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For the second time this year, a sense of longing weakens me as I watch the people running along the streets. I can’t do that. Another calf muscle tear has set me back a step or two; no longer able to run … right now.

Give it time. Recover. Go for a walk instead.

My runner mindset cringes at the thought of going for a walk. Yay. A walk. It’ll take me twice as long to cover half the distance of my regular run. I won’t even work up a sweat, so it’s barely worth the effort or the time I’ll put into it. Such sour grapes. That’s the runner whining.

My anger soon gets a shot of reality when I think of Jennifer and others living with the same disease I have who only wish they could walk a tenth of the distance as me in 10 times the amount of time. And I wonder if they are weakened by a similar sense of longing every time they watch people walking along the streets. They can’t do that. Time and wicked MS exacerbations set them back a step or two; no longer able to walk … right now.

Take the time. Remember. Fake a smile instead.

I only hope I’ll never know what that’s like.

I pray I can recapture my strength and run. Push myself, train and enter a race. Throw my previous personal-best times out the window and set a new mark for me today. See my name and time in the race results; concrete proof that I still can put my best foot forward and stride across the finish line.

I only wish she could know what that’s like.

For us, I walk on with a renewed sense of grateful determination. And with every step I praise and curse this disease for what it’s doing: forcing us to be content with what we still have left, only to feel guilty for selfishly wanting more.

I hope the neighbors didn’t see me punch our mailbox.

On this day the solid black box, accented with its red arm and gold letters identifying it as belonging to Jennifer and me, served as a tangible representation of my Multiple Sclerosis.

And he had it coming.

OK, so I didn’t really punch it. I guess it was more like a smack. It was a my way of nonverbally saying, “So there! Take that, ya thug.”

For as much as I hope the neighbors missed my pseudo-mailbox beating, I pray they didn’t see me crying. OK, so I wasn’t really crying. I guess it was more like a muted sob. This was the day I feared would never come.

I hadn’t gone for a run in nearly two months. I don’t know how I did it, but sometime during a regular training run in early to mid February, I hurt my left calf. Turns out I tore a muscle and my doctor told me to take four to six weeks off from running. Jennifer, who was with me when the doctor handed down my sentence, said I started fussing like a little boy at the prospect of being off for up to six weeks.

“You were being a big baby, but you were kind of cute,” she said. Our doctor showed some leniency and said I could try it after three weeks to see how it felt. At exactly three weeks, I hit my regular trails lightly. And they struck back with a vengeance, making my recovering calf pulse in sharp pain.

So I took more time.

I know sports injuries such as this are not uncommon, and in some ways I was surprised it hadn’t happened before this. But with every day I wasn’t running, I feared MS was catching up with me. I had started preparing myself for dealing with the potential reality that my running days may be a thing of the past.

And I honestly thought my MS, after realizing it couldn’t break my stride by himself, had cut a deal with my left calf to help him bring me down. OK, I understand the MS can get me whenever he wants to, but this wouldn’t be the first time my body turned against me. After all, this is how the whole MS thing started in the first place as my immune system started attacking the healthy myelin surrounding my nerve cells, right?

At nearly seven weeks, I ventured out on the trails again. Half mile, no pain. One mile, no pain. Two miles, no pain. Two and a half miles, no pain. I was home, and this was enough for my first time out. Running never felt so good, and I was doing it. Again.

And so I smacked the mailbox – “So there! Take that, ya thug.” – and I fought back the tears until I was inside the house.

I’ve been out running a couple times since then appreciating every stride I take, slow and easy; more fully appreciating everything I have and can do right now. Everything.

This is what I have today.

We wanted to share with everyone the link to an incredible multimedia package about us that is in the April 25 Morning Sun’s print and online editions.

The project started when Morning Sun photographer Ryan Evon approached us about following us around to develop a photo essay for the area daily newspaper. This package represents more than a year’s worth of his work, and we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. We are grateful for the opportunity to share our story and increase MS awareness.

Click here to see the story, photos and videos that tell our story and how we try to help others to move forward. Please check it out and share it with others! Thanks for checking this out an for visiting us on our blog!

Between a wall showcasing every major brand of running shoe in stock and a wall displaying the industry’s best wicking running apparel, the helpful salesman at Runners in Mount Pleasant squats and watches my feet as I walk back and forth on the uncarpeted section of the floor.

