Running is for Ever: part 2

This space has been quiet for some time but it is great to be back. So much has happened that its difficult to know where to begin or how to sum up the past few months in a single blog. So I thought it would be good to write a retrospective through the running lens as a follow-up to my post, “Running is for Ever” from back in December.

Just before Christmas, a friend had given me some good advice. In an email he had written that even though the future held uncertainty, I could be sure of one thing: running is forever.

At the time, Colleen had been undergoing dialysis treatments for a month, having first learned she had kidney disease in 2008. I was undergoing tests to determine if I could donate one of my kidneys to her.

Three months earlier, we had been in London where Josh and I had proudly represented Canada in the T11 (blind) 1500 and 5000 metres at the Paralympics. For Josh and I, standing together on the medal podium had felt like vindication for everything and everyone who had helped make this moment possible. It might have been enough to call it a career at the age of 35 with four Paralympics behind me, or conversely, fuel to light an even brighter fire.

Running has impacted me in so many important ways. It has challenged me to develop as an athlete and as a person, has taught me about discipline, courage, humility and hard work, and has introduced me to so many amazing people. And I have seen running unlock the human potential in so many others too, and open their eyes to what is possible. I had not missed more than a couple of weeks of running at one time for years, so this was going to be a new twist in the road. However, it always felt like the right course to be on.

On March 7 2013, I became a kidney donor, undergoing successful transplant surgery with Colleen. Before our surgery, the medical team prepares you for every possible scenario. You know the odds of success are heavily in your favour but surgery is surgery and anything can happen. A few hours after my operation as they wheeled me out of Recovery, the surgeon came over and said that my kidney had started working right away on the table and that everything had gone exactly as they had hoped. Within a few days, Colleen and I were both back home and on the road to recovery.

The surgeon had prescribed no running or strenuous physical activity for six weeks post surgery. Almost right away, we started walking and over the next few weeks, would go for many walks outside and on our treadmill at home. For the first time in many years, I was not thinking about running. And strangely, I was at peace with it. We continued to walk daily. It felt good to move, for its own sake. Over the weeks, we became stronger.

Ten weeks after our surgery, Colleen is feeling great. She has new energy which she didn’t have before. If you ignore the bottles of medication on our table, which Colleen takes from each day to prevent rejection or infection, it almost feels as though our surgery never happened. We are very conscious that not everybody bounces back as quickly from transplant surgery. Being young and active are things which I think helped us, coupled with amazing medical care and the wonderful support of family and friends all the way through this process.

I received the go-ahead a month ago to begin jogging and over the past few weeks, working with Ian and Josh, I have been building up slowly to the point where now we are back on the track with hopes of competing this summer. I really don’t know what direction things will take or whether it will be possible to reach the competitive level I was at previously. Though I’ll give it my best effort, I don’t think it is about winning or losing in the way it might have been before, when weighed against the health of those closest to you. Running for running’s own sake will always be there. I’ve come to understand that my friend was right – running really is forever.

On Track, Taking New Steps

I’ve been absent from the world of blogging for a while, and figured it was high time for an update. I’ll call it hybernating because this has been a long hard winter. We’ve had snow, cold, freezing rain… every week seems to have brought some kind of a weather crisis. Last year I got off easy as Josh and I spent time training in Florida and then in Arizona and California. This has by all accounts been a tough winter however. It started snowing 24 hours ago and it is still snowing out there. I can understand why people choose to not live here in winter. Maybe one year, I’ll actually get serious about taking up a winter sport and “embrace” the season that many people see as beautiful… maybe I’ll be converted!

But enough complaining about the weather, I want to share our big news. Colleen and I are set for renal transplant surgery a week today, on March 7. We have spent so much time thinking about this, talking about it and All of a sudden, life is moving fast it seems. We have a house to clean, paperwork to complete (Power of Attorney, employment insurance claim, etc), some cooking to do… Colleen is down to just two more dialysis treatments (that’s six sleeps) before getting admitted to hospital on Wednesday. My mum is flying up on Wednesday night. They will operate on me at 8 am Thursday, and then Colleen’s surgery will take place right after that around noon on the 7th.

I’ve been running and we have been on the track a handful of times. Josh and I are going to jump into a 3000m race this Saturday. It will really just be a gage of fitness but I’m looking forward to putting on spikes and getting out there. We have been experimenting with me running on Josh’s inside and are going to try it on Saturday. After surgery, it will be six weeks of no training at all.

