Then what I think of as the old Jessica reappeared on the scene. The way I saw it, anyone could fall on a dark rainy run as I did in January. And anyone could have missed the first day of spring training because of a sick kid. And most everyone has missed a season or part thereof due to an injury.

But who in the world beside me would ever suffer a vacuuming injury? About a week ago I was replacing the exhaust filter, or at least trying to, and Could. Not. Get. The. Cover. Latch. Open. So I pulled and pulled and pulled and even put my feet on the unit to provide additional leverage. And thus, with all of my body weight engaged in the task, I finally released the compartment cover. At which point in time it flew out of my grasp, hit me directly in the face, and split open my lower lip. Really! I had to ice my lip and apply pressure for upwards of 20 minutes before I stanched the flow of blood.

And it doesn’t end there. Friday I took Simon up to our attic, which I am in the process of rehabilitating from an in-home storage facility cum garbage can to usable play space. It’s still a little rough up there, but the huge amount of baby equipment and seven large boxes of toys and clothes I removed at least allowed me to visualize the space’s potential. If I have the drywall fixed where some leaky sky-lights caused damage, put on a cheery coat of paint, and buy a portable air conditioning unit, this will give Simon more space to play. It won’t be Pottery Barn perfect, but it will do nicely.

Flush with excitement from my cleaning, I hauled Simon upstairs to see how much more room he already has for his train set. After setting up a play tent and browsing online for bean bag chairs, it was time to head downstairs. Laptop in hand, I made my way first. Then Simon called for me to check out the funny way he was planning to slide down the stairs. It was a potentially dangerous maneuver, and as I spun around to caution him, I lost my footing and fell down about five steps myself.

There was at least one bounce, possibly two, before I landed hard on my right hip, right shoulder, and neck. My tush is sore, my back and shoulders ache, and I have an extremely limited range of motion in my neck. I done banged myself up but good.

As a result, I spent much of yesterday thinking that perhaps I had pushed my luck a bit with this whole running thing. Maybe I really am too klutzy and I should stop before I get hit by a car or cripple myself for life. Or was that just that pain and embarrassment getting to me?

So I did the math:

Total running-related injuries to date include:

• one skinned knee (healed in one week)
• two strained calf muscles (healing in progress).

Total couch-potato/cleaning/computer injuries to date include:

• one strained hand tendon (from knitting and computer work, since healed)
• one busted-up lip
• one totally messed-up neck (mostly remediated)
• terrible vision (which took one giant improvement leap when I quit grad school, another when I went part-time, and yet a third when I left work altogether, putting my prescription back to long-forgotten undergraduate and/or high school levels)
• various minor cooking burns
• two cooking knife accidents bad enough to require stitches.

Looks like I had my thinking backwards. I mean, yeah, 2012 is not off to a great start when it comes to bodily harm, but I’ve done more damage to myself while in my house or engaged in “safe” work pursuits than I ever did while out running. My house looks a ton better since I hurt my calves, but if I don’t get out running again soon, I may be too banged up get started again!

His best guess is that I have over-used, mildly strained, or possibly even very mildly damaged the Gastrocnemius muscle and tendon group, leading to swelling. That means when I use the muscle it swells even more and ends up compressing my nerves and blood vessels. So the goal is to reduce swelling, increase flexibility, and improve circulation.

Today’s treatment was comprised of E-Stim therapy and an ultrasound application. I was also given some active stretching exercises to do at the therapist’s office and again at home. Tim is cautiously optimistic that I’ll be running again by the end of March.

And boy does he have my number. When discussing things I can do now, Tim proposed the elliptical, a Nordic Track, cycling, or swimming.

“What about a fast walk or slow recovery run?” I suggested.

“Oh my God! You runners are all the same!” he shrieked at me. “I tell you we need to rehab you before you do anything high-impact, and you immediately ask if you can run again tomorrow since we did a treatment. Runners and dancers—nuts.”

Busted. He knows whence he speaks, too, as Tim is one of the area’s go-to therapists for runners and dancers. When I saw him for my neck, didn’t feel qualified to see “the athlete’s PT” as my doctor described him. But now that I have a legitimate running injury, I guess I finally qualify, even if I can’t do anything terribly athletic at the moment.

