Running For My Life - Follow The Path

Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is a crappy thing, even crappier when it happens to you.  I’ve been writing for about a month about my experience dealing with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Your feedback has been encouraging, uplifting and has often made me laugh.  But it’s time to get back to writing about running, why it’s cool and the people that make it great here in southern Arizona. Even though I have to do a few things to keep my Lymphoma in remission, I'm moving and looking forward. So this will be my last entry about my ‘race’. You can start at the beginning here .

March 17, 2010

I always looked forward to this time after treatment – 30 days after my last chemo, when the drug would truly be out of my body.  I didn’t know what the results would be, but I’ve been excited to get back to running.  Running to me is about being outside, experiencing the environment with friends as much as enjoying the run.  Spending time on the treadmill 1-2 times a month just hasn’t cut it, plus I’ve been much more tired and drained than I thought.  The stories about people maintaining a normal training regimen during chemotherapy seem overwhelming to me. Lance Armstrong, you are my hero.

Mike Greene, who talked me into running high school cross country 25 years ago, and I have kept in touch every few months for the past few years.  We talk about running together but never have since high school.  Mike has a busy family and injured his foot a few years ago.  I called him after my good news and suggested we go for a run, ‘for real’ this time.  I tell him I need to jog-walk for a while, but would be happy to at least start with him.  He is in the same position as me, excited to get back into running but has been looking for a slow training partner, so we fit perfectly.

March 24, 2010

I lace up my running shoes in anticipation of getting back to what I love and take note that I still can’t move my left big toe. I smile, remembering the odyssey this numb toe started me on, the questions it made me ask.  I was concerned then, but today I don’t worry so much about it, because my future has changed.  I don’t know what the it will bring, but if I can get through this crap, I can do just about anything. I’ve met some amazing people during this journey and I’ve learned from them that your life is now defined by a ‘new-normal’, the state that your life is forever in post treatment.

From the Tucson Racquet Club, we decide to follow the Rillito River Path which allows us to set an easy pace on a flat path.  A popular and busy thoroughfare for runners, bikers and walkers, the path is a perfect place for us to start our journey.  While warming up and stretching, we laugh about our decision to join the cross country team in the fall of 1981, oh so many years ago.

I’m excited to get started and we start our walk/jog on the path, with good conversation, acknowledging those coming the other way.  A pleasant looking man and his wife are walking toward us, and as we say hello, I realize that it is John Brooks, our cross country coach at Sabino High School with his wife Carol.  What sort of universal cosmic karma has placed the three of us together at this point nearly 30 years later?  John Brooks, or Mr. Brooks as he is forever known, is the sort of teacher and mentor that you remember for the rest of your life.  Everybody has those 1 – 2 teachers in their lives.  He is mine.

We exchange pleasantries, talking about running and the beautiful weather.  I tell him in a few short minutes about my recent battle and he encourages me to keep up the good fight.  A two-minute conversation at best, with the man that has influenced my life immensely, and we’re off to run and walk.

Mike and I exchange emails a few days later, amazed at the wonderful coincidence of this meeting. But as I reflect on this, I realize there are powerful forces at work in the universe. While Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma may have put me on a year-long journey, I realize I have really completed a 30-year journey.  That moment of panic from a scared and nervous 14-year-old, deciding to join the high school cross country team, has given me the tools to complete the most important race of my life as a 43-year-old man.

That decision – to become a runner – has come to define me.  Being a runner provided me with the skills, fortitude and competitiveness to win this race against Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and chemotherapy.  The fact that I started both of my running careers, in 1981 and 2010, with the same people has to mean something, right?  Mike Greene and Mr. Brooks set me on this path. I was lucky enough to begin one journey with a good friend and mentor, but a second time?  Running with the life-long friend that cajoled me into going out for the team in the first place, and then ‘randomly’ meeting the man that started me on the path nearly 30 years ago? It’s not random and I realize there is a plan, a path to follow.

I am forever changed, but I will always be a runner.

Tim Bentley, Mr. Brooks, Dr. Toby Freebourn, Michael Greene, and Ross Martin.
12-2 in 1984 and still in love with running in 2011.