Ready to Act my Age

This group, I think, is made up primarily of two subsets.  One group consists of runners who have been at it for 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years or more, and whose PRs are long behind them, and on the other side, there are those who came in to the sport much later in life, and are still exploring their best efforts.  I find it most interesting and appealing that somehow, each side inspires the other, and that is part of what makes this such a great group.

It seems like my whole life, I have always tried to fight my age rather than embracing it. For sure, I have never tried to act my age, and around the time I hit middle age, whatever that is, I have often tended to gravitate towards those a generation or so younger than myself.  In a funny kind of way, I guess I have felt that people my age were older than me, and didn't energize me in the same way that younger generations could.

But as I got older, not only did I age outwardly with graying hair, weight gain,  and wrinkling skin, but inwardly as well, developing hypertension and arthritis as I passed through my 50s and into my 60s.  I also needed to start taking a medications to address my arthritis which compromises my immune system.  I've been very lucky that the medications have worked very well, and without any notable side effects, for over four years now.

These medical conditions have highlighted a fact that is true for many of us in this group, I can no longer pretend that I'm still in my 40s and immune to everything bad around me.  I am more susceptible to future illness because I have hypertension.  I am at higher risk of viruses due to a compromise to my immune system due to one of the medications I am taking. And now, just because I was born in 1955, I get special shopping hours when I need groceries because I am in a high-risk category and this allows me to look for toilet paper at a time I might actually have a chance of finding some.

My whole adult life as been an effort to fight my age.  I get amazing satisfaction any time someone learns my age and looks at me incredulously as they say there is no way I am that old.  I have run over 100 miles a month for almost two years now, and I love racing and nipping athletes half my age at the finish.  It is part of what keeps me feeling, feeling, and looking younger than I am.  I could do more for myself, like sleeping more hours, but I still work, and if I want to run, I sometimes need to set my alarm for 4 a.m. or earlier so I can get it done before my work day begins.  I could also be eating better, but I have a weakness for food that tastes good, so I worry more about portion control than the makeup of the calories I eat.  I could be drinking less....well, maybe not.

But suddenly, the COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the 60 and over population to its core, and has forced many of us, perhaps for the first time in our lives, to face the fact that despite everything we have done throughout our lives to maintain our health, we are suddenly thrust into a group that may not respond as well as younger generations if we are infected, simply because years take a toll on a immune system.  Not only is this the generation I am a part of, but this is the generation I am suddenly bonding with because of our unique enemy.  This is the group I want as my friends and who I want to relate to. 

We have a lot of relatable history that we experienced first hand.  Some of the older members of the group remember another pandemic, Polio, when it was still an unexplained mystery.  We all remember the day Kennedy was assassinated.  We all remember the first moon walk.  As time goes on, there will be fewer and fewer of us who lived it first hand and can share with younger generations what these moments in history actually felt like at the time. 

I guess what I'm saying is I'm finally ready to act my age.  Who's in?

Doctors Are Not Gods

Doctors Are Not Gods

In the months following that last run on April 26, 2015, I fell into a deeper and deeper state of desperation, anguish, gloom, and finally hopelessness.  I knew that something was eating away at my body, but I had no idea what it was.  Repeated trips to my primary care physician every time I dipped into a deeper state of pain and swelling yielded nothing positive.  A referral to an orthopedic surgeon resulted in an MRI which revealed every -osis and -itis known to man just in my left foot and shin alone, which is where the worst of the manifestations were accumulating.  But similar symptoms were happening all over.  My hands, my elbow, my shoulder were all in pain all the time.  It didn’t help that I had a traveling job which required weekly trips to the airport pulling a suitcase and carrying a laptop, then flying coast to coast.  It took all the energy I could muster just to get out of bed, get dressed, drive to the airport, walk to a gate, and then to spend the week conducting business as usual.  There was no way I could run, and even on those rare occasions when I would try to walk a mile or so, I paid dearly for it for the next few days.

On the evening of August 30^th, 2015, just about two months from my 60^th birthday, my wife Kelli and I took our three grandkids to a minor league ballgame, which should have been a simple and joyful task.  It wasn’t either for me. While Kelli stayed with the youngest, I took the two older ones to a small bounce park area down the left field foul line.  My feet hurt so badly that just standing was excruciating.  I could hardly walk, and my hands were in so much pain that I could not even pick up my littlest grandson, who was all of about three years old at the time.  Limping back to the car after the game, which ended up being a journey of about 20 minutes, my feet were so swelled up and inflamed that I ended up going to an Urgent Care Center the next morning.

