Running In Place

It was 2 years ago this month that I first started running. Since then, I have been plagued with a stress fracture, shin splints, psoas bursitis, and fluid behind the knee. I don’t think I’m very good at this. I mean, I try. I take rest days, I increase distance conservatively, I change out my sneaks, I listen to my body, I warm up, I stretch before and after, I worked on my core (past tense because that has fallen by the side lately, I will admit). Clearly I’m missing something.

Sure, I don’t have a runner’s body. I’m kind of big and ungainly. My thighs rub together and my feet turn outward. My hips probably swing a bit too much because sometimes it throws me off balance a little. I clearly wasn’t built to be a runner but I did it anyway. I figure I got heart and that’s gotta count for something. Well, evidently the rest of my body says it don’t count for shit.

Yes yes, I am being self-piteous today. No no, I am not going to quit running or anything silly. It’s just so tiresome to feel like every couple of months you’ve got to deal with some new problem.

Fortunately, as much as I am basking in my own misery. There’s a little part of my brain that’s already scheming. I think it comes down to this – in my running, I’m not necessarily stupid, but I’m clearly not smart enough. And I’ve been closed minded about what it sometimes takes to be a runner, which, for me is probably going to mean doing more than running. I might have to make some radical shifts here. I might have to start doing some things I really really dislike – which is pretty much anything other than running. I don’t know if it’s the answer, but I can’t keep doing the same thing over and over so it’s certainly worth a try if it keeps me running.

Here’s a brief idea of the thoughts flitting through my head:
* Finally join the YWCA. I’m a member of the organization and support their causes in womens’ advocacy, particularly in regard to domestic violence. Their facility has a fitness center with yoga and the like. Also a pool that actually offers a water running class. What’s not to like, except the water and yoga and stuff.
* Call the local Tramp & Trail club. Finally. This is another bright idea that pops in and out without follow through. They do snowshoeing and cross country skiing in winter and nature hikes in other seasons. That, I could get into.
* Run fewer races this summer and volunteer at more. Oh, I’m not done with racing, I love doing it too much. But man, if I’m really really going to do this, I’ve got to get myself to training, and then through training without this bullshit injury nonsense. I’ve got to prioritize.
* My bike. I don’t know, I’m not going to contemplate that one just yet. I really don’t much care for bike riding. But then, I really don’t care for much of anything that’s not running so I won’t close the door. I might have to suck it up and maybe, just maybe, I’ll find the love there too.

Just for the record, my knee feels 90% better. I’ll see my doc tomorrow and probably get a follow up x-ray, though as previously noted, I likely won’t hear back about it till next week. When I’ve already gotten a few easy, pain-free runs in

I’m going to jump to the important part first and tell you all that my knee DOES feel quite alot better! (thanks for the stroking). But even though I didn’t keep you in suspense till the end of the post, I’m still going to spend some time whining about my day.

First of all, at 4:30 this morning I totally did not feel better. In fact, my knee had stiffened up to the point that any movement of the leg was painful, and attempts to bend it were excruciating. I hobbled to the bathroom, tears streaming, and downed some ibuprofen, then my kind husband propped my leg up on some pillows to give it some support. I dozed on and off for another couple of hours and, upon awaking, found that I had a little more range of motion and a little less pain – enough to stand up from the toilet without help anyway. I contemplated my options.

Option One is always to do nothing. The pain seemed to be responding a little to NSAIDS, so clearly there was an inflammatory component there that might end up being managable with good old RICE. The problem was, I was a little nervous about the onset. It was so abrupt and so acute that I wondered if it was somehow traumatic. Tendonitis is one thing, tendon rupture is a little bit of another. Muscle pull vs. muscle tear, same thing I think. I didn’t want to just nurse myself at the cost of a long or incomplete healing.

