The dumb things a guy will do for a bowl of bean stew

Some of you may recall last fall when, after watching my wife participate in running races for decades, I finally found myself inside the starting corral with a number pinned to my T-shirt. Months before, Kristin had sold me on the fun and camaraderie of a trail run, claiming that since I was in good shape from racing bicycles for most of my life, the whole thing should be a breeze.

It was not a breeze. Nevertheless, a couple of hours and two wailing quadriceps later, I had run, limped and at times actually crawled a distance of around 10 miles on a forested trail in Mohican Country.

They handed me a cool shirt and a bowl of chili at the finish line, and I got to hang out with a bunch of fun mud-, sweat- and blood-spattered people. Aside from the weeklong recovery period — during which my legs felt like they’d been beaten with a bag of bricks — it was a wonderful experience.

Strange what time and distance do to the memory of pain. The agony of the event faded from memory much more quickly than the smoky aroma of that bean soup. Within a month Kristin easily coaxed me into another race, this one in the spring, with the happy asterisk I would “have plenty of time to train over the winter.”

I did have plenty of time, and I used none of it to train for a running race.

And so it was I arrived at the starting line of my latest misery, ready to run in a park Kristin and I hike every few weekends. I figured that in knowing the trails, the misery would ebb and flow as I passed familiar landmarks. That’s exactly how things went. There was plenty of pain, for sure, but at the same time, there were moments of sheer joy — most notably as I crossed the finish line with nearly all of my skin and seemingly each of my bones in the proper place.

They handed me a grilled cheese sandwich and a stocking cap. Running people really know how to keep you coming back.

Now for what may well be my running epitaph.

All seemed well and good post-race, save for the expected “quad” pain and various other aches. I went home and stewed in a tub of Epsom salts, got a good night’s sleep and climbed on my bicycle the next morning to ride to work. The whole happy scene changed dramatically as I arrived at the door to my building and could not step off my bike. I was literally folded in half like a hard-shelled taco over the handlebars.

I remained there, frozen like a bronze statue, for several minutes until the pinch in my lower back released enough for me to lean against a parked car and let the bike drop from beneath me.

A week’s worth of chiropractic crunching, and I still can’t put my own socks on. This may be it for my brief and sparsely storied running career — bean soup, stocking caps and grilled cheese notwithstanding.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.