Another Goal. . .Accomplished

The long Thanksgiving holiday weekend is now over. I'm sure it's been a busy weekend for most people, traveling to see family, eating, shopping, trying to squeeze in a little time with friends you only see once a year, and in my case physically recovering. This year thanks giving was a little different for me for a couple different reasons. Since I have been out of the Air Force my Thanksgiving day usually begins with an early rise, a good amount of food preparation, cooking, and baking. Yes, it's true, I cook and bake (just pies though). Thanksgiving afternoon was spent with virtually my entire family, doing what I'm sure most families do when they get together on holidays, eat, drink, crack jokes, catch up, eat more, and crack more jokes. It's usually the one day we're all together, in one place, all at the same time. No ones cares that we squeeze 10 people around a table made for 6 in the dining room, another 8 in the kitchen, and another 5-10 trying to find a seat anywhere close to everyone else so they can feel like part of the action. Right about now you're probably wondering what made this year different.

This year there were a few key differences. This year there was no central family gathering. There was no food prep, cooking, or baking being done at my house. Most importantly, there was a goal to be accomplished. This Thanksgiving there was a task at hand, a personal challenge. Here's a quick update for those who may not be up to speed. In October I decided to challenge myself to run a 5k, the Thanksgiving day Turkey Trot in Fredericksburg, Virginia. After completing the September challenge running an entire 5k seemed challenging but doable. The Turkey Trot would turn out to be even more of a challenge because, on November 2nd, I twinged my knee during a treadmill training session. When it happened I had to use the rails on the treadmill to keep from falling. My knee doubled in size with swelling. Now what? With the Turkey Trot just 3 weeks away my training came to a screeching halt. This twinge, this Captain Crunch like feeling in my knee, could quite possibly take away my chance to achieve my goal. I had a significant and noticeable limp for almost a full week. Even after the limp was gone there was still some swelling, and even though I couldn't run I continued to go to the gym to work on my flexibility. What to do now?


I decided to pay a visit to the orthopedic specialists. He was not at all pleased to find out I had been running and that I planned to run a 5k. He advised me some time ago that I should not be running at all, if I wanted to do any cardio work I should limit it to cycling and swimming. Call me stubborn, which many people do, but I hadn't been taking that advice and I wasn't going to start now. I couldn't let a little soreness and stiffness and grinding and crunching stop me from reaching a goal that was so close. I figured if I'm going to go under the knife ( which I am in December) I might as well do the race anyway. If anything else in my knee was damaged they could fix it while they're in there in December. Even though I still wanted to participate in the Turkey Trot I still wasn't sure if my knee would let me. I wasn't sure if I would be able to the 3 miles. It wasn't until 2 days before the race that I made the decision to go through with it and run. At this point it had been a little over 3 weeks since I had run or did any type of cardio. I didn't care, I was going to run anyway.


Thanksgiving morning I woke up excited. I was ready to rock. I made it another personal goal to run the entire race without stopping no matter what and to finish in 40 minutes or less. When we got to the starting area I was feeling good. It helped to see several people I knew, joking around with them helped take the nervous edge off a bit. The race starts and we're off!!! My best friend Denise and I are jogging together at this point. We stayed together for about the first mile or so. It was also around the end of the first mile when it happened again. While taking one of the turns my right knee twinged and the Captain Crunch was back. I didn't stop running though, not yet. As we got deeper into the second mile I look over and Denise is looking at me with her "It's time to walk" face. So we walk together for about 4 minutes. Once we start running again Denise and I can only stay together for a few minutes. She gives me the nod and tells me I don't have to hang back with her, and I'm off. Everything was going well until about half way through the last mile. My knee kept getting tighter and tighter. The stiffness in my knee had slowed my pace down to a very slow jog. So much so that as we entered the last of the race Denise had caught me. I'm running with a noticeable limp and my knee is so stiff that my kneecap isn't moving like it should be. It's getting stuck, making it harder completely straighten my leg with each stride. We're on the last leg of the race, only a couple tenths of a mile left. The plan is to go as fast as we can for the last couple hundred yards. We hit our land mark and Denise takes off! I go to pick up the pace and it just wasn't happening. My leg was to stiff, I was forced to maintain my current pace, but I FINISHED!


Here are the results:
Me: 37:03 minutes; finished 82nd out of 91 runners for my age group; 1867 out of 2488 overall
Denise: 36:53 minutes; finished 97 out of 145 for her age group; 1849 out of 2488 overall


One more goal accomplished. So this Thanksgiving was quite different from Thanksgivings in the past. Instead of sharing a meal with the usual large gathering of close family, I had the rare opportunity to share the holiday with people in my life who are family in every sense of the word even though we are not related by marriage or blood. This year it was different because I accomplished a personal goal that wasn't seeing how much  I could eat before I was in severe pain. I did something I haven't done since basic training and Air Force training school. So, I'm proud of this accomplishment and proud of Denise for her continued quest for improved health.

The accomplishing of a task and achievement of goal empowers us to want and achieve more. With every achievement we eliminate doubts and increase confidence. Set a goal and work towards achieving it. No matter how small others think your goal is keep your head high and continue your personal quest for success. For it is not their place to minimize your successes and belittle your efforts. Don't let anything or anyone, including yourself, stop you from achieving that goal.