I've been struggling with the decision of whether or not to scrap the Boston Marathon and every time I make my mind up, something happens to change it. The sports medicine doctor on campus who saw me last week says it'll be close. But when he started laying out what I had to do to be able to run Boston, I had my doubts. I would first have to be completely symptom free. No pain, no tightness, full flexibility and strength, and no pain with someone poking and prodding around. After that I could get into a "back to running" program. The first day I would jog no more than a half mile. If I felt alright during the run and the next day, I could add a little. This continues until I feel comfortable adding speed. And I might be able to add more distance than speed. And every time I feel a little pain or something feels wrong, I have to step back to the previous level.
Boston is 5 weeks away. I lay awake last night trying to figure out how much time that gave me to recover versus rebuilding my miles. I couldn't figure it out without a calendar and I eventually drifted off to sleep. In Pre-Calc this morning I pulled out my calendar to figure it out. If I was fully and completely recovered in 2 more weeks, I would have a week or two to do a "return to run" and then a week or two to build my miles into something that would make running a marathon tolerable. I haven't run in a month. How am I supposed to build from zero to 15-18 miles for my long run in a week or two? It's not looking good.
In physical therapy today, my therapist kept talking about Boston and how no one else in the room was allowed to do their exercises fast...except me....and then only when I run Boston. I wondered if she felt the same way my doctor did. She put me on the treadmill to work on my walking stride. She came over to see how I was doing and I mentioned what the doctor had said, telling her I've got 5 weeks until Boston and if I waited until there were no symptoms....
She told me to do a short stride jog. "At this speed?" I was walking at 3.2 miles per hour. "I would not know how to do that".
She reached over and upped the speed to 4 mph. I started to jog.
"I'm trying to make it so you don't straighten your leg. You got that, right?" I said I did. "Ok, keep it up for 2 minutes as long as you don't have any aggravation".
I jogged for two minutes, trying to figure out how to jog at such a slow pace. My feet slapped noisily on the treadmill. I vowed to wear my running shoes next time and not my gym shoes. After two minutes I went back to the 3.2 mph walk. It felt ok, general soreness but nothing I could really point to. I finished up my exercises, got some deep tissue work, rolled out my muscles on the foam roller and laid down on the table for electrical stimulation and ice.
As I lay there staring at the pictures on the ceiling of the tropical islands and an erupting volcano, my mind drifted to the lost airplane, and all the people on it. I wondered where they all went and what was happening to those people. Were they alive somewhere? Or were they all dead at the bottom of the ocean? What was going through the minds of their family members? What sort of pictures did they envision of their loved one's whereabouts?
I thought about Boston. I wondered what it would take to be able to run it. I wondered if I should stay positive about it or just withdraw from it. It's so hard to tell. I listened to the therapist working on the guy next to me who it seems just had back surgery. Sounds like he wants to get back to playing basketball. I taught him how to hula hoop today.
Limping across campus back to my car, sore from therapy and e-stim, my mind drifted to my runs along Los Gatos Creek Trail with the chain link fence blurring in my peripheral vision, striding out and finding my zone. It makes me mad. It makes me want to go climb a steep mountain on my bike. It makes me want to push, find that zone where my body sets in motion and my mind drifts to various things in my life and drifts right back out. I want to stride out. Blur that fence. I want to attack a mountain, grind along in that last possible gear, jaw clenched, hunched over the bars, relentless forward momentum.
But I don't run, that fence doesn't blur. I hold back on my rides, don't lift heavy weights, try not to hurt this, try not to aggravate that, and I need something to pin my focus on. I stare hard at a spot on the wall when I do my stability exercises, trying to find the intensity in the stillness. But I lose my balance and the moment passes. My body needs its physics: force, acceleration, momentum, power.
I guess in reality, it's still forward progress. Forward movement from a big step back, like a turtle picked up mid-destination and plopped down at the start. Nothing to do but put your head down and trudge forward.
Relentless forward momentum.
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