How are we feeling about everything? Colleen is more nervous about all that we need to get done before the surgery. She isn’t nervous about the procedure and is facing it with such grace. Her whole attitude is, “they know what they are doing, they do this all the time!” She truly is ready to embrace it. I’m the nervous one. But I’m excited too, we both are. We have met recently with two people who received a kidney from a live donor, both of whom are doing fantastic as are their donors, and this was very reassuring. The medical team we have been meeting with have prepared us well in terms of what to expect, but they have also geared us for the “worst case”, just so we have open eyes going into it. They are just doing their job of course. The per centiges are heavily stacked in our favour with about 95 % likelyhood that my kidney will work for Colleen. The thought of no more dialysis treatments, being able to eat wholesome nutritious foods she has had to avoid for years, and having increased energy are prospects which make it so very worth it. The process of our medical workup has been thorough and in many ways, its completely unbelievable to be at this point, just a week away. The cliche, taking a step back to take many steps forward, definitely applies I think.

A few weeks ago a retired sports reporter named Martin Cleary, who has covered the Paralympics and local Paralympians for years, wrote this article which appeared in the Ottawa Citizen. Martin if you read this, thanks so much for telling our story. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Cleary+Paralympic+athlete+Jason+Dunkerley+donate+kidney+wife/78. Prior to this, many people, including some of Colleen’s friends who she went to high school with, hadn’t known about her need for a transplant. That made for a few interesting conversations. We have had so much support – offers of drives to medical appointments, meals when we need them after surgery, just people being there for us – we even had a free teeth cleaning offered to minimize bacteria going into surgery, and the offer of pro bono athletic therapy treatment following the surgery – we consider ourselves extremely lucky, and are sincerely grateful and appreciative.

Finally, some people have said I’m doing a heroic thing. I think life can take you in directions where suddenly you are in the position of being seen in a heroic light. What I am doing is no different than what others would do in my shoes, or what many others have done. Its a privelege to be in a position to give what you have, and to know it can make a meaningful difference for another person, for someone you love.

Running is for Ever

So it has been a while since my last post and I’m overdue for an update. Colleen has been continuing with her treatments and has for the most part, been feeling pretty good. Now that she has been receiving dialysis treatments for five weeks, she is about to be moved to a different clinic and the timing of her treatments is going to be changing too, so this will mean some new juggling for her and rearranging her work schedule, as well as transportation as the new clinic is a bit off the beaten trackfrom where we live.
I’m continuing to be tested as a potential kidney donor. The testing is extremely thorough. Over the past few weeks I’ve given a urine sample, had an ECG, chest xray, abdominal ultrasound, and a renal scan. I’ve also met with a doctor, sat through a presentation on kidney donation and met with a psychiatrist… they really cover all the angles. There is one more test that I have tomorrow, a renal cat scan, along with meeting with a social worker, and then meeting with a surgeon tomorrow afternoon. If they determine that I can donate based on my anatomy and the testing, the surgery would be scheduled, possibly as early as February from what they are telling us.
As far as running goes, I’ve been getting back into it slowly. I’m starting the third week of an eight-week phase of base building, the first phase of a thirty-two week plan which Ian has mapped out leading up to the IPC Athletics World Championships in the summer of 2013. This week I’m hoping to run six times. On Monday mornings I’m water running and am starting to add some ellyptical and stationary bike rides through the week as well. None of it is very intense at the moment as the point is just to carefully increase training volume. If I am the donor for Colleen, then getting as fit as possible before the surgery will help a lot with working back into training in the weeks following the transplant.
There have been a few pesky little achilles and calf injuries that I’ve been trying to get over this fall. Josh is still nursing his achilles back to health also, so we are both “china dolls” at the moment. I’ve been going for chyro and massage treatments a couple of times a week and its encouraging to feel that things are starting to come around.
With having been a little bit injured, and with upcoming surgery likely, there have been some days when I wondered whether it was really worth it to be putting the energy and time into trying to train. A friend of mine wrote to me recently with some really good perspective. He said running was for ever and that it will always be there to enjoy, no matter at one level. He reminded me that I’ve done a lot and that I could come back at any time, that I could write a book or become a coach. This really put things into context for me. And it also opened my mind to the idea that the process of training is truly enjoyable and very liberating, that I should feel no pressure even though the future is uncertain, and that there is real value in doing it for its own sake.

