A Late-Life Comeback to Racing; Some ideas for older post-injury runners
"Roger on Running," Running Times, January 23, 2014
By Roger Robinson
Sunday was my knee's third birthday. Not my birthday, just my right knee's.Three years ago, on January 19, 2011, I went under the knife for a partial knee replacement. (Or under the saw, more accurately. I was a little perturbed when the surgeon told me his father had been a carpenter.) It was surgery that I thought at the time had ended my running for ever. I was wrong. Three months after the surgery, I tried shuffling a few tentative steps. By the first anniversary, I had progressed – slowly, cautiously, stubbornly, to running for one exact hour. I happily celebrated that milestone in this column. (Small Steps, Big Strides, Roger on Running, January 2012).
[For five years, this 2006 newspaper photo (above, right) was captioned 'my last run' - inaccurately, as things worked out.]
“You inspired me get back into running after my first baby,” commented one kind reader. “I loved your account of how deeply you missed being able to run. Most people don't understand that sense of lack,” said another. “However injured and old you are, there's always hope” - that was probably the one I related to best.
So, in mid-January again, another two years on, I thought I should provide an update.
More from Running Articles
A night at the theatre with Marty Glickman, to see a pay about the racist episode when he was dropped from the USA relay team in 1936.
Bernie Portenski, the ex-smoker party girl who became a much-loved marathon legend, sought a new challenge in her early sixties - the triathlon.
The Canadian Women Who Dared Break Through; From media distortion to a delusional cheater Canadian female runners faced many hurdles on the rough road to success -- Published in Canadian Running, Jan/Feb 2016, Vol 9, Issue 1
Miki Gorman, pioneer woman marathoner of the 1970s, Boston and New York City champion, died September 19, 2015, at age 80
