I was not athletic in high school. In fact, the only time I was ever sentenced to study hall was when I had completely skipped out on sports the previous quarter. I started running a little when I graduated, but not consistently. That was back when running shoes were canvas uppers with gum rubber soles that wore out in a couple of months.

I ran sporadically through college, but started more enthusiastically when I was hired as a reporter in Augusta, Ga. I laid out a course out three miles and then back. I started by running as far as I could and then walking a little. My practice was to run and walk, to keep going until the six miles was done, no matter how long it took.

Eventually I was able to run the whole six miles without stopping, but not very quickly. An eight-minute mile was my pace.

When I quit in 1976, I rode my motorcycle out to Lake Tahoe to visit Tom, my old college roommate. I stayed for a year and a half. That’s where I bought my first serious pair of running shoes, the famous Nike Waffle Trainers, when Tom and I went down to San Francisco.

Early in the summer of 1977 I saw an ad for the Silver State Marathon, to be run around Labor Day just north of Carson City around Washoe Lake. My regular run was six miles, which is not enough to train for a marathon, so I upped the mileage. By the end of the summer I had done a 20-mile run without dying, so I figured I could do the marathon.

Tom decided at the last minute to come with me. It took him a while to get ready, so I was a little late. They were just lining up for the start when we pulled into the park, so I jumped out of the car and run up to the back of the pack, just in time to cross the start line.

About halfway through the race I felt a rock in the heel of my shoe, so I stopped to take it out. I couldn’t find anything. I kept running, but still felt the rock. I stopped and took off my sock a couple of times, but couldn’t find anything. I finished the race with the stone in my shoe. It turned out that there was actually no stone. It was a blister about the size of a silver dollar forming deep under the skin on my heel.

I had hoped to finish the race in around four hours, and I did just slightly better than that. As we drove home — I let Tom drive because I was too exhausted — I thought, “That was fun. I’m never going to do that again.”

That winter I ran out of money and went back to work in Augusta. I kept running, and kept getting slightly better. I wasn’t interested in any more races, and I wasn’t really trying to increase my speed. I kept track of my times, but only out of a vague idea that I should.

I left the newspaper again after a year with no idea of what I wanted to do. I only knew it would not be newspaper reporting. I eventually decided to go to graduate school at Georgia Tech. I took the GRE and found a department that would take me. And then I started running again.

I increased my run to eight miles, and I kept getting better. By the time I had been running this course for a couple of years, I was faster than I had ever been. I was running well. The long grade on the return of my course was not a problem. In fact, I liked attacking the hill.

That’s when I decided that I was a runner.

I did not run to compete. I did not run for my health. I did not run to reach a destination. I ran because I loved it. I ran hard, but it came easily. I felt like I could run like that forever; just point me in the right direction.

I was a runner. I was not a jogger.

In early 1983 I started running some small 10 K races, and did reasonably well. I knew that at 33 I would never be as fast as I could have been if I had started running seriously at a much younger age, but still, I was running better than I ever expected. In December of 1983, I entered a 15K race at Berry College. The course started at the college campus, then on what they call the three-mile road out to the mountain campus, then up dirt roads around Lavender Mountain, not far from where we live now. I felt good for the entire race, right up to the last few hundred yards, when my legs started feeling heavy and I was struggling a little. But I finished the race in under an hour. I think the pace was a little under 6:20 per mile. I beat my training pace and I ran hard enough that by the end of the race I had nothing left. For me, it was a perfect race. 

I did not know at the time that it was the peak and essentially the end of my running career.  Not long after that race, I felt a twinge in my right knee on one of my runs. Twinges in my knee, or a slight pain in my ankle, or some other nagging pain were normal. I ran through them. They always got better. But not this time. It got worse, and it was constant. I went to one of my brother’s classmates who was still at Tech and who was a very good runner. He told me he had gone to a doctor at the Emory Clinic who had helped him recover from an injury. So I made an appointment

It was a disaster. The doctor told me not to run so much. It was literally like the old joke, where the patient says, “Doc, it hurts when I do this.” And then the doctor says, “Don’t do that!”

So, after one good year, I had to give up running.

I took up swimming. After about a year, I went out for a short run. I tried, but it was no use. I was no longer a runner. I had become a jogger.

I kept jogging, hoping to recover. When I moved to Huntsville, Al, I jogged. I kept trying into my 40’s, and my knee kept hurting. And then it was both knees.

Eventually it became clear to me that I couldn’t run any more. I was no longer even a jogger. I had became a walker.

So now I walk the dogs a couple miles a day and do a half an hour on an elliptical stepper.  My knees have been getting worse, all two of them, but it seemed I could keep up that regimen. At least until last Thursday.

I twisted my knee while walking the dogs. It wasn’t bad, only a twinge, and my knees have been twinging off and on for years. I was able to complete the walk by tightening the muscles around my knee on every step. I thought it would go away, but it didn’t.

This is what my knee looked like on Saturday, and it felt every bit as bad as it looked.

I have an appointment with my orthopedist’s PA for Monday. The swelling has gone down some, but it’s still there.

When I saw the doctor in January I asked him when we would know it was time for a knee replacement. He said, “The swelling will tell us.”