Where Has All the Love Gone?
By Gordon Cherr
It is about two years to the day that I took a nasty spill during a mountain trail race, Big South Fork, in Oneida, Tennessee. That one resulted in a double inguinal hernia, surgery and a long layoff. Today, Buster has me convinced that I need to do a 5 mile time trial and we are busting around the backside of Lake Overstreet on a gorgeous autumn morning when disaster strikes again. I catch my toe on a root and take another flying header into the dirt. Actually, that is what I should have done. However, I did not want to let go of Buster’s leash so I tried to stay upright and stumbled further along for another 20 yards or so, probably most resembling a drunken sailor on his first night of shore leave in six months. Buster is not keen to the fact that I am losing my balance and he cannot accept second place at any time, and he has four legs and never seems to trip or fall, so he continues on relentlessly, pulling me for all he is worth. Why, I do not know, but in that tiny instant I can think only of Sgt. Preston of the Royal Canadian Mounties: “On you huskies,” and I catch another root and down I go. Hard. Very hard. On my face and hip and arm and ribs.
While suspended in midair, a massive surge of adrenaline reduces the little world in front of and below me to slow motion. Enough time to convince myself that this is really going to hurt. I am not the least bit disappointed and in an instant I am laying prone on the trail, I can still feel the breath being forcefully expelled from my lungs. Then I am laying there, just trying to remember for the moment who the heck I am and how did I get down here in the dirt? My, the autumn leaves and blue sky sure do look pretty from this angle down here and then…WHAM…the pain starts to set in. Mommmmmmyyyy…
Surely, if I don’t make it back soon there isn’t going to be any search party out here for several hours I suppose, and my legs still work, so we might as well walk in from here. Well, if we can walk in, then we can run in, so what the hell? I am still sitting there for who knows how long and I don’t feel very good, the truth be known, and suddenly I notice that the dog is licking my face and I wonder if this is how it feels to have a less than completely successful run with the bulls at Pamplona? Mountain bikers are passing by, no one stops to help or even inquire as to the state of my health, while I am sprawled out in the dirt. These bikers are another breed, I tell you. Thanks, guys…
My ribs are really singing to me right about now, whenever I take anything more than a tiny breath. There is a good sized crescent shaped gash on the palm of my left hand but no worries there because all of the crud and dirt from the trail which has been ground into the cut is helping the blood to coagulate. My right hip already has a visible bloody bruise which will become pink and purple, red and green over the next two weeks, and remarkably it eventually will resemble the state of Rhode Island in both size and shape, but by far the most interesting injury is to my right forearm.
When I do get up my forearm is already swollen. It looks and feels just like someone has shoved a golf ball under the skin. I start to walk a little, just to regain my bearings and now the golf ball has grown into a softball and then into a small cantaloupe and within five minutes my arm is so swollen from the elbow to the wrist that it looks like a big French bread. I am reminded of what a bratwurst looks like after a good grilling over an open flame, and I am hoping that the skin will not split that wide from the pressure. Okay, Buster, time to go home.
We jog a great deal slower to the parking lot at Forest Meadows without further incident, and some hard earned sympathy is foremost on my mind. Sympathy and breathing, that is. It hurts with every breath, but that is immensely superior to not breathing at all. Ah, there is Perry Shaw and Kenny Misner, just stretching and getting ready to run. Perry coaches the Lincoln High School runners and not many of you may know that he was a rather fast miler in college at FSU, maybe 4:06 or so, many years and an even greater number of pounds ago. Kenny Misner is simply one of the three fastest runners to ever grace the roads and trails here (the other two: Herb Wills and Ryan Deak) and while his running is strictly for pleasure now, Kenny has retained all of the physical gracefulness and modesty that bless the few natural born runners I have ever known. I saunter up and show them my arm. “Oh, looks like you have a broken arm…bet that hurts…well, see you later”, and off they go. Thanks, guys…
Oh, there is Judy Alexander, sort of a regular weekend running buddy, getting out of her car. Judy also coaches the NFC cross country runners, along with her husband, Brian Corbin. She takes one look at my arm and says “Eeeyoooowww, that is disgusting. Bet you broke your arm…well, you’d better take care of that. Bye, see you later,” and she is gone in the twinkling of an eye, off for her Saturday morning run. Thanks, Judy…
An early Saturday morning about two weeks later and I am back at Lake Overstreet to exorcise the demons, now running the trails with Warren Emo and Jeff Kuperburg. By now I have learned that there has actually been a rash of fall downs around the lake this autumn. Tony Guillen crashed and even fractured a toe and there have been others, so I am in good company. Some would blame this on the leaves covering up the exposed roots on the trails. Personally, I attribute it to not picking up my feet when I get tired, nothing more, nothing less. Plain old clumsiness. We are running easy on the backside of the lake, and BAM!, down I go again. Back on those sore ribs. Warren and Jeff stop momentarily: “Are you ok?” “I guess so” is the best I can muster this time around. They look at each other, then at me, sitting in the dirt…”Well, okay, see you later,” and off they go. Thanks, guys…
I ask you: Where has all the love gone?