The provider took one look at my feet, and asked “Have you been tested for Lyme Disease?” For whatever reason, this was something that had been overlooked by my PCP, so a Western Blot test was done immediately.  Without going into a lot of detail, a Western Blot test can be used as a confirmatory test for Lyme disease.  I was not the ideal candidate for contracting Lyme.  For one thing, I am not the real outdoorsman.  I never run trails or spend time in the woods.  I am definitely not the camping type.  In addition, I learned that most experts felt that Lyme Disease did not even exist in the Southern United States, but was pretty much confined to the Northeast quadrant.

When I got the call two days later with the results showing that one of my titer levels had tested positive and that I did indeed have Lymes, I was both surprised, but for the first time in several months, hopeful that there might be a treatment to get me back to normal.  I was instantly started on a 30-day regimen of antibiotics, and was expecting that over time the swelling would go down, the pain would evaporate, and I would start to get my energy level back to normal.  But that didn’t happen.  There was no improvement at all.  As I started to dig into doing more research on the disease and how it manifests, I became less and less optimistic of a positive outcome.

From everything I was reading, it seemed that the key to responding to treatment was to catch it early, but I had already been dealing with it for four months before a positive diagnosis was made.  If not treated immediately, Lyme Disease can evolve into a chronic condition which is much more difficult, or even nonresponsive to treatment.  I also learned that one of my running heroes, Bart Yasso, had succumbed to Chronic Lyme Disease in the 90s and has lived with it ever since.  I reached out to him immediately, and of all the things he said, the one that stuck with me was “I live in pain every day of my life.” This was not exactly what I wanted to hear. For the next couple of months, there was no sign of improvement.

My 60^th birthday felt like it was my 90^th.  My quality of life had become so bad that facing a new day was a major task.  I was reading about how people with Chronic Lyme Disease could easily start having mental health issues and I totally got it.  I felt like my health was still deteriorating at a rapid pace, and could not imagine living another 20 or 30 years this way or even declining more as I went.  The pains were now moving into my hips and up my neck, making it even difficult to turn my head from one side to the other.  How much worse could it get?

Constant words of encouragement from friends and family that I would eventually be ok were of little consolation.  I was thinking I might have to quit my job, which I loved, simply due to the physical requirements which up until a half a year earlier were simple routine daily tasks.  It wasn’t fair.  I had dedicated my entire adult life to fitness and good health decisions.  Granted, I wasn’t obsessed with health.  I have a weakness for good beer and salty snacks, and don’t always make the best food choices.  But running had been a part of my life for the past 33 years, and this should be happening to me.

I am not sure why, but I went back and did a little more research on that Western Blot test I had done at the Urgent Care Clinic, and quickly discovered something unexpected.  Everything I read pointed to the fact that at least two titer panels needed to be positive in order to unquestionably identify Lyme Disease.  My results only had one.  In other words, my test results may have been read incorrectly.  Further review verified that whatever I was dealing with WAS NOT Lyme Disease.  But it was something. 

I can’t say this revelation made me feel any better.  Something was still eating away at me, and now, after a half a year of struggles and declining health, I was back to no clue and little hope.

Next Up: Starting Over

From Zero to Sixty-Gone in a Flash

From Zero to Sixty-Gone in a Flash

Runner’s sometimes err in the assumption that our language is universal.  But the fact is that many runners-even those who have been around for a while- may laugh at the term Fartlek, and a reference to LSD may conjure up thoughts of Timothy Leary.  Let me start with a little running terminology as a starting point.

As a runner ages, we get to use fancy titles to identify our age division.  The terminology may vary regionally, but in the Atlanta area, where I live, they go like this:

·         Masters division-40 and over

·         Grand Masters division-50 and over

·         Senior Masters division- 60 and over

Runners don’t mind talking about their age.  In fact, many wear their advancing years as a badge of honor, and as they move ever closer to a new age division, they embrace their advancing years and become laser-focused on their training.