Option Two, per my HMO, is to start with my doc. Assuming he could even accomodate seeing me before the weekend, the best I could hope for would be an x-ray. My doc is a good enough guy but he’s not so good about getting to his x-ray reports so I would be pretty lucky if he got to it sometime next week (and that’s with me calling the office and hounding him). Then, assuming it’s a soft tissue injury – which would not necessarily be evident on the x-ray, he’d order a CT scan – which I would immediately have done and then wait a week for him to read. Two weeks from now, when he finally gathered all his information and made a diagnosis or referral, my problem would either be resolved on its own or I would have suffered painfully through much lost treatment time. Totally went down that road already with my stress fracture.

Option Three, as I saw it, was to hit the Urgent Care Center. Hopefully, it would be my one stop shop. I’m not going to say it was easy, fun, or quick but at the end of 3.5 hours time I knew that I had an effusion behind my patella (as in, fluid behind the kneecap). Not surprisingly, the prescription is RICE but at least I know that it’s not something too horrible. I got signed out of work this weekend and have a follow up with my own doc on Monday to see if there’s improvement. The hope is that the fluid, with some TLC, will reabsorb into my system – though if it doesn’t, it may have to be aspirated with a big, gigantic needle that will make me faint.

In terms of discomfort right now, I feel about 70% better, and that’s pretty damn great. It could be the RICE + NSAIDS and/or it could mean it’s starting to resolve some, I don’t know. But as long as I can sit down to pee with the confidence that I won’t have to call somebody to stand me back up, I’m a happy girl.

Something’s so wrong with my right knee and I am trying not to freak out. This morning, while heading down to the basement to get some hay for the guinea pig, I put my right foot down on the next step – no thumping, no twisting, no other obvious trauma, just a step – and I got a shot of take-the-top-of-your-head-off pain just above the kneecap.

Since then, it’s been an ugly day. I had to work at Hospice and it was necessary to go up and down stairs several times – which was tearfully painful. The pain can shoot down to my calf and up to my hip at times, though not consistently. Standing or sitting with the leg unbent is comfortable but any simultaneous bending and weight bearing hurts quite alot (though not as bad as the stairs). Bending the knee while sitting ilicits a dull ache. There’s no visible swelling, redness, or deformity, it’s not really tender to the touch. I’m doing ice and ibuprofen and wondering what the hell happened to me!! After the usual web scramble for a self-diagnois, the closest thing I can come up with is tendonitis (maybe tendon rupture?). Fuck. Sorry for the vulgarity. But seriously. This really hurts.

I hope I wake up tomorrow all better.

Yes, so, Saturday was a sweet day. A year ago that day, I ran my first race. A frightening 3.1 miles! And I was frightened. If I remember right, I had not even yet run that full distance – I walked up to the starting line not only fearing that I would be “too slow” but not even sure that I could make it the whole way. On that day, that distance felt like the greatest challenge ever. And, of course, I was struggling mightily with the insecurities of my image of myself and my running.

What am I doing here?? I’m not a real runner. People are going to laugh at me because I don’t belong with this group.

But, at the end of the day, I had met my goal, I felt proud and strong, and I fell in love with running races! The changing of my self-image, the ability to embrace myself as a runner and not feel somehow a failure because I wasn’t as fast as most, and the end to the question do I belong here came over the course of that year. But the process started that day.

So, as you can imagine, I was really looking forward to returning to this race – not because I would have a better time after a year of experience (though that would be nice too) but because it made me happy to begin at the beginning again. To remember how daunting my goals seemed at the time and how I was able to meet each one – scared but determined – and to put it in the context of the goal I have before me this year, so that I can continue to balance those fears with that determination.

Anyway, back to the present. The weather for this year’s Chilly Chili was right fine. The temp was cool, maybe 18 or 20F I’d guess, but the sun was out and it wasn’t snowing. The roads were, for the most part, clear with some greasy slushy stuff here and there but not the snow covered roads of last year. The start was in a different spot with less traffic and so the route was modified somewhat but still plenty hilly There were a few hundred more runners this year as well.

I took my place at the near back and jumped around, trying to stay warm. I think they must have decided to forego the national anthem and any housekeeping announcements, or I totally missed them, because everyone was just talking and jogging in place and then there was the start gun going off. As usual, EVERYONE was passing me in the first mile, but I’m so ok with that now because I know I’ll see at least some of them again in a short while.