I missed that first day because Simon had been up the entire night before with a violent stomach bug. At the time I joked that perhaps the timing was a bad omen. I made the same joke two weeks later when I fell on a dark and rainy run, but bought myself some headlights and decided to carry on.

In hindsight, these were omens, and I don’t even believe in omens. Because on February 4 during a five-mile run my calves began to feel tight. Running through the pain resulted in my calves burning up, my ankles getting stiff, and eventually my feet growing numb and tingling. For the first time ever, I had to stop running before completing my full distance. Two days later, the same thing happened and I had to call it quits at mile thee.

These things happen, so I didn’t panic. Based on the advice of fellow runners and Fleet Feet Sports staff, I did trigger-point therapy, got massaged, got new shoes, and bought and wore compression socks. I managed two decent runs after this, but the last three have been increasingly bad. In fact, the last run I couldn’t finish was a two mile “recovery” run on a completely flat surface. To make matters worse, I was in pain for three hours after that run.

And so, five short months after I headed to the doctor to discuss my neck, I am now off to the doctor to discuss my legs. I’ve already talked to a physical therapist, and I’ll probably start treatment within a week. Depending on what my primary care physician says, I may or may not have to see an orthopedist. My symptoms are generally consistent with a compartment syndrome, the medical term for an ailment in which pressure builds up in a muscle compartment beyond usual limits, has nowhere to go as the fascia surrounding it is inelastic, and results in nerve and blood vessel compression.

Compartment syndrome is serious stuff, most often resolved by surgery. But I doubt I have the pure variety because my pain is in the wrong place. It’s far more likely that I’ve injured my calf and/or ankle muscles, resulting in swelling that doesn’t leave me with any room for the natural expansion that happens during exercise. I have no idea yet how must rest/drugs/ice/heat/elevation I might need, but it seems pretty clear that the next race I’ll enter will be this summer or fall.

I’m surprisingly OK with that. The mini gets 15,000 to 18,000 entrants each year, and I hate crowds. So long as I can get back on the road and trails soon-ish to enjoy spring, it’ll all be good. I also trust that PT will get me out of this pickle, just as it did all my seemingly dire neck problems last fall. I just have to recover and then learn what I need to do differently to keep this from happening again.

And I will truly do anything to keep this from happening again, because my foreshortened season has taught me that while the races aren’t that important to me, I really love and miss the running. I’ll go to the gym and get on gerbil-wheel like devices to stay in shape if I must, but there won’t be any joy until it’s just me, my shoes, my tunes, and city streets and park trails.

Since then, I have only gotten out twice per week, only ran more than five miles once (a ten-miler in early December), and have generally slacked off a bit.

Given this, you’d think that when spring training began this week, I would have started slowly. But you’d be wrong. Silly me thought that since we were only going 3 miles (barely a run, right?), surely I could join the 9.5 minute mile pace group and keep up. It’s only three miles! I’d really like to shave a bunch of time off my next race and finish closer to 2:00 at my next race.

At mile 1.5 I nearly barfed. Really. The day might yet come when I finish a half marathon in around 2:00, but that day isn’t coming in April. Do I hear 2:10?

Almost exactly eight months to the day after my first no boundaries workout, which included walking and running for a total of 12 minutes, I finished my first ever half marathon on Saturday the 12th. It was an absolute blast! The thing I didn’t understand during my 18 weeks of training is that a race is not just a work-out where you push yourself harder; it’s a workout where you celebrate as you go.

As I think back on this experience, I have a few takeaways:

