Running Commentary

Having a gimpy hinge, as I currently do, makes a person place the feet carefully while walking. (Helps prevent stumbling.) In my case this diligence has resulted in looking at the ground a lot more than usual. Periodically in this blog I have published some ground shots (sky shots too, but that’s a different subject). So here are two more. I've been passing this one daily for a while. It makes me smile. This one does too; it's one in a series of chalk drawings that mirror the fauna along the sidewalk on Acton Street.

Every day I my hip feels a bit better (about time, too, says the grouch within). Here's a poster that stared me in the face Saturday when I ventured out on my bike to the local Trader Joe's , a round-trip journey of about six miles. I related to the poster's sentiment. Friday was my first bike ride--a very tentative double circuit around the block. The actual riding is a piece o' cake--I've been logging bike miles at the gym for a week or two with only mild pain. Getting on and off my trusty bike (on left) has been a whole 'nuther story. My habit has always been to mount by standing on my left leg and swinging my right leg back and up, over the saddle and into the pedal clip in one rather elegant and swashbuckling motion. Problem is, the left leg bone is connected to the left hip bone, the one that is bruised and cranky. This means my new way to get on is to concentrate on centering my body weight over my left foot and then sneak my right foot up that left leg ...

I rejoined the gym a couple of weeks ago (“rejoined” means I last belonged about four years ago—maybe longer) and am doing my best to go regularly so I don’t feel as if I’ve wasted my money. Now that for the time being I’m not spending time running early in the morning (insert frowny face here), it is easier than it was before to carve out some gym time in my schedule. This morning I went there loaded for bear and probably overdid it a bit. I started off walking up the stairs to the aerobic machines. Stairs seem to be the last frontier with this injury—raising my left leg and then loading it with my body weight is a real challenge. I give my performance this morning a B-minus. Once I ascended, I walked 10 minutes on the treadmill to warm up, traveling an impressive 0.3 mile. I even supported most of my weight on my arms and took a small jog, just to try and remember what it feels like to run. I probably jogged 30 paces, twice, before realizing it wasn’t that great an idea. Then I went ...

Lap swim begins at 6 a.m. Re: My injured hip. I’ve gone from philosophical and accepting to (almost) screamingly impatient. Can’t say what brought on the attitude change—could have to do with how smug I’ve been about having already worked through my denial and anger. They are both back with a vengeance. I suspect it’s because now, four weeks and a day after my crash-and-burn that sent me to the ER, I am very close to fully ambulatory. I’ve rejoined the gym and have been riding the stationary bike. My new hero, Jamie the physical therapist, has prescribed some exercises that make me feel studly. She is enthusiastic and kind and encourages me in my healing. Flip-flops and a crumpled towel. Hmm. Someone's been swimming — and she left her cane behind! This morning I’m pretty sure I overdid it. To start, I went swimming (left my cane hanging in the locker room). I managed to stay with it for a lucky 13 minutes. Could have gone longer but I wanted to maintain my self-image as a prudent ...

What does an injured runner consume in the morning? This delicious smorgasbord of meds, of course. And coffee. I’m exaggerating, actually. I threw the codeine container into the picture for the effect, even though I only had to take codeine twice before deciding it made me feel even more fuzzy-minded than usual. Quick update on what condition my condition is in: I’m still in more pain than I’d like, but it diminishes slightly by the day. Tomorrow I go to physical therapy. My attitude is improving a bit, especially because Z is recovering apace from his surgical adventure, albeit in small increments. One reason I took the above photo was to provide myself with an entry into the subject of food, a topic I promised a few weeks (or months) back to talk about in this blog. When I got hurt, more than two weeks ago, I was worried that because I’ve become used to eating a lot to fuel my running, I would continue on that course and soon balloon to the size of a Chevrolet. What a relief—so far t...

This is the foliage outside the orthopedics dept. at Kaiser Oakland. My exercise for this day was hopping and slopping along on my crutches from the car to this office for a total of three-and-a-half blocks. I can't report my runs to you, since for the time being I have none, but I can tell you what things are like here in the waiting lane. Mainly, they are slo-o-o-w. My walk to this office took 15 minutes. What I find odd is that being on the DL is not as terrible as I thought it would be. Slowing down has given me (admittedly by force) the gift of paying more attention to where I am and what I'm doing. My short walk netted me two handsome, burly construction guys who left what they were doing to make sure I made my way safely across a busy street. It also paid off in sights (of people and things) and smells (of spring's burgeoning greenery) that I might not have heeded had I been moving faster. I'm not trying to say I like being hurt. Fact: I hate it. But as the wise ...

