October 24th, the day I had looked forward to for months.  One full year since I had surgery on my foot.  One full year away from a training/racing schedule that had become almost reflexive.

I had a lot of growing pains in that year.  Every time I missed another race, or took two steps forward and one step back, I was reminded that big injuries break more than a bone, tear more than a tendon…they reach into the control panel of your flight deck, rip out the “Auto-Pilot” button, wires and all, and chuck it out the window.

And thank goodness.  Auto-Pilot is a killer of dreams.

So after missing USA Nationals in June and completely screwing over the 2009 season, I stopped groping around for the auto-pilot button and realized that the old schedule was out the window, old “truths” about healing times were crap, return to fitness estimates are useless, and I had better grab hold of the steering column and take a good look at the horizon or I was going to crash the plane.

So that’s what I did.  I said, “OK, USA’s was just this day on your calendar that got you through the last 8 months of recovery.  Something to look forward to.  Well, you don’t get to pick the day your body is ready to kick butt again.  Sucks, don’t it?”  So I didn’t race.  I took care of my niggles instead and stopped trying to fit my recovery into some arbitrary season calendar.  I decided I wasn’t going to feel bad about it.  Instead I was going to celebrate being my new enlightened self, and focus on what I was gaining rather than what I was missing out on (at that exact moment I was gaining a cheese pizza and a beverage, and missing out on absolutely nothing whatsoever). Good start.

The next four months, I put a new day on my calendar.  October 24th, the day of the Nike Plus Human Race.  The day the world runs 10k and uploads it online to feel a sense of connectedness to the global running community (or to voraciously tear through all the results and see how your time stacks up).  For me, the race was to be a day to celebrate the passing of a year, and I had four months to find out how to look at that positively.  My goal was to get to the day of the race and feel good about myself.  Feel good about my progress.  Feel excited about my future as an athlete.  I wanted to feel the way I felt when I first fell in love with running in high school, somewhere at the end of my freshman cross country season.  I was out on this 6 mile run with my team, and we were about to run State that weekend, and we had a chance to win it.  We were running up to this water tower, on a loop that wound down some dirt roads torn up by dirt-bikers into a sandy wash, and out the other end of the dyke back to campus.  A loop we had done 20 or 30 times since I joined the team.  Here I was with all the Varsity Girls, mostly seniors, and I’m 4′10″ tall and totally awkward in real life, but on this trail at this moment, I am one of them.  I am hardly breathing as I crest the hill…its quiet except for our footsteps, all of us ready to run the best race of our lives up to that point.  I knew then that I was a runner for life.  And no matter what obstacles I run into, now or in the future, no matter how much success I have, that love for running is the only truth that matters.  It is the purest blood that can pump through my athletic life.

Its 5pm, October 24th.  I double-check the foot-pod in my Lunarglides and slide the insole back in before slipping the shoe onto my foot.  Selecting “shuffle” on my ipod, I put the earphones in and clip the ipod to my shorts.  I reset my watch and walked down my apartment steps toward the speed-bump in the road that marks the start and finish of all my runs. “Begin 10k workout.”  I’m off for my NikePlus Challenge: “The Human Race.”

My legs are tight from 10 miles in the morning with the 5 mile tempo I did at 5:35 pace (a season best), and for a moment I wish I had remembered to bring my nike plus with me in the morning so I wouldn’t have to do this now.  But, alas, I’m committed.  After 4 minutes or so, as I hop onto Pre’s Trail, my stride opens up and I feel completely fresh.  The voice on my ipod says “1k completed” and I feel calm and relaxed.  I settle into an easy pace and listen to the music as I pass alongside the rushing river, my footsteps in sync with the current and the music at the same time.

Because my ipod is on shuffle, all sorts of random stuff is coming up, and since I’m feeling particularly nostalgic, the songs take me to the time in my life when it was important to me.  The Waifs’ “lighthouse” takes me back to Oberlin, Ohio, 2004, when I moved there to train with Vin Lananna after he left Stanford.  I’m filled with memories of Black River Cafe, loops around soybean fields, my 83 year old lovely roommate Dori who took me in, and my friend Jen who I’ve since lost touch with and regret it.  Then Vampire Weekend plays “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and I remember the first run back from injury where I felt totally normal, the rhythm of the song matching my stride perfectly, and I picked up the pace just to feel the scenery fly on by.  Then Celine Dion comes on and I press skip.  And so on, and so forth, for 10k.

I hit the speed bump outside my apartment and press stop.

Mission accomplished.