The Biggest "Thank You"!

   In my last post, I took the opportunity to thank a couple of people who had provided me (whether they knew it or not) with little bits of impetus toward me getting out of my most recent running funk.
   I quite happily finished that post and then put it out there for the world to read.
   Shortly afterwards, I realized that I really had not thanked the one person who made my whole running adventure happen in the first place---my wife, Doralyn!
   It was Doralyn who, as a birthday present, gave me a Running Room Learn-to-Run membership. It was also Doralyn who got a membership of her own at the same time so that it was something we could do together. This "doing it together" was pretty vital at the time because, as some of you may know, sometimes getting out there for a run has a lot to do with accountability. In the beginning, there were times when I simply would not have run at the appointed time if there had not been one other person with me who knew when that time was and had been counting on being there with me.
   In the years since, she has been nothing but supportive of me and my running, on an ongoing and daily basis. As much as anything, this means I'm gone for reasonably long periods at times when the two of us could have been doing something together. She also happily puts up with the aftermath---the not-so-pleasant smells, the dirty running stuff, and the occasionally muddy floors. So, along with all the other little thank-you's I owe people along the way, THANK YOU, SWEETHEART, AND I LOVE YOU!!

The Liebster Award!

   Many thanks to Lori at Journey to Fit & Healthy who recently nominated me for a Liebster Award! I've seen the Liebster Award pop up on the odd page I follow and I always thought it'd be kinda cool to receive one of my own so...many thanks again to Lori! She's also a blogger I consider to be a homey of mine so drop by her blog and take a boo!
    The general idea behind the Liebster Award is to recognize other blogs and bloggers of note and possibly introduce them to new readers. Kind of a fun way of "spreading the love"!
   So here are the rules:

1. You need to link back to the person who nominated you
2. You need to answer the questions they gave you
3. You then get to pick 10 of your favourite bloggers
4. And nominate them for a Liebster! Plus notify them and have them answer ten questions YOU made up!

   Easy enough?? Here are my answers to the ten questions Lori gave us.

1. Why did you start blogging?
     I've pretty well always had this desire to write. A friend of mine started up a very shortlived blog three or four years ago and I thought, "Well...if he can do it..." At that point, I started a blog called "Neanderings", which was and is simply a hodge-podge of random topics. I was in the middle of all that when I got interested in running. Running then became one of the things I found myself blogging about. At that point, I wondered if maybe I could devote a whole blog of its own to running and "Strides" was born!

2. Do you have any "furbabies"? If you do, tell us a little about them.
   Furbabies? Do we EVER! We have four cats--Squeaker, Puffer, Luna and Yoda. We are pretty well constantly surrounded by them and can't imagine life without them. They're constantly underfoot, they tell us when to go to bed and they seem to want to assist with the blogging process, as well. Yoda and Luna are the two "babies" and are still constantly wrestling, chasing, hugging and snuggling with each other. Puffer's the one the other cats don't fool with and Squeaker's my main squeeze (after Doralyn!)

3. Who do you admire the most, and why?
   Tough one! Out of all the people I admire the most, I'd pretty well have to pick Leonard Cohen. He writes, he's musical, he's eclectic, he has a Bohemian air about him, he's both ageless and timeless AND he gets women!

4. What is a habit that you had that you are most proud of breaking?
   Another hard one! I seem to wrestle with a lot of little bad habits that some days I conquer and, other days, I don't. I suspect this is the same for a lot of us. I've never smoked or done drugs or gambled or any of the biggies but I do procrastinate like hell! In retrospect, the closest thing to a bad habit I'm proud of breaking was my habit of not running!

5. What is your favourite holiday?
   Probably Thanksgiving. Still about the family but not so much about the presents.

6. What would be your dream job?
   Living in a little log cabin, writing novels.

7. What is the first website you check when you turn on your phone/computer?
   Usually right straight to Hotmail, then Facebook. Then I check blog stats. Lately have been spending a lot more time on Twitter.

