Next steps

Remember the issues I’ve been having with numbness in my big toe? I’ve gotten all the test results back and they don’t show a reason for that numbness. To recap, here’s what's happened:

Late February, the top of my foot hurt. Being my mother’s daughter and knowing that the tincture of time often cures aches and pains, I waited a couple of weeks, and also retied my running shoelaces so they didn’t cross that spot on my foot.

But over the next two weeks, I got pins and needles down into my toe and then a bit of numbness plus the pain on the top of my foot. I got it checked out by an NP who ordered an X-ray. Nothing showed so I shrugged and moved on.

Two months later, the numbness, pins and needles worsened, and then my foot broke while on a training run.

Obviously, I didn’t run for a while and I figured if this numbness etc. was caused by running, then the time off should give my foot time to recover. Nope, that didn’t happen. 

I went to the podiatrist both for the break, which I will say took ages to heal, and this numbness and pins and needles. She had me go back to the orthopedist; several x-rays and an MRI later, everyone agreed that my bone was very slowly healing, and no one had any clue on why I had this numbness and pins and needles in my big toe.

In December, the orthopedist referred me to a neurology consult on the off chance that the numbness etc. was caused by a nerve impingement. I saw the neurologist in April, and he ordered two tests (nerve conduction test and an EMG, both of which were very, very unpleasant). Neither test identified any issues, so he ordered an MRI of my spine to rule out any issues there. As expected, that also came back absolutely fine.

So here I am with this numbness and pins and needles and no idea what’s causing it or how to get it to stop. But I’m tired of waiting, I have fitness goals I want to work on. Today I booked my first session with a personal trainer—he and his wife are experts in fitness for people who’ve had cancer, and I'd checked out their gym right before COVID shut everything down last year.

I have two goals:

• Prep for and run the Grandma’s Marathon next June. This is the marathon I’d registered for last year only of course, it shifted to virtual (ugh) and I broke my foot. I have a discount code for it that has to be used no later than next summer’s race. I’m bound and determined to be there.
• Prep for staying as physically healthy and strong as I can during my older years. After watching how fast my mother-in-law lost all her strength, I’m committed to doing everything I can to avoid that kind of frailty. Sure, it’s not always avoidable but often it is.

More to come after my first session (which is next Wednesday).

Rebuilding again

This is much of what I posted on IG, with a bit more added in.

This photo is what rebuilding looks like to me.

I am once again starting to rebuild my running base, which is tiresome I will admit. 

In May 2018, I fractured my pelvis after running too many races that spring. That was definitely an over-use fracture and took forever to heal.

I started rebuilding in February 2019 only to be diagnosed with breast cancer in April that year. While I ran after surgery and all through radiation treatments, it knocked the stuffing out of me and my progress was sporadic. I kept trying but would have to stop and regroup. I did well enough to win my age group in the Heartland 30K challenge but I wasn't as fast as I'd been not even two years before. But I was out there. 

I knew I wanted to run a marathon, I’ve never run that distance and I thought it would be cool to run one the year I turned 60. So I started training again with the goal of running Grandma's Marathon last June. I ended up in Manila for most of January and running there was a challenge—first, because I worked nights; second, because of the heat and air quality; and third, because Taal erupted 35 miles from where I was staying. That definitely wrecked the air quality.

But I got a running coach, I had a plan and I started training. As you probably know, last May, my foot also fractured. This was not an overuse injury although my orthopedist still calls it a stress fracture. I prefer to just go ahead and say my bones are shit.

I’m working on that too, taking my daily injection, using my (second) bone growth stimulator (here's where I said good-bye to the first one), and doing all the right things. I’ve been rowing or doing HIIT during our nasty weather or when it’s snowy or icy outside. Also lifting. So I’m strong. But my running is basically in the toilet. I’m starting all over from the beginning again.

I am not ever giving up. Today I ran one lousy mile (slowly). But I ran. And I will run again.

What I’ve learned in the first week of having a coach

First, I like it a lot.

While I have all the discipline needed to follow a training program, I struggle to find the right one, the one that meets me where I am.

