By Christopher Cudworth

Dr. Joe is the ER physician who referred me to the amazing collarbone surgeon at OAD Orthopedics, and Joe sent a text this past Sunday afternoon just before my wife and I were going out for a walk.

His message said: “Going out for 2 hr easy ride. Care to join me?”

Wondering if this was a test of some sort, it was tough to tell whether to text back or make a call. I decided to call.

“Hi,” said Dr. Joe in his inimitably positive voice. “How’s the recovery coming?”

“I’m being cautious,” I told him, as my wife listened. “They have not had me in for physical therapy yet, but that starts next week. In the meantime I’m moving the arm plenty and trying not to lift anything too heavy. I don’t want to be stupid.”

“That’s good,” said Dr. Joe. “Let pain be your guide. You’ll find your limits. By next year you’ll be perfect. You won’t even know you had it done.”

“That’s the goal,” I told him. Then I glanced over at my wife. “When I told Linda I still wanted to get out on the bike this fall, she said, ‘2013 buddy…”

“Ha ha ha!” Dr. Joe agreed. “Yeah, you don’t want to pressure things. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

It’s always good to hear from a doctor that you’re not goofing things up. But there are some twinges and spikes when you get a collarbone fixed.

So it was walking time again this morning. 4 miles at a modest pace on a riverside loop that follows an old railroad line. I remember when trains used to trundle up and down the tracks, now replaced by mostly smooth pavement, except where willow trees push up bumps and lumps and throw the occasional runner or rider for a loop.

Walking along it was fun to stop to pet a few dogs that looked like mine.

But then I was alone on a long, straight stretch of trail that rose slightly to the north. It struck me that this was the exact spot in a 10K race where I’d finally broken open a few strides of space between myself and the guy in second trying to chase me down on the long incline toward the finish.

The course was 6.2 miles and the last 3 were all slightly uphill. We’d gone through 3 miles in under 15:00 and the stress of that pace was accentuated by the slight rise we were not climbing. It was much in terms of a hill, but you felt it then.

It is strange how different experiences can be in space and time. How one can recall those racing sensations like they were just yesterday. Yet here I was walking along in Columbia hiking shoes with yellow-rumped warblers flitting and chipping everywhere around my head. The height of fall migration for songbirds is upon us.

There were so many autumns where I could not afford to slow down even for a second to look at the migrating birds. Training sessions where competition was so fierce you could not see straight. Races where pausing a second to cast and eye on a bird could cost you the race. Yet I did manage to rubberneck fast enough one time to see a phalarope swimming along the edge of a golf course pond in central Iowa. I still won the race but wanted to go back and get that bird identified more closely to add to my life list. I warmed down in that direction but the bird was gone. You win some, you lose some.

These days the sumacs are in fall color like team pennants waving as you walk by. They don’t care how fast you go, or how slow. They’ll all be laying on the ground in a week or two.

It is best to cheer yourself along at this time of the year anyway, for it is easy to let the seasons pass too quickly. Sure, there are thousands of runners gearing up for their October marathons. Chicago is in one week. I know at least 20 people signed up and ready to go. But even they should take it easy this week. Nothing to add to the mix at this late a date. Taper and compete. That’s the marathon way.

It just proves we’re all actually in a race to slow down and take notice of everything around us. The sumac pennants wave. The birds move through the trees on their way south. I walk north and then head west toward home. My time to run will come again. Just now it is time to mend. And race through time at a walker’s pace.