Once A Runner…

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.

Once A Runner Never Fails to Deliver

I just finished Once A Runner for the God-only-knows-how-many-th time I’ve read it. By the time the duel between upstart Quenton Cassidy and world record-holder John Walton reached its fever-pitched climax, I was ready to throw the book down and blow out the door for a burn-down-the-demons run myself. Ah, if only I could.

Regardless of the fact that I can’t run right now, reading Once A Runner seriously makes me want to run again all the more. Yeah, it was nice to get swept up into and carried along by the excitement of John L. Parker, Jr.’s writing. He does a damned fine job of describing the racing, for sure, and he gives a very good picture of the training involved in just getting to there to toe the starting line for the race, too. It’s a cult classic for a damned good reason. It speaks directly to the runner. And I hope I never wear out my copy.

So, I picked up my ordered copy of Again to Carthage from the local Borders last night, but I had to finish the obligatory rereading of Once A Runner before I dove into his new novel. I’m really looking forward to seeing how Quenton turned out after all these years, and I hope Bruce Denton and Jerry Mizner show up so I can find out how things turned out for them, too.

I’ll probably not comment on the book until I’m finished. Maybe not until I’ve read it twice. If Again to Carthage delivers a marathon race anything close to Once A Runner’s mile, I’ll probably love it.

Knee Pain

While I set this blog up for myself to track my journey back to running and better general health, I forget sometimes that I’m not as alone in this and related issues as I might feel. I forget that there could be literally thousands of folks out there who’re going through the same thing, or something similar, as I am.

Judging from the search terms used to find this place, there are plenty of people concerned about at least two of the things I’ve posted something about here:

• Burning calories
• Knee ailments

The calorie burn thing I covered in my post How Many Calories AM I Burning?, which linked to a site that explains the whole thing far better than I’m qualified to do.

The knee pain issue is one that affects all of us at one time or another, I suppose. If we’re not searching for help to diagnose, heal, fix, nurse, or rehabilitate knee injuries, we’re looking for how to prevent knee injuries, and there are literally hundreds of places to find help on the web.

Of them all, I find this site: bigkneepain.com seems to be more comprehensive than any other I’ve seen so far. In fact, I’ve decided to put it in my sidebar links, too.

So, now, anyone who lands here because of my stupid post about my having some minor knee aches and pains might also find this post and, through it, I hope it can help them discover something they might find far more useful than me whining about my own problem.