1. The taper is more nerve-wracking than the race. As mileage drops in the final two weeks pre-race to give your body a rest, your mind starts to worry that endurance is being lost and at the same time you begin to fidget from a surplus of unspent energy. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I heard the signal to start.
2. You have to run your race, not anyone else’s. During those first few miles, when everyone was passing me, it was very tempting to speed up. But my pace is 11-minute miles for the first few miles, and I need that slow warm-up to feel good. I was totally vindicated by mile 8, when I sped up a full minute and began to pass folks left and right. In fact, my last two miles were my fastest.
3. No matter how much you read, you still don’t know what the race will be like until you run it. When I crossed the finish line I had NO IDEA why someone wrapped me in what looked like a large sheet of aluminum foil. It was a space blanket designed to help me hold in heat once the race finished, and it felt great. I had just never heard of it.
4. You need a posse, or at least a buddy. I was a bit distraught when I couldn’t nag my marathon running brother into entering this race, as I wanted an on-site coach to help me or at least a buddy to keep my company. Once I got to the race, I immediately ran into many friends from Fleet Feet, the store my training is based out of. I chatted with many before the race, ran miles 6-8 with friend Lauren, and had friend Gwen join me as an unofficial runner at mile 8 and push me to speed up for the final 5 miles. Gwen made the end a heck of a lot more fun for me, and I know she shaved a good 3-5 minutes off my time. I have made a lot of new friends in the last 8 months, and I value that as much as getting into shape.
5. It’s all relative. My chip time 2:20:25 was a bit of a let-down, as I thought I had come in at more like 2:19 and really wanted to beat the 2:20 marker. But then I checked out my division results, and among women my age I placed dead center: 75 of 150 entrants. For a first timer, that seemed pretty cool. What strikes me as strange is that  my results would have put me in the top third of women aged 24-29. I guess those of us raging against middle age stick to our training schedule better than naturally fit twenty-somethings. That or many of the youngins arrive hung-over!

Three hours after my race finished, I headed off to a board meeting for the Sudanese Refugee Education Fund. That night, Matt, Simon and I had dinner with friends. And the next day, Simon had a play-date and I got to meet his best friend Baron’s new baby sister. I did all of this with minimally sore/stiff hips and everything else feeling normal, which pretty much seals what my next goal is. I’m being pushed by some to train for a full marathon, but I think I prefer a race that I enjoy start to finish and that leaves me feeling great.

So my next goal is another half in the spring. More of the same, but faster. And this Wednesday I look forward to re-joining my Fleet Feet friends for an off-season training run. Time to give all my brand new, expensive gear a work-out.

Fast forward to today’s trip the doctor for recurring neck pain and tingling in my left arm. (I’ve had neck issues for a few years, but the tingling is new and warranted a check-up.) The cuff went on and the results looked very, very different from when I began running six months ago: 90/70.

“Are you ever dizzy?” the doctor enquired.

“Not really, only if I stand or sit up too fast.”

“Your blood pressure is really low. We don’t want you to have a heart attack, but you do need to be able to stand. What do you take when you run?”

“Electrolytes every 30 minutes.” (Yes, the same items I swore I’d never need or purchase a few months back. I bought sugary goo to “eat” while I run, too. It’s funny how quickly all these bizarre things start to feel normal.)

“And your off days?”

“My off days? Nothing.”

“Start. Add some salt to your diet, too.  And hydrate on non-running days as if you were running. You need to bring your pressure up a bit.”

WHAT?! This conversation was a total paradigm buster. It never in a million years occurred to me that I could bring my blood pressure down too much for my normal range, even if 90/70 isn’t clinically hypotensive. I’ll learn more about my neck shortly: I am getting an MRI today to look for compression or disc problems and I begin physical therapy Monday. Which brings me to my second paradigm buster of the day:

“I’m sending you to a great guy; Tim works with a lot of runners and dancers and can isolate problems endurance athletes run into.”

“I don’t need that! I not a real runner yet; I only just started.”

“What’s your mileage?”

“I’m up to 12 for my long runs.”

“You’re a runner, honey. And Tim’s your guy.”

I’m still not sure about this. In my own mind’s eye, I need to have been running a year or more and/or finish a full marathon before I’d ever identify myself as “a runner” (I half expect to quit any day, given my track record), but if it gets me to a good physical therapist for my neck, I’m not in the mood to contradict. Now I’m off to eat some lovely, salty popcorn.

It’s now been just shy of six months since I began to run–five months since I ran more than a single mile without stopping. Last Saturday I ran 8, next Saturday I’m scheduled for 9, and this week I’ve gone out twice at the hottest part of the day for 5-mile training runs in the hilly, hilly park. We had a reprieve from the heat for a week or so, but we are now back to weather that has me grabbing my shortest shorts and an electrolyte tablet or two before heading out.