His analysis of my gait determines that I’m a neutral, meaning my foot absorbs the shock the way it was designed to, as opposed to landing heel first or landing on the very outside of the foot first. He tells me what type of shoe I need.

He smirks when I ask him to settle an ongoing debate between Jennifer and me about my status of “being a runner.”

Jennifer wholeheartedly professed that I was a runner, citing that I live and die by my Garmin GPS-enabled sports watch results each time I run and that I have respectful finishes in every race I enter. I, in turn, stressed that I wasn’t a runner. I merely was a guy who runs, pointing out that I maintained nowhere near the gazelle-like physique and pace of the people I pictured as true runners.

“You know what the difference is between a jogger and a runner?” he asks.

“An entry form,” he explains with a smile.

Near the finish line of the 8K race at the 2009 Crim

Following his logic, I’ll agree with Jennifer’s claim that I am a runner. But my numb feet always remind me that I am a runner who has MS.

Most races break down their entrants by specific age groups, not by whether or not they have MS. But if they did, I potentially have finished in the top five of this specific category in every race I’ve ever entered. Race forms will never single out runners who have MS, so I’ll continue comparing myself to other runners who likely aren’t living with this chronic disease.

I may never win any of the races I enter, but I always will have a decent showing because I’m there.

Despite my MS.

And with this New Year, on Aug. 28, 2010, for the first time ever I will run the full 10-mile route at the Crim Festival of Races in Flint, Michigan.

To spite my MS.

Many thanks to everyone for your kind words of encouragement in the weeks leading up to and following my 8K at the Crim Festival of Races!

After sharing my race experiences with you, one of the comments posted by fellow blogger Patrick Leer of Caregivingly Yours got me thinking. He asked, “OK so what was playing in that iPod?”

I’ll tell you in a few seconds, but first I’ll share with you my initial thoughts and ask everyone reading this blog the same type of question: What is playing on your iPod, in your mind, in your heart?

I could recite in my sleep my running playlist of the songs that get me through my running route, as well as others that power me through the tough days, complement my mood on the good days, ease my pain on the sad days and are mainstays every other day. 

What about you? What are the songs that help you through and of those, which one would you recommend I purchase on iTunes to add to my new iPod playlist “From friends.”

As you probably guessed, my 8K playlist was saturated with Springsteen. But there was a little more. I essentially took my “Running” playlist (which includes a song by Green Day) and added a few from my second running playlist* to ensure I had enough music to get me through the five-mile route.

So, Patrick, here is what was playing on my iPod as I ran the race for my record book:

• Streets of Fire – Bruce Springsteen
• Darkness on the Edge of Town – Bruce Springsteen
• Prove it All Night – Bruce Springsteen
• Brothers Under the Bridges ’83 – Bruce Springsteen
• Girls in Their Summer Clothes – Bruce Springsteen
• You’ll be Coming Down – Bruce Springsteen
• American Land – Bruce Springsteen
• Last to Die – Bruce Springsteen
• Bad Religion ­– Godsmack*
• Bawitdaba – Kid Rock*
• Jesus of Suburbia – Green Day
• Enemy – Sevendust*

And of all these songs, the one I’d recommend is “You’ll be Coming Down.” From it’s rhythm to it’s lyrics – Easy street, a quick buck and true lies, Smiles as thin as those dusky blue skies; A silver plate of pearls my golden child, It’s all yours at least for a little while … Like a thief on a Sunday morning, It all falls apart with no warning – this is one of many songs that help keep me moving a step ahead of MS.

I’ve shown you mine, now you show me yours! Comment and let me know what music keeps you moving forward.

I told Jennifer I’d be happy if I finished the 8K at Flint’s Crim Festival of Races in under 50 minutes.

That was going to average out to a 10-minute-per-mile pace. This was slower than my normal pace, but I never had run a race of this distance before. Plus, I had heard horror stories about the “Bradley hills” along this route that have challenged even the most elite of runners – of which I am not.

So, yeah, I was going to be happy if I finished the 5-mile route in 50 minutes.

As I made my way up to the starting line, I went over to get some last-minute encouragement from Jennifer.

Jennifer and her dad, Vic, had made it up to the finish line at about the 48-minute mark to cheer me through the chute (I always shut my iPod off when the finish line is in sight so I can hear her encouraging voice). Minutes passed by and they hadn’t seen me finish the race. Jennifer was getting worried because she’s from Flint and she knows what the Bradley hills are like.