So many times, a training program will say to find this pace or that pace (where pace = marathon pace or 10K for example) and then it’s up to me to decide well what IS my pace? Did I pick the right one? Pace is easier if the goal is to stay in my aerobic zone (my Garmin watch tells me that), or if there’s an exact specific running pace I need to hit. But the vague ranges just annoy and frustrate me.

Or take strides as another example—when I trained for my first half marathon in 2018, I had runs that called for strides. I knew I was supposed to go fast, but how fast? How long? How many do I do in each run or per mile or what?

My coach gave the perfect definition of what’s needed for strides. He said I should feel like I’m chasing a ball, not chasing a child who ran into the street. And he said do one for each mile. The first time I had strides scheduled, our streets had a lot of black ice so I couldn’t really do one set of strides per mile. I had to take them as I had demonstratively dry pavement. But today, I did a lot better and only got mixed up once (two sets in mile two, oops). Still, that guidance has made a difference for me.

And rest days. Oh, I could go on for a bit about rest days. I’m terrible at taking them, not out of some desire to be masochistic but more wondering if I needed them that week (answer: almost certainly yes) and then I’d struggle with feeling lazy or undisciplined, neither of which are true. Knowing he’s looking at my workouts in the online training calendar is motivation to make sure I do take those rest days.

In a way, training for this marathon reminds me a lot of when I was in Basic Training. The first week I was there, the drills sergeants showed a video of everything we would be learning and all the stuff we’d be doing. I will tell you, about halfway through I thought “well that’s it, I’m going to wash out here, I’ll never make it through and be able to do all this stuff.”  But then I realized they were motivated to help me learn and pass all the tests, sure I still needed to do the work, but I wouldn’t be doing it alone. That’s kind of how I feel about this, but in a much better and a lot more fun way. 

What a relief

I did run that 10K race today. I will confess I was extremely anxious this morning before the race started. Having already hurt myself running when I shouldn’t have, I was afraid I might be making the same mistake. I wasn’t going to wear the chest strap heart monitor, but Kent pointed out that if I ended up with cadence lock and my heart rate looked alarming, that would be not so good. So I wore it and fretted before the race started because my heart was racing from nerves. Also it was really cold with a wind that just cut through my clothes.

Enough about that . . . I’d set three goals for this race:

1. Be smart and walk if my heart went nutty.
2. Break one hour again
3. Run at an average pace of 9:30 min/miles. 

I considered the last two goals to be probably out of reach since I haven’t been able to train the last three weeks. But a closed mouth doesn’t get fed so I set those goals anyway.

Long story not so long, I hit them all. I ran an average pace of 9:29, broke an hour and best of all had no heart rate issues. I mean not a one. My heart was Steady Eddie the whole way. AND in a pretty crowded 10K race of over 600 people, I placed third in my age group. Now that was a very unexpected and nice surprise!

Today marks five weeks off tamoxifen and I’m also seeing the other common side effects dwindling away. I’m still going to get those cardiac tests, they’re scheduled, and I would rather make sure all’s well with my ticker. Plus I’ve hit all my deductibles this year and I’d rather not start next year with expensive tests. In fact, I hope for a very boring year for my health (and Kent’s too).

Outpacing Melanoma 5K

Background part 1: When my husband and I started dating in 2002, he was training for and ran a marathon (the San Diego Rock & Roll marathon). Although he finished the race, I know he was disappointed with how he did. He ran into trouble because he didn’t account for how much drier San Diego is than Kansas City, and struggled with dehydration—I’ve never seen such salty sweat stains. After that race, he pretty much hung up his shoes and never looked back.

Background, part 2: I’ve always been a runner, although I never ran many races. Nearly a year ago, my younger son and my daughter-in-law gave me a much-needed push to give racing and consistent training a go. So I have, and this has been a great year for me with a couple of age group places and the satisfaction of seeing my times and endurance improve.

Then last August, I was diagnosed with melanoma and had surgery to remove it in September. I immediately started looking for a race centered on melanoma and found this one.

