An old Enemy and a new Hope

"This...is not...good. This is not good. Thisisnotgood. THIS IS NOT GOOD!" proceeded my inner monologue on the morning of Thursday, October 16, 2010. It was only a couple of days after returning from my honeymoon up in Mendocino (and the awe-inspiring Avenue of the Giants - which also happens to be the half marathon I have had my heart set on for nearly a year now) and I knew that I could no longer pretend that there wasn't a real problem.

I don't remember exactly when it started, but I know it was somewhere in the last few weeks leading up to the wedding. There was that one run when I came home and something didn't feel good. Something felt...wrong. Off. There was an unfamiliar pain in my foot. "It will go away," I told myself. "It was probably just the strain of the hills I overambitiously tackled today. A little ice and all will be well." There was no acceptable alternative. I was averaging around six to six and a half miles per run at the time and feeling pretty darn proud of myself. Things were going too well for something to come up now. But this "something" was rather vexing. I didn't like it. Nevertheless, I was not prepared to focus on it. There were too many other concerns - wedding, move, and job related - clogging my mind for my one source of escape to jump on board as well. It was simply Not Allowed.

It was only three days before the wedding that the pain really got to me. I wasn't even halfway through my run before my foot really started to hurt badly enough to worry me. "This is not fun. This really is not fun," I thought, about two miles in. "Something's wrong. Something's definitely wrong." I have a theory that my inner monologue gets repetitious in these circumstances because it's the only way to get my brain to pay attention. So, like any sensible running-addict, I decided that since walking didn't feel any better, I might as well keep on running since that would get me home faster. Of course, that wasn't until after I had gone another mile in the wrong direction refusing to accept the situation, so, I really had no choice but to finish the full 6 miles as planned. Every...ouch!...damn...agh!...last...eesh!...oneofthem. Call it a stubborn streak. Mind over matter sort of thing. I will do as I damn well please, thank-you-very-much. I have paid dearly for it more than once, but the lesson rarely sticks.

Reluctantly, I decided that it would probably be smarter not to put in my final run the day before the wedding on the logic that it would look (and feel) really stupid if I couldn't walk down the aisle at my own wedding because I just HAD to do that last run. No, no...that wouldn't do. I had invested as much or more time into planning this wedding as I had in my running to date and, for once, I knew my priorities. I can worry about running again after the wedding, I decided. I'll have plenty of time on my honeymoon.

Ri-i-i-i-i-ght.

But, Foot wasn't any closer to giving me a break by the honeymoon. "Oh, it'll be fine," my inner monologue soothed. "Besides which, wouldn't it be selfish of you to leave your new hubby in the lurch to go bond with...yourself...on a run? Surely, you can wait another week..." It was a persuasive argument, but the nagging suspicion that this was more than a short-term inconvenience hung around in the back of my mind. I knew that every day I wasn't running I was losing my hard-won conditioning. My only hope at this point seemed to be that given just a little more time, everything would be fine. Just a bad spell. Easily recovered. So, I played it easy - minus a 9 mile hike - hopeful that I could pick up more-or-less where I left off after we got back home. But hiking didn't count, right? It was hiking. Not running. Foot should know the difference. I was even prepared to be generous. When we returned, I would back my mileage down to just five miles at first and go from there. Maybe even four. Somewhere between four and five, definitely. That was a fair compromise, right? Two whole weeks off from running, and a decrease in mileage. Deal of the year, Foot. Take it or leave it.

Fat chance.

Back to the morning of October 16th. I had only just begun the half block walk up to the top of my street to begin my official warm-up and already Foot had made its position clear. I knew I wasn't going running - today or tomorrow. I stormed back up to our apartment where my husband looked up at me in surprise and asked me if I had forgotten something. "Foot!" I sputtered, attempting to drown the rising sense of panic with my fury. The Enemy had once again reared its ugly head, and this time it was called Foot. Previously, it had gone under the name "Knee". And before that, "Shins." No coincidence, in my mind, that this time it went by a 4-letter word beginning with the letter "F".

