Tag: hills

may 13/10 MILES

60 degrees
mississippi river road north/hennepin bridge/stone arch bridge/mississippi river road south

Scott and I ran together this morning. A tough run. Why? Not sure. Maybe it was the hills: the Franklin hill and the I-35W hill. Or maybe it was the temperature. Warmer with more sun. My body hasn’t adjusted to it being warmer yet. Had a few moments on the run where I wanted to stop and probably would have if Scott hadn’t been there to encourage me to keep going. My legs felt so tired. Not injured, just tired. Favorite part of the route was running downtown. Scott stopped at the halfway point to take this photo on the Hennepin Avenue bridge:

A post shared by Scott Anderson 📎 (@room34) on

may 9/5 MILES

56 degrees
mississippi river road north

Wow! Another beautiful morning. Can it be like this all year? Wasn’t planning to, but as I ran towards the Franklin hill I started composing a poem in my head. Is it a poem? Or just a rhythm to repeat in order to create a steady cadence? Whatever it is, it was fun and it worked. My running felt strong and steady. And the chant helped me to slow down my heart rate after the tough hill. Because I didn’t want to forget it, as I was running, I recorded myself reciting it into my voice memo app.

There’s a path

there’s a path
there’s a path
that was closed
that was closed
up until
up until
late last fall
late last fall

there’s a path
that was closed
up until
late last fall
there’s a path
that was closed
up until
late last fall

then they opened it back up
then they opened it back up
to the runners thump thump
and the bikers thump thump
and the walkers thump thump
and the drivers thump thump

on the path
on the path
there is a hill
there is a hill
a steep, long hill
a steep, long hill

as you turn back up the hill
you’ll see a bridge at the top
look at it, look at it
never stop, never stop

there
was
a
hill
there
was
a
hill
that
I
climbed
up
that
I
climbed
up
now
that
I’m
done
slow
down
the
run
now
that
I’m
done
slow
down
the
run

may 2/5 MILES

46 degrees
mississippi river road path north

As I ran, I tried to keep thinking about poets, intense feelings, whether or not living “like an engine with the governor off” is a good thing and how this relates to running. I couldn’t. Not because I don’t have any thoughts about these issues, but because I was distracted by an impulse to monitor my pace, heart rate and running form. And preoccupied with thoughts of leg injuries and how I probably need to strengthen my core.

What else do I remember? There was wind in my face as I ran north and at my back, helpfully pushing me along, as I turned around and went south. The Franklin hill wasn’t too bad. My pulse seemed to go slower as I went faster. The trees at my favorite part of the gorge are covered in leaves, making it hard to see the floor of the gorge. I think I encountered 4 or 5 dogs and about 15 humans, some walking the dogs, some walking alone, some running and some biking. I smiled at several of them, but didn’t speak. Neither did they. I don’t remember hearing a single bird or the wind rustling or the gravel crunching or traffic moving.

Even if I don’t remember thinking about poetry and intense feelings, I’m sure I did, at least fleetingly. And, even if I didn’t think about it consciously, the ideas were there, hovering around me as I ran, inspired by the discussion I started about George Sheehan in my log entry yesterday.

Sheehan argues that we should try to be poets, “responding to everything around us and inside us as well,” like engines with the governor off. Then he adds: “The best most of us can do is be a poet an hour a day.” And laments: “There are times, more often than the good times, when I fail. I never do pierce the shield. I return with a shopping list of things to do tomorrow. The miraculous has gone unseen. The message has gone unheard.” His words got me thinking and inspired me to create:

A 60-minute Poet

George Sheehan claims that,
for an hour a day,
while we’re running,
we can try to be poets.
Feeling everything intensely and without restrictions.
Like an engine with its governor off.
We can try.
But we’ll frequently fail
A thick smog of obligations, worries and regrets
makes it harder to breathe.
And to see.
And to feel.
And to remember to let go and let in
more air,
more ideas,
more of the world.

A Deep Core Workout for 60-minute-a-day Poets?

60 minutes a day of intense feelings seems like a lot.
How can we train ourselves to feel deeply for that long?
What sort of strength and stretching exercises do we need to build up our “deep core” feelings?
To prevent hyper-awareness related injuries brought on by overuse or improper form?
To help us stretch our imagination?
Limber up our ideas, so we can bend, twist, contort them?
Strengthen our resolve against the worries and regrets that distract us?
Lengthen our vision to extend farther, beyond our myopic preoccupations?
Quicken our reflexes for faster responsiveness?
Attune our senses to the too-often invisible or ignored encounters?

I’m thinking about “core” workouts lately because so many things that I’ve been reading recommend core exercises for preventing injuries. A strong core stabilizes your bones, joints, muscles and internal organs. I’m terrible with scientific/medical terminology–I can’t seem to retain the information that I read or hear–but I’m fascinated by the names and some the descriptions of the “deep core” muscles, especially the multifidus.

