Today is filled with great news! Emmy is recovering well and she sent a picture in the email last night and she truly does look like a swamp thing, albeit the cutest swamp creature I've ever seen. Ghee!!! I talked to her this morning briefly before she went back to the doctors.
Also this morning, I got the official letter in the mail. I PASSED MY COMPREHENSIVE EXAMS FOR MY MASTER'S DEGREE! Now all I have left is student teaching!
Finally, I sat down this morning and started off where I had left off the other day on John L. Parker, Jr.'s Once A Runner, about page 70. I've wanted to read it for the last five years since I first started running and heard of it, though it became increasingly hard to get ahold of. All the copies from the libraries were getting "lost" (aka stolen) and it wasn't uncharacteristic to see a paperback fetch $250 or $300 on eBay. Well thankfully when the sales for the sequel Again to Carthage tanked, the publishers realized, "Oh wait, why would people buy the sequel if they can't get their hands on the first book?! Duh!" And they rereleased it for a modest $24. I picked it up and read it cover to cover this morning. And all I can say is wow. It truly lives up to the quote from Runner's World : "The best novel ever written about running." I just couldn't put it down. It has everything about the long distance runner in it. From the Trial of Miles and Miles of Trials, to the grit, determination, and sacrifices that embody this type of athlete. I highly recommend it to everyone on the running blog that hasn't read it. Simply AMAZING!
Some memorable quotes:
p. 15, "In the world of the runner, as in the ocean, there is a hierarchy of ferocity. In the sea the swift blue runner is eaten by the slashing barracuda, which is eaten by the awesome mako shark. In track, such relative positions are fixed more or less in black and white and are altered only at great and telling expense. Pride necessarily sprouts and grows; a pride that can only come from relentless kneading of unwilling flesh, painful months of gring and burning away all that is heavy, all that is strength-sapping and useless to the body as a projectile."
p. 110, "A runner who could not run was out of his element. He would not even think of himself as an athlete; ridiculously there would be a kind of guilt about it; that was the worst part. He would begin to feel uncomfortable around his training comrades and the feeling would be mutual, like a newly wounded soldier among the embarrassed whole ones, who would not wish to be reminded of certain roll-the-dice aspects of life." This quote I especially took to heart dealing with all my injuries of 2008. It is so tough to struggle with the question, "Am I still a runner?" when you cannot in fact run. But Emma helped me realize the answer which is that running is a part of who we are. Running doesn't go away because of an injury. Yes it will be a difficult and slow recovery, but we are lifelong runners and must remember life is a journey of ups, downs, and side to sides. We're in it for the good, the bad, the ugly for sure. We just have to keep the faith!
At the very least, pick up the book and read the last couple chapters of the final race. Parker has captured the anxiety, the stress, the glory, and the multitude of other emotions that consitute the long distance runner's races. I can't wait to go to work tonight. I am picking up the sequel, Again to Carthage!!
2:00 PM - Very hot and humid outside. Disgusting. I hope it rains to cool things off. It's abotu 85 degrees inside the house! Did 200 crunches, 100 situps and 50 pushups. Free weights afterwards. | 
