I went to physical therapy 2-3 times a week for about 16 weeks. That's about 40 hours spent with the same group of people at the same time of day, for the majority of days in a work week. Patients recovered and left, new ones showed up - some with positive attitudes, others defeated. Through it all there was the constant of the doors opening sleepily at 6:30AM, the smell of strong Dunkin' Doughnuts coffee, low lights until everyone was awake, balancing on a makeshift wake board until a stop watch said "enough" and the bliss of the hottest, largest heating pad you've ever seen being wrapped around an aching group of tendons as you sit back on your private padded table and watch CNN. Clearly, there are worse places to be early on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday morning.
My last day at physical therapy, Graduation Day, was actually a little bittersweet because of all of these constants and the people behind them. Walking out of the Rothman Institute that day felt like being shoved, without warning, into the cold (and the dark - January PM runs...) with only the promise that the pain would ease. I had workouts, winter clothes and better habits; but I didn't have my people. The faces that never wavered and always reassured; the faces with the "just ten more seconds" and "you need to focus on your toes when you stretch"; the faces that would become the foundation for my recovery - in and out of physical therapy.
Nine months later, on a random 4 mile run just before dawn, I ran by one of those people who made the constants of my recovery possible: the heating pad girl. She was an ever pleasant reminder that heating pads could unwind even the worst ills, that hard workouts were the only way out of this mess and that other people had it a lot worse. Her positivity replaced my own in the early days and so the ability to finally smile back at her (and mean it) while sprinting up the hill by the one mile tree, pain free, was the biggest "thank you" of them all.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
The Secret [to running through pain].
While down the shore last week I read The Secret. Always a believer in the power of positive thinking, whether sick, healthy, hurt, healing or otherwise lost, I suppose I sought someone's explanation for what I hold myself to: We get back what we put out there. Expecting vague confirmation and context, I found a few more practical and surprising applications for the power of positive thought.
When I run, there is pain. Every step past about 8.5 miles comes with an ache on the inside of my left heel that often leads to a disconcerting numbness running up my Achilles. This was the case in the Spring of 2009 just as it is the case today. It is a constant in my workouts and where the ice goes immediately after. Nothing makes it worse and nothing makes it better - this ache of mine is steadfast and staying around. It does not respond to expensive inserts, new shoes, tiger balm, ice or Flector patches. It simply wraps itself around my tendon and holds on for dear life. And so, this ache has been a focus before, during and after runs since I started training.
On my first day back from the beach (last Sunday), I was scheduled to run 15 miles. This meant a Saturday full of carbs, water and preemptive left-ankle-icing. 8.5 beautiful miles into the run, on the downside of the Manayunk Toe Path, after jumping over and crawling under fallen trees, my ache wrapped around my ankle and drug me down. Immediately I found my thoughts shifting from "I'm so lucky to be running across the Falls Bridge on a crisp morning," to "How am I going to put up with this for more than 2/3 of the Marathon; I'll never make it; I should make another appointment with my doctor; Maybe this is more seriouse than I thought it was; What am I going to do!?"
That's where I stopped. At mile 10, just as I crossed back over the Falls Bridge, I stopped thinking and repeated, "No more" over and over again for at least a mile. Once the focus was officially shifted from my pain and I regained control of my thoughts, I began to repeat (out loud at times), "I. Am. Healthy." Somewhere around Mile 13.5, I checked back in to my strides and footfalls. As quickly as I realized they were pain free, I checked back out again and repeated "I can do this," until my Garmin beeped me back to the reality of Mile 15 having been completed.
I'm not saying the pain disappeared or that I healed myself with 50 minutes of positive thought. Rather, I got beyond the pain and put my focus where it belongs - forward.
Because I am the only one that creates my reality, I made the conscious decision to move beyond my Achilles and refocus myself on the positive. For me, this is what it takes to run (or live) through pain.
When I run, there is pain. Every step past about 8.5 miles comes with an ache on the inside of my left heel that often leads to a disconcerting numbness running up my Achilles. This was the case in the Spring of 2009 just as it is the case today. It is a constant in my workouts and where the ice goes immediately after. Nothing makes it worse and nothing makes it better - this ache of mine is steadfast and staying around. It does not respond to expensive inserts, new shoes, tiger balm, ice or Flector patches. It simply wraps itself around my tendon and holds on for dear life. And so, this ache has been a focus before, during and after runs since I started training.