I hadn’t been sure what to expect from myself, given my little lapse in training. My time last year was 38:19 and I felt pretty good about surpasing that, but by how much I just didn’t know – 34ish maybe? I was pretty surprised and happy when I hit the first mile marker at 10:36 – which I crossed in the middle of heading up a big ol’ hill. As for subsequent splits – damned if I saw any other mile markers. I don’t know if I missed them, which I admitedly often do – but man, I really was looking for them! Anyway, time aside, the next mile had a good amount of uphill as well, but I was chugging, and I was starting to pass folks. You know what I love? When you pull up alongside someone, or they pull up alongside you, at a difficult time, and there’s no words – but you know you’re pushing each other and keeping each other going. Eventually, one pulls ahead and runs on. But for that piece of time there is (or at least I feel) an unspoken camaraderie. Maybe the other person is really thinking “I wish I could pass this bitch” but I prefer my more romantic perspective. In any case, I had a few of those types of encounters on my way up the various hills. I also have to say, I really feel the little bit of hill training in the couple of weeks prior did the trick because I felt like I stayed strong. Blessedly, mile 3+ was flat and downhill, save for a small uphill incline just before the finish (the dirty birds!). I opened up as much as I could with the greasy spots on the road and all – and here is where I passed several more people. You know you’ve blown your wad too soon when you’re walking a downhill (I say this because I’ve done it, you see). Heading towards the finish, I pulled up next to a young girl (well young as in 10 or so years junior) and we were side by side, working hard. A friend of her’s who had finished already joined her to run the last little bit and keep her going. Even though his words of encouragement – you’re almost there, just over this little hill and around the bend, you’re doing great, you’ve got it – were meant for her, I greedily grabbed them for myself and kept up the pace with them. Just in the finishing stretch, we came up on four dudes all in matching jackets from some nearby tech school. They were jogging leisurely, it appeared, like four identical little princes – side by side. A nice. Slow. Human chain. Standing between me and the finish line, as the runnable road had narrowed significantly. Just as I was about to slow my pace and spend the next several seconds in a royal snit (because I’m pretty much a pacifist or whatever), the girl I’d been running beside freaking slammed through the defensive line and made for the finish!! The second I saw her make her move, I followed suit – I didn’t look back to see if the faces of the Little Lord Fauntleroys were tear streaked at the affront, I just followed my girl. The aggressive move gave me the best rush for a finishing kick and she and I were neck and neck! In the end we were so close when we came up on the chute that I literally would have had to elbow her in the neck to get her behind me. I wasn’t quite stoked enough to be that aggressive so I relented and fell behind. But what’s 1 second between friends who have never spoken a word to each other. Thanks Lauren, you busted up the boys club right fine!

In the end – official time (chiptime this year!) was 32:14. That time makes me happy because it’s a nice surprise, being faster than I was anticipating – but also a nice testament, to myself personally, of my growth as a runner. A year ago on that day, a huge unknown spread out in front of me and each step was its own challenge because I just didn’t know if I could do it or not. On this day, I didn’t know how fast I would run or how well I would do, but I felt certain that I would persevere.

This is the beginning of the collection – the re-experiences. Last year, I ran a number of races for the first time – this year I will revisit them with slightly different eyes, different knowledge, different experience. And that’s unique to me too. And so flippin’ exciting!

What the hell’s in our water! Since my family and I have moved to this small, rural town just over 3 years ago here’s what’s happened within a 7 mile radius of my house: a son brutally murdered both his parents, supposedly for their money; a man was accidentally killed by his neighbor with a baseball bat during a fight over property; a woman was strangled and stabbed in the throat by a former boyfriend, she survived and he committed suicide by cutting his own throat (this last happening only about 3 weeks ago). The latest excitement, on Sunday night, was this. Looks like there might be a little deficit in impulse control ’round these here parts. So don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.