A few days later, the sports medicine doctor confirmed my worst fears: a stress fracture. "But don't worry," she assured me, "you should be able to resume training for your half marathon by January." "Don't worry? Don't worry?!" my inner monologue raged, "That's nearly 3 MONTHS in which I can't do the one thing that's keeping me sane in the midst of all of this change, this turmoil, this uncertainty, and you're tell me 'Don't Worry'?! Oh yes, well, while you're at it, why don't you just take my heart and my brain for the meanwhile too. I won't be needing them either. Don't worry." My inner monologue can be somewhat of a drama queen. I limped home - still too stubborn to call for a ride to go the mere 8 blocks between the clinic and my own front door - and broke down into bitter tears on sharing the news with my husband.

Must it always be something?

I was really depressed. It didn't matter that the doctor was right: a mere 10-12 weeks was not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I would still be able to run my race in May if I played nice. But, I had lost my anchor, my joie de vivre. It was a difficult time for both my husband and I on the other side of a huge move, a marriage, a career change/loss, a lack of financial stability, and a grim job market. From someone who once thought anyone who ran for "pleasure" was certifiably insane, I had become someone who depended on running for sanity. And I had lost it.

Unable to pursue my passion, I couldn't even bear to touch the subject. I put away all of my running books. The next three issues of Runner's World were left untouched in their protective plastic wrap and shunted out of sight. Even the sight of other runners around town was enough to make my eyes slant and my lips purse in a bitterly jealous scowl. The beauty of the brilliantly crisp, clear and warm San Francisco autumn was lost on me because all I could think of was about how I was missing out on getting to run in such perfect weather. I became a regular Scrooge. "Christmas? Ba Humbug!" my inner monologue scorned. "Just means I have to go buy a bunch of crap that I can't afford right now and then figure out a bunch of other crap to ask other people for when I already know I can't have the only thing I want. Oh - and then there's all that cookie-baking crap which is just going to make me fat because I can't freakin' run it off! Crap! Crap! Crap! And MORE Crap! Merry Flippin' Christmas to you too."

I think it's true that running awakens the inner child to come out and play and dance and feel the sheer joy of the ground beneath our feet and the wind in our hair. Regrettably, I found that when I don't have running to give that inner child an outlet, she apparently throws a tantrum.

Seven long weeks later, I received my first real glimmer of Hope. My doctor prescribed me some new insoles and was sending me to see the in-house physical therapist for some basic exercises I could do to help strengthen my foot muscles in preparation for being able to Get Back Out There. "The end is in sight!" my inner monologue cheered, "I can finally do something proactive to aid in my own healing process! Hallelujah!" I was so encouraged by this news that I immediately launched into my newest running read, Chris McDougall's "Born to Run" about the almost mythical Tarahumara - "running people" - of Chihuahua, Mexico and deconstructing the myth of the modern running shoe. BTR supplied the long-awaited answer to my recurrent question, "must it always be something?" The sage reply was, "No, grasshopper. There is a better way and it comes down to getting back to the basics." My interior monologue supplied the grasshopper bit - one too many cheesy martial arts movies, I guess.

Because I'm not in the mood to write a book report, particularly when so many others who get paid to do it and do it well have already done so before me, I encourage you to read a synopsis of BTR elsewhere. Suffice it to say that this book was for me, like so many others, a light bulb going off in my brain. It was a strike against the naysayers who decree that running is harmful to the body and will leave us crippled before our time, that we're doomed to injure ourselves again and again if we keep up with this madness we call running.

Happily, I say to all such naysayers - poo on you.

With BTR supplying fresh, electrifying inspiration, thus began my explorations into the world of barefoot/minimalist running.

Next time: first encounters with the "VFF"s a.k.a. "Vibram FiveFingers", or, "Very Freaky Footwear"...