Oft-delayed and sporadic

January 20, 2009
Getting this blog entry out has been a bit like my training this last few weeks. Oft-delayed and sporadic. I think I need to start posting my actual log to keep me honest and also as a way to deepen my own motivation.
So, what has actually been going on? Since the last entry, which was a whole three weeks ago tomorrow, I shut down completely for about 5 days because of worries about, mainly, my left shin, and also right Achilles/calf. I gradually started again around Jan 5, after I couldn’t take sitting around any more. My first run was a slow jog around the neighborhood, and then the next night the evil urge took me again and I did a faster 2.5 miles also in the neighborhood. That run felt like liberation. I bandaged up the shin for it and double layered and so on. I was running down Beacon St in Somerville, and everything felt right just for a couple of minutes. It was one of those in the zone experiences when it was all just working. I gradually worked up to doing long runs, from a 7 mile to a couple of 13s. And that is basically where I am now.
I did another 13 on Monday, Martin Luther King Day, on the slushy river paths of Cambridge and the clearer paths of Boston. Getting right up to date, yesterday after work I went to the gym—it is too slippery to confidently try to do a faster run outside—and had a good workout. I warmed up on some stupid elliptical machine that felt like it was wrenching at my hips. Then jumped onto a treadmill and warmed up another while, managing to make a fool of myself by catching my earphone cord with my hand and sending my iPod to the treadmill which promptly deposited it on the ground behind the machine. I still feel self conscious on treadmills and then tend to do klutzy things. I did about 45 mins total, with three faster 2-3 minutes spells built in. I think I had the incline set at 2.2, which I had not really planned. It either set itself or I accidently set it.
Plus, I am scrupulously warming up these days. The root of my calf and shin problems lie with not warming up properly, first way back in late Feb of last year when I did a half marathon in Hyannis didn’t warm up and then started off too fast. Second episode was the Mill Cities Relay mentioned in earlier blog. I thought I had warmed enough for the relay, but no, not quite enough. I am hoping that I can make it through the marathon, April 20.
Which brings me to the theme of all runners around here this last few weeks, snow. Snow, snow, and more snow. And ice too. And slush. When I signed off the last blog entry saying I would be writing lots more about the joys of winter training, little did I know. We have had three storms since the beginning of the month, and there are large piles of snow everywhere, piles on the sidewalks, on the sides of roads, piles in people’s gardens. Lots of folks haven’t shoveled outside their homes, which means packed, icy snow, or just nasty slushy snow on the sidewalks. Usually, I do longer runs along the Charles River, and it too has been a mixed bag. The path along north side of the river, in Cambridge, is usually cleared, but in a half-hearted way, or it is cleared and then the snowplows on the road toss snow back in on it. Sara and I ran there on Saturday last, and I ran there again Monday. Part of the Cambridge side was in fair condition, but parts are still really messy. Across the other side of the river, in Boston, things are much clearer. If I had realized that on Monday, I would have avoided some of the mush in Cambridge.
Photos are acoming—I got a nifty new camera that I have carried with me now for two runs. Soon there will be pictures of some of the fine and lovely places where I run. Adios.