Running for Your Life: December Beginnings

It's funny to think about but I came from Canada to live in the United States in December, almost thirty years ago. There are many things about the United States that is different than my home and native land, not the least of which is that the days between Thanksgiving (second Monday in October in Canada) is so blessedly close to Christmas (and Hanukkah for that matter) that I find them to be sister holidays -- one all about food and the other -- arguing what it's about.

Then there was this conversation that I overheard at PT today (Dec. 1). Believe me, this is 100% urban America ...

Young Person 1: After college, I started teaching high school.

Young Person 2: Where?

Young Person 1: In Bed-Stuy (a currently gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn). I taught there for five years. And then in Bushwick.

Young Person 2: My wife taught in Bushwick. What do you do now?

Young Person 1: I'm a nanny.

She gave the impression that she is much happier, makes more money, more time off ...

Imagine that happening in Canada? Leave a teacher's job, in say, Scarborough, and trade up to being a nanny ... The mind boggles.

Next: Running for Your Life: Diary Food



  

Running for Your Life: Slow But Sure !!

Today (November 30) marks a month to the day after I very nearly fell off the treadmill at a 8:30-per-mile pace when my left knee suddenly went lame … And I’m thrilled to report that while I wouldn’t say I’m back to where I was then, in marathon-training mode, looking to put in a sub-four hour race of 26.2 miles, I would say I have returned to the idea of Running for My Life.

As per instructions from my physical therapist, I am carefully getting back to running. I started a week ago with five minutes at a slow jog, and have been building up to today when I crossed the one-mile mark! Hardly beating any records. In fact, I ran only 12 minutes, with one minute of “cooling” down, and over that span I completed just 1.08 miles. But after how horrible I felt the day before Halloween, I almost wept when I finished that sliver of a run – and in no pain!

My goal is to keep building in two-minute aggregates, paying close attention to how my knee responds. So far, I haven’t felt but the wee-est twinges. Every other day I’ll be jogging along. Not running for my life yet, which means going hard enough and long enough that it counts as a workout and helps to keep that deep vein thrombosis bogeyman at bay. Still, I feel like I’m on my way.

Next: Running for Your Life: December Beginnings

Running for Your Life: More Beatlebone !!

More words of sighing grace from my fab read of the week (month?), all in the spirit of what this blog set out to do five and a half years ago: offer advice and words of passionate belief (if not wisdom), occasional witticisms, on the following topics: Running, ’Riting, and Reading.

This novel by Kevin Barry, “Beatlebone,” is proving to be so quotable, especially during these trying days in both the political and social arenas. How to keep your head when others are losing theirs. This is the latest in the timeless dialogue between Cornelius (Our man Friday) and his charge, the imagined John Lennon (Lennon tees off below):

I lost my father. He went away.

We all lost our fucken fathers.

I lost my mother. She went and died.

We all have dead fucken mothers.

So tell me how do you get by, Cornelius!

It’s simple, John. I listen to what’s around me.

Okay …

And then?

Yeah?

I react.

You listen. And you react.

Because everything you need in the world is there to be heard.

You have my interest, Cornelius.

You can see very little in the world, John. But you can hear fucken everything.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone !

Next: Running for Your Life: Slow But Sure

Running for Your Life: Off to See the PT Wizards!

For reasons that close readers of this blog (don’t be so naïve, Larry!) know well, my experiences have not been all that favorable on the physical therapist and massage table. The nightmare occurred in Winter 2011, when I was in the care of a physical therapist office, whose sole goal was to assess my slight hamstring tear to determine if it was reasonable for me to rest and then continue my training for the Boston Marathon of that year. But after one deep tissue massage that my therapist insisted on giving me despite my misgivings, I very nearly passed out a half-hour after my treatment with the pain of a full-blown hamstring tear while on a simple errand run in busy New York City traffic.

That was going on five years ago. Now I’m thrilled to report that I’m a PT believer. Why? Thank the good folks at NYU Langone Medical Center, who steered me in the direction of a place called One on One Physical Therapy on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.

The first day going to the PT Wizards I got into a funky ’70s-style elevator – think Eastern Europe, the Cold War years – with a fellow athlete who seemed surprised when I told him to hit “6”. (He had just pressed the button for “7,” home of the athletic club in that Eastern Parkway building.) As I was leaving, he said, with all earnestness, “Good luck.”

Which, in the end, is what I didn’t need. From the moment I arrived I felt welcomed – and better than that – understood. G and the team of PT specialists did and do precisely what I was looking for and didn’t find back in 2011. They listened closely to me, to my fears, to my goals, and we immediately started to allay them, and to work toward them.

Under their careful watch, I feel a total, mid-training-style health is only weeks away. It’s been only five sessions (Nov. 24), and I’m back on the treadmill. Only five minutes, the lightest of jogging. But I’ve the tools I need, thanks to a muscle stretching and strengthening program that has me confident again – just three weeks since I thought all was lost when I stumbled home in terrible knee pain after escaping injury on a rapidly moving treadmill.

When I’m off to see the PT Wizards, it’s with a smile on my face. Which is some kind of gift, I can tell you.

Next: Running for Your Life: More Beatlebone !!  

Running for Your Life: If the Greats Were With Us Thursday

Missing John Lennon (1940-1980)? Trust Kevin Barry to give you what you seek -- and more -- in his new novel, "Beatlebone." Here's a sample:

"And now the fat old dog rests its chin on his [John's] knee, and he places a palm on the breathing warmth of the dog's flank, and they share a moment of sighing grace.

Never name the moment for happiness or it will pass by."

Next: Running for Your Life: Off to See the PT Wizards !