On my first day back from the beach (last Sunday), I was scheduled to run 15 miles. This meant a Saturday full of carbs, water and preemptive left-ankle-icing. 8.5 beautiful miles into the run, on the downside of the Manayunk Toe Path, after jumping over and crawling under fallen trees, my ache wrapped around my ankle and drug me down. Immediately I found my thoughts shifting from "I'm so lucky to be running across the Falls Bridge on a crisp morning," to "How am I going to put up with this for more than 2/3 of the Marathon; I'll never make it; I should make another appointment with my doctor; Maybe this is more seriouse than I thought it was; What am I going to do!?"
That's where I stopped. At mile 10, just as I crossed back over the Falls Bridge, I stopped thinking and repeated, "No more" over and over again for at least a mile. Once the focus was officially shifted from my pain and I regained control of my thoughts, I began to repeat (out loud at times), "I. Am. Healthy." Somewhere around Mile 13.5, I checked back in to my strides and footfalls. As quickly as I realized they were pain free, I checked back out again and repeated "I can do this," until my Garmin beeped me back to the reality of Mile 15 having been completed.
I'm not saying the pain disappeared or that I healed myself with 50 minutes of positive thought. Rather, I got beyond the pain and put my focus where it belongs - forward.
Because I am the only one that creates my reality, I made the conscious decision to move beyond my Achilles and refocus myself on the positive. For me, this is what it takes to run (or live) through pain.
Monday, September 5, 2011
26 Miles in 3 days.
In Chef Gordon Ramsey's "The F Word" voice:
Friday: 6 Miles at 5:30AM. Touch Art Museum Steps to the Strawberry Mansion Bridge, breath and do it again.
Saturday: 13 Miles at 6:00AM. Charge toward Main Street in Manayunk from a similar starting place; stop to stretch on the Falls Bridge; continue on through the hills, pass coffee shops and Pottery Barn, turn when Garmin tells you to and return.
Sunday: 7 miles at 8:00AM. Shoes on, hangover ignored, move from one barrier island north to another barrier island. Cross bridges, embrace familiarity, return winded and accomplished.
Done.
Despite the simplicity of putting on socks and shoes, left in front of right and hitting these miles, after mile 6 and just before mile 7, I was tense. Not only did I not want to run 13 miles, I wasn't sure I could. I was letting the "training" outshine the "running" and suddenly the reason I'm out there was lost - just like that. With the Marathon looming, training intensifying and joints aching - all at once - It's easy to see how any runner could forget why she runs in the first place; and it's not to get from point A to point B - at least most of the time.
It took the not-so-subtle reminder, on the eve of an uncertain 13 miles, that 9 months ago, if a doctor told me he could fix me and I could run even five blocks, I would have been thrilled with the news that running was mine again. And so it goes, breathe in and breathe out, remind yourself that the next moment is not guaranteed, bear down and hold on. And just keep moving.
Friday: 6 Miles at 5:30AM. Touch Art Museum Steps to the Strawberry Mansion Bridge, breath and do it again.
Saturday: 13 Miles at 6:00AM. Charge toward Main Street in Manayunk from a similar starting place; stop to stretch on the Falls Bridge; continue on through the hills, pass coffee shops and Pottery Barn, turn when Garmin tells you to and return.
Sunday: 7 miles at 8:00AM. Shoes on, hangover ignored, move from one barrier island north to another barrier island. Cross bridges, embrace familiarity, return winded and accomplished.
Done.
Despite the simplicity of putting on socks and shoes, left in front of right and hitting these miles, after mile 6 and just before mile 7, I was tense. Not only did I not want to run 13 miles, I wasn't sure I could. I was letting the "training" outshine the "running" and suddenly the reason I'm out there was lost - just like that. With the Marathon looming, training intensifying and joints aching - all at once - It's easy to see how any runner could forget why she runs in the first place; and it's not to get from point A to point B - at least most of the time.
It took the not-so-subtle reminder, on the eve of an uncertain 13 miles, that 9 months ago, if a doctor told me he could fix me and I could run even five blocks, I would have been thrilled with the news that running was mine again. And so it goes, breathe in and breathe out, remind yourself that the next moment is not guaranteed, bear down and hold on. And just keep moving.