I also asked my husband to consider running this 5k with me. I told him I didn’t want an answer right then because he’d be answering out of emotion, but to think about it. After all, the race wasn’t until May so there was no rush. In January, he told me to sign us both up.

In the meantime, I got wild and crazy and signed up for the Heartland 39.3 Challenge—three half marathons in about five weeks’ time. After I’d signed us up for the Outpacing Melanoma 5K, I realized it was scheduled the Sunday before my third half marathon. Oops!

Pre-race: I suspected I might get a little emotional at the race. There were teams running in memory of folks who’ve died from melanoma, and a warrior wall where you could say who you were running or walking in support of, stuff like that. Mostly I held it together, so that was good. My husband isn’t as fast a runner as I am, so we’d decided to run together and talked about what pace he was aiming for. Side note, those of you who are real pacers in races? I have much respect for what you do! Running the pace he wanted and helping him stay steady with it took more focus that I would have thought.

Race: We were aiming for a 12:45 pace, but of course race excitement meant we started a little fast, so I slowed down more so he’d stay with me. He told me later that was perfect. This course is pretty flat with the exception of two hills: the first hill is in the first mile, and the second hill came right around mile two. We slowed a bit on those, but my husband was able to recoup and keep going. With about 2/10s to go, he picked up the pace and right before the finish line, we held hands and crossed together, as I’d hoped, grinning maniacally. I immediately burst into tears—I was just so happy he was with me and I was able to say a big F U to cancer. He got a PR in the 5K , with a chip time of 38:49 and 12:23 per mile pace. I am so proud of him!

Final thoughts: If you have ever had a sunburn—ever—or you have moles, please get checked. The only reason I got checked is because a dear mentor of mine died from melanoma. I never ever in my life thought I would get it. I don’t really burn, and I never was a big sun worshipper. Yet here I am. If I hadn’t been getting yearly checks, my story would have a very different, much shorter, ending. As it stands, I have a higher risk of recurrence and I’m now on the six-month check for the next four and a half years.

What’s next: On Saturday, I’m running the Run with the Cows Half Marathon and my husband today signed up to run the 5K race too. I’m stoked, and we’ll both be wearing lots of sunscreen.

Going slower than I’d like

I injured myself in the Jingle Bells 5K in early December (left piriformis and left hamstring). You might recall that I was also supposed to run the Hangover Half on January 1. In a way, I was saved by the extreme cold because honestly I would have run it if the race had been held, and I absolutely should not have run it. So that ended well.

Right before Christmas, I saw a physical therapist to see what I needed to do to recover and I’ve been going once a week since then. Recovery is slow, which is typical with hamstring issues, even though I’m following instructions and doing the exercises she’s prescribed (also not doing the exercises she’s said are off limits for now).

Three weeks ago, she suggested dry needling for the piriformis issue. She thinks (and I agree) that most of my issues stem from the piriformis—it just won’t release and so the rest of the posterior chain on the left side is also clenching up. Normally, I’m very skeptical of anything well outside Western medicine, but I work with a women who runs a lot of marathons and has also had serious pain with her piriformis. She’s the one who referred me to this physical therapy practice, and she’s had dry needling done and got a lot of relief from it. So two weeks ago, I had the dry needling done.

Let me just say that dry needling is not fun. It’s not painful, at least not pain in the sense that I normally think of pain. Having had seven major abdominal surgeries plus my tonsils and adenoids removed plus sinus surgery that involved drilling bone out of my nose, I’m well acquainted with pain and this wasn’t pain. It was, however, very unpleasant. The PT placed the needles into the muscle (three different locations) and triggered a spasm. But the spasm felt very alien because it’s very clear that my own muscles weren’t doing the spasm. I don’t know how else to explain it other than that. And the spasms are quite intense and uncomfortable. My PT warned me that I would feel like I’d done 100 squats on the left leg the next day, and she was not kidding.

At home that night after the needling, I wasn’t so sure having that done was a good idea. And definitely the next day, I was really not sure about it. But then mid-morning on the second day, I realized that it didn’t hurt nearly to the point of tears to sit in a chair. Well, that was real progress.