I remember feeling that way when I turned 39, and I was able to round into pretty good shape when I turned 40.  I felt that same way 10 years later when I was on the cusp of being Grand. In fact, I was in the best shape of my life on my 49^th birthday,  and ran my lifetime marathon PR the day after turning 49. But that year didn’t go as planned, and on my 50^th birthday, I was injured, out of shape, going through a divorce, and was severely depressed.  This, plus the sudden realization that my life by the numbers was more than half over, made my half century birthday a very difficult time. 

But eventually, I got back on track, both in my personal life, and with my running, and when I turned 59, my plan to be a Super Senior Strider when I turned 60 started to formulate in my mind.  On my 59^th birthday, I ran 3 miles.  My plan was to have a nice solid year of training leading up to my arrival as a Senior Master runner.  In May of 2014, I had meniscus repair surgery on my left knee, which confined me to mostly walking for the next several months, but by the time I turned 59, I was running fairly well again.  I celebrated my 59^th birthday by running 3 miles in around 30 minutes, and felt that this run was going to be the springboard to a wonderful year of running, with a goal of turning 60 as a competitive Senior Master’s runner. 

The first few months went according to plan.  I slowly increased both my mileage and my speed, and lost the weight I had gained during my time of inactivity.  At the end of February of 2015, I ran the hilly Fast Break 5K race in Atlanta in 27:07 on a course that measured 3.14 miles, and I felt I was on my way to some of my best running times in years. For me, that was a good time, and I knew I was just starting to hit my stride with a lot of room for improvement still ahead.

Fresh off the inspiration of that race, the next day, March 1, 2015 to be exact, I did an 11-mile run on a very hilly course near home at about a 10 minute pace.  I didn’t know it at the time, but that would be my last healthy run in a long, long time.

It started as a pain in one toe, which I started to become aware of the day after that run.  It was not severe enough to stop me from running, but it was solidly there.  For much of March that year, I would run a few days a week, then take a few days off to see if the pain would go away.  It didn’t.  In fact, it seemed to spread, first to other toes in the same foot.  Then, my other foot started feeling the same way, and my feet started swelling, making it painful to even stand or walk.  In addition, the pain started moving into my tendons and up my legs, which felt like they were becoming increasingly weak.  I could not even walk without a pronounced limp.  The frustrating part is when I did run, my runs were very fast, and I didn’t want to lose the fitness, so I continued to run when I knew in my head that I shouldn’t.  Even after 30 years of experience, runners can be pretty stupid.

 Finally, in mid-April of 2015, I had to stop running totally.  My body was rebelling for reasons unknown to me.  Everything was swollen, especially on my left side.  My dream of running Big Sur at the end of the month ended up being a nightmare for the 2^nd year in a row.   The year before, I could not run it because of my torn meniscus, which was surgically repaired the week after the race.  And now, my body felt like it had ages 20 years in a month.  I did try to run 3 miles the day before the race, April 26, 2015, my first run in two weeks, and knew by the end that I was finished in a broader definition of the word.  It was my last run of the year, and the road got much darker from there.  Turning 60 was not going to turn out the way I had hoped.  Not by a long shot.

Next Up:  Doctors Are Not Gods

Senior Striders- An Introduction

Senior Striders-An Introduction

Both this essay, and this new column, have been long overdue.  This will be an initial introduction to some, and a reintroduction to others, but hopefully now that I have gained traction as a runner again, I can also gain some traction as a writer.

My name is Michael Selman, and I wrote a column for many years in the mid to late 1990’s and early 2000’s called Thoughts of a Roads Scholar. I appeared in a local Georgia monthly print publication called “Run and See Georgia” magazine starting in early 1996.  In 1998, the magazine changed its name to “Georgia Runner” but the format remained the same.  It was mostly a summery of race results from the previous month, applications for future races, and the publication had a few guest writers who wrote monthly articles to fill in a few extra pages each month.

I started running and racing in earnest in the spring of 1982, and from that point forward, even to today, running has touched and in some way molded every other aspect of my life in an abundantly positive way.   For years, I kept all these thoughts and observations solidly between my ears, but a single run in January, 1996 (Link can be found below) prompted me to start sharing my thoughts in a public way, so I wrote to the editor of the magazine, Gary Jenkins, and pitched the thought and sent him a couple of articles I had hastily put together.  My column debuted in the March 1996 issue of the magazine, and suddenly, I was a local running celebrity, at least in my own mind.

