My journey as a marathoner...

I'm glad to report that surgery went great! Thanks to the great doctors and nurses at Mass General in Boston, the 3.6 x 2.6 x 1.9cm benign arteriovenous hemangioma soft tissue tumor was successfully removed from my knee. According to the surgeon, the tan rubbery mass has been in there since the summer. The more hard efforts I put in, the more pain I would feel. In my post-op follow up today, the surgeon also mentioned that it is highly unlikely that this tumor returns and that I should be back healthy than ever again as if it never happened. The recovery has been going faster than I had expected. I went from being in two crutches, to one crutch then to walking normal. Every other day I am making some sort of progress. Today, I was finally given the "OK" to start doing physical therapy to help the nerves come back to life. I was even suggested to do a "1 to 2 mile" easy jog, so I ran 1 easy mile to help in the rehab process. This type of exercise will help ge

There's a fine line between injury and fitness. I must confess I've flirted with this line way too many times. I don't consider myself to be "talented runner" by any means. Every accomplishment I've had, has taken a lot of painful but yet joyful hard work over a long period of time. For example, I ran over 6,000 miles in the year of 2011 in order to get to a 2:18 marathon. It may have taken another "talented" guy less than 4,000. This time though, I don't think there is anything I could've done to avoid the injury line. It's just part of running and dealing with it is part of being an athlete. With that in mind, this Friday May 3rd, I will go under the knife to remove a small golf-ball-like mass of fatty tissues underneath my patella, between my tibia and femur. I started feeling pain near the knee area since July 2012. After months off, rehab, preventative strength building, seeing almost a dozen doctors and having several misdiagnosis