I’m scheduled to run a 10K on February 10—this is the replacement race for the canceled half marathon earlier this year. At this point, my goals will be pretty humble:

• Don’t injure myself—most important goal.
• Finish the race—so that reinforces the first goal because I can’t finish if I hurt myself.
• If possible, keep my pace under 10 minutes per mile. If I were running this in December before I hurt myself, the pace would be lower. But that’s not my current reality.

And that leads me to tonight, when I’m having a second session done in hopes that the muscles more fully release. I’m not looking forward to how I feel afterwards this evening, or tomorrow when I have to sit in a four-hour meeting (!!) but boy I sure hope Saturday I’m feeling much improved.

I'm with the big dog

Years ago, Kent had a dog named Max. Max was part basset hound, part cocker spaniel, sized more like the Cocker Spaniel, but with the barrel chest of the basset hound. He was super sweet but not the brightest dog around. We knew he was getting old, so we got a second dog, Molly, thinking that we’d have two dogs for a while. Molly was mostly German shepherd and pretty big, about 75 pounds.

About a week after we’d gotten her, we took both dogs on a walk. Oh you should have seen Max—he practically strutted with his tail way up in the air, so pleased to be out with Molly. If he could have talked, we were sure he’d have been bragging to everyone: “Look at me, I’m walking with the big dog! Isn’t this the coolest?”

Anyway, last weekend when my sis was in town, she ran with me. Now you have to know this about Amy: she’s always been a hero of mine in the way she’s stayed active, climbed crazy high mountains, gone ice climbing, run marathons. She’s just amazing. I don’t know anyone else who could go run a marathon at the last second when a friend asked her to.

So there we were out running last Saturday and all I can think is “I’m with the big dog! Look at me getting to run with her, isn’t this the coolest??” I was so proud and so happy to be out there running with her.

Before we ran

Critters

Do you remember Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom? I used to watch that show when I was a kid, and loved it. Lately, though, I’ve been feeling like I could make my own wild kingdom show.

Leawood as nature preserve?

I live in an inner suburb—inside the I-435 loop, with medium-size yards and fairly busy streets. But you wouldn’t know that by all the wild life I see on my runs. You’d think I was running in the exurbs or in a natural preserve or something.

I wrote about encountering several raccoons on a run, and I’ve mentioned the crazy numbers of bunnies, squirrels and birds I see. I thought I'd also written about seeing a coyote a couple of times last year (pretty sure it was the same animal, and not a second, different one), but it looks like I only mentioned it on Facebook. That was pretty cool, to be honest.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve run past a gigantic owl on the ground in someone’s yard—it immediately took off and I could not believe how big the wing span was. I hear another owl at a different point on my daily runs, and after having seen the one that took off, I sure hope I never encounter the hooting one up close and personal.

Then there’s the opossum I saw early one Sunday morning shambling from someone’s yard and across the street (I silently urged it to hurry up). That same week, I came pretty close to yet another raccoon that immediately turned tail and ran into the nearest storm drain.

And one morning, as I left the house I saw what I thought was a small leaf twirling in the breeze. Only there was no breeze and it wasn’t a leaf. It was a mouse turning counter clockwise circles as though it could not stop. I have no idea what that was about, and I was pretty glad it was gone when I finished my run.

This morning, I turned on our porch light and stepped out the front door only to encounter an opossum on the front port about three feet from me. I stopped, it stopped, blinked, turned around and hurried off the porch and into our front yard, then started climbing the pine tree at the end of our front porch.

I like critters, I just wish some of these wouldn't get quite so close.

Raccoons and rain

This morning’s run was a little eventful.

First, the raccoons.

Did you read the story about the woman in Maine who was out running one afternoon and was attacked by a rabid raccoon? No, I’m not making this up. I read that story when it first broke, shuddered and promptly forgot about it.

Now remember, I run very early in the morning. It's dark at 5 AM in Kansas, so the only light comes from the streetlights (which aren't always on).

