Once A Runner…

The Purple Runner — Gone to the “Book Doctor”

The copy of The Purple Runner I found on Amazon was supposed to be in “Used - Good” condition, but my estimation of “Good” for even a paperback never includes a broken spine and pages taped back in to keep whole sections from falling out while you’re reading. Also, the spine has been torqued in a couple of places so that it’s in sorry shape structurally. The pages are clean and the print is in good shape, though.

Regardless, I now have a copy where I didn’t before, so it’s all good in the end.

Before I read it, though, it’s going to be “restored” so I can be certain that it will be in shape after one reading to be read again and again. That’s where a librarian friend stepped in. (She’s the one who alerted me to it being available on Amazon in the first place.) I delivered it to her on Thursday and she’s promised to soon have it in good, serviceable condition for years of reading pleasure.

Now, to find a copy of Long Road to Boston…

The Road Back So Far (Week Seven)

I wound up taking off nine straight days to let the ankle get better. I wasn’t very optimistic when I laced up to go for a walk Friday, but it turned out well. Today, on the other hand, was much better. I walked about half a mile and then, for no other reason than because I suddenly felt like I both wanted to and could, I kicked it up into a slow jog that I was able to easily manage for over a mile before slowing back to a walk to cool down a bit.

Overall, it felt great. Almost no problem with the ankle injury. Nearly nothing at all from the knees. Almost no knee pain or ache in either knee the whole way. The pace was very slow, of course. I remember reading somewhere the poet Odgen Nash saying something like, “…when I jog, I joggle.” And I do joggle, what with some extra weight still on my frame, while jogging — not running really yet — but the weight will come off someday and I might be able to actually run again… without the joggle.

I guess an initial adjustment period is to be expected. I forget how these things should go — even though I read what others have written and should expect certain things — but it’s easy to simply not remember how the body has to adjust progressively to increased physical stresses. So long on the couch or in front of the keyboard and not out on the roads. Yeah, I forgot what it’s like.

And — just to be sure I can stay on track from here on out — I’m going to try to keep in mind that there really is some wisdom to taking days off to recover. I’m taking Sunday off. I think I may alternate days of only walking with days of mixed walking and jogging. When I can manage something faster than about 11 minutes or so a mile, I may be able to cut down the walking and slowly build up from jogging to some faster running. At least for a while, I believe, I’ll have to be a jogger until I can get to the point where I can run easily and comfortably without much trouble.

It’s going to be a long road. I knew that before I started, but I think I wasn’t clear on how long it could really be this time around. I’ve got a lot of time to travel it, though. There’s no hurry. Not really. Patience and perseverance.

The Road Back So Far (Week Six)

Well, until the ankle injury, I had thought I was going along relatively well. My weight was going down at an acceptable rate, I was feeling better and stronger, and I was able to ramp up my distance easily enough. In short, I felt like I was making very good progress and could look forward to starting some easy running in the next month.

That pretty much fell apart when I started having the ankle problem, which has also recruited my right knee into its diabolical scheme to make things go a little more interestingly difficult to realize those goals.

Now, after three days off, I feel pretty crappy. Here we are going into Easter — with all the candy lying around for the grandkids — and I feel like I’m wasting my time. Still, a little work on the exercises the doctor gave me to do, some additional strength training work, and I almost feel good again. Then, I want to go out and walk but the ankle and knee protest. So, more rest, ice, and kicking my feet up for a while.  And that bowl of Easter candy sitting just within reach.  A comfort food thing?

I have to think this is going to pass. It has to pass, as all injuries and such usually do. In the meantime, it just feels horrible.

“Possible Tibialis-Posterior Tendinitis”

So, the ankle was really annoyingly painful and swollen yesterday morning. The doctor took a look at my feet and knees, had me do a couple of squats with my feet in their natural placement and with my feet pointed more forward than my right foot normally does, and diagnosed my problem as possibly tibialis-posterior tendinitis. So, it wasn’t a mild sprain from stepping funny off a curb. That misstep must have simply thrown an existing biomechanical weakness out into the open for me.

Prescription? Rest, ice, compression, elevation, NSAIDS for pain and inflammation. I didn’t want to hear the rest part of the treatment, but I knew that was coming when I hobbled in there. RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation) is always the smart thing to do anyway, and the one thing doctors will almost always tell you to apply.

