Holiday cheer from the threshold of Hell

Happy holidays! I hope that any and all readers had a very merry Christmas. Mine was very nice, spent with both my family and the support staff's family. I actually found some neat presents for my parents this year, and I was happy to be able to surprise them. For example, my poor dad is used to getting bbq spatulas and coffee makers, so he was very surprised to get kayak accessories instead. It made me so happy to see that he was happy with it!

I also received some great fitness gifts, for which I really have to thank my family and support staff. The first I opened up was Wii Fit from my parents. "Pretty cool," I thought. Then I tried it out, and it's much more than just "pretty cool." The yoga and strength training sections are like workout videos, except that the platform senses your motions and center of gravity and it tells you how to readjust your positioning for the proper movement. Very, very, very cool. I'll be working on flexibility and strengthening my core for better posture with this.

My parents also got me a calf-stretcher, which is very useful for me, since my calves are always tight. It gives an even better range of motion than standing on a stair-step. I definitely recommend one if you have trouble with tight calves.Then there was the support staff's gift: a bike trainer - a stand that you prop the back wheel on that provides resistance so you can ride indoors as a stationary bike. I had been wanting one of these for a long time because I want to even out my running and biking, and now it's hooked up to my old Diamondback just waiting for me to ride! I've already done about 40 minutes of cycling on it, even though I haven't moved it to its permanent spot by the treadmill. The support staff will probably help me with that when he comes over to help install a speedometer to go with it.

I made use of all of these fitness gifts this week, so I didn't feel too badly about slacking off with my already minimal runs. I ended up only doing one mile all of last week. I've been reading about running, though, in Once a Runner by John L. Parker, Jr. I like this book, although my running intensity has never been anything like the competitive collegiate track atmosphere that it describes. The book points out that recreational runners don't truly understand the mindset and training of a competitive miler, which actually made me feel slightly offended. In fact, I thought to myself, "Ok, Quentin Cassidy (the protagonist) may run over 100 miles a week and be existing in a state of perpetual exhaustion, but he's never known the pain of running with menstrual cramps."

Famous last words.

Was I trying to jinx myself? (This is where I come to the part of my post in which I describe how I decended to the threshold of Hell this weekend.) It seems that I did jinx myself. I was getting ready Sunday to go into Manhattan to see the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center with my cousin, her husband, and my sister, when I started to feel some cramps. I prepared myself somewhat in case the inevitable came around, and began on my merry way. I drove an hour to my cousin's house, which is about 25 miles from New York, and we took a bus into the city from there. The bus ride should have taken about an hour, but it was a beautiful day, and everyone else and their cousin also decided to go to the city, so the ride took 2 hours. During the course of this (bumpy stop-and-go) ride, the inevitable did come around. I was uncomfotable with cramps, but I figured that it was no big deal and I could handle it. Until we pulled into the Port Authority and took the escalator down into crowded stuffiness and I knew that I was going to throw up.

Maybe it was just that time of the month, maybe it was the bus ride, maybe it was not eating anything for several hours beforehand, maybe it was a lot of things, but when I found myself running along the New York sidewalks to keep up with the group while stripping off winter gear because I was desparately hot and realizing, on top of that, that the cramps were so bad that even standing upright and extending each leg to walk was unbearable, I think I had Quentin Cassidy topped. And then, when I threw up in a trash can on the sidewalk in the middle of New York City, I was truly at the threshold of Hell.

But I returned, and I can try to use the memory of it to help me with my running. Mainly, I have never, ever, felt such pain or had such an overwhelming sense of misery than I did leaning over the trash can knowing that I was a 2-hour, motion-sick-filled bus ride from my cousin's house and an hour's drive home from there. It was far worse than any of the cramps I've had while running, so maybe I'll remember and be hardened in future runs. Of course, I hope never to experience that feeling again, but maybe I'll remember that I did, indeed, return in one piece. In fact, I actually ended the night by drinking eggnog and eating cookies. Ah, to be well again!