My column ran the gamut of topics that tried to capture the thoughts of a common runner and expressing it in uncommon ways.  Some months, I attempted humor, and other months, I took a more serious tone. Occasionally, I wrote poetry, but I always felt that my own personal favorites were the creative pieces that took a more philosophical angle.  But the one commonality of everything I wrote was in one way or another, to address the burning question of why we run.

As the column grew in popularity, I felt compelled to try and reach a wider audience.  The Internet was still in its infancy, and the word “blogger” had not even been invented yet in the mid 90s.  But I blogged, and wanted a vehicle to get my ramblings out there, so I knocked on as many electronic doors as I could find.  There were a few web sites that catered to runners, so I reached out to them with some of my essays to see if they had an interest in publishing my stuff.  Much to my pleasure, I had many who accepted the offer.  Very few archives remain today, but one notable web site that still has a lot of my older stuff is Ken Parker’s Runner’s Web.  My archives still live on this site.

Runner's Web Michael Selman's Column Archive

I am thankful the this archive is still up, as I have lost much of what I have written through the years, and am scrambling to recover some of my older ramblings.

One of the people I reached out with my essays was Amby Burfoot, who, at the time was the executive editor of Runner’s World magazine.  Another was Rich Benyo, a former Runners World executive editor who left to become the editor of another wonderful publication, Marathon and Beyond magazine, published by Jan Sealy.  As a result of these contacts, I was finally published nationally in both magazines around the turn of the century (Boy, that term just made me feel really old.  I remember when that term meant going from the 1800s to the 1900s.)

In the early 2000s, I started writing for a local running club, The Chattahoochee Road Runners Club ( www.crrclub.com ) and soon after took over as both president and newsletter editor of the club.  This move got me engaged with the Road Runners Club of America, which at the time had over 600 affiliated clubs as members, and represented another avenue for my writing.  The RRCA had an annual convention where club members would gather to celebrate running along with taking care of typical political club business.  But they also hosted an annual awards ceremony, which included Club Newsletter of the year in three different categories (Small, Medium, and Large club) and the coveted Outstanding Club Writer Award, both of which I desperately wanted.

After winning the Regional Club Writer award in 2001, I made it to the big time in 2003, winning the national award.  The night I received that award was one of the highlights of my running and writing career.  Lucky for me, I won the award the same year that Joe Henderson received the award for his  journalistic excellence, and we sat at the same table that night.  Though I have only seen him once since then, a friendship and kinship through our passion for running and writing was born that remains to this day.  Any future stops through Eugene, Oregon would not be complete without a stop to see him.  Also at the table was the aforementioned Rich Benyo.  For me it was like a scene from Field of Dreams, only with living runners instead of dead baseball players.

In 2004, I managed to earn the Club Newsletter of the Year award for my club as their editor.  At this point, all my goals as a writer had been achieved.  And just like Forrest Gump suddenly stopped running because he had run enough, I just stopped writing.  I felt as if I had no more to contribute, and there were others who had more to say than I did.  I did make a few failed attempts to jumpstart my writing, but passion is something that is not easily faked, so it ended up being more like jumping off a cliff time and time again.  My writing career was dead.

Until now.

There are several factors which are inspiring me to start writing again, and just like way back in 1996 when I wrote my first essay, I am again fresh with new thoughts, in some ways much different than in my former life, but in other ways, really not that much different.  I will be writing to the same audience, but like myself, one that falls into a different demographic category.  Senior Strides will focus on Runners over 60, as I see things today from a completely different point of view than I did when I ran my first race in 1982, or when I wrote my first essay in January 1996.

George Sheehan comes to Lawrenceville (January 7, 1996)

Over the next few weeks and months, you’ll get one runners point of view on what continues to inspire me as both a runner and a writer, and more importantly, how to keep your running focused on the future rather than dwelling on the past.

For anyone who finds this blog, regardless of where you enter, I hope you will start here, with this introduction, and work your way down from here.  My vision is that this blog will grow, and tell a special story over the months ahead that will touch your emotions and inspire you in ways that will surprise And I hope you share your thoughts too as we go, as everyone is a unique experiment of one.  I hope you enjoy the trip and participate along the way.

Next Up: From zero to sixty.  Gone in a Flash.