Promoting running

It's been a rough three year stretch for me in terms of my health and especially my fitness.  I retired in early 2016, some (myself included) would say forcibly due to ageism, which is management discrimination, conscious and deliberate or not, against older workers by denigrating, downplaying and flat-out unfairly and unjustifiably marking down their evaluations mostly by a click of much younger persons, fresh managers who are looking out for their own power and also for management and not for their charges.  But I proved my case for the scourge of ageism a year and a half later when I settled my administrative case against my former agency in an o rder which: (i) gave me the proper last evaluation (for 2015) of Outstanding in place of the previously-given Satisfactory; (ii) paid me $5.000; (iii) issued a lifetime achievement award to me (mere window dressing); and most importantly to me (iv) required all managers involved in my bogus last evaluation to undergo training specifically in age discrimination.  Day 1 nominee John in front of Fleet Feet in the District.

I had double hernia surgery in late 2016 just when I was in the fittest condition of my life, running five times a week 3-6 rapid miles each outing and doing upper body conditioning.  I came back quickly enough from the surgery but I soon developed an achilles strain which prevented me from running for eight months and then a year ago, just when I had started running again, I suffered the occurrence of a detached retina prompting four eye surgeries over the course of a year during which I did not run so as to not suffer any mishaps (for half a year my eye was filled with silicon and I literally felt like it was a foreign object in my eye socket, and that if I tripped or stumbled and fell, it might burst open).  Day 2 nominee Sasha about to lead out the Monday Night FootMall Run.

May 1st I started running again but my return has been very slow indeed.  I am in my late 60s now with many aches and pains (and a recently diagnosed arthritic hip) but I have scrupulously run 3 times a week since then, albeit slowly with low mileage totals.  Last month I did a 5K race in about 31:32 but it left me enervated for a week.  Day 3 nominee Greg getting photobombed.

Plus I run alone now.  Nope, no running buddies anymore, that's just the new normal now that I'm retired and old, so I lack motivation to extend or push runs many days.  But I love to get out there and get my second wind after a mile or so and just run down road after road.  My eye troubles did affect my vision and I have to concentrate on broken roadways and I can't see to run at night so that's a limiting factor.  Day 4 nominee Rhea helping me start my return to running last spring in Oxford, England.

A few days ago a friend of mine from my running heyday last decade challenged me on Facebook to nominate 10 people in 10 days to post a picture associated somehow with running with no explanation of it and to ask them to nominate their own 10 persons in 10 days to promote running and develop the sport.  I gladly accepted the challenge and in this post are (or soon will be) my ten nominees, plus the photos, and why I chose them.  Day 5 nominee Leah on a Holiday Lights Christmas Run in the District.

The challenge goes like this:
I was nominated by Lesley Green
Day 1 of the 10 Day Runner's Challenge:
Every day I select a day from a life of running that has had an impact on me or has been a memorable moment and post it without a single explanation. Then nominate someone to take the challenge. Be active, be positive, be passionate.... Grow the sport.
Today's nomination is: John.  Day 6 nominee Karston, not pictured, but hopefully inspired by a picture of Meb Keflezighi out promoting the sport of running in the District around the time he was the first American to win the Boston Marathon in a quarter-century.

The first photo, above, goes with my nomination of John, a former coach of mine when I was the training director for the DCRRC and later president.  He gave me immeasurable support when I sat on the board of DCRRC with a bunch of unruly young upstart pissants on the board who thought I was a hidebound old-timer because I used a film camera instead of a digital one and actively disrupted every meeting I conducted.  But when they disrespected my friend John to his face at a meeting and almost provoked a fistfight by their puerile disruptive behavior (I'm talking about you Brian, Kenny, Mike and Scott), I left the club.  John was also my running buddy here in the District for years till he got married and moved to Arizona with his new bride.  He's to my left in the picture, in front of Fleet Feet in Adams Morgan, the premiere running store in the District, where day 2's nominee, Sasha, conducted a Sunday Training program to go along with the Saturday Training program I conducted out of Gotta Run in Arlington.  She's in the front row, all in green.  She's also in the second photo, at the meeting point across the street from the Watergate for the Monday Night FootMall run (with beer and tacos at a local pub afterwards), a program she created as a training coach I brought into the club.  To the left in the picture is her future husband Jay, who was (I could tell) actively courting her at the time.  Jay's on the right in the orange shirt in the Fleet Feet picture.  Fun times when running is allowed to be fun.  Day 7 nominee Edward, past president not the DCRRC meeting with U.S. Senator Mark Warner during his term as president.