The New Normal

Its been a while since I’ve written an update. After gearing up for the Paralympics and being on such a high over those few weeks, life has slowed down and I’ve slowed down too. I’m back into the routine of working, some running, some volunteering with Ontario Blind Sports and our Achilles Ottawa running club, and spending Saturday mornings at home which was something I was looking forward to. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s next.
However things rarely go in the way you imagine. I wrote in a previous blog post that my wife Colleen was diagnosed with progressive kidney disease back in 2008. She has been closely monitored by a medical team over the past three years or so, and though her kidney function was slowly deteriorating which was expected, she was doing all the right things by eating properly, exercising and taking care of herself. At a recent appointment she found out that the level of protein in her blood had skyrocketed, which came as a total surprise. Although we had known that dialysis and a kidney transplant might be coming down the road for Colleen, we didn’t think that she would be contemplating either quite so soon. Yet like everything, she takes things in stride. This is a lesson I’m still learning.
Yesterday Colleen had a procedure to insert a pick line enabling her to receive hemo dialysis treatments. This is one of two forms of dialysis, the other of which can be done at home. For Colleen this would not have been a viable option because of the possibility that the line might become clogged.
Following this procedure she had her first dialysis treatment. She has another treatment tomorrow, and then she’s going to be starting a regular pattern of Monday, Wednesday and Friday treatments at the Riverside hospital here in Ottawa. Each treatment lasts for about four hours. On a positive note, she feels great… in a way its difficult for her to understand that she could be sick when she feels healthy. She has accepted her new fate with so much grace.
Over the spring and summer, I had been tested to find out if I would be compatible as a potential kidney donor for Colleen. Through a blood test, they discovered that I have the hepatitis C antibody, which seemed to rule me out of being considered as a donor back in the summer. Recently though, they have determined that there would be minimal risk of me passing on the virus to Colleen, meaning that I could be a candidate to donate. I did some more tests yesterday and still have a few before we’ll know for sure, but it is looking like a good possibility and if everything works out, the transplant could happen as early as this winter.
What about running? The short answer is that I’m not sure where things will go. As hyper-focused and anal as I get about running, something like this makes you realize that it isn’t everything, that life and health and being there for your loved ones matters far more. I know I’ll keep running in some way or other and we’ll just see what happens.
I’ve been running although my achilles has been a bit iffy. It started with my right achilles but now its my left achilles that’s the problem. I’ll do a good run or a tempo, and then it will become tender and I’ll have to back off for a few days. Does this sound at all familiar? I’ve had two achilles injuries in the past, both times after coming back from time off. Some of us are slow learners, lol.
This time I was trying to be more careful and taking things slowly, but maybe still not slowly enough. Its funny because I didn’t have any problem with my achilles during the summer. I’ve realized that it isn’t just pushing to get back into things that seems to lead to this injury for me, its understanding that your body crashes a bit after a big competitive push and is probably extra susceptible to injury, just as it is to getting sick once it knows that its okay to.