What it takes:
(1) to come home again and (2) run the lid off the mason jar.
I grew up about 75 minutes from Center City, Philadelphia in a shore town so small that, as a teen, I was certain the familiarity, alone, would steal my air like a mason jar from a firefly. And so, in 1999, I moved away from my center, ever so slightly, toward a world where sand wasn't on my doorstep and the humid ocean breeze didn't quiet a fitful sleep. Like Ocean City, Running is safety amid waves, my compass and the clothes pin that keeps me from flying away in the wind.
Yesterday, I set out 24 hours post-almost-half-marathon [13.01/1:59], for a seven mile run home. Down Whittier Avenue in Strathmere, with the ocean and the new sun at my back, toward the Deuville Inn and the Inlet, I ran without ache or apprehension. Crossing the Strathmere Bridge, dodging cars and not looking down through the grates, I [mistakenly] nudged a seagull awake with my right elbow, continued on through the toll and focused on the bikers already out for their morning ride to the 34th Street WaWa in Ocean City. The incline and decline of that bridge were subtle enough for me to focus forward through the pounding. I thought of the choppy Inlet - moments past - when it was just me as a spec in that water, always floating, never thinking beyond the open sky.
I ran past the marshes, smelling the steady low-tide, and over the Ocean City Bridge beyond the fishermen and other runners, straight home, around the corner on to 56th Street. And there they were: the smiles and the sleepy eyed walks to Blitz's for milk and eggs and the Sunday Atlantic City Press; the old locals that saw a familiar little girl in the red haired woman running down West Avenue; the bikes headed to the beach streets and the dogs parked outside of Mallon's, waiting for the smallest piece of a sticky bun to fall their way. But for the passing of 12 years, noticeable only through the chipping blue paint on corner benches, Ocean City is now just as it always was, and my eyes are finally opened to the appreciation of it.
At 40th street, I turned with a kiss to the clouds and a wave to my grandfather. Back down Central Avenue, past the little lawns with old men talking to their neighbors, coffee in hand, sprinklers beginning the task at hand, across both bridges' now not-so-subtle inclines with a perfect 7 miles in 58 minutes, "See you soon, then" has never felt so right.
I grew up about 75 minutes from Center City, Philadelphia in a shore town so small that, as a teen, I was certain the familiarity, alone, would steal my air like a mason jar from a firefly. And so, in 1999, I moved away from my center, ever so slightly, toward a world where sand wasn't on my doorstep and the humid ocean breeze didn't quiet a fitful sleep. Like Ocean City, Running is safety amid waves, my compass and the clothes pin that keeps me from flying away in the wind.
Yesterday, I set out 24 hours post-almost-half-marathon [13.01/1:59], for a seven mile run home. Down Whittier Avenue in Strathmere, with the ocean and the new sun at my back, toward the Deuville Inn and the Inlet, I ran without ache or apprehension. Crossing the Strathmere Bridge, dodging cars and not looking down through the grates, I [mistakenly] nudged a seagull awake with my right elbow, continued on through the toll and focused on the bikers already out for their morning ride to the 34th Street WaWa in Ocean City. The incline and decline of that bridge were subtle enough for me to focus forward through the pounding. I thought of the choppy Inlet - moments past - when it was just me as a spec in that water, always floating, never thinking beyond the open sky.
I ran past the marshes, smelling the steady low-tide, and over the Ocean City Bridge beyond the fishermen and other runners, straight home, around the corner on to 56th Street. And there they were: the smiles and the sleepy eyed walks to Blitz's for milk and eggs and the Sunday Atlantic City Press; the old locals that saw a familiar little girl in the red haired woman running down West Avenue; the bikes headed to the beach streets and the dogs parked outside of Mallon's, waiting for the smallest piece of a sticky bun to fall their way. But for the passing of 12 years, noticeable only through the chipping blue paint on corner benches, Ocean City is now just as it always was, and my eyes are finally opened to the appreciation of it.
At 40th street, I turned with a kiss to the clouds and a wave to my grandfather. Back down Central Avenue, past the little lawns with old men talking to their neighbors, coffee in hand, sprinklers beginning the task at hand, across both bridges' now not-so-subtle inclines with a perfect 7 miles in 58 minutes, "See you soon, then" has never felt so right.
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