Adventures in medical matters update: Z is scheduled to come home tomorrow and Danny Mo and I are very happy about that. His home care at my hands may be less than perfect, however, since I fell on my already bruised hip Monday and smacked it so badly that I had to go the the ER. I fell right on my own front steps and would herein like to recognize my dear neighbor, Dr. Ben, veterinarian and outstanding human being, who came to my rescue. He and his wife, J., were so very kind--Ben drove me to the ER and simply wouldn't let me send him away. It was 2 a.m. when he finally went home. After prodding, poking, X-raying, and CAT-scanning me, the docs declared I have no broken bones. They gave my own set of nifty crutches, so I'm limping around like Chester. Insert kudos here to my caring friend R., who picked me up from Kaiser in the morning, brought me home, and even stayed for a bowl of Miniwheats while I adjusted to having four feet instead of two (see portrait of my new feet, bel...

As in, the road (the path?) that's this life. It seems at a glance to stretch out smooth, but can always surprise. Too much going on. The worst and the best recent happenings: Z had major surgery (worst) and is recovering nicely (best). He had the most impressive IV stand I've ever seen! While he's been in the hospital (since April 3) I've done a little working, a little running and a (very) little swimming. Last Saturday I ran tired and took a fall that has me limping around on a sore left hip. I'm having to give up my plans for racing in May, I'm afraid. But the realities of the past ten days have made the evaporation of those plans oddly moot. I know I'll run again after I've healed, and even if for some reason I don't run again soon, I know I'll be fine. Ps: The swim was so fine! Mr. Danny Mo has kept everything in perspective. He is working on perfecting his cat nap technique and appears to be close to succeeding. Danny Mo is a good role mod...

It can't really be March 29. All I can do is say, well OK, and post a few photos that have been piling up. After I do, it's off for a little 10-miler by the Bay. A week ago Friday I had a great little SF run, north along the Embarcadero. It was a perfect spring day. I made it to the top of the hill, where I joined the other tourists snapping pictures from a scenic overlook. That's the GG Bridge w-a-a-a-y in the background, Ft. Mason in the foreground. Last Sunday, I did my longest run to date in this current training that is targeting the Ave. of the Giants Marathon, on May 3. I did the old run/walk--run 15 minutes, walk 1 minute--for most of the 15.41 miles. This photo was taken the following day because on the actual run I managed to disable both my camera-phone and my digital watch. Typhoid Mary works out. (Ps. They are both working again.) Later in the week I went out for speed. Blinding speed in my case, of course. Hee hee. Anyway, I passed this beached boat along the...

It is spring in SF. Coming in early to work I walked past a glassy Bay. But I don’t want to skip a short report on my Arizona trip, which was last weekend but is already receding into memory. I haven’t downloaded my people pictures (taken with the “real” camera), but do have these few landscape, which were taken on one of the two morning runs I did. It was one of those magical dawns where the sun followed close on the heels of the moonrise. Needless to say, the brighter light soon chased the dimmer. I ran in Papago Park , which is increasingly surrounded by an urban morass but remains a lovely pocket of desert. Cottontails and jackrabbits abound (and bound), while quail scuttle under spiky bushes. Did a little mild hill-climbing, enjoying the cushioned surface of soft dirt. There's that moon again, holding its own for a few more minutes. I turned in at the Desert Botanical Garden and found a sweet rock-bordered path to follow for a short way. At the end of the trail I found this s...

I saw the most incredible moon yesterday morning, a mesmerizing searchlight slowly sinking toward the horizon. I snapped a photo, which came out looking like it had been taken under water. The lesson here: When your lens is smeared, you will have trouble capturing the world around you with any clarity. I realize my camera's lens isn't the only one that's been mucked up lately--in the last few days my baby blues have been seeing a lot that's out of focus. So I'm working every day at calling on my metaphorical lens cleaner to help scour my vision clean. Mental lens cleaner ingredients: plenty of sleep plenty of exercise good, healthful food in moderate portions the love of family and friends hard work a cookie now and then My prescription calls for ingesting all these things with frequency. And if the prescription doesn't always work, I may sic my watch-cat on whatever's haunting me. It's obvious when you see this guy that he is guarding me against the bi...