Thank God for health and happiness, for so many new fitness opportunities, for my cousin and her husband, for my very supportive support staff, and for a merry Christmas this year (notwithstanding the whole Hell incident)!

I'm feeling much better and had a great 1.5 mile run on the treadmill this morning. I warmed up by walking and doing a few minutes on the bike, and I felt pretty good. Much better than I did last Tuesday when I only did a mile. Here's to more good training days this holiday week!

Some thoughts about "Born to Run"

I first came across Christopher McDougall's Born to Run on the blog, View from the Park. I thought it looked interesting, so I checked to see if we had it at the library. We didn't, so I set the thought aside and forgot about the book until the next day, when I saw the order of new non-fiction books - with Born to Run on it. I placed my hold on it and had it in hand about a week later.

I didn't actually have very high expectations of the book. I thought it would be kind of technical and boring, but that perception changed with the very first pages describing a search for a loner in the middle of Mexico's Sierra Madre who would be the secret to finding information about the Tarahumara Indians, who call themselves the Raramuri: The Running People.

There seemed to be a lot of mystery about it all: The Tarhumara, who possess seemingly superhuman running abilities, wish to insulate themselves from outsiders, and the loner, who calls himself Caballo Blanco, is similarly almost impossible to find. But there isn't that much mystery when you come down to it: These people run and enjoy it. They use the human's body's natural abilities to their fullest and don't care about medals or Nike deals or losing weight. And although they race, the competition of racing against each other does not stand in the way of the enjoyment of running together.

The book follows the author as he helps Caballo organize a 50-mile race between the Tarahumara and the U.S.'s greatest ultra-runners. Almost every other chapter is a side note giving background information about past races, scientific studies, and personal training. It goes so many places with these chapters but is remarkably on track throughout. While reading, I would get interested in barefoot running, look it up on the internet, try it out myself, discover Vibram Five-Finger shoes, and then a few days later read about Barefoot Ted in the book and see that he wore Vibram Five Fingers himself. Ot I'd start doing Google searches for running biomechanics and man's evolutionary history and then a week later come to that chapter in the book, reading about the same scientists whose articles I had seen online. It was great to see it all brought together in one book with a story to tie it all up.

At times I felt as if the characters' quirks were overemphasized. Barefoot Ted and the "surfer kids" seemed like charicatures more than people, as if the author took over with a bit too much storytelling with them, although I grant that these ultrarunners are probably a unique brand of people who are more quirky than your average Joe. In any case, his own story of going from not being able to jog without extreme footpain and being told "The human body just isn't made for running" to completing a 50-mile race in a brutally hot environment with the greatest runners in the world is nothing short of inspiring. I think it did so much to my perception of what I am capable of. As I read this book, my long runs kept getting longer and longer. And I focused more on enjoying running. My last 5K was done for fun, without the need to achieve a certain time, and I ended up enjoying it more than any other race I've ever run, AND I beat my PR by 7 or 8 seconds. That says a lot.

If you like to run, I'd definitely recommend this book. That's coming from me as a librarian and a runner.

As for my running lately, I took two days off after Monday's long run. I waited until late after work yesterday to do what I wanted to be 4.5 miles, but I ended up cutting it down to 3.5 miles because I wasn't feeling well. I was feeling so rotten that if I had my cell phone, I probbaly would have called home and asked for someone to come and pick me up. I was actually contemplating what I would do if I couldn't make it home in time. Did I know anyone on that road well enough to ask to use their bathroom? Luckily I didn't have to. When I really didn't think that I could go further without being sick, I stopped running and walked for 3 or 4 minutes. When the cramps and all related GI goblins mysteriously vanished, I started running again - stronger and faster than before. It wasn't a very good run, but I should be clear of these types of problems for the 5K race next Thursday. Today I might go for an easy 5 miles on the road. Weather.com tells me that the humidity is 92%, so it might not be a very comfortable run, but Ill probably give it a try if my tummy doesn't bother me too much.