Tupa: Even in a run of bad luck, winning effort is everything – Examiner Enterprise

(Note: This is the first of a two-part column.)

One memory from my running days haunts me.

Unfortunately, it was pretty much the final one.

I’ve referred in previous columns to that six-year period, but I’ll make a quick summary for those who didn’t read them.

In the summer of 1981, for some “crazy” reason I enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps — I had already turned 25 and was just two quarters (semesters) shy of my four-year B.A. college degree.

As part of my commitment — or rather nods to survival — I began a personal running regimen the Monday after my Friday enlistment.

I had chosen a delayed four-month enlistment in order to get in one more college quarter and to prepare for the cataclysmic change of life.

Part of that preparation included conditioning for boot camp.

During most of that four-month period, I disciplined myself into a very fine distance runner. Within a week I could cover more than three miles without stopping.

Occasionally I ran on the college track, where I could measure the distance. On a rainy, wind-whipped day in October, I determined to run five miles, wearing just gym shorts, a T-shirt and tennis shoes.

After a couple of laps, the rain drops felt like they were cutting like needles into my chilled skin. But, nothing was going to stop me from going five miles short of an earthquake.

I should add an addendum — I had already had two major surgeries on my right knee four years earlier.

Well, the devotion to running paid off at boot camp. At one point, the series officer threatened to drop me because of my struggles on the pull-ups. But, he gave me another chance because I was one of the five fastest three-mile runners in the company.

At the final boot camp physical fitness test, I surpassed the minimum-required pull-ups, maxed out with 100 points in sit-ups and ran three-miles in exactly 18 minutes, earning another 100 points.

Once I got out to the fleet, as they called it, I continued to run on my own.

While stationed at Millington, Tennessee, I ran six days a week (I never went out on Sunday, for religious reasons) from my barracks to Navy Lake and back again, a pretty far piece.

While in Millington, while playing basketball I also severely injured my left knee. I went to the medical center, but being that it wasn’t a critical injury, was put on a waiting list akin to getting a seat on the first shuttle to Mars.

I soon adjusted to the injured knee and continued to run. The most annoying aspect was that every know and then, maybe once every three days, or so, something in my left knee would pop out of alignment. I’d simply have to stop, reach down with both hands to my calves and push my knee upward and it would click back in.

I ran on that injured knee for more of two-and-a-half years — and I continued to get faster.

At my last PFT, I covered the three miles in 16:50, the fastest time in our battalion and second only to a Naval Academy track coach who was visiting Hawaii and ran with us.

During those years, I alternated daily runs of five and 11 miles on a base on the east coast and mapped out a daily course of nine miles while I served at the Kaneohe base in Hawaii.

I had won my age group (25-to-30) at a five-mile race in the Memphis area, albeit there was a second run that day that attracted several quality runners.

I was absolutely determined to someday break 16 minutes and evaluate my goal after that.

But, after meeting my goal of running 2,100 miles in 1984, my left knee quickly deteriorated and I knew it was time to get it fixed.

I went around a good share of the next six months with a cast on and then with it off while I waited for the operation.

That day finally arrived, in July 1985. The surgeon told me afterward he had never seen such a nasty cartilage tear. The occurrence of my knee popping in and out completely went away.

Within just a few weeks, I began running again, and celebrated my recovery by running in a road race in Waikiki to raise money for the Statue of Liberty restoration.

But, I was no where near where I had been a year earlier, or where I wanted to be.

My four-year tour of duty ended soon afterward and I returned to Utah. I had already determined to continue to run.

(The second part of the column is planned for Tuesday.)