Baby Steps: Part Three

   We've had a couple of torrential downpours here in London in the last forty-eight hours or so and I've found myself setting off for runs either in the rain or under the imminent threat of it.
   The one time I stepped out the door and only then discovered it had started raining within the last five minutes or so. Doralyn asked if I was still going to go and I paused momentarily to ponder this.
   It then occurred to me that there were several times in the winter when I ran in the tail ends of blizzards or through rivers of slush and if I could get out regularly in that, then maybe running in the rain is really a piece of cake. So I ran.
   I still wanted to do the usual trail run I'd been doing so I headed for the woods, wondering what the conditions would be like. They were as iffy as I was concerned they would be.
   It rained on me until I got to the forest and then I was at least a little more sheltered. At some point the rain stopped, though, and by the time I was out of the woods I was...well...out of the woods, weather-wise. The sun was back out and a rainbow (or part of one) appeared.


Not fun to run through (or around).

   While I was in the woods, it was swampy. Warbler Woods is already a little swampy, necessitating plank footbridges here and there. With all the added rain, portions of it were a quagmire.
    On top of all else, my heel was twinging a bit. I'm at the point in "rehab" where I'm trying to decide if I should actually be out on the foot every day. Prior to the p-fash, I was only training every other day, running 5k. Because lately the actual running portion of my outings has been fairly minimal, I've been going out every day and run/walking the 5k. Slowly, I've been increasing the running and now I'm noticing the recovery time is taking longer so...time for a day off. Had a long day at work today so not running didn't bother me. Likely tomorrow I'll get out there again.

Pick up your feet!

   In the meantime, happy and healthy running to you all and here's a pic of the nasty little root system I was telling you about earlier!
 

Baby Steps: Part Two

   Buoyed by the realisation that yesterday's 1k run and 4k walk had done no harm to my plantared and fasciited right heel when I walked on it this morning, I headed out once again today to do it all over.

Smiling because I haven.t started the run portion yet.

    I walked/ran through the woods once more, running and walking at the same intervals as yesterday.
   I'm quite enjoying the trail run aspect of these rehab sessions but, man, you've gotta watch where you're going and, particularly, where you're stepping!
   The trails in Warbler Woods feature a plethora of tree roots and low-hanging branches, any one of which would put you on your butt or on your knees in a heartbeat. Occasionally, they team up on you---they get you down low while they distract up high. So I am starting to get the hang of it although the same root got me two days in a row until my memory kicked in. At some point, actually, it becomes a little like dance choreography---dipping and diving, twisting and turning.

He said my shoes were bright but...



...I wonder what he would have said about my socks!

   It was a great day to run, as well. It had warmed up a touch and, literally, there was not a cloud in the sky. The trails were full and streets were as well. At one point I passed a father and his young child and the father looked at my shoes as I passed and said "They're pretty bright!" (they are) I laughed and said "That's so the helicopters can find me!"
  
  
  
     

Baby Steps

   Today, I ran a kilometer.


Just imagine these...

   Yes, a whole freakin' kilometer. I visit running blogs all the time and hear stories about the latest marathon somebody ran or how somebody was gearing up for a 20k training run or how someone's shoes had just reached six hundred miles and it makes my piddly little 1k sound like why the hell is he even mentioning this?
   Well, I mention this because in my tiny little corner of the running world, running at all is big news. Today, I didn't even run a kilometer all at once, I actually broke it up in to half k sections, while out on a 5k trail walk. I walked as far as Warbler Woods and then about another kilometer into it. At this point, I ran half a k. I went back to walking until I reached 3 and a half k and at that point I ran for a final half k. The rest of the way, I walked.

...with these on!

   Yep, these are baby steps. I feel like I could be doing more but the p-fash has me so freaked out these days that I am erring on the side of caution, for sure. Right at the moment, I have no race scheduled and therefore no real reason to take things any more quickly than I have been. It's a great pleasure just to be running at all, even if only half a k at a time.
   My plan is to continue to mix the walking with the running but to very gradually increase the running by about half a k per week. Doing it this way, I figure I can get out pretty well every day. At the slightest sign of regression, I can cut back a touch.
   I would love to have more to write about than just my little baby steps here in London, Ontario, Canada but that's where I'm at these days and, as long as I'm moving forward, I'm good!
   In the meantime, happy and healthy running to you all!

Running In The Rain

   A couple of days ago, I was inside a bowling alley, playing pool with someone from work. It had been pretty warm so when I parked I left the windows in my car down just a touch.

What I was trying to avoid...

