Taking the Bitter Medicine

Letter to the Mayor:

"Pat:  I read your vivid description of your injury, and all I can say is OUCH!!!  Jeez, that must have hurt!!

Best wishes for a speedy recovery, and we all hope to see you on the road soon."

Letter from the Mayor:

"Richard:  Thanks.  It is amazing how fast one can go into shock after a painful injury, and one sees one of their body parts in a discombobulated position!  It will take a long process, but I plan on a comeback."

Letter to the Mayor:

"Good!  Keep us posted.  I’m out for a few days with some tendinitis in my lower leg – too much mileage, combined with too much kneeling while pointing my new rock patio.  I kept coming back, running 2 miles, then 4 miles, then OUCH!  So I’m taking that bitterest medicine for all runners, Rest.  7 days tomorrow.  That’s what you need to do on a grander scale, but I’m confident you will be running again.  In the meantime, it must be pretty hard on Sally (as it is on Martha at this end)." 

And so that sums it up.  Seven days tomorrow.  My purpose holds to be uncharacteristically cautious and REST.  Rest that, paraphrasing the Bard, knits up the raveled sleeve of care.  And so this blog will rest, too, until further notice.  

If anybody is reading. . .

"Rest, rest, perturbed spirit" - Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5.

High Mileage Vehicles

We own a 1998 Honda CRV which has accumulated nearly 250,000 miles.  I could sell it for perhaps as much as $500, but it is worth more to me as a vehicle to haul rocks, sand, gravel, firewood and the like than replacing it with a pickup truck.  It also has a rack on top which enables me to haul lumber, so it is in many ways better than a pickup truck.  And it is a 4 X 4, which could mean a backup vehicle in snowy weather.  Looks pretty good from a distance, until you get up close and see all the wrinkles.  It has been in the shop from time to time.  And Jeez! - it sure makes some awful sounds, especially when it first starts up in the morning:  belts squealing, muffler rattling, engine straining and creaking to climb up the hill to the highway in the morning. 

 
That's what happens to high mileage vehicles if you don't sell them or trade them in - they just get older and older, drive shafts unexpectedly dropping out, strange lights appearing on the dashboard.  They are no longer reliable vehicles to take out of Town.

Very much like high mileage runners.  In the immortal words of the Grateful Dead, "They just keep truckin' on."

Injuries

In retrospect - ah, wonderful retrospect! - that ten-miler in my last post was a mistake.  I knew it was a mistake during the last two miles, and I should have stopped there.  But this runner is a stubborn creature and now he is an injured creature.  My e-mail to Vicki says it all:

I’ve been sidelined by a nagging injury – a little tendinitis in my right lower leg.  It seems to clear up when I run – I did a 9:35 mile yesterday as my second mile – but then hurts later in the day.  At least it’s not the other way around.  I remember running those perfect six miles with Art and you almost two weeks ago now, and felt race-ready, then missed some runs due to a stomach bug, and probably came back a little too aggressively to make up for lost time – typical mistake by a runner! – going a couple of miles on Sunday and then a hard 10 miles in the rain the next day (Monday).  I don’t want to wind up really injured, like Skip, so I’m probably going to back off on mileage and speed for awhile, and likely will not run the half marathon.

So that's the short story, and since this blog has few if any followers, it will suffice.  

But I do not know a runner who has not been injured, and usually it is his or her own fault:  too much too soon, inadequate warm-up or cool-down, etc.  How we deal with injury is what makes us real runners, runners for life.  So for my part, I'm going to the gym, walking, stretching, and taking that bitterest of medicines:  REST.

Gang Aft Agley

The famous line from Burns's poem certainly applied this weekend, when we had planned to run 12 miles.  First, it rained.  But a more serious obstacle for me was a 48-hour stomach virus that laid me so low I could not leave the house for two full days, finally beginning to recover on Sunday (enough for two easy miles down the road).  Imodium became a new and very valuable friend.  And I learned again the ingredients of the B.R.A.T. diet.  Who knows how we contract these bacterial infections?  A careless hand on the drinking fountain or the door at the public restrooms?  I am religious about using hand sanitizer after handling money.  Perhaps I overuse it, as MaryAnn suggested.  In any case, it cause us to miss dinner with friends on Saturday night, an evening with the Literacy Council on Sunday, and my final long run two weeks from the half marathon.

