Skip to main content

Getting Legs...



After attempting to see if my legs... well if I would become successful in getting my running legs back or better than what they've been since 30 years ago, when my spine, and mainly right side took damage. Damage the medical field misdiagnosed for 18 months. With a question, "What if I overcame my damage.? The nerve damage." I've dreamt I could.  I thought anyone would think such thoughts would be insane.

But I don't ever believe anyone should put limits on themselves.  Bad enough many people have desired to put limits on others, because of their ignorance and their own inequities.  No one on this God's earth truly knows what any one individual is capable of.

In speaking with my old UltraRunning coach, Dante over the past few weeks, he sees something.  Something I wondered about for the past fifteen years.  I contemplated such thoughts of burnout.  Then I realized, if I could use my running for staying in shape for another athletic career... and then if I felt the urge to come back to the sport of running, I would try.

The late Dr. Jim Manning and I in the past spoke of "Miles in the Bank".  The debate was, how is it applicable? To what extent? What about past damage? Can we fix that? Also, I wondered just as I envisioned my fights if I had more time,  perhaps. However,  with running it was, 'How much would I be able to take my banked miles for their benefits if I were to run less in training in the future?"

So as my late husband would dub me, "The Good Little German", I applied a variety of different approaches to my running.  Only now, I have changed four areas,  slowly. I decided to be only obsessed with getting outside and running every day.  Not the speed, not the distance per se. In doing just that... running a speed I normally would feel in a 20 mile training run in decades past... I didn't feel I was running that hard.  As well, I got faster at the Eighth mile and held it till the last two miles today, last Saturday was twenty degrees cooler... I never felt the effort that day. As well, I had a tempo run two days ago inbetween both 20 milers. The only time I felt the 20 mile effort was about 90 minutes after I'd finished. 

Something did change. The recovery I had, and my even pacing, as well my ability to go faster in the second half.

We will see how getting legs back better all works out. You don't know unless you try.---Jody-Lynn Reicher



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Reicher's Official Holiday Letter

  “When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” ---Ralph Waldo Emerson There are many ways to shed light on seemingly impossible situations or what we would consider obstacles to our daily living. It is not always in our daily intake and output that is the measurement of a human being. It is the grind. Some people struggle with miniscule grinds; while others have bus loads to grind through. Some don’t make it. Few do. Making it, is not, not dying. It’s progressing through even when there appears no light at the end of the tunnel. That there may not even be a twinkle of a star in the nights ahead. And the human that faces that, knowing full well that they can’t change the ending to their earthly story. Yet, they consciously go through the process, has made it. They’ve lived. No matter their age, I believe that, to be one of Life’s truths. As this year has progressed, the pandemic actually blessed us. Yep. Many would not agree with that. But then, they weren’t us. They weren’t our
2 comments
Read more

To Laconia and Canada Too

 He began, "So, I got this deal..."  Me, "Yeah?" Norman,  "I went up on 23, and saw her. " Me, "Where did you go?" Norman, "Sport Spot on 23 South.  And there she was." Me, "Uh oh."😊 Norman,  "I'm graduating to a BMW.  She was sitting there. 1986, an R80RT. A touring sportster... " Me, "What about the Yamaha, Norm?" Norman, "I'll get a buyer before I have to pick up the R80RT." It was 1987, we'd just had a semi long motorcycle ride up North together for a week. New England that'd be.  Norman was all enthralled about the open road. Married just over three years at the time, and he rediscovered a new love.  Me wary, yet curious.  'Maybe she'll ride easier.  Less bumpy on certain roadways of upstate New York'. Norman even had me considering getting a motorcycle license.  I'd driven nearly every style, engine from small military jeep to tractor trailers...
Post a Comment
Read more

Completion of Humanness

Completion of Humanness As we arrive to the completion of the first year without Norman, I had decided long before he'd passed that I would continue to do things certain things he liked yet could no longer do. I decided I would not take a day off of fitness.  I would run at least for 500 days in a row. I began that in early 2020.  I'd not be concerned with the distance I'd run. It was the very thing I convinced Norman and the thing that mattered to him, from the very first discussion we had August 11th, 1981, was fitness. I loved that he was a College Boy. He loved that I was a Marine. We tickled each other's soul with such admirations. Later fitness continued as an old discussion from 1994 ...getting outside and to run no matter what. I would say to him, "Run 200 meters, then 400 meters. If it doesn't feel good, stop. Turn around and walk back home and know you did your best. That is all you can ask of yourself." I said this,  knowing he would get dow
2 comments
Read more