A Broken Leg?

Newsletter 2021-06-06

Normally, these newsletters are about how my kids injured themselves in the most illogical ways possible. In the wrong hands, even a plastic first aid kid is a weapon. But this week, there was a much larger and softer victim: me. As with nearly all the problems in my life, this one started with exercise. I've been running a certain race around a certain lake for more than two decades, starting when I was in junior high. I should probably stop phrasing it like that because it makes me realize I’m old. I hate it when numbers tell the truth. But in all those years, I’ve never had a race like the one Saturday. It’s good to know that, even at the age of thirty-five, I can still set a new bar for personal humiliation. This is that story.

The race was simple enough: One seven-mile loop around a lake on some of the most rugged terrain central Illinois has to offer. Unlike my current home in Indiana, where anything steeper than a wheelchair ramp is considered a mountain, this course has actual …