The Midland Run 15K was on May 19th, 1985. Less than two days before, I had had a bad car accident and had been pretty shaken up. I had picked up my 6-year-old daughter, Tara, and was driving home when a vehicle ahead of me made a left-hand turn out of the right lane, and we hit them head-on.
The other driver was driving an old Ford van and I was driving a Nissan pick-up truck, which was totaled. My daughter was quite shaken up, but neither of us suffered any life-threatening injuries. The next morning, I had a very sore right quad from hitting the brakes so hard, but otherwise, we were both okay.
On Sunday morning, we went to the Midland Run 15K and met my parents so that they could watch Tara and watch the race. This was my third time running the race and I was the fittest that I had been since college. I ran 53:03, a 5:42 pace, and that was good enough for 36th place overall in a race with over 1,000 runners.
Monday morning, I woke up with what I thought was a toothache, and that was the start of a three-year nightmare-like time in my life as I went back and forth between 13 dentists and ear, nose, and throat specialists, and included a trip to the emergency room at 4:00 am one morning. During that time, I developed a systemic yeast infection, paid for out of pocked and took Diflucan, and followed a sugar-free and yeast-free diet. I was diagnosed at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital with CFIDS and at one point was so exhausted all the time that I couldn’t walk up the flight of stairs to my bedroom and had to sleep on the floor in the living room.
My competitive running career ended on the day of the Midland Run 15K 40 years ago today, but I kept trying to run and kept trying to feel better and never gave up.
The happy memory from this day is the race. I found a T-shirt from the race on Etsy, and the link to it is here. I don’t think that it is from 1985, though…