On top of that, it has been raining nearly every day, and neither of us is eager to run in the soaking character-building rains of the past.  But runners must learn to be flexible, and today the weather cleared for a brief two hours in the morning, enough for me to be able to complete 10 relatively good miles, although I have to admit I was pretty soaked when I returned home from the intermittent drizzle that would tease me, almost clearing entirely, then returning with renewed energy (usually where there was no shelter).  In the afternoon, another window of opportunity suddenly materialized as the radar showed clear skies and a chance of rain of 0% all afternoon (it was 50% as early as this morning, which is why I chose to take the chance and run then).  So as I write this afternoon, Martha is out completing her final long run, and in much better conditions than I had.

So perhaps after all we will have no "grief an' pain," or sodden shoes, at the end of day.

. . . Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

          Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

          For promis’d joy!

Goal Pace

Today I had some help from Art and Vicki as I ran what the little training plan I have devised called me to do:  run six miles at goal pace.  Martha had done the same yesterday, and both days delivered a perfect day for fast running - cool, clear, and slightly overcast.  Art (as expected) pushed the pace, but we averaged 9:54.  Since I was planning on 10:00, this was a confidence-builder.

Art commented that this type of run would be difficult all alone, and while acknowledging his help, I said it was also important to be able to run long tempo miles, or long-run miles, all alone, because essentially that is what you are doing in a race even though you have other runners around you.  Still, it is nice to have friends to help pace me, and I remember all the many friends who have done this in the past, as well as the times I have helped them in turn.

Cades Cove

Conditions were as fine in Cades Cove this year as I ever remember.  Temperatures were in the low 50s, climbing a bit by the end of the 10.3-mile run around the loop road which has become a tradition for some of us each September.  The Park Service closes the road to traffic until 10:00 a.m. during the summer, and so the morning is filled with drifting fog rising above the fields, and with runners, walkers, and cyclists, instead of bumper-to-bumper cars. 

 this year we spotted several deer, including two young fawns still nursing, many wild turkeys, and a yearling bear in a tree above us.  What a great place to run with friends each year, remembering one of the main reasons we enjoy this activity so much:  simply being out of doors in beautiful places like this, enjoying God's creation, and giving thanks for our own health and fitness.

Maggie Valley Moonlight Race

Neither of us felt especially sore after the previous night's race until we began to warm up a little for the 8-K Moonlight Race.  I ran downhill a little, did a few pickups, and then turned to run uphill, and that's when I began to feel a little soreness, as if I had run some intervals the day before.  But it was again a good night, temperatures down in the lower 70s (which actually felt a little chilly post-race), and we were both focused on running our best.  The course starts mid-way on that long two-and-a-half mile hill, goes up, then down, and then up again; I got off to a good start, although the hill was a little daunting, felt pretty strong until the turn-around.  Then comes two-and-a-half miles downhill, and the temptation for most runners is to pour it on despite the final hill yet to come after that turn-around.  Many younger runners passed me on the downhill, including - to my surprise - Martha, who pulled ahead and led almost to the turn-around.  I passed her again and then started uphill, realizing by her distance behind that she would be unlikely to catch me.  And the reason for that was an entire summer of running Big Bearpen.  Yes, my old friend stood me in good stead now as I pulled that final mile uphill, feeling strong on purposeful.

There is a point in every race when one thinks, "I can just continue on and finish this, or I can pick it up even more, into and through the wall of discomfort, as hard as I can."  And that's when I realized that I was beginning pass runners who had passed me earlier in the race.  That is a very heartening thing to have happen!  There goes that woman in the pink socks; there goes that tall white-haired guy who was probably in my age group, gasping out, "Good job" as I passed him decisively.  The last hundred yards passed by so quickly, just like the previous night!  I had my game face on, gritting my teeth, focusing on the road ahead of me, pumping my arms.  A little girl was standing near the finish, just before the final turn into the parking lot, with her hand out-stretched high-fiving runners, and I barely took notice.  "He's too serious looking!" I heard her say as I passed her by.  And I suppose I was.  "Yes, I'm too serous looking!" I said audibly, probably surprising some along the way, "I'm too serious!"  I finished in 48:11, feeling as if I had given it my all.  Who can do more?  I felt a little light-headed, and so did Martha when she crossed the line at 49:24, also looking as if she had given her all, perhaps even more than I had.  She told me later that her only goal was to finish under 50 minutes, so it was a happy night for both of us!