I remember never believing that I could be a runner. For many years I had pain and tendonitis in my left knee which I figured was always going to keep such a path from me. The repeated striking of my feet on the pavement or treadmill would surely do more damage to my already roughed up knees and make life in my 30’s, 40’s, and beyond difficult.
My Uncle Steve had become a runner in his 50’s, and he had always said if he could do it then I had no excuses since I was more than 20 years younger. About 5 years ago I decided to give it a whirl. He had just run his first Boston Marathon and I was inspired to at least attempt to run rather than simply saying I could not.
This is where my total lack of experience came into play. I set myself up for a run at the Cape Cod Rail Trail. I was going to go from the beginning in Dennis and see what happened. What happened was a total disaster. I did NOT make some sort of heroic first attempt where I knew that running was to be a way of life, oh no. Let’s see, first off I did NOT get properly fitted for shoes. In my mind I was always a size 10 ½, don’t ask me why. This was not the case, I am in reality a 9 ½. So right off my shoes were too big.
Next up, I did NOT stretch in any way shape or form. It was like turning on your car and immediately jamming it in drive and putting the pedal to the floor. Sure, in some cases that will be fine. In most cases you end up doing damage to your vehicle, and in my case, my body. I did NOT begin with a very short controlled run to gauge my stride. What I DID do was run 5 miles on the bike path that day.
Yeah, 5 miles, sounds good, until I also admit that I pulled virtually every muscle in both legs because of what I did NOT do. It wasn’t too long until my running speed vanished and I was hobbling defeated back to the parking lot. For some reason I was surprised that my untrained legs couldn’t just transform into marathon runner’s legs in a snap. Silly me.
My legs sore and in pain I was not going to give up that easily. Oh no, I decided that I needed to further injure myself before really calling it quits. How did I accomplish this? Going to the gym the very next day, barely able to walk, and doing some leg work to try to ‘work through the pain.’
No more than five minutes into my workout it was over. I lay down on a squat machine figuring I could use little weight and push through the soreness. The workout went like this: I lay on that machine with maybe 40 lbs. of weight, I began with my legs bent into my chest. I made one push to straighten my legs out and felt a sharp burning pain in my right quadriceps. I am no doctor but that screamed ‘muscle tear.’ So I gingerly rolled myself off of the machine, gave the area a rub with an angry frown, and hobbled back to the locker room.
With that little extra stupidity I decided that running was not only not an option, but way too painful for me to bother with. It took me six weeks before I could walk without pain, and I had the luxury of having to work full-time and be on my feet eight hours a day. I would spend the next four years using the elliptical machine, stationary bike, and stair stepper. The treadmill and running in general would not appear again on my radar until I met someone that helped me see the light.
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