TRUE GRIT

DAVE PREPARES TO RUN A 50K THIS WEEKEND, DESPITE THE CANCER AND A LESS THAN HOPEFUL RADIOLOGY REPORT

"Dammit! I was sleeping so good. I guess I need to start driving to Kansas, though. Gonna try to walk fifty miles tomorrow if I get myself all the way there, which is a decision I'm still making. Shouldn't the adrenaline be kicking by now? Hello! Adrenaline! Oh, God. Cristina Renfro was so soft and sweet and the bed was so warm. Stop it! This is nonsense! It's not that bad a drive and you know the route be heart. Stop at Rush Running on the way there--that'll cheer you up! You said you wanted to visit the Mothership, the new store in Bentonville, so do it! Nope. As soon as the guys pressure-washing the breezeway finish, I'm hitting the road and I ain't stopping till I get to the same gravel road where I stopped to pee last time. Hey, I think my afternoon pain pill is starting to kick! Fucking oxycodone is magic! You know what? Turn your alarm off, Babes. I'll sign Donald out of school a few minutes early and get him some French fries on the way home. I want to kiss my baby. Hell, were it not for an accidental conversation with Zach Adams this morning, I wouldn't even know there was going to be a speaker at Celebration Hall tonight. I'd love to hear his presentation, but I'll meet the dude at the finish line instead. I want to pick my son up from school. That's my job. Balance, baby! Balance!

You should read my radiology report, which contains the word innumerable. I'm as proud of that word as I was of the speeding ticket I got in 1988 when I apparently passed a sheriff's deputy in my Datsun 510 autocross car at the Doty fire hall on Nemo Road and she didn't become visible in my mirror until I was already in Rapid City. She wrote "very excessive, dangerous speed in corners" on the ticket but was super cool about it. She didn't seem pissed at all; she knew she was outgunned! But that's lateral information. The point is that I'm gonna finish this fucking race regardless of what it says in my radiology report. I dropped last year because I didn't know what I was doing. Not this year. I can shit my bowels out and I will not drop. As long as my heart is delivering oxygenated blood to my brain, I'm going to keep walking, and that is a fact. Just want you all to know."