Keeping it Real

Its been a few weeks since the intense hype of the Paralympics. I was on such an emotional high, because so many good things happened. I’m still absorbing the whole, crazy, amazing experience.
First, a little about our 5000 metre final in London. ODair Santos, who came in with the fastest seed time of 15:17, did not show up… we’re not sure if he was ill or injured, but this meant the race was wide open. There was a Kenyan team with a seasonal best of 15:42 so we thought they might make for stiff competition. Ian, Josh and I had agreed on the plan to try to run 74 second per lap pace, which we knew would put us in contension and string out the field. A few weeks earlier, Josh and I had run 75′s for a 5000m and we felt that we were ready to go one second faster per lap. And early in the race, within the first 200 metres, we got to the front and established a really nice rhythm. Behind us, Christian Valanzuela from Chile and his guide, who were trying to reel us in in the 1500m, were tracking us, and behind them a big gap started to open. Josh and I were clicking off our 74′s, and I just remember telling myself to stay relaxed. To be leading a race like that, with 80,000 people around you and your people somewhere out there in that crowd, is something very special. I didn’t want to think about the possibility of winning gold at the Paralympics that has eluded me for all these years. The crowd was doing the wave as we went around, as I found out later. Josh was saying to me, if we keep this up we’re going to win. I tried to have the mindset of being in Ottawa running a low key Twilight race.
At one point Josh told me that we were dropping the Chileans. The three Kenyans in the race were out of it (the team who had run 15:42 dropped out early). Earlier when we had been in the call room, an official had made each of the reluctant Kenyan blind runners switch from the undarkened sunglasses which they had brought with them to eyeshades. In T11 races, competitors are required to wear darkened glasses. I’ll write more on this issue in an upcoming blog.
The Chilean team were able to get back on the train and by two miles, which we hit in 9:57, they were tracking us again. In my last two 5000′s, our last mile has been our fastest one and I was determined that this one would be the same. The Chileans were tough though and hung with us. And then with two laps to go they moved past us. I remember thinking, just let them do some of the work for a bit. We tried to stick with them but they picked it up and unfortunately I just didn’t have the gears to go with them. Over the last 600m or so they opened up a gap on us and pulled away to win in 15:26 to our 15:34.07. It was a three-second personal best for us. I said before the Paralympics that whatever happened, what we’ve been able to do this year in the 5000m is a big accomplishment, because a year ago I was running nearly a minute slower. It was disappointing to see gold slip away from us when we had control of the race – opportunities like that are very few and far between. But I have no regrets, we committed to our plan and left everything out there. To walk away knowing we did everything we could is all I could have ever hoped for. I’m happy for Josh and the chance to celebrate accomplishing something so meaningful together; grateful to Ian for driving the ship and giving so much of his energy and time to us; appreciative of my family including my brother who competed in London also, Colleen, parents, and aunt who were all in London; and thankful for the amazing support of other family members and friends from home who were willing us to succeed.
The day after our final, Colleen and I headed over to Northern Ireland with my aunt Jacqueline. It was Colleen’s first visit, and my first time back in about thirteen years. We spent five great days with Jacqueline in Lisburn and in that time, fitted in some great visits with relatives, including catching up with my sister Nikki. We didn’t get to see her in Northern Ireland (she, her husband and two kids are living in England), but we had some good chats on the phone. And thanks to my uncle Alan, Colleen and I made a trip back to the school which Jon, Chris and I attended when we were kids. Quite a few of the teachers I had were still there. The school was rebuilt a year ago. Its funny how some things change and others stay the same.
Here are links to pictures and some of the media coverage we had.
Some pictures of our T11 1500m final on September 3

http://www.paralympic.ca/images/phocagallery/ldn12_at_jdunkerley_men_1500m_t11_final_pm219.jpg

http://www.paralympic.ca/images/phocagallery/ldn12_at_jdunkerley_men_1500m_t11_final_pm220.jpg

http://www.paralympic.ca/images/phocagallery/ldn12_at_jdunkerley_men_1500m_t11_final_pm221.jpg

http://www.paralympic.ca/images/phocagallery/ldn12_at_jdunkerley_men_1500m_t11_bronze_final_pm225.jpg

http://www.paralympic.ca/images/phocagallery/ldn12_at_jdunkerley_men_1500m_t11_bronze_final_pm226.jpg

From September 4
Blind Ottawa runner Jason Dunkerley gets better as he gets older

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Blind+running+Jason+Dunkerley+gets+better+gets/7183543/story.html

From September 8
Three medals and three Canadian records on the track today at Paralympic Games

http://paralympic.ca/en/London-2012/London-2012-News/Three-medals-and-three-Canadian-records-on-the-track-today-at-Paralympic-Games.html

From September 14
Northern Ireland school reunion for Canadian Paralympics hero

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/paralympics/northern-ireland-school-reunion-for-canadian-paralympics-hero-16210565.html#ixzz26RvjWjOy

From September 18
A Slam Dunk Silver

http://sportsottawa.com/content/slam-dunk-silver

From September 18
Coach’s perspective: an inside account of Dunkerley’s run to two Paralympic medals (written by Ian Clark)

http://sportsottawa.com/content/coach%E2%80%99s-perspective-inside-account-dunkerley%E2%80%99s-run-two-paralympic-medals