8. What did you study in university/college? Would you do something different if you could go back?
   Right out of high school, I wasted a whole year's worth of tuition attending Western University. I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and was just taking general arts courses. I was not only directionless but my mother passed away in the Spring of that school year and I never even bothered to write exams. As an adult, I attended college and took Developmental Service Worker courses and that's the field I've been in for over thirty years. If I had a "do-over", I might have concentrated on literature and writing. To go along with the log cabin...

9. Who is your biggest celebrity crush?
   lol The last time I had an all-consuming celebrity crush was back in the sixties and the object of my affection was Diana Rigg (Emma Peel on "The Avengers"). The closest you get to that these days might be Jennifer Aniston, she just seems to be the epitome of looking better the older you get!

10. If you could do a workout/run with anyone, who would you choose?
   There are a handful of running bloggers I would LOVE to sit down and have coffee with! As far as sharing a run or a workout, I would have to pick Solana Klassen and Nikki Scott (who quite often run together, so that would kill two birds with one stone) as the people I'd likely have the most fun running with. They are a couple of west coast bloggers who were featured in a video a friend of theirs produced not long ago of a group running through the mountain trails in North Vancouver. Everyone on the run just seemed to be having so much sheer joy that it was infectious and hard not to want to be a part of that sometime! That and I have a bit of a "west coast" thing.

   Okay, THAT was fun!
   Now, here are the ten bloggers and their blogs I would like to nominate. I think the idea was to nominate a "small" blog but I have absolutely no idea what a "small" blog is so I am simply going with my faves! So if I nominated you and you thought you were a "big" blog, please don't be offended, I nominated you because I LIKE you! Here we go! (these are in no particular order, believe me and there's WAY more than ten blogs I really like---I suspect somewhere down the road you'll ALL get a turn---whether you want it or not!)

1. Erin @ Running Tall
2. Suzan @ Welcome To The Nuthouse
3. Nikki @ Slow is the New Fast
4. Solana @ Beast Mode On The Run
5. Mike, Michelle and Rhoda @ 3 Cheap Runners
6. Flower @ Up and Humming
7. Stephani @ Running Away From Trouble
8. Krysten @ The Misadventures of a Darwinian Fail
9. Tina @ Fabulosi-T
10. Crystal @ Running With Rhyno

   Oh crap...there ARE way more but apparently I am limited to ten, so there you go!
   Okay, running bloggers, here are your ten questions:

1. Tim's or Starbucks?
2. What's your favourite distance, and why?
3. How many hours a week do you blog?
4. How supportive of your running is your significant other?
5. Run in the rain? Or the treadmill instead?
6. Does your job provide "training" benefits or incentives?
7. Any notable difference between male bloggers and female ones? It just occurred to me I only nominated females....
8. Love numbers or hate numbers? (I hate 'em!)
9. Consider your OWN celebrity crush. Go for drinks with them or go for a run with them?
10. If you had to give up one or the other, would it be blogging or running?

   Well, there you go! Congratulations and I hope you have fun and that you have the time and energy to take part! In any case, thank you all for the enjoyment you've given me in following your running (and "life") adventures. Cheers!   
  

First Blogiversary of "Strides"!

   "Strides" just celebrated its first anniversary!!
   It's now been one year since I began to describe in writing my little running "adventure". Of course, it seems as though I just started it yesterday!
   At the time, I thought I was engaged in a pretty solitary pursuit--who really knew that anybody other than me might be running and then writing about?

   Well, one day it occurred to me to hop on Google and find out if anybody was doing something like that. What I then discovered was that tons of runners were blogging. Or was it that tons of bloggers were running? Not sure on that one but the fact of the matter was there were a lot of us!
   As running bloggers, we come in all ages, sizes, body shapes and skill levels. Our blogging styles go from folksy to technical. We talk about what motivates us and what presents roadblocks (including, of course, actual roadblocks).
   As bad luck would have it, many of my posts this past year have dealt with either injury or other assorted reasons why I couldn't actually run.
   I went through a long stretch when I was recovering from plantar fasciitis. I was able to run for awhile after that but then found myself undergoing a treatment course for sun damage on my face. It has only been within the last day or two that I've been able to get back out there.


