56 Miles

 It sadly looks now as if I'm going to be deprived of being able to freely type out my opinions here for future blog articles.  My blogsite has built-in features that deliberately restrict my data entries, often preventing me from using capital letters.  I think back to being at the USPS plant in 1998 with arrogant, dismissive bullying supervisors waiting in ambush to impede my efforts and actively sabotaging me, running me down in the process either around others or behind my back, no matter what I do or say.   And so I will wake up and arise a little later this morning.  I can still study using my coiled notebook...maybe that's where I am going with this narrative.  And fill in today's coming vast time stretch with home exercise while working on keeping an upbeat attitude...

Did Extensive Zone 1 Living Room Exercises Despite Feelings

This morning Melissa drove me down to get another round of radiation treatment for brain cancer.  The procedure itself worked fine, but I seem to be suffering some inflammatory side effects from it.  The doctor prescribed for me steroids to counter possible headaches, and although I don't like headaches or lightheadedness, I'm going along with it with the best hopes possible.  Later I decided to do Zone One exercises while watching a 2022 NYC Marathon virtual run...recorded and posted on The Manor Runs channel...on YouTube.  I credited myself having covered a virtual distance of 7.4 miles.  Add to that the equivalent of .8 miles in FitBit steps, and the total comes to 8.2 miles.  Doing this doesn't make me fatigued, but after just a few minutes I could happily just lean back on our living room couch and let myself slip into unconciousness.  Tomorrow I'd like to continue the activity and cover more miles.  My hope is that this will better prepare me to more effectively run during Saturday morning Parkrun 5Ks.  

Passing Through Personal Anniversary Dates, for Better or for Worse

So today is November the twenty-third, which according to my memory is right next to two significant dates in my life.  11/22 is, of course, the date of the brutally infamous sniper assassination of president John Fitzgerald Kennedy that occurred early that Friday afternoon in Dallas, Texas 62 years ago...I was seven at the time and just returning to my classroom from lunchtime in the second grade.  The other day is primarily personal: 11/24.  For with the advent of tomorrow morning, it will mark the one-year anniversary of my reckoning with the frustration of not finishing a marathon race on my own terms.  On November 24th, 2024 I hobbled across the finish line at the Mega-Cupcake Marathon in Hawthorne at the eastern end of the Hawthorne Trail.  Then, open entering my car to drive home, my legs suddenly cramped up in extreme pain.  It took upwards to a half hour to be able to relax them enough to bravely attempt to drive the fifteen miles back home on that cold, cold day.  Yet despite the painful cramps, I regard the 24th of November as a very positive date in my personal memory, something to be cherished and appreciated.  Now I'm thinking that only eleven months after that race, my prognosis for a fit, healthy life with some promise for longevity plummeted severely when I underwent brain surgery on October 24th to remove a cancerous tumor (almost all of it, that is). I cringe whenever I hear anyone describe its aggressive nature in medically technical terms, for I am only interested in the ramifications it has in store for me and my future here on Earth.  My hope and prayer is that the treatment I am currently undergoing will stop the disease in its tracks and allow me to return to a fitness lifestyle whereby I could regularly go on training runs for long distances and even enter some of these types of races. By long distance, I mean 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) or longer. The most optimistic scenario has the door opening to me for distances up to marathon (26.2 miles) length.  Still, being a realist is a good thing and, for a while, I'll tolerate having to hear talk about my condition before I speak up for myself and start pissing people off. In the immediate future, the Season of Hope charity organization to help those afflicted with dystonia are continuing, on December 6th, their annual Tyler's Hope 5K.  If I'm able to attend, then sign me up. And in Junuary the Florida Track Club will hold their Mary Andrews Marathon/half marathon event.  I'll try to keep a positive, albeit realistic, attitude going about possibly entering these events.  Still, it's all "one day at a time" for me as I plod ahead with the treatments...