   As luck would have it, while we were in the window-less alley, the weather changed dramatically and suddenly there was a pounding rainstorm. It was only the sound of the downpour on the roof that alerted me. I immediately took off running so that I could roll my windows up. More importantly, I didn't sit there and try and figure out whether I should run or not or, if I did, just how much I should run. I just ran. I didn't even start with a slow jog---right from the start it was all hell-bent-for-leather.
   AND IT FELT WONDERFUL!
   I'm not sure whether it was the adrenaline or not, but there was no pain in my heel either during or afterwards. After I got home, the heel still felt fine. My plan had been to go for a 5k walk after work but, with my heel feeling so good, I decided to try and work a bit of a run into it. And I do mean a bit of a run---all I was prepared to do was run for half a k. I did this and after all was said and done the heel still felt fine.
   It's kind of hard to describe how good this made me feel. At no time in the past three months have I put this much stress on the foot and not regretted it almost immediately.
   Yesterday morning (the big test), the heel was still good to go. Last night, I essentially repeated my routine from the day before and so far so good, no real pain.
   The part I enjoyed the most about my mad dash through the rain yesterday was the mindless speed of it. It had been ages since I had been on a regular training run but it had been even longer since I'd run fast anywhere. The last time I'd sprinted was back in mid-January when my ball hockey team (I am a Canadian) finished its playoff run.
   I am one of those guys who would almost rather run fast than run far. Until I got hooked on it, I used to generally

Favourite superhero--wonder why?

think of distance running as being a bit of a time-consuming bore. Back in late October of last year, I wrote a blog post here entitled "Fast/Slow", wherein I describe my at-odds feeling with distance running versus sprinting. The gist of it was that distance running was a little more accessible and a little more mainstream at the same time and that this was its draw to me.
   I still enjoy running fast, though. I am a sixty-year-old man who plays in a ball hockey league with twenty-and thirty-somethings and those young kids don't blow me out of the water by any means. I have never been the slowest man on any team I've played for, either. One of the things that appeals to me about running sprints is that there's not a lot of strategy to it. Okay, I'm sure that last statement probably evoked howls of protest from anyone who actually sprints competitively but my point is that, when you sprint, you run for a very brief time and you don't pace yourself or worry about hydration or get married to your Garmin. You simply run as fast as you can.
   This is almost what I did a couple of days ago. In the rain. Feeling the joy of it.
  

What A Great Day To Watch OTHER Runners!

   Doralyn and I had some groceries to buy today and when we were out we saw runners. Lots of them.
   I never used to pay too much attention to runners before I became one myself. These days, I pay a lot of attention---I look to see what kind of foot strike they use, what kind of hydration system they carry, what kind of shoes they're wearing, what their stride is like and, generally, if they look like they know what they're doing.

Heels...one on the right's pissin' me off!

   Lately, I've been extremely jealous of anyone who looks like they're out there and running pain-free. I've been trying to recover from this p-fash (plantar fasciitis) for so long that I'm starting to get worried that I might never recover. I've been through this before with other types of injuries and I know that my body has always been wonderfully recuperative and I suspect that some day I will be better. Until this actually happens, though, it's hard not to feel just a little panicky.
   I would so much rather be telling people how the prep is going for the next race or what new mileage I'm up to but the fact of the matter is there is no next race right at the moment and the mileage has remained stagnant. Not knowing how long I might be sidelined with the p-fash, I've really been unable to commit to any race any time in the near future. In my brief racing history I've run a 3k and a couple of 5k's and all of the sudden I was thinking that I might actually schedule a 10k somewhere down the road. I'd been running 5k about three times a week and once a week I'd been LSDing and upping that by a kilometer a week. I was all the way up to 9k when the p-fash hit.
   So, some day, I have a 10k training run in my future. I even have it mapped out and all ready to go. Just need to get healthy.
   I'm not exactly sure what healthy means anymore, there have been a couple of times when my heel has felt totally fine and I could feel no difference between it and the other one. Then, after a long walk, the pain is back! Not a long run, a long WALK !
   So I'm just not sure what approach to take anymore. I ran all winter here in Canada and was so looking forward to spring and not having to run on ice, through slush and over snow piles. Now that spring is here and the running weather is perfect, I can't run! I just get to watch all the other runners! (not to sound too bitter...)
   Well, having said all this, I'm headed out for another long walk. It irks me a touch to even be talking about the required recovery time between walks but this time I gave it an extra day and we'll see how it goes.
   In the meantime, happy and healthy running to you all!
  

Running Through The Forest

   A couple of days ago, because I almost couldn't help myself, I ran.

Where the run through the forest begins.

The scenery.

   For the last couple of weeks, I'd been taking 5K walks, principally through nearby Warbler Woods here in London. Long walks have been as much as I feared I was able to do while in the midst of trying to fully heal this p-fash I've been dealing with the past two or three months. A couple of times on these walks, I've resisted the strong urge to break into a run. Yesterday, however, I didn't resist.
   I did the same 5K walk through the woods but this time I ran the second and fourth kilometers.
   It was a wonderful feeling!
   I felt the occasional twinge in the heel near the beginning of the run phase and briefly thought to myself man, you're blowin' it big-time here but persevered and soon all was well. I re-stretched and iced after the run and the heel was mildly uncomfortable but, as the evening wore on, it began to feel better. I knew the big test, however, would be this morning.
   This morning, life is fine! The heel feels no worse than it did yesterday morning and I'm hoping this continues for the rest of the day.