At the 60-minute mark they started to talk about how they were going to have to be very supportive because I was going to be disappointed that I didn’t finish as well as I had hoped.

About this time, they saw me coming … up the sidewalk with my hands full of the bottles of water I got at the finish line some 14 minutes earlier. I had made it to the finish line before they did.

I finished the race in 43 minutes, 47 seconds – an average per-mile pace of 8 minutes, 49 seconds. Turns out this time placed me 9^th out of 31 runners in my age group and 166^th out of more than 750 runners in the 8K race.

And I’ve had MS for nearly a decade.

Jennifer, who like me still is beaming with pride with how well I did, asked me what I remember most about my first 8K. It wasn’t the Bradley hills, which I told her were, “A piece of cake.” Instead, I never will forget getting choked up when I turned the corner onto the bricks of the downtown Flint street and saw the blue banner stretching over the finish line: I was going to finish this race and was going to finish it in a time faster than I ever dreamed possible.

Us before the Crim 8K

As I moved forward with everything I had left in my body, I remembered the incident earlier this year that had me running scared. How easy it would have been to give up on running (and coincidentally myself), which in turn would have given MS an undeserved victory.

With my faith, family, friends and die-hard determination, I stuck with it and kept fighting. And today, MS, victory is mine.

With all the hype surrounding Brett Favre’s triumphant re-return to the NFL today, the timing seemed right to share this column I wrote for the MS Connection newsletter in 2005. The numbers may be a little dated, but the motivating message from then still pushes me today. I hope it works for you too.

I watched with interest as SportsCenter devoted half of its 90-minute broadcast to celebrating Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre’s record-setting 200th consecutive season start.

My favorite ESPN show highlighted the future Hall of Famer’s admirable perseverance over the past 13 NFL seasons. It focused most notably on his playing magnificently while injured, coping with his father’s death, and dealing with his wife’s breast cancer diagnosis.

Even retired baseball great Cal Ripken Jr., who surpassed Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game streak of 2,130 games, was interviewed and congratulated Favre.

I am humbly impressed with the record-setting accomplishments of these, dare I say, “sports gods.” But in many ways, Brett and Cal have nothing on me or anybody else living with MS.

I compete with this disease every day. In fact, May 1, 2005, marks my consecutive day streak at 1,901 days.* This is by no means a record, but with each day, I set a new personal best. 

When I wake up each morning, I don’t even check the roster. I already know I’m in the starting lineup whether or not I feel like competing. Favre always could’ve called in sick.

I have only one opponent, but I can only hypothetically prepare for it, never knowing which team it’s going to bring in for me to face from one day to the next. Favre always can watch tapes to prepare for his next opponents, for the most part, the same opponents he faces several times each season.

But thankfully, just like Favre has Ahman Green, Javon Walker, and Na’il Diggs, I have a pretty strong team of family, friends, and health care officials. They help me both offensively and defensively thwart my competition.

Another similarity between our respective contests is that for as much as our battles are physical in nature, there are even greater demands for mental toughness.

Bret Favre can be seen facemask-to-facemask talking trash to challenge an opposing lineman. And many days I can be found “throwing down” one-on-one with MS. Oh yeah, I trash talk. I trash talk a lot.

I suppose that’s probably my best technique to prevent the disease from throwing me off my game. I firmly believe that while there are many things I can’t control about the effects of MS, my spirit is one thing it can’t touch.

It’s easy to be optimistic when everything is going well. But Favre has earned the greatest amount of respect and admiration as a true champion when he’s risen above adversity, often playing the best games of his life.

My hope is that if I ever face comparable adversity in my competition with MS, my best games also are yet to come.

* When I run the 8K at the Crim Festival of Races on Aug. 24, 2009, my consecutive day streak for dealing with MS will stand at 3,474 days.

Six days ’til the Crim 8K. Here’s the fourth installment of my essay:

Tonight I’ll be on that hill `cause I can’t stop

I’ll be on that hill with everything I got

Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost

I’ll be there on time and I’ll pay the cost

From “Darkness on the Edge of Town” by Bruce Springsteen

This line from what I consider to be among Springsteen’s best has become a mantra of sorts in my life and running with MS. It hits my “Running” playlist as I finish stretching and transition from warming up to running my regular route.

