Running Commentary

I've been known to say, "If I ever can't run anymore, just shoot me." Well, pal, start searching that cupboard for your gun. My piriformis injury has not noticeably improved in the almost two weeks since it stopped me cold. I am trying everything in the world to heal this thing, and seem to hold on to an irrational hope that it will eventually resolve itself. In desperation this morning I went to see my M.D. (Up until now I've relied on Dr. Jess plus the advice of experienced running friends--and have made upcoming appointments with Claudia the divine acupuncturist and Chinese medicine doc, as well as with a highly touted PT person.) My doctor, herself an active athlete and all-around beautiful person, said this injury can be slow to heal and that I should continue what I'm doing--and also back off a bit on the bicycling. Water exercising, yes; rowing machine, possibly; upper-body strength training, yes; gentle walking, yes. She didn't mention heavy sighin...

A brief update before I go to sleep. This morning I went aqua jogging for the first time. A bit weird to have my body submerged in water and at the same time feel sweat forming on my forehead. But it went well. And I think I feel a hair better this evening. I consumed a steady diet of NSAIDs today, and also iced the offending muscle three times. Progress, not perfection is the goal of this recovery effort. The photos of this day, alas, do not show any wondrous vistas or captivating details of nature spied in the course of a satisfying pre-dawn run. The first one features the view from the bus stop this morning at 6:45, when I waited on the corner for transportation to SF, the swimming pool, and work. This is the time of day I'm used to doing the old left-right-left-right as my body awakens and begins to thrum as I run along. This morning it was the time of day I joined a group of the living dead, also called commuters, in a rattly metal vehicle--which was the only moving thing that...

Injury report from Day 9. I'm not proud to say that I've realized a large part of my chagrin at being injured comes from numbers rather than from anything real. Numbers as in mileage. Perusing my running/workout log as I recorded my Saturday bike ride brought home to me how attached I am to meeting mileage goals. Never mind that my total for this year is now well above 700 miles, meaning that if I didn't run another step for the rest of the year I would still log the eighth-highest total yearly mileage in my 33-year running career. That's not the point I go to. I go right to lamenting that I've run 20 miles or more for six weeks straight, and that my high-mileage streak just ended. I realize this, and then -- forehead-slap with palm -- I also realize why I am injured. Can I spell o-v-e-r-u-s-e? Not running a seventh 20+ mile week in a row is undoubtedly the best thing I've done for myself in a while. In other news: Here's a link to exactly what I have run m...

A tip of the bike helmet to Ram Dass, who reminded us many years ago to Be Here Now . No offense to him, but it seems pretty easy to be here now, at least right Now. I'm at my computer. Bright sunshine is pouring through the windows. The iced tea I just made is cool and sweet in my glass--the one emblazoned with "Reno High School" lettered in an arc over a mighty fierce-looking husky head. I have an ice pack on my piriformis muscle. I can hear a weed whacker going somewhere in the neighborhood. Danny Mo, the world's best cat, is asleep nearby, on top of his favorite cardboard box. That's my Now. Harder for me than being here now is being There Then--"Then" being the past or the future. Which means I'm assessing how engaged I was when "back Then" was Now and also forecasting how engaged I'll be when I get to the future and it changes over from being Then to being Now. Case in point is the bike ride I just took along the Bay Trail. In the...

Here's a scene-setter -- a rainy day in my world (click to enlarge). Today I'm not an actual athlete but a trying-to-be athlete. My last post in this space made reference to a run that took me above the Cal campus; little did I know that was my last healthy run before I officially joined the ranks of the injured. The second half of that run was straight downhill -- and that on top of a cross-country race that also featured some staggering downhills, hills that sucked runners downward with the inexorable force of normal gravity seemingly doubled. Following these perilously slanted adventures, I went out for a 10-miler last Sunday (the day that is now known as Day 1). From the start my right hip (my "good" hip) was strangely sore. I ran-walked a bit, I stretched periodically, but--did I turn around and go home? No. I ran the 10, and limped home muttering something like, "mumble, mumble...a bit sore in the butt." Monday (Day 2), I was still limping. Tuesday (ak...

Or should I say, poured out from the top of my head. I have this mental image of slicing off the top of my cabesa , like I'd do to a pumpkin, and then tilting the newly opened bowl and spilling a few of my chaotic thoughts onto the page. First would come musings about the shortening of the days and the advent of autumn. In the Bay Area we mostly get some scraggly leaves scuttling along the sidewalks, and some corresponding moulting branches overhead. No spectacular fall foliage to be seen here, so move along, please. Then I'd shake out a few words about how it feels to do a lot of my running in the pre-dawn dark these days. I'm training for my tenth and final marathon, CIM , which means I'm racking up as many miles as I can before I just run screaming out of the house. Although, come to think of it, the screaming part of that could be upsetting, but the running part might help boost my weekly mileage. Anyway. I was up early one day last week, putting the shoe rubber to ...