WAY too much opportunity to talk about THIS!

   What I found while I was off from running was that I blogged about medical stuff. I blogged about PF treatments and whether they seemed to be working or not. I blogged about my visits to the SoleScience centre at Western where I underwent a gait analysis and walked away with orthotics. And they even paid sixty bucks for my old, worn-out running shoes! I read other running blogs voraciously, looking for anything which might provide a topic for my own, seeing as how I wasn't actually running.
   More than anything, this past year has connected me with a whole bunch of other bloggers. Some of their stories and reasons for running mirror my own and some are vastly different. As a whole, though, they are very engaging and quick to offer advice or moral support. They also offer an audience and nothing's much more important to a blogger than to know that someone out there is actually paying attention!
   Hopefully, Year Two of "Strides" will find me doing more posts on how the running is going (not stopping) and more race updates as well. I know that the past year of running has left me in much better shape and the hope is that this trend continues. We also now have a gym membership (sadly unused lately) and this should also help, just need to actually go!
   At this point, I just wanted to thank you, the reader, for showing up here as often as you have! As I just stated, it's really not a lot of fun blogging if nobody's reading (although I would blog regardless) and the odd comment from y'all certainly makes it worth the time and effort! Cheers and good health to you all!
      

A Different Perspective

   I may be wrong but more than any other time since I started following running bloggers religiously, it seems as though right at the moment we are all injured. I cannot remember such a litany of fractured feet, strained quads, wonky knees, bad hips, PF and burning shins.
   With all of this, we have been stopped from running. Some of us are only missing our daily runs, others have lost out on races they'd placed many of their recent hopes and dreams on.
   There have been tears, anger, depression and, if none of those, then at least a sense of wistfulness and loss.
   All of this over not being able to run.
   As difficult as it might have been for me to understand this over a year ago, now that I am a runner myself and have also been deprived of that ability for periods of time, I fully understand.
   From time to time, I have offered whatever advice, support, or encouragement I thought I could to any of my fellow bloggers who were out of commission and struggling with it. I have what I think is a fairly analytical mind and I believe I offer well thought-out opinions.
   Here is an opinion I have not offered before.

   Get over it!

   I know how that sounds. I know the harsh, dismissive ring the words seem to carry because, believe me, I apply it fully to myself as well. Hang on, though, and I shall explain.
   I know three people who are unable to walk, either as the result of an accident or due to a rare neurological affliction.
   These were people who, for most of their lives, had been as spry and able as any of us. They walked, they ran, they played sports. And, I'm certain, took all of this for granted.
   One of them, a high school compatriot, became a paraplegic as the result of a car accident which was not his fault. Another is a person the agency I work for supports. His decline has been very slow and agonizingly deliberate and is nerve-related. The other is my brother-in-law who severed his spine in a mountain biking mishap.

   We who have been briefly deprived of our ability to run are, I'm sure, still able to walk to the doctor's office, walk around the grocery store, head upstairs to put the kids to bed, take the dog out in the morning and step outside for the mail. These three people I have mentioned have not only been deprived of this briefly, they have been deprived of this forever.
   I can assure you that any of them would be happy to be able to walk gingerly down steps, worried about whether your knee might give out. There is no doubt in my mind that feeling that searing pain in a heel as you step on the floor first thing in the morning would leave them breathless and ecstatic. To be out doing their weekly long run and all of the sudden feel that all-too-familiar twinge in the hip would leave them dancing for joy, pain or not.
   Yes, these three people (and millions more in the world) would love to feel your pain because what they feel now is nothing.

  
  
  

Weightless Wednesday

   On Wednesday of this week, I decided to stop weighing myself on a daily basis.
   I have always been a bit of a slave to the weigh scale, climbing on it several times a day. At the minimum, I weigh myself first thing in the morning and then again close to bedtime.
   What I found lately, though, is that I already sorta know what I weigh whenever I do climb on and I'm generally only out by a pound, or maybe two at the most.

Solitary scales.

