I laugh when I think of the past 4 months as prison or captivity. Why? Because the next thought is about Warden Paul. That thought always makes me laugh with funny remembrances.

Anyway, I look at the time from 1 November 2022 to late January/early February as imprisonment. To me that means I was denied the opportunity to do what I liked.

From November 1st through December I proved the idiocy of the phrase “doctor, heal thyself” and proved the accuracy of “the doctor who treats himself has a fool for a doctor”.

I was pretty sure I had a stress fracture in my heel. I couldn’t put any pressure on it. So, I did what I knew they would do if I went to a doctor. I stayed off it. Unfortunately after 6 weeks, the expected improvement hadn’t occurred. By the beginning of January I had had to back out of 3 sets of races. It also put off my training for the heavy duty race schedule I had set for 2023.

I finally made an appointment with ortho but it took forever to get seen and then get an MRI and then seen again. Diagnosis was not a stress fracture but plantar fasciitis. I wasn’t convinced of that as I’d had that before and this felt completely different. But they’re the experts. They referred me for physical therapy, injected my foot but nothing changed. They then sent me to podiatry and fortunately I had a podiatrist who is a runner. He told me I had a nerve entrapment (Baxter’s neuritis) and to come back if things didn’t improve by April.

Physical therapy didn’t help and in fact 10 days ago one of the exercises I did led to a pull in my opposite side hamstring. I didn’t think much of it at that time. But 48 hours later, when i went out for a longer walk, i could hardly walk. I pushed through 14 miles but it was horrible. Two days later I was fortunate enough to get seen in ortho and they injected my knee. That meant another 5 days not being able to do my walking.

Now, I am back to walking and the knee is improved but still has some pain.

The more frustrating part is that my foot is now hurting like normal plantar fasciitis does.

It seems as if i can’t win.

However, as my poem showed, I am coming to terms with just letting go and seeing what happens. I’ve already had to drop from HOTs and am hoping I can make it to Vol State. But, whatever is supposed to be is ok too.

The fact that my feet and legs are involved has caused me to think about whatever message the universe is trying to give to me.

I’ve been examining what walking means to me and have discovered that it’s a very large entanglement of variables, my weight, my wanting to belong, my need to accomplish things, my need to control things and many more. Although complex, this is an important realization for me and one that will keep me busy for a bit. I know I can give more to the world with my writing than I can with my walking and that’s a key consideration. I should be able to do both but if I can’t, i had to find out that it would be “ok”.

I don’t know if any of this makes any sense, but tonight’s message is just to catch you up on the physical situation. Tomorrow I will explain my new book!

 The “comma” is putting me into a coma

After you all responded to my poem yesterday, I realized I haven’t been fair to you.

You have been there with me on every other “trip” I’ve taken with all the ups and downs.

Yet I’ve pretty much shut you out of this one. Why? I’m not sure but I think it’s because I felt that sharing it would just be whining.

It wasn’t until this weekend when I surrendered to whatever is going to happen with my lower extremities and my life, that I understood so much good has come from the last 4 1/2 months. I will tell you it feels like two years.

Over the next few days I will try to fill you in. And, of course, it’s easy to scroll past so you don’t lose consciousness.

Speaking of losing consciousness, though, one of the most important things I’ve done in this 4 1/2 months is write my next book. That will be an entire post most likely because things didn’t turn out as I planned them (as happens so often in life). But, although this book won’t be for many people, it has much more important information than “It’s Not About The Miles” but I’ll talk about that another time.

What I’ve been trying to get done is the editing so I can send it to my exceptional proof-reading/publishing team.

It’s become very obvious to me that i never took any English classes even though i thought i did.

If I have to correct one more “missing comma” or “unexpected comma that doesn’t belong here, bozo”, I will be in the inevitable coma.

Resuscitation is only temporary until I get this part finished…ugh!

Out of prison – on parole

Of course, I am already violating my parole conditions but oh well.

After 3 1/2 months of imprisonment, I am escaping and going to do the 100-hour (4 days and 4 hours) race at Jackalope Jam starting Wednesday!

There is no goal, It’s going to be an experimental event.

I will see how my foot responds during and after x number of miles. If I have to rest then, I will. I don’t know how long a rest that would be but that’s part of the experiment.

My primary goal is to see how doing more than a few miles at once and in a row will affect my foot.

Despite “recommendations” otherwise I did 4 walks in a row (4 days in a row) and although they were short miles (11, 6, 11, 7) they were a test to see how i responded. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t as bad as it has been.

I have to know where I am as far as training for HOTS and Vol State goes. Do I need to pull out of HOTS to be able to do Vol State? Or, will my foot be able to handle both? Inquiring minds want to know.

I have even more disappointment in the medical establishment after this experience, however. They don’t understand people who do ultras. sigh.

I have learned a lot and accomplished an amazing amount in the 3.5 months so i am grateful for that. I’m now on edit #3 of my new book (From Tipping Point to Turning Point). It’s definitely different than I thought it would be when I started but that’s half the fun.

I will post updates. It’s weird finally having something to write about again.