After all of the excitement, its great to be home again and getting back to regular routine. I took ten days completely off running, which was great, and have been running every second day over the past week and building back to everyday running slowly. Its the best time of the year to be outside running. The break came at a really good time and now I’m keen to really get at it again.
One of the things that can be a bit hard, and something we don’t train for, is being gracious, and true to yourself amid all of the congratulations with winning medals. One night in Northern Ireland we were in a pub after meeting up with family, and my aunt mentioned that I had won a medal. All of a sudden people were coming over. We had drinks on the house and they even kept the bar open longer than they were supposed to. It was amazing hospitality and very genuine… so much for having a quiet pint lol. I’ve been trying to take it all in, knowing that in a few years it’ll all be just a memory. I’ve had numerous requests to visit schools along with Josh, and have been interviewed a lot. People expect a lot from you and it is not easy to say no. And people will just come up randomly and congratulate me on our races, and often I don’t even know who they are, and all you can really do is smile and thank them.

No Better Feeling

Its been an incredible week, which started out with Josh and I winning bronze on Monday evening in the T11 1500m in a packed stadium.
It was a fast, clean race with perfect running conditions, everything we could have asked for. We went out hard along with the Brazilian and Kenyan teams, and established a good position just off the front. We hit 300m in 46, and as planned, backed off, splitting 400m in about 62, compared to 60 for the leaders. The Chilean team were right there also, and moved past us at some point in the second lap. I think we past them back with about 500 metres to go, its a blurr in my memory to be honest. Ahead of us the Kenyans and Brazilians were in a two-horse race. We had thought they might come back to us a bit after the fast early pace but that didn’t happen. Over the last 300m the Brazilians did start to come back to us but by that point I was hitting the wall after splitting 1200m in about 3:16. And the Chileans, who we’ve never seen before, were chasing us down. Josh was yelling that we had to go and I probably tightened up a bit. Over the last 100m I just gave it everything I had, and thankfully it was enough to hang on for bronze. We ran 4:07.56, a half second off my personal best and 0.2 seconds ahead of the Chileans. Ahead of us, the Kenyan Samuel Muchai and his guide set a new world record running 3:58, and Odair Santos and his Brazilian guide ran 4:03. All four of us broke the previous Paralympic record of 4:08. The crowd was unbelievable, and having Colleen, my parents and aunt, and Ian there to support us and share in it… there’s no feeling like it! And being able to share this with Josh, after the hard work we’ve done this year, was phenomenal. We were able to follow our race plan and run tough, and accomplish something together which we’re very proud of.
So many people here were happy for us and the support from home has been unbelievable. You can’t help but be on a high in the 24 hours following a race experience like that. But as Josh said, the high ends and you find yourself coming back down to earth. All of a sudden you realize, we still have a race to gear up for. Having gotten our feet wet and competed in an event which is more strategic and where the margin of error is far slimmer, we’re feeling more relaxed about the 5k, which will be run as a straight final tonight. I’m hoping we can get into a good rhythm and take advantage of our fitness in the race, and that we can leave everything out there. Whatever happens, its been an incredible ride this year.

Get Out of your Head!

Josh and I made it through to the T11 1500m final which is taking place tomorrow night, in just about 24 hours from now. Our semi-final heat on Friday morning was a physical race which we were very happy to just get through. We finished third in 4:13, behind the Kenyans and a team from Morocco who were disqualified afterwards because the guide runner crossed the line first. This meant that we qualified automatically as one of the top two finishers. We would have qualified on time anyway given that the second heat, which the Brazilian ODair Santos and his guide won easily, was slower, but of course you do not know that at the time and we certainly hadn’t wanted to leave it to chance. Josh and I nearly went down in the first 100 metres as everyone gunned it for the inside lane off the start. The lesson for us is that we’ll need to get out much harder so as to avoid this kind of trouble, typical in any 1500m but especially with so many blind runners and guides. We found ourselves at the very back, and had to go all the way around on the outside. We were able to work our way up to third, and managed to keep that position throughout the race. The stadium was packed and it was deafening in there. Never racing in front of a crowd like that other than at the Paralympics, its disorienting when you can’t really hear what is going on around you. At a couple of points I bumped arms withother runners and had no sense it was about to happen. I was a bit flat on Friday and wasn’t able to really challenge for second in the way I would have wanted to. Its behind us though, we are through and our focus over the weekend has been to get ready for tomorrow night and a race which we expect will be faster and hopefully much cleaner.