One week ago I was somewhere in Pennsylvania, driving to New York for a trail race, when I flipped on the radio and these were the first words I heard. (Yes, really.)

Long distance runner, what you standin’ there for?
Get up, get out, get out of the door.

Okay, who am I to argue with the Grateful Dead.

And I was going to do exactly what they said, by running my first long distance race since January. Long overdue, as I’d signed up to do the Rocky Raccoon 100 in February and the Tahoe 200 in June. But as my readers know, plantar fasciitis in my right foot and the final illness of my wife Joyce scrapped those plans. Now, with my foot healed and a couple of short races run, I was ready to take on the ultra distance again.

And that’s where another sort of freaky coincidence comes in.

At Joyce’s life celebration service earlier this month I told how I’d “proposed” in an alley behind our college co-op as a joke, and she’d accepted for real. “And that was it,” I said. “I never went to a knee, or proposed formally.” (You can read the entire story, and the rest of my tribute to her, on her memorial website.)

Two weeks later, at 7 a.m. Saturday on Staten Island, I crossed the starting line of the NYC Trail Mix 50K, along with two hundred of my new closest friends, fired up to rock the trails. And it was like I’d never missed a beat. Before long I’d gotten into a groove, and with plenty of energy and my legs strong and springy, the miles flowed by. It was gonna be a good day!

Carbo-loading in style at J’s on the Bay the night before.

If you never fall on the trail, did you really run an ultra? – my niece Robin

Halfway through the first 25K loop I fell for the first time. I was on a section of trail that wasn’t very “rooty” so I wasn’t looking too hard, which is when one usually gets me. My left foot caught it, so down I went on my right knee. “Well, that’s one,” I said to the fellow runner who helped me up.

Four miles later, I fell again on the same knee. Hard. Bad enough that I walked for a quarter mile or so. The pain got no worse, so I tried a jog, and then resumed running, and finished the first loop without trouble. Whew. What a relief.

“How did it go?” an aid station volunteer asked me.

“Not bad,” I replied. “I only fell twice.”

“Well, you got another loop to make up for it,” he said.

Sure enough, in the second loop I fell three more times, fortunately less hard. Every one followed the pattern – left foot trips on an unseen root, I go down on my right side. After one more near miss (trip, but recover) my top priority became “stay upright” instead of “run fast” and I watched that dirt like a hawk the rest of the way. It took away some enjoyment of the woods around me, but sometimes that’s what you gotta do.

As it turned out, my second loop was nearly the same time as the first, and I finished in the top third of the field in just under six hours. Not bad for my first time back at it!

At the finish with my two awards – finisher medal, and the “red badge of courage” on the knee.

So there you have it – I talk about “not going to a knee” and then, some invisible force makes me take one five times during a race. Roots? Or Joyce playing a trick on me? I’m not 100 percent sure, but my money’s on the natural vs. the supernatural. Heck, five times isn’t even my record!

As for my knee? Let’s just say it was interesting navigating the stairs at my B&B, and driving back to Michigan from New York. Today, eight days later, it’s nearly back to normal, and I should be able to start running again. A good thing, with another ultra in less than a month.

And Rocky and Tahoe? They are on for 2025!

Long distance runner, what you holdin’ out for?
Caught in slow motion in a dash for the door
The flame from your stage has now spread to the floor
You gave all you had, why you wanna give more?
The more that you give, the more it will take
To the thin line beyond, which you really can’t fake

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Lyrics from Fire on the Mountain, which I’d never heard until then.