Running with a Police Escort

by Jill Grunenwald

  Great.

  One small gift: I got to pick the color. I chose purple. How sad that this was pretty much the highlight of the experience.

  That’s not entirely true. I actually got lucky. Very lucky. The non-technical term is a broken ankle, but what I actually had was a closed, non-displaced fracture of the fibula. Well, if I’m being really technical, it wasn’t my ankle, but my calf bone that I just happened to break down by the ankle. Both Doctor Andy and Doctor Strimbu said this is an injury that comes with a 50 percent chance of surgery and, so far, all signs pointed to being on the good side of 50 percent. Which is saying something seeing as how I spent an entire week walking on a broken ankle. Those statistics are, I think, what prompted Doctor Strimbu to take the more extreme recovery option of a cast versus, say, a boot.

  But more than that, I’d been running for over four years and this is the first time I’d been injured. All those runs, all those races, miles after miles after miles of training and this was the first time I’d been sidelined. It was another running learning curve, but that’s how it goes sometimes. Amirite?

  POSTSCRIPT

  As of this writing, I still am very much sidelined. This happened in mid-May, and it’s now late July. Summer is officially in full swing and the change in weather—a far cry from the snow seen at the Cleveland Marathon weekend—has brought out the runner in everyone. As I sit on the couch, writing, my laptop propped up on my lap, my left foot out in front of me, resting on a stack of pillows, I can look out onto the quiet street in front of the house. Because it’s a century home, we don’t have central air so we keep the front door open most days when we’re home. Runners of all shapes, sizes, and speeds happily pass by. Maybe they are running just for fun, maybe they are a new runner getting their legs out for the first time, or maybe they are training for a fall race. Under different circumstances I would be out there with them, logging the miles. But, well …

  This is not the end I planned to write. This is not the way the story was supposed to go. But this … this is life.

  Last year I ran one race per month, which means that by this time last year, I had five races under my hydration belt. Now, I only have that 2-mile St. Malachi. I don’t know when I’ll walk again, let alone run. Every day is a new challenge that presents new obstacles, although I’m adapting well and discovering necessity really is the mother of invention. That said, from someone who travels not just by walking, but by running as well, this whole forced immobilization thing is a real struggle. From where I sit right now, forward really is a pace.

  At this point, I may have to completely rewrite my number one rule of running and racing and say that buying race insurance totally trumps reading course maps. You can bet your ass I will be buying it whenever it’s offered from here on out. I don’t care if it’s something as short as a 5K, that insurance will be purchased.

  The weeks have turned into months, my leg spending six weeks in a non–weight-bearing cast, then two weeks in a walking cast, and now a boot. I’m at that phase where I come back every couple of weeks for X-rays, a phase that can last for, well, however long it takes to heal, I guess. Eventually physical therapy will be added in but for now, all I can do is take care of my body and wait.

  The Akron Half Marathon, now a mere two months away, is so totally not happening.

  As it happens, that’s the same date as the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., where Stephen King will be their headliner. Now, because of the injury, I can go. Funny how life works out, eh?

  2016 was supposed to be my year. It was the year I was going to really focus, really train, and hit that personal record. But life, as it does, had other plans.

  The thing is, I’m not as upset about this now as I was when it first happened. I’ve finally learned the fine art of patience and the importance of living in the present. I can’t change what happened. I don’t have a madman in a blue police box popping in and out of my life nor do I have a DeLorean parked out back, waiting to be cranked up to eighty-eight miles per hour.

  I can’t go back and stop myself from breaking my bone. I can’t rewrite history. All I can do is look ahead and keep moving forward, one day at a time.

  (If nothing else, because of the broken bone I don’t have to be out there running my ass off in ninety degree weather. So, y’know, there are silver linings if I know where to look.)

  That said, I was asked to come back as an Ambassador for Cleveland for the third year in a row. Me: the fat, slow, and now injured runner. Those silly race organizers must be out of their minds but at least there is a road to redemption in 2017. Hope really does spring eternal, as The Shawshank Redemption reminds us.

  I don’t know which distances I’ll be racing in 2017 because I don’t know where I’ll be training-wise come January. But I am, surprisingly, optimistic. Cautious, but optimistic all the same. Even if I don’t make Cleveland 2017 my fourth half marathon, I have no doubt that with more time, patience, and physical therapy, I’ll be running thirteen miles again, hopefully sooner rather than later. There are lots more finish lines in my future and I’ll cross them in my own way, at my own pace.

  For now, with hundreds of miles behind me and hundreds more still to come, I find myself back at the beginning. Only this time I come armed with the knowledge and experience of a seasoned veteran, not a newbie terrified of stepping on that treadmill for the first time (well, okay, I still maybe get a little gun-shy around the dreadmill, but can you really blame me?). So I step forward into the future the same way I did over four years ago: one foot in front of the other.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my editor Ronnie Alvarado and everyone at Skyhorse Publishing. Not to belabor a metaphor but this process was a lot like running a long-distance race and having a dedicated cheering section helped push me through to the end.

  Thanks to Alicia Hansen for asking the question, “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”

  Thanks to Andrew Sasak, PA for his compassion and Dr. Victor P. Strimbu for his expertise.

  Thanks to the Cleveland Marathon organization and my fellow Ambassadors Andrew Hettinger, Jamie Johnston, Debi Lantzer, Emily Baumgartner, Melissa Bixler, Melissa Carney, Stephani Itibrout, Jessica McCartney, Pam McGowan, Doug Picard, Rachel Frutkin, Joe Fell, Stephanie Lesco, and Christine Cassar. Your love and support means so much and this tortoise is so happy I get to call you amazing hares my friends.

  Thanks to Carol Cotten, Christine Radie, Patricia Picard, Sheila Pressler, and Virginia Snyder for always asking “Are you currently writing anything?” long after I left your classrooms.

  Thanks to my family, Dave and Sue Grunenwald and Amy and A. J. Burke, who have braved freezing temperatures on more than one occasion to see me cross a finish line.

  Finally, and most importantly, thanks to Ben Cox for … well, everything, but especially for your sheer awesomeness during the months of #anklegate and all the Mitchell’s Ice Cream.