and still the cause of my problems, I just shook my head. When he said a third surgery was needed I couldn't believe it. How could this be?  Really, I should've just stayed younger.

But I hadn't. And, as a result, we'd now have to try the same surgery again . And that would screw up my running even more.

I've always run and running has always made me special. Because I could speed around the bases and score runs. Because I could fly across the outfield and steal hits. Because I could outrun my defenders and catch touchdowns.

A bit older, I turned to road running...running great events like the New York Marathon in front of thousands and the Disney World Marathon through Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom and EPCOT. Shorter races too where I sometimes won my age group or at least finished among the swiftest.

And then my prostate decided to grow. I don't know why. Seems to happen to many of us, especially if we've chosen to be guys. And so, between the emergency room visits and the urgent care facility visits, the medication that elevated my heart rate and, ultimately, operation number one and operation number two, my training came to a screeching halt. Running became an infrequent luxury rather than a four or five times a week constant.

With all that going on and as I continued growing older, the 7 minute miles I routinely ran in races, the 6 minute miles I strove for in the shorter races, became the rare exceptions. I got slower and slower. When I could run at all. My speedy exceptionalism was gone. My athleticism was now something to be discussed in the past tense.

And, according to my new urologist, I still needed a third surgery. "Why should I believe this time it's going to work?" I asked various friends and family members, none of whom had particularly good answers. But I was still feeling lousy, my running wasn't getting better and the various other remedies I'd tried weren't helping. What choice did I really have?

I had my third TURP surgery in less than two years on September 24, 2014.  I'm delighted to say that it's worked! In late October I was running short distances. Two months later I was doing hard workouts on the track. In early January, 2015, I ran my first race in forever!

I ran it, unfortunately, exceedingly slow!

I needed, I thought, something to inspire me and found it when I won a lottery to gain acceptance into the New York Half Marathon, a major New York Road Runners Event...2nd in prestige here only to the NY Marathon...that winds 13.1 miles through Central Park and the streets of Manhattan to its finish near Wall Street.

I trained for it hard and discovered there were things besides an unruly prostate that got in the way of running: Tight, vulnerable and easily injured muscles. My calves hurt. In the midst of a vigorous treadmill workout the inside of my left knee hurt so bad I had to stop. My calves spasmed and hurt again.

Nevertheless, I made it to the starting line and, more importantly, to the finish. My goal was to break 1 hour and 50 minutes which I did EASILY. If by easily we mean by 26 seconds. A happy achievement that put me tenth among my 76 age group competitors. On the other hand, my time was SO much slower than previous half marathon races. I really hoped that this was not the best I could do.

Still, except for brief pauses for an aching muscle here and there I was so happy to be running regularly. It made me feel, well, special. And young. A month later, in a 10 kilometer race in chilly, windy Central Park, I SMASHED my way through the 8 minute per mile barrier to return to my youthful 7 minute per mile pace. If by smash we mean beating 8 minutes by 2 seconds to run each mile at a 7:58 average.

But I was on my way, getting faster. And I was running really fast on 6th Street track when I blew out my left hamstring.  How could my hamstring just go like that?

Maybe because  my leg muscles have always been tight and I've avoided stretching them because stretching is a bore? And because  the older I got and the longer I ran on tight muscles, the more vulnerable they became?

OK, I needed to stretch. Got it. But would I do that on my own? Not likely. So I hired a trainer to get me to do it.

Helen is great. We stretched. I felt better. Two weeks later I was running again. The first time was terrific. The second time the hamstring went yet again. I ran again three weeks later. But not fast, as I demonstrated in a soft ball game where I managed to get myself thrown out at first base on what should have been a single to left. Ugh!

More injuries. This time my groin. I went to a guy who does body work. "Movement is the key" it says on his web site. He twisted me into a pretzel. He worked the injured area in a way that REALLY hurt.

 Each time I saw him I felt more limber and flexible. So, too, with Helen.  Just as things started to get better there was another leg injury. It lingered.  I had to do something to overcome or at least slow down the ravishes of aging but perhaps stretching and body work wasn't it. Is patience called for?

By mid October, after months of futility, suddenly it all seemed to click into place. The pain was gone. My flexibility was clearly better. I was running regularly. I could increase the distance.

Which was really quite fortuitous because I had signed up to run the Disney World Half Marathon in early January. Ten weeks of training is the  minimum necessary to run it half well. I've been able to train consistently through the rest of 2015 so, 1 week from tomorrow I look forward to racing the race.

Yesterday, on the very last morning of 2015, I set out on a hard workout: A four mile tempo run which means four fast miles sandwiched between a mile warm up and a mile cool down.  Hey, there have been mornings when I've tried this workout and quit after only three. Sometimes it's just too much. But this time I did it. All four swift miles at a pace of 8:20. Pretty good, right? Yeah, I felt pleased to end this whole year without prostate woes on such a strong note.

But just 8:20? That's slow! I've run this work out MUCH faster. In the past. I want to get back there. Don't know if I can.