First Run

For six weeks now, I haven't run. The doctor diagnosed a stress fracture in the bone stretching just above the "knuckle" of my big toes. You know, the bone that you can feel on the top of your foot.
She said, "We could xray it, but it doesn't always show up on the xray, so we'd treat it the same way. Stay off it."
My version of "stay off it" might be slightly different than her version. I stopped running. But, I didn't stop walking or bike riding and I added P90X to my daily routine. I didn't run though.
I blame my running shoes. My $120 running shoes.
Like a lot of runners in Columbus, I go to a fancy running store to buy shoes. Frontrunner has me carefully fitted. It encourages me to run around the building with the shoes on. If I take them home and run in them for two weeks and they don't work, I can exchange them.
I've always had neutral shoes. That means I don't need any correction -- collapsing inward on my arch or rolling outward on the outside of my foot. This time, the woman convinced me to get a pair of shoes that had "a little" correction. She said I could use it on my left foot, which is probably why I got a stress fracture on my right foot. It didn't need the correction!!
Anyway, I decided to go to Famous Footwear for my new running shoes. I found this pair for $39. I'd rather pay less if a pair of shoes is going to mess up my runs. I had a pair of Ryka shoes long ago for aerobics and liked them. I hope I fall equally in love with these Ryka running shoes.
Yesterday morning, I pulled on my long unused running clothes and laced up my new shoes. Then I stepped outside to the quiet of the morning.
Ahhh. That's probably the part I missed the most.
I walked to the corner as my "warm up" and then I began to jog. It felt weird, like my body had forgotten how.
Was I landing too hard?
Was my heel hitting the ground first?
I worked on modifying my run until it felt more natural, trying to remember to kick up my heels and land on the ball of my foot.
Since it was my first day back and I didn't want to push too hard, I had already decided to run a block then walk a block.
That worked fine until I came to a busy intersection where I should have stopped running and walked. But a couple of other women were walking and cars were around -- I was too proud to stop running. I ran two blocks then walked a block. That was my pattern the rest of the 2.4 mile run/walk.
So, how did it feel?
I loved breathing the early morning crisp air. again and listening to the birds call to each other in the trees overhead.
I didn't love the jiggle.
Do you know what I mean? When I'm running all the time, I don't feel the jiggle, but running for the first time in six weeks, I did.
I had noticed that in spite of my P90X, I felt some extra love handles on the back of my hips just above my butt. And that is the part that jiggled when I ran. When I jiggle, I itch. It drove me crazy not to scratch those jiggly new love handles.
The shoes were fine. The bottoms of my feet felt a little sore. I picked some shoes that are close to "natural" which means they won't give me a lot of padding.
And I had already decided I wouldn't run again today. I am making myself wait a day in between so I don't overdo it.
I'm already itching to get out there again tomorrow, to increase the distance I can run without walking, and to eventually get back to my running friends along the trail.

Barefoot

My poor feet. I know I expect a lot out of them. I take them for granted most of the time, and right now, they are getting their revenge.

I went to the doctor last week to have plantar's warts frozen off my left foot. The doctor took a knife to my calluses before she could get to the warts. Then she looked at my right foot and started peeling away at a callus that had formed a sharp point. As we talked about the excruciating pain in my right foot, that only shows up a couple of times a day, she poked and prodded. She narrowed it down to a place right above my big toe joint. Probably a stress fracture, she said. "We could xray, but they don't always show up and then we'd have to treat it the same way anyway. Stay off it."
So, with her advice ringing in my ears, I first determined to get a good pedicure and some new running shoes. I'm pretty sure my running shoes messed up my foot since they had "a little correction" in them, which I could use in my left foot, but not in my right foot.
Then, as the excruciating pain showed up every time I slipped my foot in a shoe, I decided that maybe I should do something radical, like stop running for awhile.
My definition of staying off it, might be different than my doctor's definition. I'm still walking a lot of places, and since I can't run, I started doing P90X every day. The difference is, I can do P90X barefoot, and I feel like that will help my foot. As a matter of fact, I spend most of my day barefoot now, trying to help my foot heal.
When I go walking, I wear my Mary Jane crocs, which don't really touch my foot anywhere except the sole. For teaching, I've decided to go with a pair of Birkenstocks, again, mostly just protecting the sole of my foot. I'm hoping the return to nature will help my foot heal more quickly.
But I do miss those morning runs, listening to the birds and watching the sun slowly rise above the city.

Bruised Toes and Thunder Storms

This morning I rode my bike a mile, took off my shoes and tried to run barefoot on the high school track. Even though that track is supposed to be rubberized, it feels like asphalt on the bottoms of tender barefeet. I didn't make it 100 yards before I took to the grass, put on my shoes and rode home again.
The reasons for this bike ride and barefoot run attempt are all because of the adventure we had Saturday morning.
I can see my running friend Pam waving at me wildly right now. "No, no! What happens on the running trail stays on the running trail," she'd say.
The story actually begins on Friday though, when I went to buy new running shoes. The running shoe store is great because the sales people know what they are doing and they encourage you to run around the building to test the feel of the shoe. I chose a new pair and decided to wear them Saturday morning for our 9-mile run.
I know better than to wear new shoes for a long run, but they felt comfortable.
I could hear the distant rumbles of thunder as I dressed Saturday morning to meet my friends for our run. I turned on the weather channel and saw storms swirling around Columbus.
On the drive to meet my running companions, I saw a streak of lightning to the west. I decided we should run the 1.2-mile lap around the lake eight times rather than running along the trail north 3.75 miles. That way, we would be within a half mile of our cars at all time. If the storm struck, we could get to safety.
Also, I had my old shoes in the car, so if my new shoes started to hurt, I could switch.
Pam did not like the lake plan.
"But why would lightning strike us when it has so many other things it could hit?" she asked.
Isn't that always the question?
Maybe it would hit a tree and the tree would fall on us, I suggested. Then you'd feel really guilty.
Princess joined us for our run after a long absence. She was willing to follow along with whatever we decided.
We ran around the lake first and the sky seemed to be getting lighter.
"Okay," I said, "we can go north."
So we started running away from the parking lot and safety. Mostly the storm seemed like something happening in another part of the county. We could hear it distantly.
As we got toward the turnaround part of the trail, the rain started to fall.
"We can stand under the shelter while it passes," I told Princess. When we got to the shelter though, it was a slatted roof that let the rain come through. We waited only a minute under the beams before starting again.
The rain soaked our clothes, my shirt clinging to my shoulders and heavy. We had gone past a clear area and were amongst the trees again when a bright bolt of lightning startled us.
"Did you see that?" Princess said. And then her words were drowned out by the percussion of the thunder so loud that it reverberated in our chests. The kind of thunder that sets off car alarms.
"We have to go back," Princess said, her eyes rolling like a horse in a barn fire. Near the turn around were some stores and a coffee shop where we could take shelter.
"But if we go back, we have to run through the clearing again," I said. Would we be safer on the trail under the trees?
We kept going because we didn't know what else to do.
Whenever lightning flashed, Princess would point it out and the thunder always seemed louder, so we superstitiously told her to stop acknowledging the lightning.
The storm had let up by the time we reached the lake again, but our clothes, washed with rainwater freshness, weighed a couple of pounds more than when we left. And our shoes squished from the wetness.
My new shoes rubbed against the two little toes on my left foot bruising them. So even though we had only gone 8.7 miles instead of 9, I limped toward the car. I couldn't wait to take off those painful shoes and wet socks.
And when I put on my old running shoes today, those little toes still complained from the bruises, which is why I tried to run barefoot, but failed.