“I’d run, but .¤.¤. it’s so boring.”
If I’ve heard that line once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. And don’t get me wrong, it’s a point of view I’m not unsympathetic to. In the spirit of the voices that come to me on the road, it’s one I claim as my own. Honestly, I don’t know if I didn’t have my DVT health scare in the mid-1970s, whether I’d be a runner today. Word to the wise: A blessing lies in all.
Running for Your Life: December Highs
As my wife M put it this week: garden trowel or snow shovel, what’s it going to be?
Almost three weeks into December, the fastest month of the year. In Canada, when I was a boy and a young man, it was the shortest month. In the US, it’s only amplified by the super-late Thanksgiving, with December days filling up with parties and family gatherings and charity events and food-buying and gift-selecting, never enough hours in the day so that about now, Dec. 20, it’s understandable that reasonable people begin to long for January, when time slows, days lengthen, and you can actually get some writing done!
Almost three weeks into December, the fastest month of the year. In Canada, when I was a boy and a young man, it was the shortest month. In the US, it’s only amplified by the super-late Thanksgiving, with December days filling up with parties and family gatherings and charity events and food-buying and gift-selecting, never enough hours in the day so that about now, Dec. 20, it’s understandable that reasonable people begin to long for January, when time slows, days lengthen, and you can actually get some writing done!
Running for Your Life: Road Home
In Washington, DC, Vincent, the store manager of the K Street U-Haul, doesn’t seem to tire telling renters not be alarmed in the event that the police around the Capitol Building stop you and ask for your documents and to check inside the truck.
Early Saturday morning (Dec. 10) I’m riding K’s bike to K Street to pick up the truck. I’m here to help move K's stuff back to Brooklyn. She’ll sift through the lot and take some of it to Los Angeles, where she is living now. The rest M and I will keep in Brooklyn.
Early Saturday morning (Dec. 10) I’m riding K’s bike to K Street to pick up the truck. I’m here to help move K's stuff back to Brooklyn. She’ll sift through the lot and take some of it to Los Angeles, where she is living now. The rest M and I will keep in Brooklyn.
Running for Your Life: Striking a Balance II
I dodged a bullet. Or at least that’s how it feels. Last Wednesday (Dec. 7) I was heartsick, certain that I’d set myself back in my training by a month, maybe longer. Today, though, I’m hopeful. Only three days off and I loped my way through a five-miler on Sunday. Barely feeling the muscle pull, tear in the upper thigh of my left leg, the bad one, the one inflicted with DVT, the one that swells up in the calf when I run because the vein valves are shot, the oxygen-rich blood feeds the muscles on a run, but they’re slow to return to the heart, causing swelling, no pain to speak of but an injury with this leg is especially concerning.
Running for Your Life: Striking a Balance
I should have known better. It’s against my better judgment to train with the dog. As a puppy maybe. Or when I wasn’t in training. Perhaps that was what was working in the back of my mind when I set up this 19-week Boston Marathon training regimen, that sure enough I’d do something stupid, hard-run with Thurb in the cold, pouring rain without limbering up, tense in my body over the first quarter-mile, because during that part of the run all pretense of me being in charge of Thurber is cast off, as he howls and howls and charges off like a wild horse, me holding on to the leash for dear life, and on this day (Dec. 7), as I’m yanked along, big heavy strides, about a dozen of them, before I feel something like needles digging just below the surface, upper outside thigh of my left leg, where the hamstring attaches, first thinking what the hell else do I have in my pocket besides the Snoop Loop halter and retractable nylon leash, what could be causing this sharp pain, but then I think shit, it’s a muscle tear, hard to know just how serious, but something not good, and I’m thinking that if I stop now in the cold and wet and walk home it will only seize up and get worse, if only I’d warmed up before this wouldn’t be happening now, I’m only in a T-shirt and baggy shorts, freezing, the rain really coming down, and damn, Thurb isn’t easing up one bit, this might not be such a good idea, trying to slow him down so that the pain is just a dull throb, eventually though he does as he always does, levels off into a trot, stops the incessant howling so that I too can relax, feel looser, which helps, and, yeah, keep going, convincing myself that if I get home in time before I have to gather up my stuff and head off to the newsroom that I’ll find the heating pad and apply some HIGH heat before my sedentary day gets in full swing, and worst case, ties up the muscle so badly that I’ll be taking a week of rest days, heat and cold and light stretching before I’ll be able to get back to training for the marathon; maybe I’ll be looking at a 100-day marathon training regimen after all.
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