I finish stretching, make sure the iPod is turned up all the way, and reset my Garmin so I can monitor my progress and pace during and after my run. Before I push “Start” on the GPS-enabled sports watch, I always pause to remind myself that after I begin, I’ll be doing nothing but running hard for approximately the next 33 minutes. That is, unless I can cover the remaining 4.1 miles in less time today.

“Bring it,” I say as I simultaneously push “Start” and skip-step into running my route. And even though I move forward with a strong and confident stride, I still hear MS say that he’s already brought it.

“Yeah,” MS says, “so you think you’re so tough with your $125 running shoes and superstar sports watch and wannabe runner apparel that wicks the moisture away from your body. Whatever, Dan. You go ahead and push forward with your paltry route, and, heck, finish it in record time for all I care. When your precious little run is over, I’ll still be here. Like you said before, Dan, I’m not leaving anytime soon.”

So I pick up my pace to spite MS. But I quickly remind myself that I’m not going to let him get into my head. If I push myself too hard, I’ll never have the energy to finish. Then, MS will be able to claim victory. “Not today,” I say, as I reign in my anger and stride back down to the pace of the song at hand.    

I’m like every other person in the world who runs in that we all get tired and worn out the longer and harder we push ourselves. But unlike every other person in the world who runs, I’m pushing the limits of both myself an MS. I truly think I have it in me to someday run a marathon, but I don’t think he’ll let me. I imagine I could do the 26-mile challenge, but I’d have to run at a pace slower than I would like so that I could accommodate MS. He’s such a pansy and starts to freak out anytime I try to pick up my pace or throw an extra mile onto my regular run.

When MS has had enough with my running antics for the day, my left foot starts to drag a little and has a tendency to clip even the slightest protrusion along the road or trail. My left leg is a little weaker than my right, so MS likes to pick on that one first. This is why I wear out the sole in the toe of my left shoe so quickly, why my wife, Jennifer, lovingly reminds me, “Pick up your feet,” before I go for run, and why I stick to running on flat paved surfaces.

My MS-badgered left foot also is the reason why I’ve fallen several times running my regular route and why I fell facedown onto the brick streets of downtown Flint three years ago in the closing 50 yards of the Crim Festival of Races 5K.

It’s like MS is trying to teach me a lesson each time I fall, and each time I always confess to MS that he taught me well. Lesson learned. I need to maintain my focus and push myself even harder next time.

To hell with MS, I’m testing how far I will let myself be pushed.  

The 8K at the Crim is 12 days away, and here’s the third installment of my essay:

“And it’s about now that I always think to myself that there probably are healthy, able-bodied people out there who would kill themselves if they felt as good as I do …”           

As I get close to leaving the calmness that is Concourse Drive, I sneak an anxious peek at what kind of traffic I’ll have to contend with on the temperamental Crawford Road. Some days there is no traffic at all and I can run right on its peaceful highway pavement, like it’s my quiet Concourse Drive continued.

Other days the onslaught of Central Michigan University students heading into campus for class and commercial asphalt trucks hauling heavy loads back to town force me to the outermost edge of the rocky shoulder. As I turn out of Concourse Drive today I stick to the Crawford Road shoulder, bracing myself for the first of two trucks charging toward me in the northbound lane. They’re just so intimidating. Not even Springsteen playing as loud as the iPod will let him can muffle the thunder of the trucks that are only a matter of 5 feet away as they blow past me at some 55 miles per hour.

I remind myself to keep my eyes on the gravel so I don’t trip over some randomly scattered stone and trip into the truck’s charted path. A fraction of a second after the first truck passes I strengthen my stride to counteract the gust that follows in its windy wake. The encounter with the second truck isn’t as brutal because it pulls over into southbound lane and passes by me with about 9 feet of separation. I quietly thank God that I’m only on this short stretch of Crawford Road twice each run. I eventually will brave it again toward the end of my route as I make my way back home.

MS doesn’t say much as I’m warming up on Crawford Road. Maybe he does, but at this point in my run I usually am too busy thinking about the oncoming traffic and the pride that I feel because I’m actually out running again. My mind pauses to fully appreciate the reality that for one more day, my body has maintained its ability not only to walk but to run, and run well.

MS is such an unpredictable disease, and I am terrified of the unlimited potential it has to relentlessly steal from me whatever physical and mental ability it desires anytime it wants to.