The Day 3 nominee is Greg, the running rock star at my former agency.  He could throw down a sub-three hour marathon or a 16-minute 3-miler and he anchored the win my agency had in the Capital Challenge 3-Mile Team Race a few years back in the Executive Division.  That division is a tough one because it is filled with service teams, Army, Navy, Coast Guard, and slews of those young men are always the front runners at that meet.  I used to lead out the noontime runners at my agency and assemble the ACLI team but Greg took over those functions when I left.  He is a friend, an occasional running buddy (he's normally too fast for me) and a former colleague who puts many scammers in the docket as a government lawyer.  In the third picture he is to the left, looking bemused as a clueless tourist goes wandering across the front of the noontime runners' group portrait at the MLK statue, unconsciously photobombing it.  You can have funny moments when you allow running to be fun.  Day 4 featured Rhea, a fellow trainee in a dcrrc 10-miler training program, later a coach of mine and a running buddy before she moved back to her California roots with her husband Eric.  Day 5 featured Leah, a friend and former colleague, my last running buddy, and someone who provided wise counsel to me during the difficult days I had as president of the dcrrc dealing with the young turks on the board of directors.  Leah is also in the day 3 photo in a pink jacket.  Day 8 nominee Susan, center, past president of dcrrc, responsible for implementing many of the training programs at the club, thereby making it relevant to much of the DC running public, with Kristin, standing, club volunteer extraordinaire who suggested, developed and first ran many of the training programs the club currently sponsors.

Day 6 featured Karsten, a dedicated volunteer and avid runner at the dcrrc, a frequent poster on FB and someone who I think promotes the sport of running well without seeming to actively try to do so.  Day 7 featured Ed, the president of the dcrrc before I was, its track coach and a prominent figure in the club.  Day 8 honored Susan, longtime president of the DC Road Runners Club, who was instrumental in bringing many of the current programs to the club.  Day 9 featured my fried and former colleague Markus who is an avid barefoot runner.  Before he went into private practice, he used to run with me so regularly on the three days a week I took whoever was interested in wellness at my agency out for a 3-5 mile noontime (another person I sponsored took interested colleagues out for a 2-3 mile walk at noon weekly) that people in my division laughingly called such runs "the Peter & Markus show."  He was a little faster than me.  I ran several races with him and I was usually within striking distance of overtaking him and working hard to do so midway through many races but I never once caught him as he always had a better finishing kick than me.  It was frustrating but good for me, it made me better.  Day 9 nominee, Markus, on the right, participated in several Christmas Tree Runs I led along the Mall.

Running was my ticket to fitness and better health when I arrived in my late 40s at the millennium overweight and sedentary to a fault.  I have been at it ever since, happily so, since then with two major lay-offs due to injuries.  I recognize that running is not for everyone but it has kept me healthy, happy and relatively sane, especially during my emotionally and financially ruinous, scurrilous four-year divorce which cost me my children extra-judicially due to the Western scourge of PAS (Parental Alienation Syndrome).  I have honored and promoted the sport of running over the years by participating fully in it, which includes doing it 3-5 times a week, running races each week for a decade until I reached my sixties when I slowed down, encouraging and selflessly assisting others to participate in it by running the wellness program for awhile at my former agency (when it had a commission chair who believed in the health benefits provided to employees by active exercise), being the training director then the president in 2009 at the DMV running club I formerly belonged to, and running with friends and acquaintances as a form of regular exercise and social interaction, even though I sometimes received scorn from others as engaging in "chaperoned running" or that I was wasting my time on a difficult hobby, especially given the vicissitudes of the weather in swampy DC, or taking too much time away from petty work tasks (I was known to often work late into the evenings or on weekends).  I well remember long runs through interesting places (DC is full of them) with cherished running buddies such as Rhea, David, Ashley, Markus, Leah, Eric, Katie, Greg, Robin, John, Sasha and so many others, and enjoying different places such as Portland, Denver, Columbus, St. Paul, Santa Fe, Lake Tahoe, Los Angeles, Oxford, Boulder and a dozen other places through long runs.  Accidents occasionally happen (I have tripped and fallen heavily onto cement surfaces a half-dozen times that I remember and been nudged by cars more than once by drivers who are turning right from a stop sign or red light without looking right first or last for pedestrians but I have also once or twice been able to report strange people or occurrences to police or assist a person in acute distress.  I love running and suggest its regular employment for your betterment to you, dear reader, if it is suitable for you.  My final choice for a person who has had an impact on me through friendship and running and engaged in a memorable moment of mine (she found me wandering listlessly in the broiling heat at MP 24 of the infamous 2006 waterless Chicago Marathon--later dubbed the 26.2 Chicago Fun Run, and shepherded me to the finish line in about 4:35 just before the authorities closed the race midstream and blocked all runners from going any further on the course), who personified the active, positive, passionate nature of and helped grow the sport, is Ashley.  Day 10 nominee is Ashley, on the right.  Also in the picture are previous nominees Greg (second from left) and Markus (next to Ashley).