The Best Me
My
running career is on hold. To be honest, it’s likely on retirement. My
Taekwondo career is pretty much the same way and so is my squash enjoyment. You
see, a left knee injury has resurfaced and is causing pain to the point that I
was limping everyday. I’ve seen an orthopedic surgeon and he’s prescribed
sessions of physical therapy, given me my first ever cortisone shot and I’m
seeing him in two weeks for a follow-up.
I’ve
always had knee issues. I had Osgood-Schlatter Disease growing up. In April
1996 (or was it 1995) I was knocked out at The Big East Taekwondo Championship
and landed on my right knee. That freak landing resulted in a partially torn
ACL. I never had surgery but I did go through several weeks of PT. The day
before my final PT visit, I blew out my left knee playing a football (soccer)
match with friends at Brookdale Park in Bloomfield, New Jersey. I was dribbling
the ball into the final third when my leg, from the knee to my foot, didn’t
move forward. The rest of my me, from the knee up, went forward after the ball
tearing the joint’s meniscus.
Recently,
with nowhere to train properly in Taekwondo, I decided to put Taekwondo on the
back-burner and started running again; in the hope of qualifying for the 2017
NY City Marathon and to lose weight and, once and for all, get back into
fitness. Generally, things were looking good until about two or three weeks ago
when my left knee started hurting. The pain subsided and I continued to train
and play squash until, after a four mile training run, I was laid up the rest
of the day. I took a week off before doing a three-mile taper. My knee flared
up so I took the rest of the week off before running my scheduled race – The
Poland Spring Marathon Kickoff, a five-miler that starts the New York City
Marathon week of activities and events. The resulting pain was sharp and forced
me to limp. It was so bad that whenever I had to get up and walk, I’d have to
stand up slowly, allow blood to get to the joint and then inch my way onward.
Now,
having seen the doctor and gotten my meds and shot, I’ve been given the green
light to do some elliptical training and stationary bike riding but nothing
with impact – like running and squash and Taekwondo. Being in this condition - able
to walk and not limp, thanks to prescribed anti-inflammatories and the
cortisone shot, but always fearful of my knee giving in, I’ve been forced to
accept a number of things.
First,
I have to accept that I’m simply getting older. Even if I weren’t injured or
out of shape, I am older than when I last seriously trained for a marathon and
put everything else on hold. Even then I was full of recovering injuries! Second,
I need to be more humble and respectful of the marathon distance; something I
am horrified to admit because I’ve always been respectful of it. Even though
I’m heavier and not in any kind of running shape, I eased into base training
and into my proper training plan like I’d done it all before. In some way, I
have done it all before but, this time, I relied too much on muscle memory and
my own grit and my Taekwondo-inspired indomitable spirit and my high pain
threshold to forge ahead. Full speed ahead and all that! Stupid. Third, and
finally, I have to find a different path. Maybe I can still run again and train
in Taekwondo and play squash. Maybe I can’t. If I can, I have to be the best I
can be of the me I am now and not the me I was twenty or thirty or even just ten
years ago. Life goes forward and not backward. And so must I.
At
forty-seven, this is a lesson I should’ve probably learnt years ago. Instead,
I’ve held on to the past and tried to be the best of the ‘me’ I was then. When
I became a husband, and then a father, my life ceased being my own. If I’m
going to be completely honest, it never truly has been just mine. It has and
always will be God’s, my family’s, my friends’, my students’, my athletes’ and
others’. After all, whenever we enter someone’s world and they enter ours and
we do so sincerely, don’t we become part of that person and he or she becomes a
part of us?
Today,
while I am still trying to lose weight and get back into fitness, I am starting
to try and be more accepting of whom I am and what I am. I do this for my sake
and my own piece of mind. I do it, for wife and my son because, you see, they’re
who my life belong to now and they need me; the best me of today and tomorrow.