The Multifidus

The multifidus
pronounced: mull tiff a dus
The muscle consisting of a number of fleshy
not flashy or flesh-eating or flesh-colored or thin, but plump and succulent
 and tendinous
sounds like tenderness or tendon-less, even though it means “consisting of tendons”
fasciculi,
pronounced: fa sick you lee or fa sick you lie, depending on if you want to rhyme it with an old oak tree or a key lime pie
which fill up the groove
the groove in the dirt trail, winding through the gorge? the groove of a Funkadelic album? what you’re in when it’s going well?
on either side of the spinous processes of the vertebrae,
not a process but a bony protrusion where the muscle attaches to the vertebrae
from the sacrum
pronounced: say crum, as in, “say crumb, why don’t you hop into my mouth?”
to the axis
aka C-2, aka epistropheus. Contains a bony protuberance, another fun word to say, on which the C-1 vertebrae rotates.  

april 25/5 MILES

57 degrees
mississippi river road path north

Another great morning for running. Intended to ruminate on the differences between running and walking in terms of how I think and generate ideas for the entire 46 minute run. It didn’t happen. I can’t really remember much of anything that I thought about. Devoted most of my attention to my running form and keeping my pulse steady.

Running Form

Keep it slow
don’t start fast
Keep it steady
find your rhythm
Breathe     i       n
Breathe     o  u  t
Check your pulse
Lift, lift, lift the knees
squeeze the glutes, squeeze the glutes
breathe in, 2, 3
out, 2, 3
drop your shoulders
lead with your chest
relax your arms
loosen your hands
roll an imaginary pencil between your thumb and fingers
l   e   a   n  forward
lift, lift, lift, lift, lift, lift the knees
raise your eyes, stare blankly at the top of the bridge
check your pulse
keep it steady
don’t lose your rhythm
breathe in, 2, 3
out, 2, 3
lift, lift, lift, lift the knees
slow it down
squeeze the glutes, squeeze the glutes
relax your arms
drop your shoulders
breathe in, 2, 3
out 2, 3
check your pulse
lift
lift
swing
swing
pump
breathe in out in out
pump
pump
lift
lift
breathe in out in out
in out in out
in out in out in out
FLY
l  e  a  n
lift
breathe i       n
breathe o  u  t
relax your arms
slow your pace
stop.

april 21/4 MILES

47 degrees
mississippi river road path south

A beautiful morning. The run started and ended well. Somewhere in the middle, after running up and then down a steep hill by Lock and Dam #1 and Wabun Park, my right thigh started to bother me again. It never really hurt, it just became harder to lift. Then, when it became harder to lift, my right calf tightened up too. For 2 or 3 minutes, it was a struggle as I tried very deliberately to lift my right leg, focusing on my glutes and hips. By the last mile, I felt better and was running much faster than I had at the beginning of the run. Strange.

When do you take aches and pains seriously? When should you rest? Tough questions. I’m extremely cautious with my running; I’ve never tried to push myself too hard. It took me two years to build up to running 10ks, 4 years for a 1/2 marathon and now, 6 for a marathon. I have only had one substantial injury.

The Injury, first version

My first big injury happened exactly a year ago in April 2016. I had been struggling with running all winter. Had even taken half of February off–about 2 weeks without running, the longest I had gone since starting in June of 2011. March was okay. But then on April 2, while doing a flip turn at the pool, something suddenly hurt. When I got out of the pool, I was limping. Within a few days, I couldn’t bend my right knee. It was so strange. I forgot how to walk. My leg and my brain couldn’t get the motion right. The most I could manage was shuffling for a block or two. It sucked.

I didn’t know what was wrong with my leg, just that it was not good. Googling medical and sports websites convinced me that I had a meniscus tear (don’t know what is? don’t google it; blissful ignorance is underrated). I went to a sports medicine doctor to verify this diagnosis and discovered that I had a much less catastrophic injury: a bone spur in my knee. A jagged little knob on the inside of my knee. The bone spur wasn’t directly causing my problem; it was the tendon that, after repeatedly rubbing over the spur, had become inflamed. The area around my knee had swollen and I couldn’t bend it properly. The solution: lots of ibuprofen (9 pills a day), lots of ice (3 xs @20 minutes a day) and physical therapy for about 6 weeks. No running, barely any walking. I was able to swim and bike some. I can’t quite remember when I was able to run again–early May? I do know that my first 5K was on my fifth runniversary, June 2, 2016.

A few months after all of this transpired, a friend, who also runs, asked: “Will the bone spur go away?” I didn’t ask, I said. I was so freaked out about the injury and spend so little time in doctor’s offices that I didn’t think to ask. I’ve looked it up online and still am not quite sure. Sometimes spurs dissolve and sometimes they don’t. It hasn’t bothered me since.