When the doctor explained that I could be looking at a rupture of the tendon if I didn’t let it heal, that my right foot could lose what arch it has left and go flat, and then we’d be talking surgical correction, well… that was enough for me. I left the hospital with a photocopied sheet of exercises to do, an ankle wrap-brace kind of thing, a big rubber band, and a bottle of ibuprofen.

I took off yesterday from my walking, tried to spend as little time on my feet as possible, iced the ankle, and did the exercises on the photocopied page he gave me. The ankle is wrapped and feels okay — less pain anyway and less swelling. I guess I might be out of the walking game for a few days or so. I’ll keep track of the pain and swelling and see when I might be able to manage getting in a little walking around the block again. In the meantime, I’ll have to reduce my daily caloric intake to compensate for the loss of physical activity, of course.

Sucks to have any kind of injury, but having a worse one later when I want to be running again would suck more.

I Am So Blasted Stubborn

When I get on a streak of any kind, I stubbornly stick to it. This can be good and bad. The good is obvious: I keep on trucking and consistency is almost always a good thing. The bad? I don’t get enough rest and recovery. I tend to bull my way on through minor injuries when I should instead take a step back and let things stabilize.

Well, I did a bad thing yesterday and today. I stepped off a curb wrong yesterday and my right ankle twisted funny. It hurt a bit, but I could tolerate the pain. There was a little swelling, but not much. Yeah, pop an aspirin and take it easy the rest of the day.

Then I stubbornly went ahead with my walk last evening. It was a slog. And that’s being rather generous. I was slow(er than usual) and I had to adjust my gait to accommodate the ankle. Never one to be smart when I should, I then got up and walked again this morning, too. I was even slower, but by design — I slowed down a whole lot and paid close attention to how my ankle felt. Some pain, but not as bad as last night. Then the knees — yeah, both of them — started aching, though. Not very badly, but enough to get my attention.

I’m too stubborn to take a whole day off when my program is already at such a low intensity as it is. Just doesn’t feel right to me to back off at every little twinge when I’ve gone this far at this very slow rate of progress and I’m still not even really running yet.

Of course, part of me acknowledges the wisdom of backing off, taking full rest days to recover, especially after a stupid misstep like that. But part of me bristles at taking off for such a minor thing so early, especially when I know the intensity is so ridiculously low right now. I mean, if I back off from this what am I going to do when the heat is on later? I know me, and I don’t think this is something I should coddle myself over at all. I’ll just try to keep monitoring the minor injury and take steps (ice, slowing down a bit, etc.), but I just can’t in good conscience come to a full stop for this.

There are so many little, niggling aches and pains to deal with in getting back into shape — a death of a thousand cuts — that it’s easy to forget which ones are important enough to step back and really focus upon and which ones you just have to force yourself to work through. I’ve often gotten the two confused in the past, but I really think I’ve too often taken the easy way out and permitted myself to slack off when I should’ve worked through things.

I’m working through this one. I need to work through it. I’m going to suffer much worse in the months and years ahead.

I’ve Finally Found The Purple Runner

I was lucky to finally stumble across a copy of The Purple Runner for sale on Amazon, so I bought it. It should be here sometime next week, I think. “Used, Good Condition” was the description provided by the seller, so I hope that was accurate. I’m kind of anal about the condition of my books, I guess, but you don’t have much choice with long out-of-print titles sometimes.

Regardless, ever since I first heard about this book — ignore for the moment that I had a chance to buy it years ago and for whatever reason didn’t — I’ve wanted to read it. The mysterious, disfigured, and reclusive runner turning in electrifying workouts but avoiding contact with the other runners just kind of stuck with me as someone I wanted to know more about. The idea just fascinated me. Who wouldn’t want to be The Purple Runner? (Minus the facial disfigurement, of course.) He’s out there withering and blistering the trails and leaving everyone who sees him scratching their heads, trying to figure out what makes him tick so? It just seems to me that would be delicious fun, I reckon.

Well, soon, I get to find out who he was and why he runs as he does. I can hardly wait.

Finished Again to Carthage — It’s A Keeper

Well, in the first night, I got two-thirds of the way through Again to Carthage, John L. Parker, Jr.’s sequel to his cult classic novel, Once A Runner. And then I finished it last night. I was pleased with this novel. It’s a keeper. I will read it again.