It would be easier and less disruptive to family time to run immediately after I drop Simon off at school. It would certainly be more comfortable then. But here’s the thing, tonight I arrived and chatted with a guy (Mike) who taught me how to cut corners to run the route as measured (I was adding distance by running on the outside of all curves). Then I chatted with Lindsay about girly stuff. Then Tony arrived and had tomatoes from his garden for me. Then Kishor arrived and had tea from a recent visit home to Mumbai for me. Then the store owner, Jeff, brought over a new shoe he thought I’d like to try (“It has just a little more padding under the ball of the foot than the Kinvara, and it’s runs narrow to hug that foot of yours.”)

Small things all of them, but I can’t help but feel like Princess for a day. Throw in Mike (a different Mike; there are three in all) and Kishor cheering me on when I hit the air conditioned store about 10-15 minutes behind them, and it is hard not to feel embraced by this group. This Saturday’s run has me intimidated; I’ve never gone nine 9 miles before. As the group is leaving at 6:00 a.m., I’m pretty tempted to sleep in and go on my own, as I normally do on Saturdays. But you know, I think having all these folks around me—well, mostly in front of me—is going give me the extra oomph I need to finish the last mile on Saturday.

I had hoped running would get me into shape when I started. I had no idea how much it would also add to my social life. To date, it’s been one of the nicest things I’ve ever done for myself.

It began with the dreaded running shorts. I have historically eschewed the short, much preferring myself in skirts. Now that my legs are bulkier (I’ve gained a solid 3 pounds of muscle mass from the waist down) and the days hotter, I’ve gotten over that. Improbably, my favorite pair of running shorts has a 3” inseam. That’s 9 inches shorter than the first pair of shorts I bought when I returned to Louisville.

The next hurdle is the midsection. Wearing two layers when the heat index is over 100 degrees is just plain miserable. As a running bra is required, my only option for lightening up is to wear it and skip the …. and just typing this makes my palms sweat … shirt.

Breathe.

For those who don’t know me well, allow me to explain. My waist, or lack thereof, has been the bane of my existence since I was around 13. Seriously. Other than the few times my weight has plummeted to just at or below three digits, I never feel that I have a waist at all. Only the pudge at my obliques signals where a waist should be.

I’ve learned dress strategies for my shape, but bare flesh doesn’t lie. Besides briefly on my honeymoon and once or twice when I was around 15, I never wore a two-piece bathing suit until I was 33 and found myself on the edge of heat sickness while sitting pool-side at a Vegas hotel. It took cajoling that bordered on bullying from friends Diana and Susan—to say nothing of a pina colada or two or three—to get me there. And once I put the suit on, I was so self conscious that I can still remember how my palms sweated and my heart raced.

Flash forward eight years, and I’m heading out for group training runs at 6:30 p.m. during the heat of summer. Last Monday, our heat index hit 116 and my training run was canceled. Wednesday and Saturday were better, Wednesday because it was cooler and Saturday because we ran at 7:00 a.m. Monday, though, it was 92 or so when we ran with a heat index of 105. For the first time since I started running in March, I had to cut my run short and walk the final half-mile back to the store. At which point in time I splashed my face, looked longingly at the presumably cool cement floor in the store’s stock room, and made casual conversation with my half naked and glistening running mates while sweating a river.

The key term in the above sentence is “half naked”. Everyone else was sweating, too, but many were sweating in much less clothing. Nearly all the men 35 or under were shirtless, and their female cohort were down to running bras and shorts. When I bought my bras, the fitter helpfully offered that the colored ones without back clasps were best because “when it’s hot, you won’t need another top.”

The look on my face must have laid bare 28 years of clinical self-consciousness. The clerk actually grabbed my arm to steady me and went on to say “Or not. You can always throw on a tank over it of course.” Back on that cool March day, I could not imagine what would bring me to run with an exposed midsection.

I think I’m close to doing more than just imagining it now. Tonight’s run will feature a heat index of around 110. It’s going to be even sweatier out there. And while four weeks of pilates has yet to give me abs of steel, the sweatier it gets, the less I find myself caring. I think I’ll just close my eyes and pretend I’m doing Bikram yoga. Then write the Fleet Feet store owner a check for psychological services rendered.

What Have I Done?

