Don't take Life for Granted

At the age of 62 my father was still playing slow pitch softball. That same year he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I loved that my dad was still active at the age of 62. Over the next 14 years the disease gradually took its toll on my dad’s body. He slowly went from being active and mobile to having to have help dressing and walking. The muscle rigidity made his Trapezius muscles in his neck feel almost like iron. He had a hard time sleeping for very long at a time. The disease finally took his life through pneumonia at the age of 76.

In watching my father fight this disease, as gracefully as anyone can, I remember thinking how hard it must have been for him to hang on. He would try so hard to be able to just walk on his own. Seeing this made me resolve to try and never take my health for granted and yet I did just that. I let myself go over a period of four years, three of those years being the last three of my father’s life, going from 176 pounds to 212 pounds. I did not have the energy to walk even a mile with my wife. I did not feel like playing ball with my son or even playing golf riding in a cart. I had gone back to school and two years after starting school my father died. I finished school with my BS degree in Electronics Engineering. That is when I knew I had to make a big change so I decided to train for a marathon.

I ran my first marathon in March of 2000. When I crossed the finish line I could not imagine running another one, but a few days later I decided that I could do better and why let all this training go to waste on just one marathon. I ran that first marathon at a pace of 12:12 per mile for a time of 5:19:49. Just two and half years later in October of 2002 I qualified for Boston with a time of 3:33:40 at an 8:09 pace. I ran Boston the following April. I was hooked on running. I knew that I needed running to keep me healthy and sane! Even if I came down with some debilitating disease like my father I would at least go down fighting and take every advantage of my health as long as I possibly could.

Now I am 60 years old, just two years younger than my dad was when he was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Other than a few aches and pains that tend to slow me down a bit, I seem to be in perfect health. At the present time I am recovering from three broken ribs sustained on a trail run three weeks ago. I am also rehabbing a chronically sore left heel and have five more weeks of physical therapy to go through. Hopefully this will work so that I won’t have to have surgery. Either way I will do my best to stay as active as I possibly can. As long as I am able I will continue to run and if I can’t run then I will cycle or swim.

My mother was taken from me about a year after my father passed. She died at the young age of 64 from a stroke, heart attack combination. She was obese and had diabetes, which tends to run in her side of the family. I remember being upset when she died because she did not take care of herself. I had been running for about four months when she passed. I was hoping that she would be able to hear about me finishing my marathon. Hoping that it would spur her on to try and work on getting healthy again.

I have a brother who has been diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. He has, for the most part, taken his health pretty serious. It is possible that his occupation as a stone mason had something to do with developing his disease but it could also have to do with living about four miles from one of our nations worst nuclear disasters, when he was a young teen, at Rocky Flats Plant on Mother’s Day 1969. I happened to be away at boarding school 30 miles to the north of where we lived in Golden, CO at the time. My sister also suffers from respiratory problems and another brother had asthma when he was young.

The point of all of this is, that because of my family's health problems I am very conscious of how precious my life and health are. I don’t want to take anything for granted. Anytime something could happen to take that away from me, but as long as I can do something about it like run, cycle, hike and swim I will continue to be as active as I possibly can. Running is my first love, but I enjoy being active in any way I can.

One of the best things we can do for our health is to do 40 minutes or more of some aerobic activity at least 3 times as week. This will help keep our hearts, minds and bodies as healthy as possible. I love to go beyond that for my own enjoyment, but for health reasons all that is necessary is the small amount mentioned above.

Don’t take your life for granted. My brother and sister would love to be able to run or cycle if they could. I run for them and for myself because I can.

Happy Trails,

Russ