This morning on my own run, I spotted some animals in an intersection ahead of me. I slowed down a bit because I wasn’t sure what they were—I’ve seen squirrels, bunnies, cats and even a coyote or two but none of those matched was I was seeing. Then I realized they were three raccoons. It looked like a full-grown adult and two slightly smaller ones (maybe the off spring?). Well, I remembered that story about the rabid raccoon and thought maybe if I hollered a little bit, they would move off. So I did (not too loudly, though, remember it was around 5 AM).

To my utter shock and immediate adrenaline-dumping fear, they all three turned and ran toward me. Holy crap, that was unnerving. I started backing up, not entirely sure what to do and a little surprised at how fast they were. One couldn’t quite keep up and darted off the road to a tree and scrambled up it, and—whew—the other two ran down into a storm drain. What was odd is that they were by a different storm drain when I startled them, and they had to run up the street (toward me) to get to that specific storm drain. You better believe I hoofed it out of that intersection ASAP.

I was about halfway through my run when the skies just opened up with a torrential downpour. All I could think was the only way out was through, and I’d spend less time out in the rain if I just kept running. About a half mile later, the rain dwindled and stopped. I was so glad . . .until I realized I could hear rain moving toward me from the west. When I say I could hear it, I mean I could hear the sound of another torrential storm pounding the ground.

Well. I was completely soaked when I got home. Kent had very kindly put a towel by the front door, and I needed it.

I never realized running could be so exciting.

If a tree falls in a forest

Yesterday, I ran my longest distance yet—just over six miles. Except shortly after mile 4, my Garmin’s battery died.

If you’d been running with me, you’d have heard me grumble for the next quarter mile or so about the crappy design (you have to press several buttons to see the battery indicator, and you get no notice that the battery’s low until it’s very nearly dead). At that point, I didn’t know if any of that run would show up or if the whole thing was gone. As it turned out, I lost the last two miles in terms of tracking the run.

Sweaty me post run

But I was really bummed. I’m working on increasing my leg endurance—my lungs felt great the whole way through, and while my legs got tired, they didn’t feel over stressed. I thought I’d done pretty well on the run, but without having all the data, I didn’t know for sure. And I’ll be honest, it bugged me all day that my steps for the day were a full two miles short.

This morning, I ran the same route again (I am stubborn like that). My lungs still felt great, my legs were pretty tired by the end and honestly, I should have peed right before I left the house. That was a little uncomfortable. Best of all, my Garmin didn’t die so it tracked the entire run.

A couple of things I’ve learned from using the Garmin

And I will say up front that they are of interest to me, and possibly no one else. 

I’m a faster runner than I thought I was. Kent, Ben and Jen all thought otherwise, but I didn’t. Truly, I thought that the Garmin would show that I was slower than I’d been saying I was. Nope—I’m faster. On this morning’s run, I deliberately ran at a slower pace (helps build endurance according to Ben, and I’m positive he’s right) and I still ran faster than I thought I would.

My resting heart rate is crazy good at 54 BPM. I already knew I had great blood pressure, and apparently I have a good pulse rate too. I've always associated that kind of pulse rate with athletes (see also "I'm a runner," I said).

The red spike in the heart rate was this morning's run, near
the top of the long hill which is (of course) near the end of the run.

One final brag: this morning I ran over 5 miles. The last time I ran that far, I was 18 and in basic training. I can tell you this—I ran faster this morning than I did 39 years ago.

A new fitness device

About four years ago, I got a Jawbone Up (wrote about it here). Pretty quickly I realized that I didn’t like the interface or the looks so I returned it and got the Fitbit Flex I’d originally planned to buy. I wore my Fitbit faithfully, and manually entered my runs and workouts online. Last summer, it quit holding a charge so I got a new one. I (briefly) considered getting one with more bells and whistles but went with what I knew and was already comfortable using.

But over the last year or so, I’ve gotten frustrated with the Flex. It’s not designed to provide anything more than a relative scale of activity—you get your steps, you get some sense of whether the steps were light, moderate, or intense, and you get a very rough guide on the amount of time you spent doing your steps at that level of effort.