What am I meant to learn from the challenges being thrown at me these days? That I am strong. That I am loved. That life goes on and can be good. My favorite nephew congratulated me for making lemonade when I'd been handed lemons--not sure his belief about me is justified, but I deeply appreciate the notion. Plus, I have an actual lemon tree in front of the house, so I've been practicing my tangy-beverage making. My ribs have healed up well. I'd say I'm at about 95%. I'm glad my minor medical matter is clearing up so I can turn my energy to a more major one: Z is scheduled for big-time surgery on March 31. He is calm; I am calm. Aaaaaaack! Oops, I meant of course I'm serene. The procedure he faces, which involves patching up some crucial circulatory parts, is a common one, and the success rate is high. But still. Send good vibes our way, if you'd be so kind. In other matters, I did run 10 miles Saturday. The run itself went well--I went down to the Bay Trai...

Last Saturday I ran with the running club. We started at Lake Merritt and then headed up the hill into Piedmont. My ribs didn't hurt very much--it was my best run since my biking mishap. I got a bit lost, but there were street signs, and I had a map. I finally made my way back down the hill, so I ran around the lake before calling it a day. The rain held off as I stopped briefly to take another photo. Across the water, the small white building directly behind the fountain is the Lake Merritt Hotel, where Z and I spent our wedding night almost seven years ago. Monday I headed out from work and ran along the Embarcadero in SF. Unlike on Saturday, Monday the rain came down in buckets. As I ran around the staduim of that Bay Area baseball team that isn't the Oakland A's, I reflected that it was indeed a good day for ducks. And for seals. Last but not least, I was out on the Ohlone Greenway this morning. The rain had only just stopped, and the world was wonderfully clean. All pu...

Before I allowed myself to think about running again, I did a lot of walking around the neighborhood. This looks like LA, but it's genuine Berkeley. My apologies to Dr. Gary Small, whose 14-day Memory Prescription has been sitting unused on my shelf for three days. I was doing well the first week, but I've caved into work deadlines and other stressors and have stopped mapping out my days according to his dictates. The good news is that I've still been eating reasonably well (better than was my pre-Small wont) and keeping Small's tenets about brain exercises, body exercises, and stress relievers in mind. Yesterday made it three weeks since I broke my rib. So this morning I went for a run. Had to go for a run because I could feel my fitness leaking out of me the way the transmission fluid used to leak out of my 1995 Ford Escort, eviscerating my mobility and making an unsightly pink puddle on the ground. The title of this post comes from George Sheehan , one of running...

The short of it is, the X-rays showed that at least one of my ribs is fractured. (And a couple more of them are darned sore.) I'm doing my best, which is actually pretty good, at accepting this forced change in my approach to my daily active life. It seems serendipitous that my mandatory running-less state, in effect for at least another week, has coincided with A) my stated intent to write about nutrition and B) my involvement with Dr. Small's Memory Prescription , and specifically the dietary guidelines it offers. I tell you up front that I am following his 14-day program only loosely. But I am honoring the spirit of the thing, that is, I'm performing actions every day that are designed to improve my existing practices in exercising, pursuing mental agility, reducing stress, and eating. I feel as if I'm even with or even ahead of his targeted readers in the exercising and pursuing mental agility departments, but right there among the the challenged when it comes to re...

I have worked my way through anger and denial and am (almost) fully ready to deal with my sore ribs. After running four times and experiencing increasing pain with each run, I am forced to admit that I'm hurt. Thus, I give you Plan B. Plan B has three components: B1--Go get the ribs X-rayed. If they are cracked at their two specifically bothersome pain points, I'll know to lay w-a-a-y off on the exercise so they can heal. B2--Stop my "stinkin' thinkin'"--that is, be thankful that I'm still a very healthy person, someone who can walk tirelessly for miles and also pursue other forms of exercise for a while until I'm healed up enough to run again. This step includes scaling down my plan to run a marathon May 5 and acknowledging that I may end up doing "only" the half marathon or even "only" the 10-K. B3--Have some fun loosely following Dr. Gary Small's Memory Prescription . This I am taking from Dr. Small's book, which lays out...

I need to get to work today but am checking in briefly to say that I'm having to face the reality of my ribs, which are continuing to hurt a week and a half after I creamed them in a freak bike accident. Fresh from taking two full non-running days, I ran about 5.5 miles this morning and was uncomfortable the entire way. Since I've been home (about seven hours), I've had persistent, specific pain in two ribs. Denial seems not to be working as well as I would like! So I'm going to take the next four days off and see how that goes. I'm signed up to run in the Couples Relay next Sunday, and may even have to beg off on that. Trying to look on the bright side: At least the weather forecast calls for a rainy week. This morning I got soaked, so I should welcome having a very real excuse not to go out in the rain again right away. At the risk of repeating myself, however, I'd like to say that running in the rain just isn't that bad. Through the pain and the rain (oh...