   Originally, the scales were all part of the motivation thing, something in black and white, telling me what a fantastic job I was doing with the weight loss thing. Or not...
   Occasionally the scales give me good news and normally I have an idea why I have received this vote of confidence. When they give me bad news, I am also generally aware of the wherefores.
   Part of the problem, though, is that when I receive good news, I celebrate by eating a little extra. It's not part of the plan, but I give myself permission and it just happens This, of course, is counter-productive.
   After reviewing all of this, I started to get the feeling using weigh scales, at least on a daily basis, might not be an essential part of becoming healthier. They don't seem to give me any useful information that I'm not already intrinsically aware of.
   This is what has led to "Weightless Wednesday", a day of the week I picked simply for its alliterative value. Next Wednesday, I'll hop on them again and see if there has been any difference. Between now and then, I will "go it alone" and see what the results are. I will concentrate on simply feeling healthy and not tying that to the numbers between my feet!    

A Common Thread

   As I have flitted about from running blog to running blog the last few weeks, it's slowly become apparent to me that there are concurrent themes at play in almost all of them. To me, there is one theme that seems central.
  
We hurt.
   
We may or may not be hurting right now, or we may remember a hurt which we cannot psychologically quite shake, or we may be terrified of it hurting again in the not-too-distant future.

   Even if there is no actual, diagnosable injury with which we must deal,the very act of engaging in this activity will eventually lead pain our way. We start each run knowing it is coming and almost knowing when.
   I am so used to weaving my own painful tale of woe and following, with interest and concern, other peoples' similar tales that the novelty of what we do gets sometimes lost.
   How many other endeavours worthy of blogdom, apart from maybe medical or other sports, have actual physical pain as such an interwoven thread? I have friends who write music and knitting blogs and there is no talk of pain. Not too many arts or business blogs deal with it, either.
   Not only do we all seem to have physical pain as some kind of visitor now and again, we also find that running can numb or relieve some of the emotional or psychological aches which may have beset us. How many times do we read that running got one of us through a difficult or traumatic period in their lives?

   Yesterday, at the end of my run, I was totally exhausted. My lungs hurt and my knees and legs ached. Crossing my chosen finish line, I might well have collapsed, were I not on pavement. All this to simply run about thirty seconds faster than the last time. Tomorrow, I know that to run even a few seconds faster, the pain will be at the very least the same, if not even worse.
   And I will happily set out.
  
  
  

My Legs

   I am fast approaching my very first "runniversary" and it's hard to believe that it's been a whole year since this running adventure began.
   When I learned that my wife, Doralyn, had signed us both up for a 10-week Learn-to-Run course at the local Running Room I was pretty certain that, at the end of the course, running would go right back up on the shelf it had been collecting dust on for the last 30 years or so of my life. I am still amazed that, long after the weekly sessions ended, I still wanted to run and was quite happy to run on my own, without being accountable to a schedule or another group of runners.
   One of the things I was pretty certain about was that I would lose weight. Sure enough, the pounds gradually came off. When I started to run last August I was flirting with 235 and  by the time the fasciitis hit in March I was flirting with 210. Unfortunately I kind of plateaued there due to having to lay way off the running while the heel got better. Eventually, people started looking at me and saying stuff like holy cow, you've lost a ton of weight, haven't you?
   Because I've rollercoasted with weight issues like many of us, I've gotten used to occasionally getting this kind of reaction from people, if things have been going well. One of my friends looked at me about a month ago and said something no-one else ever has, though. He said he thought my legs were getting skinny.
   If there's one part of my body I've never had a problem with, it's my legs. A lifetime of one kind of sports or another has managed to keep them what I always considered to be well-toned and muscular. I've had issues with upper body strength and tummy weight but my legs always seemed to maintain some sort of constant good health. I guess that's why my friend's comment took me a little by surprise.
   In retrospect, though, it's not like body fat picks and chooses where and how to distribute itself. It made some sort of sense, I suppose, that if I'd lost this much weight then likely some of that was from my legs.

It's in there somewhere!