I, like the majority of people who have MS, am forced to live with unusually high levels of fatigue throughout certain periods of the day that make even the simplest of tasks nearly impossible to complete. It’s hard to describe what the fatigue feels like other than saying to imagine how it would feel to shovel three inches of snow to clear off the two front steps immediately after shoveling through three feet of snow to clear off the entire Wal-Mart parking lot. The front steps should be so easy to take care of but you truly can’t salvage an ounce of energy from your depleted body.

In addition to the fatigue, constant numbness in my hands—the kind of numbness like when your hands fall asleep—limit my dexterity and make it difficult to do everyday tasks such as typing a quick e-mail, buttoning the top button of my dress shirt, and double-knotting my running shoes. It’s almost as though I’m wearing thick cotton gloves every time I try doing something that involves using my hands. I also have perpetual numbness in my feet and legs, but we can talk about that later when my left foot starts to drag the farther I am into my route.

I turn off of Crawford Road onto the Wellness Central trail along Denison Drive. This marks my half-mile warm-up and it gives me a chance to stop and stretch my muscles one more time before my timed training run begins.

And it’s about now that I always think to myself that there probably are healthy, able-bodied people out there who would kill themselves if they felt as good as I do, while there are others out there living with more progressive forms of MS who would kill others to feel as bad as I do. These are among the groups of people who push me to run my regular route at least three times each week.

’Cause in the darkness I hear somebody call my name

And when you realize how they tricked you this time

And it’s all lies but I’m strung out on the wire

In these streets of fire

From “Streets of Fire” by Bruce Springsteen

I glance down at my feet and I see them striding in time with this opening song of my iPod’s “Running” playlist. It’s an aggressive stride for my regular half-mile warm-up, but this is how I’m feeling today. I’m in a bad mood. Although I guess it doesn’t really matter how I’m feeling any day.

Warming up and running using the same carefully crafted Springsteen-powered playlist—I turn to his music daily for audiological shots of emotional energy—for more than two years I just know that, regardless of what mood I’m carrying with me, by the time Streets of Fire reaches these lines, give or take 10 steps I’m striding over the makeshift asphalt patch near the final curve going out of our quiet neighborhood. It’s an oblong asphalt patch about the size of an overgrown zucchini. I only notice it because with these lines of the song, I always glance down at my feet.

Perhaps it’s just out of habit that I glance down at this point and see where my feet are in location to the oblong asphalt patch. It certainly isn’t because I am physically warming up on what anyone could honestly consider streets of fire. I start out jogging down our sleepy little Southgate Subdivision’s Concourse Drive, which essentially is a big circle around the neighborhood with no through traffic.

Indeed this glance at my feet is habitual because it’s always at this point of the song and at this point in the road that the novelty of “going out for a run” wears off and the reality of what this actually means settles in. And when this happens I no longer feel like I’m running alone. MS is always with me.

“Those feet feel unusually heavy today, don’t they, Dan? I made them pretty numb, huh? You’re right. It’s not just your feet, Dummy, it’s both of your flippin’ legs. You’re barely a minute into what’s going to be nearly a 35-minute run. That’s about how long it takes to drive to Midland, isn’t it? You sure you got it today? You so could just turn around and go back home and rest. Tomorrow, Dan, you can be a hero and run five miles instead of your regular four. Because tomorrow you could feel so much better. What do you say, hero? Let’s call it a day.”

That’s the MS talking, every single time I go out for a run.

I run to prove to myself and to MS that after all these years, he still doesn’t have control over me. And I imagine that it always takes MS until this point of my route to realize that I was serious when I said I was going to go for a run. He always must think I’m just bluffing with that whole stretching thing and double-knotting my Reebok running shoes, putting the Garmin GPS-enabled sports watch on my wrist, strapping the iPod headphones over my head and onto my ears, and then stepping out the door and pressing “Start” on the Garmin and “Play” on the iPod.

Seems like a lot to do for somebody who’s just bluffing.

And in less than two-tenths of a mile, right about at the overgrown zucchini-like patch, MS catches on and every single time starts in with, “Those feet feel unusually heavy today . . .” Striding over the patch and rounding the Concourse Drive curve to leave Southgate, I refute his questioning with, “Today, I can be a champion and run my regular 4.6, including a half-mile warm-up. Because tomorrow, much to your doing, I could feel so much worse.”

MS makes an almost convincing argument for me to quit, but I never have turned around and gone home without first completing my regular route.