(First published, without illustration, on Facebook, earlier today.)

There was something important about October 22nd, some significant event in my life, and I couldn’t remember what it was all morning. Now I do. Exactly 30 years ago was October 22nd, 1990. And it was an important day, not for what I did that day, but for what I didn’t do. I didn’t run.

The day before, I was riding high, training for the 1991 Los Angeles Marathon, putting in 40-plus mile weeks, lean and mean. And then about five miles into my run I got a little bit too uncareful, my always-pronated footstrike went awry, and I rolled my ankle, ending up in a heap on the ground. Cried out; made fists; got on hands and knees and then up and onto one foot. Tested a bit of weight on the injured ankle. ZING. YOW. It couldn’t take it, not full weight, not at first.

But run long enough, far enough, and go through things like shin splints and hip pointers, back spasms and side stitches, scrapes and bruises and Feet Full O’ Blisters, and to some extent pain becomes something you see on your mind’s monitor. Technical information. With the ankle that monitor was showing the pain as a slowly decreasing variable with additional beta-endorphins on the way, and the readout was blinking GET ICE ASAP.

Fortunately I was close to work and able to hobble there in short order. Our firm, Aim-Safe, Inc., the family safety-equipment business, had something even better than ice: Cold Packs. Break a seal inside the pack and the endothermic chemical reaction quick-colds the pack, and it’s much more conforming to the injury than a bag of ice.

My foot elevated, the cold pack doing its job, I called Joni, my wife. “I hurt myself,” I said, and asked if she would pick me up at the store. She dropped everything and hurried over, and while she was en route I yielded.to a bit of self-indulgent, self-pitying sobbing.

See, I didn’t know how badly I was hurt. It didn’t seem to be broken, but it was already impressively swollen. Tomorrow there’d be an enormous bruise. What about the Marathon? Was I out?

Here’s what makes October 22nd such an important day. I made a deal with myself on the 21st that during the next four days, no matter how much I felt the counterintuitive urge, I would not put a single ounce of weight on my injured foot. I would stay home from work and I would crawl to the bathroom. I would pretend that Christian Science, which my late grandmother Caroline had practiced, was real and would aid in swift healing. And on the fifth day, October 26th, I would put on my running gear and see what happened.

So 30 years ago today a running streak was broken, and what little I learned from my mother of the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy flitted through my mind. And I imagined the little corpuscular construction crew clearing away debris and rebuilding.

On October 26th I dressed and got to my feet. Ow, but not OW. And I went out and walked, and it seemed to calm the Ow down. After about a quarter mile I started striding, and at about half a mile I began VERY VERY CAREFULLY running. The running wouldn’t count unless I went at least a mile. I managed to go a mile and a half.

The next day, after babying my foot all day, I went out again. This time I was able to do two and a half miles before that mind-monitor edged its needle toward the Red/Danger mark.

And the next day I went five and a half miles. I was back. And to stay back, I literally stayed on track, using the reliable surface of the Phoenix College composition track, which had a nice bit of give/sponginess to it.

And on March 3rd, 1991, with Muhammad Ali high on a platform by the starting line smiling and waving at us, I and at least 10,000 others began our 26.2-mile purgatorial run. I finished the race in a little under 4 hours and 34 minutes, slighly spacey but triumphant. And I ran the next day, and the next, putting together a daily In Sickness and In Health running streak that lasted 576 days.

Today I’m watching THE COLOR OF MONEY. Fast Eddie Felsen, played to perfection by Paul Newman, has just been humiliatingly hustled by a young punk, played to perfection by Forest Whitaker. Eddie then sends Vince and his girlfriend, played to perfection by Tom Cruise and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, respectively, packing. Then Eddie gets his eyes checked, gets some aviator-style prescription glasses, and spends endless hours at the pool table, doing exercise drill after drill after drill. And then and only then does he start Hustling again.

It’s NEVER too late, Friends, to Do Something Great. But the sooner you make that first move toward Greatness, the better!