Last week, because of Simon’s illness, my Monday run didn’t happen until Tuesday. Then, when I joined the group on Wednesday, I felt terrible, ran slowly, and finished in a pretty bedraggled state. At this point, I figured 5-6 miles was my outer limit. That’s when a friendly guy in the group approached me. Kishor is a front-of-the-packer who runs full marathons at 8.25 minutes per mile. (Side note, what can you expect from someone whose name translates as “colt”?) While I complained about not being able to do back-to-back runs, Kishor fixed me with a suspicious gaze and asked, “How much water have you had today.”

Sigh. The answer was a mug of tea and a glass of water–20 ounces if I was lucky.

“No, no, no,” he adjured. “That won’t do. No wonder you had a bad run. You need to drink all day. See this bottle (20 oz. at least). I drink four of these a day. You need to drink a lot. Just take the bathroom breaks off your time if you are worried about that, and maybe get some electrolytes, too.”

Heck Yeah!

So Saturday I drank what felt like gallons, and first thing Sunday I popped an electrolyte tablet in my water bottle and headed off to do 7 miles. Easy peasy. Because I ran Sunday instead of Saturday, that meant Monday’s humid group run was another back-to-back affair. I guzzled all day. I made more trips to the bathroom than any time since pregnancy. I popped another electrolyte tablet in my bottle before heading out, and I finished about two seconds under 50 minutes for 5 miles, my best time ever.

So I signed up for half-marathon training, which begins July 9. And I’m trying to coax my brother Steve, a seasoned runner and marathoner (half and full) of 18 years, to run with me as my coach. I’m sure the prospect of posting his worst time ever is not thrilling, but I’m appealing to filial devotion.

But even if he ends up sitting it out, I realize I have other options. Runners, it turns out, are a marvelously supportive group. I was so intimidated by the regular Fleet Feet group when I began. I took one look at their ultra-lean and fit bodies and assumed I was looking at the in-crowd in high school all over again. But I could not have been more wrong!

From Tony, Liz, and Lori, who slowed down last week to help me finish my bad run; to Teresa who ran with me and helped me speed up two weeks ago;  to Jason and the others who saw me Monday night, realized I was going faster, and all stopped to cheer me on, these are uniformly nice people. Almost creepily so.

What Have I Done?

And it’s a good thing, too. Because the night before I signed up for half-marathon training, I made the mistake of watching a video of a car driving the route. It was sped up and still took over 6 minutes! It kept going, and going, and going, and by the time it was over I was feeling defeated. I mentioned this at the shop Monday, and at least three people chimed in immediately to say that the same thing had happened to them. “Never watch the videos” was the advice I heard from three quarters. But the most helpful response came from another head-of-the-pack runner whose name I can’t remember.

“It’s a mind game. Don’t watch those videos; they will destroy your confidence. Trust your training. And trust yourself. I saw you out there today—you were pushing it hard. I only started 18 months ago myself. I weighed 240, and the fastest I could go was a 13-minute mile. Now I’m the front of the pack, I’m down 55 pounds, and I made $800 selling my old clothes. You’ll be up there with me in no time. I can tell.”

Did I mention how encouraging these folks are? I wonder how many other opportunities I’ve passed up because I’m stuck in a perpetual high school state of mind?

It was not that I packed running clothes for my vacation last week and actually used them. That was a new leaf for me, for sure, but not a triumph.

It was not that Saturday I went out and ran 6 miles while feeling the effects of plane travel and the mild dehydration that accompanies it, even if I did feel like crap for most of the time and have to gut my way through it.

Nor was it tonight when, back with the Fleet Feeters, I found a nice woman to run with and shaved 5 full minutes from my time, clocking in at exactly 50 minutes for a hilly 5 miles.

No, the triumph was that several minutes after I staggered into the store, a group came in behind me. That’s right: I ran with the big kids and did not finish dead last! There was a group of four who finished after me and one or two stragglers after them. And only one of them was a No Boundaries graduate!

It’s a small thing, for sure, but a total confidence booster nonetheless. The thing about joining a group so far out of your league is that, if your ego can take the bruising, you have lots of motivation to get better and nowhere to go but up. And if you are really, really lucky, as I was tonight, you will find a seasoned marathoner who remembers being in your exact shoes, slows down to help you set an ambitious but doable pace, and cheers you on the whole way. Then she and a friend will tell you that you have to sign up for half-marathon training, which I’ve about made up my mind to do.