When I say rough guide, I do mean rough. For example, in Yuma I ran the same route twice; the first time Fitbit thought I ran 3 miles, and the second time, Fitbit thought I ran 2.65 miles. That’s a pretty big difference. It's the same with the amount of time; the Flex tracks in 15 second slices (I think?), so if you stop a run at the beginning of a slice, you'll look like you took more time. And you have to do the math to get your average pace per mile (assuming your mileage is tracked halfway accurately), and you still have to enter the info yourself.

So I’d been thinking about other fitness device options. While we were in Yuma, Jen showed me her Garmin Vivosmart HR+ device, and I was intrigued. Turns out Ben had done a lot of research to find a device that would do what Jen wanted it to do, and it turns out that what Jen wanted was pretty much what I was looking for. AND it turns out that I was able to buy a refurbished one for about $80 less than new. Although honestly, this device sure seems new to me—I’m pretty sure whoever bought it didn’t use it more than once and then returned it.

The verdict? I love it. I love that the device is fully synced to my phone, that my runs get uploaded automatically, and that I can enter something manually if I need to. I love that I know what kind of elevation gains I had on my runs in Provo (49 feet if you’re curious, there was an overpass I ran up and over every day), and what the starting elevation was too (4498 ft). I love that I can see my total average pace per mile, where I was slower and where I was faster. I love knowing my heart rate, resting and while working out, and I love that I can set the device to alert me if I'm not in my target heart rate zone, or I can set it up for running sprints.

All in all, I’m very happy I made the switch. Now I need to figure out what to do with my Flex.

“I’m a runner,” I said

I’ve mentioned before that I have always struggled with calling myself a runner. Silly, I know. I run, therefore I am a runner—right? And yet I shied away from saying those words.

But I am a runner. I run regularly and faithfully, in hot and cold weather. There have been times I’ve packed more fitness clothing than regular clothing when I’m traveling. I look up good running routes when I’m out of town. In other words, I do everything a runner does.

This week I was emailing with a work colleague—we’ll both be in Provo next week, and she mentioned wanting to try a trail she’d heard about. I wrote back and said “I’m a runner, do you think that would be a good running trail?”*

That's a runner right there

And then I sort of blinked. I don't know what made the difference, why this time I used those words but finally, finally I said it (almost without thinking).

*It isn’t, actually, that trail is straight up a mountain. While I’m pretty fearless, I live at 900 feet and Provo is about 4500 feet and that altitude will be enough of a challenge for me.

Meant to post this last week

I got new running shoes last Saturday. I have a tendency to forget exactly when I started running with a new pair of shoes, and then run in them for far longer than anyone would recommend. That's led to some knee pain or ankle pain as the shoes just wear out.

So. I got these on May 13, they are Brooks PureCadence 6, and in addition to feeling good when I run, I really like the super bright laces.

Quit changing the shoes!

I’m not hard on my shoes. I think I’ve had one pair that needed actual repairs and it was because the tip of the heel came off (pointy heels). Usually, though, I wear them for years.

And that goes for my running shoes too. I know, I know, you’re supposed to switch running shoes every six months which has always struck me as ridiculous. I don’t put massive miles on my shoes and I’m not at all hard on them. I wore my Nike Free shoes, which I got when we lived in Boston, for years. Sure, toward the end I could tell it was time to replace them . . . but it took a while.

Since I don’t buy running shoes all that often, I end up having to find whatever is the most current version of the version I bought before. Sometimes that works out, but not always. Case in point, those Nike Free shoes I mentioned? Nike changed the last so much that they didn’t work for me any more. That’s when I switched to Brooks.

That was three years ago. I got smart, though, and after I’d been running in the Brooks for a couple of months, I ordered another pair so that when the current pair wore out, I’d have a pair ready to go.

Two weeks ago, I knew it was time. I was getting some twinges in my knee which generally means I’m not running correctly, so I got out the new shoes and ooo. Yes, the old ones were worn out.

