Reality check (by Glenn Munson

Accept Where You Are and Go From There

By Glenn Munson

“Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is, and there’s got to be a way through it.” – Michael J. Fox

What do you do when you face a really discouraging life challenge? Not just a disappointing challenge, but a gut-wrenching, life-changing transformation that you didn’t see coming. Give up, resign, and let it eat away at you? Go through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance?

Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease at age 29, at the height of his career. We all know what he did then. He continued acting, started the Michael J. Fox Foundation and raised over $800 million for research into the disease.

Now, I’m not comparing myself to Michael J. Fox, but I like to think that I did follow his example. In my case, I was handed a bad deal that cut short my running career, a rewarding career that gave me great satisfaction and enjoyment and also gave me the opportunity to travel and to make friends here in Memphis and around the country. But I made a decision that kept me going. I resigned myself to skip the first four stages of grief and go right on (almost) to acceptance.

The First Tennessee Marathon was my first marathon in December 2000, two months after my fiftieth birthday. I had decided the previous spring that the marathon would be my mid-life crisis cure. I trained over the summer with Mark Higginbotham’s Green Team, lost 35 pounds, and became a marathoner. Mark preached fun for the first marathon, not speed, so we were slow, so slow in fact that the motorcycle policeman at the end of the running crowd warned us that there was a time limit! The best part of the whole race was, of course, the finish where serendipity had my daughter Courtney put the finishers medal around my neck. (That’s another story.) My time was 4:48:12, breaking my goal of five hours.

Over the next couple of years, I became one of the best runners in my age group in Memphis. I began to consistently break 20 minutes for 5k races and 44 minutes for 10k. A year after St. Jude, I broke four hours in my third marathon; and in February, 2002, in New Orleans, I ran sub-3:30, my first Boston Qualifier. I qualified for Boston twelve years in a row, running it seven times, with my last qualifier in March, 2013, for Boston 2014.

In early May, 2013, while running with my usual group of friends, I found myself unable to keep up with them. My breathing was way off, I had to walk, and I was sweating a whole lot more than usual (and that’s a lot!) Over the next couple of days, I picked up a cough, ran a serious fever, and tired easily. The diagnosis was pneumonia, and the first couple rounds of antibiotics had no effect. The drug that the doctor really wanted to give me had a side effect of a ruptured Achilles tendon (believe it or not), so he didn’t prescribe that one at first.

Finally, after a month, he did and things cleared up soon afterwards. Unfortunately, it was a bit late. My pulmonologist confirmed with x-rays that I had lost about 25% of my lung capacity. That summer, my 5k time was almost 40 minutes, a 10k well over an

Glenn Munson

hour. Little did I know then that only once more in my even got a third place in a 5k because only two other running future would I break a 10-minute mile in any runners over 65 showed up. race. And then the diagnosis changed again.

Just over a year after running my Boston Qualifier Scleroderma is another autoimmune disease that in under four hours, I ran Boston 2014. We all know affects the lungs, skin, feet, and kidneys, and makes about Boston 2014, a year after the bombing at the Reynaud’s disease even worse than it already was for finish line. It was an incredible experience, filled with me. It’s known to be “exercise adverse”. In my case, pride, patriotism, and a heavy police and military the greatest effect was on my lungs. Although exercise presence along the 26.2-mile route. And I had plenty is recommended to relieve some of the effects, my of time to see it all. My finish time was over five and a run/walks became more walk/runs. I tried to keep half hours. It was my last marathon. training “runs” to a fifteen-minute pace, and I was

During the next year, my races were typically racing about fourteen-minute pace. It meant running run at a ten-to-twelve-minute mile pace, depending for about ninety seconds and walking for as long as on the length; and I accepted the fact that my fast it took to recover or until I felt like shuffling my feet days were over, but not my medical problems. March, 2015, brought Acceptance makes again. I was back in Corral 4 for the next what was thought to be a stress fracture in my ankle, an incredible Road Race Series, and it putting me in a boot for was a slower six months before surgery corrected the real problem fertile soil for the series than before. But at and putting me in another boot for another three months. But that was the seeds of change. least I was still passing other runners now least of my problems. One morning I could hardly get — Steve Maraboli and then, and I was out there out of bed because of pain on Sunday and cramps in my arms, shoulders, and legs. A trip mornings, either racing or with the Germantown to the doctor brought a diagnosis of Polymyalgia Thoroughbreds. Rheumatica, an autoimmune, inflammatory Most important, I became a member of the MRTC disorder related to arthritis. Two months later, my Finish Line Crew, earning my “red jacket” in January, rheumatologist changed the diagnosis to Remitting 2020. It was time to give back to the great group of Seronegative Symmetric Synovitis with Pitting Edema runners and friends who were such an integral part of (or RS3PE for short), another more serious relative of my life for the past 20 years. In doing so, I discovered Rheumatoid Arthritis. a new group of now life-long friends and something

Between ankle surgery and the pain from the almost as rewarding as placing in a race or qualifying RS3PE, I didn’t run for ten months. I came back for the for Boston. It’s one of the main reasons I still run: 2016 Road Race Series and my place at the start line in to keep connections with old friends and to make Corral 4. I now accepted my fourteen-minute mile pace. connections with new friends. More significantly, It wasn’t easy but, as Michael J. Fox said, it was what it however, I run to keep connected with myself, my was. running life, and my changing goals.

Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as Over the past couple of years, I’ve learned about if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against acceptance. I’ve accepted that my running career, as it it. – Eckhart Tolle was for about 15 years, is long gone. It was great but it’s over. Like John Bingham said, “Everything changed

I worked with “it” where I was physically and hit the day that I understood that…I would have to run the roads as I had for the past sixteen years. Running with the body I had.” There were other lessons as well. was my release, my activity, my social life. I wasn’t They have become a guide for my current running life: giving it up. I could live with running at that pace, Sometimes you just need the courage to begin again throwing in more walks than I used to. A year later, I and accept the fact that it may never be the same as it was doing more races at around a thirteen-minute pace, was.