the story...

This story began back in 1999 when Dale decided that running was his new passion. He started training and ran his first marathon in early 2000. I can still remember chasing him all over Myrtle Beach with Devan tagging along. This is fun, I thought. After that race you could see that marathoning was in his blood. He truly loved to run. It was a good way to detox from the day. In December 2005 I can remember sitting in our living room talking about our goals for the following year. Dale said, "I'm going to run 6 marathons in 06." I immediately said it was impossible and crazy. THEN he said he wanted to run Boston too. What?!? You have to qualify- a 3:10 for that matter. He had not been training for a few months. Plus what races would we go to/they have to be Boston qualifiers too. He was determined so we looked up tons of races and choose 6 that were far enough apart. So in 2006 he ran: the STL half, the Country Music Marathon, the Sunburst, the San Francisco Marathon, the Heart of America, the Lewis and Clark and the Chicago Marathon. He qualified for Boston In June at the Sunburst at a record 3:05:44- his VERY BEST time! To make a long story longer... he finished all the races for 2006 and began training for Boston (which was in April 07). One month before the race he had an injury. So bad that he could barely walk for a week. He stopped training. His doctor tried many different approaches but could not pin point what the problem was. He was told not to run Boston but NO ONE could talk him out of that! He ran it on the injury, in the middle of a Nor'easter and still ran a good race. He was SO EXCITED. When we got home he was referred to a specialist and bumped to the top of the list. We found out that he had a labral (sp??) tear and bunches of arthritis (that's not exactly how the Dr. put it but that's my way). He would have to have reconstructive surgery and most likely he would not run again. WOW- he never once believe that news though. He had the surgery in December 2007. As he was recovering he discovered pain in the other hip. In July 2008 we found out that hip 2 was also bad. More surgery. And DEFINITELY no more running. SO, today he had his left hip reconstructed (OSTEOPLASTY OF THE FEMORAL NECK AND HIP ARTHOSCOPY). It went well but the surgery was 4 hours instead of 2.5. There was a "significant" tear in the labrum and "significant" arthritis. They had to cut the muscle, "pop" the hip out, then cut away arthritis and reshaped his hip bone (my words not the Dr's). Of course then put him all back together. Not fun. We are so thankful for our very skilled surgeon. He is top in his field and thankfully our orthopedic doctor knew we needed the best. Now comes the hard part. It's a long and painful road of recovery. I think he is still banking on running again (*he hasn't run more than a mile since Boston!). I guess running never leaves your blood.....

before sporting sweet "Teds"...

after (on morphine)...