Then I looked online, thinking I’d order another pair. Only guess what? Brooks doesn’t make that version any more. Mine are PureCadence 2 and now the model is PureCadence 5. Ugh.

I guess I should mark my calendar for a couple of years from now so I can start searching then for the next pair of running shoes.

New shoes on the left, old shoes on the right. Same model.

They all fall down

If you are friends with me on Facebook, then you already know I tripped yesterday on my run and took a face plant. I posted that this was why I would far rather run in the dark—which is what I normally do—because I pay better attention. Yesterday’s fall was completely due to me getting distracted by all sorts of things I don’t normally see. I caught a raised edge of the sidewalk with my toe, and down I went.

This fall was weird because I fell uphill. I landed hard enough that a bit of water from my left eye flew out and landed on the inside of my sunglasses and at first I thought I’d scraped the lens on the sidewalk.

It was cold yesterday morning, so I was wearing winter running gear, and that protected me a little bit—for example, my palms stung but weren’t scraped because the gloves protected me. Oddly, in addition to bruising the tops (not the fronts) of my kneecaps, I also have some friction burns on the fronts of my thighs. Oh and my face truly planted on the sidewalk, which is how I split my lip. I feared I might have cracked my tooth or chipped it but thankfully that wasn’t the case, it was just the lip and most of the damage is on the inside. That was good too, since I had sidewalk debris all around my mouth. Nothing like kissing a sidewalk!

This wasn’t the worst fall I’ve had. When I first moved my running to 5 AM, so was running in the dark, I lived in Lawrence (Ben was in his last year of high school). I was running near 9th and Lawrence Avenue, which has just terrible sidewalks. I hadn’t yet developed the habit of paying strict attention to surface I was running on, I caught a raised edge with my toe and went flying. That time I was wearing shorts, not running tights, and I tore up the front of my knee so bad that no band aids would work. As with yesterday, I picked myself up and headed home, only unlike yesterday, there was no way I could finish the run—I had blood running down my leg and in fact ended up pitching the socks because the stains never did come out.

I wore skirts or dresses for a couple of weeks after that fall, and covered the wound with big gauze pads and tape—mostly so people wouldn’t get grossed out at the sight of my hamburger knee. I’ll need to wear dresses or skirts at least this week too, not because my knees are so scabby (they aren’t really scabby) but because it hurts to have anything touching them.

But since that fall in Lawrence, the only times I’ve fallen or even come close to falling have been in the daylight. I’d prefer to sleep in a tiny bit on Saturdays so I guess I will need to quit rubbernecking during daylight runs.

When it pays to pay

I bought this running jacket in 2007 and paid $75 for it. At the time, I was outraged at the price--$75 for a glorified windbreaker? Was I certifiably insane? But I needed a running jacket because I am incapable of running on a treadmill. I either run outside in all kinds of weather or I don’t run at all, so when the temp heads south, I need a jacket.

I’ve worn this jacket for nine years of cool and cold weather running. It survived our flood in 2009 and the harsh chemical restoration process to remove all the nastiness left by that flood. I’ve washed it too many times to count, and line dried it on hangers, draped over a towel rack or a shower rod. I’ve rolled it up to take on trips across the country and around the world, and it’s been a champ.

Here we are nine years later with a jacket that still does what it’s supposed to do. Sure, the Nike swoosh is pretty much gone. But look at the reflecting detail across the chest—that’s still reflecting. The zipper still works. Sweat somehow magically gets wicked out (I have no idea how that works, I just know that it does), and it makes a great outer layer with two running shirts underneath when the temp gets below 30F.

If I did a cost per wearing, I’m confident I’d be in the pennies at this point. So maybe this is a good example for me to keep in mind when I say I want fewer items of higher quality clothing.

A pain in the butt

My own that is, at least on the left side. I think it’s from upping my weight workout and sadly, the discomfort isn’t isolated to just the booty area. I find it funny (not haha either) that pain refers itself elsewhere, as if to spread the joy. So in addition to the pain in my own rear, I feel it at the top of the outside of my left calf up by my knee. And it hurts to sit and walk, but oddly I have no pain going up and down stairs, nor do I have any back pain at all. And my knees are fine too.

