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Is it fair to say you are a runner if you don’t actually run?

I ran a mile this morning. It has been 262 days since I ran that far, but who’s counting, huh?

On January 4, 2023, while living in Carlinville, Illinois, I went for a run in the early morning darkness. It was a familiar run to the Square, still decorated with festive holiday lights, and I noticed a pain in my left leg different from the typical getting older pains. Instead of making a good decision, I chose to tough it out and finish the three-mile run, but by the time I arrived home I realized that was a mistake.

I did not seek any medical advice, because how silly would that be, right? I chose limping instead. More accurately, I thought “rest” solved everything, so I tried to rest it out. That didn’t work. Eventually, I poorly described how I felt in a casual conversation with my friend, Abby, an athletic trainer, who thought it sort of sounded like IT band trouble. I responded with what seemed smart: a morning stretching routine; working on my core, and doing some cardio on an exercise bike. I truly thought that was going to help. It didn’t.

In mid-April, I secretly flew to L.A. for a job interview and took a redeye home, which led to an uncomfortable night crammed into an airplane seat. Not long afterward, I discovered the worst lower back pain of my life; so painful, in fact, that I actually listened to my wife’s advice to visit a chiropractor, which don’t tell Jody this part, but that was the first good choice I had made in all of this. It turns out that it wasn’t my leg or my IT band at all; instead, I had some spinal issues that desperately needed addressing.

Months later, with the critical help of chiropractors in Illinois and now California, slowly (and with an emphasis on slowly), this morning, I went to Zuma Beach and ran a mile. All to say, I’m happy today. Still a long way to go, like the ancient Lao Tzu quote about a thousand-mile journey starting with an itsy-bitsy step, although I’m not sure Lao Tzu actually said itsy-bitsy, but you get the drift.

Today’s little milestone could have been depressing instead, I guess. My pace was terrible, less Noah Lyles and more Noah shuffling the elephants around the Ark. It actually seems that I am racing faster through my middle-age years than I did at Zuma this morning, and that could be a downer to someone who once did not question whether it was okay to call himself a runner.

But.

I remember a story about the great hall-of-fame baseball catcher, Roy Campanella, after his terrible automobile accident in 1958 that left him paralyzed just before the Dodgers played their first season in Los Angeles. Whoever told the story mentioned seeing a PT nurse toss a little toy ball to Campy and his struggle to catch a ball that a toddler could catch. A hall-of fame catcher struggling to catch a toy. But you know what, Campy kept trying to catch that ball while writing a book that he titled, It’s Good to Be Alive.

So, dadgum it, call me a runner. I am a runner that ran a mile today. And when I did, with plenty of time to think about it, I thought: It’s good to be alive.