Flashes of Panic

What a difference a few years make.

Tonight (in a bit more than six hours, actually,) the last of my several college coaches will be running the 1500m prelims at the Olympic Trials.

The summer after the season I ran for him, he was fourth in the Atlanta Trials, and lacked only an Olympic “A” standard to run in the Games. He tried several times, but at that point was suffering with PF, for which he ultimately had surgery. The last spot on the team went to someone else.

In 2000, he was the fastest of those with “provisional” marks for the Trials, but USATF opted not to take any provisional qualifiers, and he stayed home.

More recently, he’s been significantly more relaxed about his running. At some point, I read an article where he claimed to be running 30-mile weeks and playing on an over-30 softball team. But I saw him headed to a workout last month, and he was looking pretty sharp. He only had a provisional mark this year as well, but USATF opted to “fill the fields” this time, and he’s in. Odds are pretty good he won’t make the final, but stranger things have happened. After all, somewhere he has an World Championships medal from the indoor mile, which isn’t something many of these guys can claim. Come to think of it, though, he probably won it before a lot of the guys he’ll be running with started shopping for colleges; just from skimming the list, if he’s not the oldest in the field, he’s second oldest. There’s only two guys in there who are older than me.

Aside from being excited for him, I suppose the take-home lesson for me should be that yes, with patience, I too will be running again, but that’s tinged with some envy. He’s running, I’m not.

Physical therapy this morning was interesting. Ultrasound, which I’ve tried before (last fall.) Then what they call iontophoresis, which is a way to drive an anti-inflammatory through your skin with an electrostatic charge, I think. Not unlike a cortisone shot, but much milder and without the tissue damage and eventual muscular brittleness that comes from the shot. They want to stretch me, too.

And they want me there three times a week for several weeks, which is really going to put a wrench in the schedule I’ve pieced together over the past few weeks of not running.

Now playing: Lightnin’ Hopkins from Document by R.E.M.