Running
I enjoy running.
God help me, I do.

That is not to say that I'm any good at it.  
Back in the day, I could run 8-minute miles effortlessly. Continuously.  I would never be fast, but I could out-run a sled dog.  That was then.
Today, I am struggling to merely propel myself at a velocity that might be construed as "running."  My muscle tone is gone. My legs have the definition of pipe cleaners.
More troubling, my illness (...and it's subsequent "cure") has left me largely bereft of salivary glands.  Short story; I can't spit.  Long story, I have difficulty speaking, swallowing or much else without the aid of my ubiquitous water bottle.
I must run with a water bottle in my hand, and I must squirt my mouth every few hundred yards for fear of dehydration.
Students in my various classes do good-natured imitations of me; patrolling from side to side of a small stage, waving my arms and slurping continuously from a McDonalds Large Caramel Frappe.  According to them, I strike them as a cross between Groucho Marx, Dean Martin and Howard Cosell.  Go figure.

When I first started running (...back in prehistoric times), one would show up for a weekend 10-K, wait for the starting gun, and run.  Simple as that.
Not so today.
Today one must wear an officially sanctioned race number (primarily, so that the organizers can sell you pre-packaged pictures of yourself throughout the event).  You must also wear a small "Timing Chip" (usually threaded into your shoe laces or worn on a velcro strap around one's ankle).  These little monsters convey your "official time" and allow event organizers to publish your time (often online) within hours of an event's finish.
...just my luck.
Now that I have been reduced to feeble senior citizen, I must bear my finish times like a large red "A" for the world to ridicule.  Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run...

My first "competition" during recovery was the local YMCA 5-K Turkey Dash, held on Thanksgiving morning, near my home in Katy, Tx.  I was less than competitive.
Even late Novembers in the Houston area are hot and extraordinarily humid. This year was only more so.
I ran 14-minute miles. My only saving grace was that I was in the middle of the pack.

Later that day, we were at my In-laws for Thanksgiving Dinner. (While I couldn't begin to think of actually swallowing anything at the table, I sat next to my wife and tried to make stilted, hoarse conversation.)

Without warning, my wife broke into tears, confusing many at the table.  (I assumed that it was out of shame for my sorry performance earlier in the day.)
When asked, my wife simply said that, a year earlier, she was compelled to send our kids to a neighbor's home for Thanksgiving Dinner.  With the kids out of the house she looked in on me, asleep, covered in tubes, waif-thin and, literally, unable to speak.  My future was, still, largely a matter of conjecture.
She went into our living room and, completely alone, cried.
Now, this year, I had competed (however successfully) in a 5 Kilometer race.
She was overwhelmed with the blessings for which we had to "give thanks."

Amazingly, she seemed completely at ease with my dismal finish time.

Small victories.