All along the trail

   Today, there will be no running, no matter how good I feel. As much as possible I'm going to try and get back to only running every other day. This was my normal routine before the p-fash hit and it was only after I started increasing the running workload that the heel became an issue. More than likely I'll just head out for a long walk after work.




 Go deep into the dark forest...

   I love running through the forest! You have to pay a little more attention to where your feet are landing but, at the same time, the scenery is much nicer and the shade helps a little too.


...or go left and then run along the edge of the forest

  

My wife and I were watching "The Last of the Mohicans" a couple of weeks ago and there are several scenes in which Daniel Day-Lewis, as Hawkeye, is running through forests, jumping over logs and streams, down little valleys and back up again and I remember thinking to myself that it looked

Forest on right, houses on left

like so much...fun! I'm sure there is a visceral part of me that remembers doing things like this when I was a kid. On an even deeper level, I imagine that having evolved from hunters might tend to stir in us at least at some level of primeval instinct the urge to be moving swiftly through nature. I've even thought a couple of times that it would be cool to be carrying a rifle or spear with me as I ran through the trails, apart from likely needing to talk to the police when I popped out of the forest! All I really know is that running on pavement in the future just won't be quite the same!

And then you're back to roadrunning!

   Happy and healthy running to you all!

" The Fat B_ _ _ _ _d Reigns No More!"

   A couple of days ago, I was reading a running blog wherein the blog's writer described a situation recently where she'd been out running very early one morning and saw a man up ahead who was dressed inappropriately for the weather, standing in an untoward place for very ill-defined reasons.
   Her feminine intuition kicked in, she crossed the street and avoided coming into contact with him as she passed.
   She posted this tale as a word of caution to runners out there to be aware of your surroundings and your own personal safety while out on runs, particularly at times when you are running alone.

And vice-versa!

   Less than twenty-four hours after I read this, I picked up my morning copy of the local paper, the London Free Press, only to learn about the arrest of a man who has been terrorizing London runners for a decade now.
   He was arrested and charged with assault causing bodily harm, assault with a weapon, as well as charges of mischief and being a common nuisance. The weapon being referred to is his bike.
   For a decade, this man has roamed the city's multiple-use paths on his bike, terrorizing runners using those same paths. He has elbowed runners, charged at them, sworn at them, run his bike right through race watering stations and even ridden his bike through finish line tapes.

Part of London's path system in Springbank Park

   The most serious offence, however, stems from him running a woman down from behind as she was jogging on one the multi-use paths in Springbank Park. The woman suffered a concussion, two broken ribs, black eyes and a strained neck as a result of this man's actions.
   This was a man who was well-known within the running circle here in London and this same community has breathed a bit of a sigh of relief, now that he's been arrested and charged. My running instructor, Kathryn, has been verbally assaulted by this man while out on runs and describes him as a large man, six feet and likely around two hundred and fifty pounds who generally is wearing a unitard and t-shirt and is very intimidating. The title of this post is actually a quote from Kathryn, upon learning of this man's arrest, and the nickname she uses for this man has apparently been adopted by many in the running community who have either had confrontations with him or heard about him from other runners. It's a name he's earned not out of pettiness but more out of indignance and shock that he would engage in such repeated behaviour.
  

I personally have never encountered this man. I tend to stick to running routes in my neighbourhood, mainly for their proximity. My biggest safety issues so far are traffic and simply watching where I'm going. I tend to run with my head down (see November 12 "Head-down Running" post) and have had to sidestep pedestrians, tree limbs, puddles and parked cars at the last second, to avoid injury (and embarrassment!) Fortunately, though, I have not come across anyone who wished me harm, simply because he or she thought I might have been encroaching on their space, as I ran. To the contrary, generally the people I run across (but not over) are very supportive and friendly and quick to greet me with a smile, wave or a how's it going?

We should be able to co-exist.

   I'm glad to hear that this man who's been waging war on runners for so long has been apprehended and charged finally. I'm certainly no expert but it sounds as though there might be psychiatric issues at play here and, if so, hopefully they will be addressed at some point in the near future.
   I applaud the woman above who bowed, wisely, to her intuition and common sense. All of us, as runners, should use both of these constantly. Until the last few days, I really only worried about accidental things happening to me while out running--things like sprained ankles, cramps, and heart attacks. I never considered wilful harm coming to me in any form. From now on, I will be more realistic.
   In the meantime, happy and healthy running to you all!