   Since that comment, I've paid a little more attention to my legs, in an investigative (and hopefully not too narcissistic) kind of way. What I've noticed is where certain muscles were in ways more rounded  that now they seemed to have taken on a slightly more angular sort of shape with a touch more definition. The other day, I was leaning over and tying a shoe when I looked down and actually noticed a vein popping out on the inside of my right knee. The light sort of hit it the right way, or something, because I saw it clearly then but have had a hard time finding it since. But the fact remains that I actually saw a vein and I have never seen one there before. Over the years, I've seen all sorts of pictures of well-muscled athletes and one of the things about them that stood out the most for me (no pun intended) were their veins. The fact that I now had a vein (an elusive one at that) popping out kind of tickled me!
   Of course, this might also mean that I'm one run away from a heart attack or something so if you're runner and have experienced this kind of thing please weigh in!
   In the meantime, happy and healthy running to you all!
  

Almost Addicted To Stopping?

   Fortunately, and for your information, I am not addicted to drugs or alcohol. I've also managed to avoid addiction to gambling, sex, shoplifting, extreme sports, bingo and reality T.V.

Well...not always...

   What I possibly may be addicted to, however, is stopping.
   Basically, stopping feels so damn good, pretty well every time you do it. Your legs and lungs are burning, your mind is giving way, your motivation has completely dried up under the heat and so you stop.
   If things have gone according to plan, your reason for stopping is because you've reached the end of your run. This is the most addictive kind of stopping I can think of but, unfortunately, it's not the only one.
   For me, there are occasionally times in the middle of a run when I've found myself calling it quits, unexpectedly. Sometimes I'll take a bit of a breather, climb back up on the horse (would that it were a real horse!) and keep on motoring. Every so often, however, I'm done, like toast.
   There was a time when I scheduled walk breaks into my runs. For better or worse, those days are over--when I start a run I expect to complete the whole thing without walk breaks. The farthest I run these days is 5k and I should really be able to run one of these in my sleep almost.
   There are days when, for reasons I'm not always able to pinpoint, I just don't have all the necessities for completing a run. I go over the usual culprits--poor fuelling, lack of sleep, misuse of rest days, etc.--and none of them seem to apply. I just stop.
   Don't get me wrong, I don't stop lightly. Stopping, to me, almost equates with failed run. And if I've already gone to the trouble of running til I'm exhausted then it's really annoying to have to call that a failed run.
  

But stopping feels so GOOD...

When the urge to stop hits, I will then play head games with myself to take my mind off the urge. I'll pick some point off in the distance and tell myself that I'll re-evaluate my need to stop when I reach it. I will remind myself of people important to me who would give almost everything they had just to be able to walk, let alone run. I'll think about the high of a successful run. I'll maybe even try and recall motivational posters I've seen on the internet.
   This past week, I had one run where I had to employ almost all of these in order to keep on running. I can only imagine that I went through a similar process that any junkie goes through when provided a temptation. I used every trick I knew of to not stop and then I used every rationalization I could think of to justify stopping ie. I was risking injury, I'd already run pretty far, it was hotter than I'm used to, I've stopped before so what's the big deal if I do it again.
   Two or three times I was able to shake the urge to stop by playing mind games with myself and then, without warning, I simply stopped. I actually took myself by surprise with this. Then, having stopped, I couldn't start back up again. The thing is, it felt so freakin' good and better than a lot of other things I can name.
   All of this would bother me a lot but for one thing--in order to want to stop so bad, I need to exert myself way beyond my normal comfort level. When you stop to think about it, is this a bad thing? Probably not!
   It has occurred to me in a whimsical moment that, since I enjoy stopping so much, I should just go out some day and run way faster than I normally do so that I reach that exhaustion threshold and then stop, totally for the joy of stopping. I could then do this all over again. And again, trying to maximize all the stopping I enjoy so much. As weird as that sounds in my head, what it really amounts to is a structured running workout. Sort of like...what's the word?...oh yeah!....intervals!
   Okay, now I really have something to play mind games with! But, in the meantime, happy and healthy running to you all!   

