Submitted by Rush 9/3/2026 13:51:4 0 Comments
When my son was little, he was out running around the yard and exclaimed, "I'm still running! I'm still running!" That's how I'm feeling right now. I'll turn 60 in less than a month. My long runs right now are 3 miles. A 15 mile week is a big week. It's hard not to compare to past performance, but I'm accepting where I am now. Coming back from an 8 week layoff after tearing the gastrocnemius muscle in my right calf. Rest, rehab, gentle walking, hilly walking, steep walking has led me back to tentative running starting with 1 mile, then 1.5, 2, etc.
Summer is nearly over and my goal is to be ready to do some miles on the A.T. when fall arrives. One step at a time, one day at a time. Running has given me so much. It's kept me mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy. It's rewarded my hard work with a deep sense of accomplishment. I wish it could say its kept me connected to a community, but that's really not true. I run alone.
Submitted by 1/5/2025 20:25:10 0 Comments
Miles: 624.3 (down from 881 in 2023)
Days Running: 186
Biggest Month: 101.5 in June
Surface: Trail-534.7, Other-89.6
Elevation Change: 123,104'
Races: 0
Total Miles in Running Log: 17,868.9 (dating back to 2006)
Submitted by Rush 5/1/2023 13:44:18 0 Comments
At 56, I've had my share of injuries. The last 8 months have been frustrating. I severely dislocated a toe last August (a non-running accident) that required surgery. A total of 8 weeks of zero activity. Finally I was able to walk in normal shoes, then walk hills, then a gradual return to running. I had just had what felt like a really solid week when, in back in February, I caught COVID. Man, has this been a long recovery. I'm still occasionally having days of intense fatigue but the time between those days is growing longer. But as before, I'm back to feeling like I'm putting together a solid week when an old knee injury (don't ever play high school football, folks) has been nagging me. Last Saturday I did 8 miles on the AT. The day was glorious. The trail was full of through hikers and wild flowers. My return leg was 11 minutes faster than my out leg and it felt like days from 2015. But, the next day, I had pain in my right arch, so the rest of the next week was spent running flat. I got a Theragun at Christmas and I've been applying that to my plantar tendons and it seems to be helping.
I really don't want this blog to be a catalog of injuries of an aging runner, but that's where I've been of late.
Submitted by Rush 3/9/2023 0:32:45 0 Comments
I caught COVID the second week of February. I had begun to think I might make it through the pandemic without getting sick. I attended a local indoor event with about 100 people and I didn't wear a mask. I was inside about 90 minutes. Turns out a number of people were infected that night.
I felt terrible for 3 days or so and then spent several days with the main symptom being crushing fatigue. That, too, slowly mitigated. I started running again on February 28th, very short and very low intensity. I'm running about every other day with a few short, steep hikes thrown in.
My advice - if you're going to be indoors with a group of people for more than 15 minutes, wear a mask.
Submitted by Rush 11/6/2022 0 Comments
The injury-surgery-recovery saga continues. I had my final post-op eval this week. The x-ray looked good and the doc cleared me to resume all normal activities.
Thursday I walked and then ran 2 flat miles. Same on Friday. My right sesamoids had started barking from lots of miles in concrete in old, worn out road shoes. Saturday we spent the day working on our house. This morning I went up Bowlens Creek for 59 minutes to a spot I know well. I hiked and ran the flats on the up, then ran back down. My skeletal frame is really feeling the layoff, but today I was really able to trust the foot to take the weight and it's doing very well.
I'm grateful to be in the woods. Grateful to be able to move my body. Grateful for a job and insurance coverage that allowed me to have surgery to fix what needed fixing.
run the mile you're in
follow along