Now, to be honest, it does spend more time off in places that don’t pertain directly to Quenton Cassidy’s running and the goal he sets for himself than did Once A Runner. But there are very good reasons for this, and reasons that someone as old as I am can truly appreciate. The demands of a career, deaths of friends and family, facing the finite mortality of others and yourself, and the even more finite limits to the athletic potential of others and yourself, are all things that someone my age really knows of from a very personal perspective. In other words, I can definitely relate.

I can also, very definitely, relate to the dream Quenton latches onto, how it drives him, and why. I will never run like Quenton, but I know why he wants to and why it motivates him to go for it with everything he has within him and more. I got swept up into the whole flow. I laughed at times. I cried at times. But always, I understood.

I was a little let down about Jerry Mizner, especially, and about Bruce Denton, but I was pleased that Brady showed up where I least expected him to and that even Jack Nubbins played a role in Quenton’s big race.

The Road Back So Far (Week Five)

Well, here I am at the 35th day since starting up again with the walking. Whether you subscribe to the “21 days makes it a habit” adage or the one that says it takes 35, I guess I’ve reached the point either way. I feel compelled to get in the workout before I can consider my day as done. I’m on an uninterrupted streak and even my wife accepts that I’ll be getting in the workout before I do anything else that needs doing. I count this a good thing. I’ll need this kind of commitment later on.

I still have to get my sleep cycle settled, though. I’ve been alternating between morning and evening walks some days because I get wrapped up in a book and don’t get to bed on time. That makes hopping out of bed the following morning more trouble than it’s worth. My reading over the past few days has kept me up later than I should have been, but revisiting Quenton Cassidy has been worth every minute. Besides, when I go in the evenings, I get to go longer than in the mornings, with nothing held up but dinner.

Today was an evening workout, and it was — for me, at least — a red-letter day. I alternated walking with some good jogging. I managed quite a lot of jogging, actually — more than I probably should’ve, but it just felt good. I tried to concentrate on good form and quicker steps, so there were a couple of bouts in there where I actually exceeded the intensity that I was aiming for. My Nike+ iPod tapped Joan Benoit Samuelson to do the honors in congratulating me on my longest workout so far (4.66 miles), but I also ran up a better mile time and 5K time than I’ve done up to now just walking.

I weighed in at 185 pounds this morning, so that’s 21 pounds since February 4; 12 more to go before I drop under the “Overweight” line. I’ve said before I’d love to get down lower, of course, to be able to run better. I’ll have to work harder to get there, but I still think lightening up more will permit me to actually run more and better, which would then let me drop a little more weight.

The diet is hanging tough. No real problems with maintaining it, though we have modified it slightly. Oatmeal a few times a week is a good modification, I think. We still make sure to get a portion of lean protein at every meal, along with fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables. A while back, we added back in a healthier canola spread to substitute for the unhealthy margarine we had grown to depend upon for our English muffin. This canola spread is only cream, canola oil, salt (90mg per serving, 4% RDA, and we use it a little more sparingly than that), and vitamin A palmitate — no soybean oil, no hydrogenated oils, nothing else weird. Oh, and lately I’ve been craving asparagus, of all things. Go figure.

Homemade beef jerky, fresh fruits, and walnuts have been the snack foods of choice. For a crunchy snack food — instead of potato chips, corn chips, etc. — I’ve got a bag of good, ol’ chiccarones — yeah, pork rinds. They’re low carb, a good supply of protein though they have a good bit of fat in them, too, and they have a satisfying crunch. Eaten moderately, they make a decent snack — if you can get a brand that’s not too heavy on the sodium.

Those nasty headaches I used to be plagued with before changing my eating habits and walking again? None, nada, zip. No tension headaches, no morning headaches, nothing. I used to pop acetaminophen, ibuprofen, or aspirin like candy all day long. Now, I take one 81mg aspirin with my morning supplements, and occasionally I take one aspirin or ibuprofen for muscular or joint aches from my working out. Nothing like before. I’m sure the local WalMart is probably wondering why the demand for NSAIDS dropped almost overnight.

With the success of the jogging I threw into the mix today, I’m feeling even more confident that I can make a go of this. Whether or not I’ll be ready to make a good showing in the 10K at the Cowtown 2009 with my brother next February remains to be seen. I think I’ve got enough time between now and then to work up to decent enough shape to not look like hell trying to stay with him. I’d like to push him a little, too, especially as he jumps into the 50-54 age group with me — they’re running it after his birthday next year, so we’ll both be competing in the same age group. I’d like for us to both turn in decent times and place well.

Yeah, I know — dream on. But it could happen. Time will tell. Patience and perseverance.