Notes:

This is the first version of an account of my injury. In working to express how it feels to run, I’d like to develop this account to more effectively express my emotions surrounding this injury. Right now, it’s pretty boring and lifeless. That might be partly because I don’t like thinking about injuries–it’s my biggest fear. It might also be because I’m uncomfortable describing my experiences, which seem so trivial and ordinary compared to the physical struggles of other people I know.

Where to start on pushing this version?

  • Expand on “it sucked.” So many feelings crammed into those two words! Fear, frustration, anger, resolution and more. Push at these emotions.
  • What does it mean to forget how to walk? What does that feel like?
  • Say more about this: “The solution: lots of ibuprofen (9 pills a day), lots of ice (3 xs @20 minutes a day) and physical therapy for about 6 weeks. No running, barely any walking. I was able to swim and bike some.” Maybe write a list of what I know about running injuries?
  • Write some more questions and answers in response to this: Will the bone spur go away?

Update: After reading this post, I decided to experiment a bit with thinking/writing about injury. The experiment I did today was all about trying to lose some of the fear that haunts my thinking about injury.

 

April 20/6 MILES

40 degrees
mississippi river road path north

A great run. Took it a little faster than I probably should have, with my fastest mile being up the Franklin hill! Stopped and walked to lower my pulse for about 20 seconds midway through mile 4. That was a good idea. Finished strong with hardly any hamstring pain.

Had a lot of great thoughts about the runner’s high and the piece of writing that I had started working on right before my run. I’m including it below. Versions 1-5 were written before my run. Versions 6 and 7 were written right after returning from the run.

The Runner’s High, 7 Versions

Version One

Sometimes when I run
I breathe in deeply.
As my chest rises
so does my heart
and my head
and my shoulders.

I feel vast
expansive
generous.
I am open
to love
to joy
to possibility.

I want to spread my arms wide
and embrace the world.
But I don’t.
It takes up too much space
and would alter my gait.
Instead, I shape my feelings into a smile
that spreads across my face
and extends all the way to my toes.

VERSION TWO

Sometimes when my run is going well, a sense of euphoria spreads through my body. As it extends to the tips of my fingers and to the pit of my stomach, I feel an urge to spread my arms wide, throw back my head and run without fear.

VERSION THREE

Sometimes when I run, I am transformed into someone who feels joy first, not fear. Who is open, not closed. Who wants to spread their arms wide, embracing the world. When I feel like this, I smile to myself. A smile so deep that it reaches all the way to my toes.

VERSION FOUR

What does the runner’s high feel like? It feels like Love. Joy. Generosity. Possibility. An open door. A vulnerable body, stretching out and dissolving into the vastness of the world.

VERSION FIVE

The runner’s high. Feelings of love, joy, generosity and possibility that transform vulnerability into openness, enabling the body to stretch out and dissolve into the vastness of the universe.

VERSION SIX

I want to spread my arms wide and embrace the world. But I don’t. It takes up too much space. It would alter my gait. Besides, when running, you don’t fly with your arms, you fly with your feet. And you don’t embrace the world with a hug but with a breath.

VERSION SEVEN

To be combined with Version One. 

Other times when I run
I breathe in deeply
I fill my lungs with the world
while rhythmically pumping my arms.

I feel strong
fluid
effortless.
I am flying
over the path
above the world
under the dazzling blue sky.

I take in everything and become nothing
as I breathe in          and out                        .

april 11/5.1 MILES

44 degrees
mississippi river road path north

It was tougher than usual today. Running towards the Franklin hill, I felt tired. The sun was overhead and my shadow felt like it was on top of me, dragging me down. The wind was in my face, pushing at me, urging me to turn around and go back home. I persisted. I ran down the hill and felt better, but then ran up it too fast. Stopped to walk for 30 seconds to rest my cramped calf and to slow my heart rate. Ran the last few miles feeling a little sore and wondering why this run wasn’t as great. Was it because I ran so much last week? Because the weather was so strange–snowing last night and then melting quickly this morning? Or, was it just an off day? Whatever the reason, I ran anyway.

.

Hover over the entry to reveal the erasure poem.

april 4/5.25 MILES

47 degrees
mississippi river road path

Thomas Gardner writes:

I’ve been feeling my way all week toward some still-unstated problem, running without a watch, not tracking my thoughts, trying to let the run distill itself down to breath, or rhythm, or attention–a single maple leaf suspended in a web, five feet over the trail. It’s hard to do. Thoughts rise and rattle, spread their wings, legs trailing them over the pond (35).

Was thinking about this as I ran. It is hard to “let the run distill down to breath, or rhythm, or attention.” I did have a moment, though, when I was focused on the river. Illuminated by the sun, it looked white, almost, but not quite, like it does when it’s covered with snow and ice. I like watching the sun and the river when they get together. The other day, the sun was focused on one spot in the river, a circle of light on the surface, inviting me to enter it. What would I find, I wondered, if I dove in?