Human-Animal Hybrid

Have you ever seen a dog run? Paws kicking dirt in the air. All the muscles engaged, taught. Head bobbing, digging into the air, like it's burrowing through time itself. Mouth agape, tongue hanging out, spit flying behind. Smiling.

Ok, ok business first. I weighed in on Monday and surprise surprise I'm still losing weight, 303.2 lbs. Everyone who tells you diet is more important than exercise is right. I never believed it until I was forced to not run.

Tuesday came, finally. I spent the day as a nervous wreck hoping for positive news from the doctor. I got my x-ray and had to wait some more. When he finally came in the exam room, I said, "I don't mean to be rude but let's cut to the chase here, was my foot broken?" He laughed and said that according to the report after my previous x-ray the radiologist didn't see anything. This was a fact I already knew though, so I said, "No, I mean now todays x-ray, do you see healing or healed bones?" He said, "No it looks fine, no calcification or bone calluses." The conversation continued but I don't think I was there. I remember it like I overheard someone else participating in it, but I was already off running. I remember him saying it was ok to start running again, but to go slow and incorporate walking. He said if I had any problems I shouldn't hesitate to return.

We had plans with relatives so I couldn't pass go and head directly for the treadmill. At least for a few hours I couldn't. When we got home I made a beeline for the basement. I started with walking for the first ten minutes, no pain in the foot. I kicked up the pace and started to run, it felt like relief. I had a smile wider than the Mississippi river. I felt like a dog. Back to reality I wasn't going fast, but I was running and happy. After about 10 minutes I did feel a little tightness on the top of my foot. I kept running. I figured there is going to be a certain amount of that sort of thing when you are coming back from injury. Sure enough it was gone a couple minutes later. I planned to be walking/running for 30 minutes, but I wasn't sure how much running my foot could take. So I kept telling myself I'd just run for two more minutes and then I'd stop. Then the two minutes would come up and I still felt really good, so I'd keep running. I ended up running the remainder 20 minutes. I could have kept going, but I figured there was no reason to push it on my first night back. I ended up going 1.715 miles.

I'm damn happy to be back people. Don't ever take your ability to run for granted. That's the lesson I've learned.