Running Again
I’ve been in recovery, a no-step kind of program, at least at the beginning.

After running 50-miles on November 3, I spent a couple of days icing and resting and doing very little except grimacing and eating. The day after the run, I walked to Fred Meyer, all of four or five blocks down the road. It took me maybe 20 minutes each way, and the pain was constant and intense. Day 2, the pain fell from 10 to 7 on the 1-10 scale. Then on day 3, about mid-afternoon, I suddenly (really, it was that abrupt) noticed I could get up without bracing myself. From there, I began to take longer walks, first just a mile or two, then three or four, then a seven-miler the other night. Tightness and aches were diminishing. Today, after work, it was time to run.

Darkness and rain falling, I put on my tights, jacket and headlamp and set out. Some things hurt a bit at first: knees, feet, a shin. It wasn’t too bad, though, and after a mile or so the joints and stuff began to loosen up. My favorite runs are up in Mount Tabor Park, but climbing and descending didn’t seem like a good idea on this post-Autumn Leaves maiden voyage. So I kept it flat and shuffled along Davis and Everett,an east-west route to Laurelhurst Park that's marked for bikes and pretty quiet when it comes to traffic. But the cars were screaming along 39th Avenue, racing to beat the light at Burnside, then backing up for a couple of blocks when it turned red. It was red for me too, and a few cyclist. We waited for green and go. The cyclists had rear lights blinking red; when the signal turned green and they took off in front of me, I turned my headlamp to blinking too. It seemed like the thing to do.

In the park I was able to relax and cruise. I was cold and wet but enjoying the surroundings. The loop is lit but not brightly, just some ancient short lamps every 20 or 30 yards or so. They gave off enough light to show how empty and quiet the park was, heightening the sense of adventure. My blinking light would illuminate the rain from above as I ran into it. I did a couple of loops. My legs were fine but hardly spry. OK but kind of lifeless.

I guess I ran about four miles in all, in about 40 minutes. On Thanksgiving, Niko and I will do the Turkey Trot at the Zoo, another ORRC production. That’s four miles for me, 1K for Niko. I should be able to go a good deal faster six days from now, but I’ll want to make sure not to get too stupid and run too fast. There’s still some recovery to go.