I suspect it’s my piriformis muscle, which can get all clenched up and then squeeze the sciatic nerve. It’s painful enough that I couldn’t run Friday—I tried, but it was just too painful. Then Saturday night, returning to bed from a bathroom trip, I smacked the everloving crap out of my upper thigh, same leg of course, on the post of the bed’s footboard. Yeowch that HURT plus the force of the blow made my left hip feel really weird and not in a good way.

Anyway, one way to help relax the piriformis muscle, aside from getting stronger and stretching more (all of which I’m working on), is to roll that part of the bum on a tennis or lacrosse ball. It’s not a pleasant feeling to roll on a ball because basically you’re rolling super tight muscles on a hard object. But I’m willing to spend a few dollars on some tennis balls if it will help. And I doubt it can hurt, or at least not any more than I’m hurting right now.

Feeling groovy

On last Wednesday’s run, I saw a man walking toward me, up the very long hill that becomes nearly the end of my run on the way back. He had two white bands around his knees, they almost looked like gauze but weren’t. Honestly I don’t know what they were, but both knees were wrapped. He was walking but had clearly been running because he was soaked with sweat and as I passed him, I could hear his very heavy, labored breathing. He sounded so bad—and looked so bad—I wondered if he were having a heart attack and if I’d find him on the second half of my run.

I didn’t see him though, and gave him no more thought until Friday’s run, when I saw him again. Again both knees had the white wrappings and again he was walking, and just gasping for air. As I had on Wednesday and as I always do, I waved on my way past but got no return wave. I’m guessing he didn’t have any energy to spare.

I saw him again this morning –same exact story with the knees, the sweat and the breathing, and again no wave. No biggie, he was on the giant hill and that sucker can drain your will to live. But I also saw him on my way back and this time I got a hand flop in return. Progress!

I know it can be really intimidating for people to start running. We feel so self-conscious, like the entire world is looking and laughing at us. We think we look stupid, or slow or both and that other runners must be judging the snot out of us. So I'd been wondering if maybe he was thinking that way too.

But the thing is I don’t feel that way when I see people who are clearly new to running, or are slower than I am or just generally out of shape but are out there trying. I give a mental cheer, I want to high five them or somehow just let them know I admire them for giving it a try. So if I feel that way, why do I not ascribe similar motives to those are much better runners or athletes than I am?

And with that realization this morning, I’ve decided that exactly what I’m going to do. When a gazelle passes me, I’m going to believe he or she is cheering me on and giving me that mental high five.

Maybe this is good enough

Professionally, I work in the change management and training development/delivery space. As part of any change management initiative I handle, I always share a reframing tool that helps people who are going through changes. Basically it’s a four square that looks a bit like this:

During my run this morning (because yes, I am still running), it occurred to me that I need to reframe my perspective on running (and the rest of it). I’m so goal oriented that it’s pretty much impossible to do something just because. I’m always looking for the point, the achievement or accomplishment. For running, the goal has always been to go faster and faster. But I’ve known for years that I’m not a fast runner, so I’ve had different, although still performance-based, goals.

For example, I’ve used distance as a goal (currently I run just under 3 ½ miles and as you might imagine, I had to work up to that distance), as well as running all hills without stopping. If you are not familiar with Kansas City, you might be surprised to learn that it’s quite hilly here and my run is no exception. I have a pretty good hill almost at the end of my run—it’s both long and kind of steep. I’ve written before about using difference houses along the way to mark my incremental improvement on running that hill. Now I own the hill and in fact when I drive up it, I almost always say or at least think “I own this hill.” Silly, but it works for me.

If I shift my perspective and think about running the way I do about, say, brushing my teeth, then my speed doesn’t really matter, or at least it moves down in terms of priority. I’m not trying to break imaginary speed records; instead I run for mental and physical health, and for greater lung strength. I can see parallels between those results and the reasons I am such a fanatic about flossing and brushing my teeth. I focus on consistently running when the weather allows, and finding some other aerobic activity when it does not.