Runners are weird. Deeply. If we miss, say, two days in a
row we’re not fit for human company. Or dogs, for that matter. Cats, sure. Cats
don’t give a shit. They’ll hang with ax murderers.
So imagine how I felt Saturday when on a loping run in
party-choked Prospect Park my right foot landed awkwardly on a root and twisted
under my full weight so that for a millisecond all that force came down on the
outside bone/muscle of my ankle. I winced with terrible pain that shot up my
leg and – kept on running. For another three miles.
Not a good idea, right? Still, after about forty years of
running you learn a thing or two. Or hope you do. Hope that your body keeps
healing like it has pretty much from the beginning.
Like a quality car that gets road time and good maintenance,
a well-conditioned and fed body can take a beating and keep on shining. As a
driver we know how far we can push that car, in my case a late-model Volvo. It
will be taking K and me to Canada next month for the sea views of the running
events during the Nova Scotia Marathon in Barrington County.
Runners, crazy runners, know what we can get away with. In
my case, my ankle ballooned with a sprain. My wife was alarmed with the sick
look of it. It was wrapped with ice when I called the Belmont Stakes winner
(Tonalist – I don’t bet, but in the prance to the starting gate I do have a
knack of calling long-shot winners). The next day I wrapped the ankle with
gauze tape and danced the night away at the wedding of beloved young friends,
iced it again on Monday before work and on Tuesday (June 10), I ran and felt no
pain. The base of the foot is black and blue but the swelling is down – and I loped
for thirty minutes and felt great while making these track notes.
To run a marathon is to adopt this mentality.The road
warrior mindset. No one can train for a marathon without pain. It happens. And
unless we break bones in essential limbs, we keep going. That’s the nature of
this beast of a task: covering 26.2 miles in the most efficient, and least
body-breaking way.
Next: Running for Your Life: Over the Hump