Inspiration

   I am at the point now where I look forward to my every-other-day 5K run. During the work week I run in the evenings and several times a day I remind myself that it's a "run night" and this gets me a little pepped up.
   As I'm walking down the driveway after my warm-up, however, I always find myself wondering how the hell am I going to be able to run the whole way tonight, I can't believe I'm actually doing this. Still, I manage to finish.
   Along the way, though, there are times when I want to stop. I really want to stop. Like a man in a desert, I can almost feel the cold, wet taste of it and I give myself every reason or excuse to do so. And then I remind myself about Rob.

Rob and his wheels

   Rob Buren is my brother-in-law and a little over four years ago he was involved in a mountain biking accident which left him a paraplegic. Rob had always been one of those driven, active kinds of guys and, as much as this type of injury would be devastating for anyone, it was particularly devastating for him.
   In the aftermath of all this, though, Rob showed a side of himself which was, well, amazing. And amazing, I think, is truly an understatement.
   As soon as he was able after the accident, he began rehab. This is obviously standard procedure for anyone and is designed to get a person to a point where they are able to perform hopefully acceptable daily living skills. Rob, however, took rehab to a whole new level.
   In much less time than it would have taken anyone else, Rob was out of the rehab hospital and tackling what he refers to as "the new normal". For him, this meant learning new ways to perform all the usual daily routines and simply getting around his re-modelled home. It meant getting back behind the wheel of his car, getting back to work and, even more importantly, getting back to raising a young family.

Rob, his handcycle and ever-present smile

   For many of us in a similar situation, this might have been sufficient. But this wasn't enough for Rob. He had a burning desire to continue doing all the things he enjoyed doing before the accident. So this is exactly what he did!

Rob, satisfying the "need for speed"!

   Whatever his legs were unable to do, his hands and arms now did. He found all manner of wheeled contraption that would get him back on forest trails and asphalt highway. He swam, he boated and, when the "need for speed" peaked, he hit Mosport and Calabogie. His beloved motorbike was modified so that he could leave people in his dust on that as well. To put an exclamation point on all of this, Rob and his wife Sabrina also now compete all over North America in half-marathons, marathons and triathlons.



Rob and Sabrina

   So Rob is who I think of when the urge to quit hits me while out there doing my 5K. I imagine all the countless times he must have wanted to quit. I also simply imagine the joy he would have to be back on his two feet again and running. I am out there for about forty minutes a run and if Rob was given just one forty minute session with which to run again it is unthinkable to me that he would consider for even a second stopping! The ability to walk and run (and a whole host of other physical and mental abilities) is a gift most of us truly take for granted. Rob knows how much of a gift it is and if he wouldn't stop in the middle of a run then why the hell should I? 

Doralyn, Instigator

   I've had a fair amount of fun the last few weeks and months, both running and then chronicling the adventure. There has been a fair amount of self-discovery and achievement and right at the moment I am actually quite proud of where I am and what I have been able to do.

Doralyn, maker of all things possible!

   It goes without saying, though, that none of this would ever have happened if not for my wife, Doralyn. It was her that signed us up for the Learn-to-Run clinic at the downtown Running Room, providing the impetus for all that came after. On my own, this would not have happened.
   She has become my biggest cheerleader in all of this. There have been times when I thought I was only accomplishing "baby steps". She, though, has stepped in at every turn and reminded me of how proud I should be. And, as usual, she is right!
   The fact that she is right about almost everything is not lost on me. I think there is some subtle understanding between the two of us that what we have done here will be to both our benefits in the foreseeable future--I will be healthier and she will be looking at a husband who will still be here way on down the road. There are not too many things hanging over our heads at this point in our lives but, if there is a threatening Sword of Damocles, it would be the almost fifteen year age difference. I'm pretty sure I've been blessed with good longevity genes but not only do I want to live a long life, I want to live a healthy one.
   The running will help with this but, if not for Doralyn, I'm pretty sure I'd be sitting on my butt three times a week instead of being out there, pushing my own little envelope. If you can find a woman worth making a better man of your self for, then you can't ask for much more. And this is what I've done!