The Writing-About-Running Block

I've been trying for months to write about how not being able to run feels. In vain. I had a writing-about-running block.

A runner who can't run -- because of injuries, sickness, pregnancy or other unforeseen circumstances -- is a frustrated runner. And frustration has a great potential for writing material.

There was the aching to go back to running, the disappointment of missing my club's fun runs, the fear of losing my fitness level and pace, and the urge to blow it all and go running through pain anyway. There was anger at myself for a lower-leg injury, angst that I would never go back to my prime, sadness when the weather was perfect for a run, and the misery of joyless sessions on the elliptical machine at the gym. I was seeing the world through the grey-tinted glasses of a runner who can't run.

I wondered why I couldn't just take advantage of the injury to take a break, give my body a few months of rest from the pounding and have fun with something else -- such as yoga or pilates. I wondered what I liked so much about running and why I was craving it.

Angst, fear and misery should be sources of inspiration. Yet I couldn't write.

It all started during the training for the 2012 Boston Marathon. I felt a persistant pain in my left tibia. After the pain failed to go away when I cut my mileage following the April race, my sports doctor found a stress reaction: the outer lining of my bone had become inflamed because of a repeated overstress.

The good news, the doctor said, was that it wasn't a stress fracture (when the bone cracks) and that I should be back running normally in 4 to 6 weeks. The bad news, he said, was that if I didn't dial back on my running dramatically, it would become a stress fracture. He didn't tell me to stop running, so I prided myself for being reasonable in May: 2 real runs for a total of 13 miles. (``Real runs" exclude elliptical workouts and 2-3 mile slow jogs with my dog on weekends.)

Feeling good and cocky, I ramped up to 39 miles in June, still lower than my mileage for just a week before the injury, and 124 miles in July, which included two weeks of vacation. The pain came back, along with the frustration. For a month and a half, I ran just twice.

``I haven't run since Aug. 22." I repeated that fact to whomever asked about my running. It was the equivalent of my last cigarette: the date was seared in my addicted memory.

Did I miss running because I deeply enjoy the sport, or did I miss the endocrine secreted during the runs in the same way a smoker craves the nicotine of a cigarette? The answer was both. Some of my runs are not as enjoyable as I would like to believe: some are uninspired, some hurt and many are disappointing because I didn't meet self-imposed goals. Running feeds into my obsessive-compulsiveness mind: I will go for a run because I had decided to run, not because I want to run. And I will only relax when the day's goal is reached -- at which point I will set a target for the next day. Pleasure isn't necessarily part of the equation, and non-running, for such a mind, is a source of great stress.

But there's more to running that just clicking ``done" on a sets of goals. I don't get the same pleasure out of other workouts or sports -- with the notable exception of cycling in my native French Alps, which actually trumps running. There's something special about running: the floating feeling of freedom, the relaxation of the mind and the contentment state when it's all done.

So yes I'm back running. A little. And writing about running.

The Elliptical High

Non-runners often ask me about the runner's high: whether I've experienced it and how it feels.

To them, it seems to be a sort of mystery orgasm reserved to sweaty sneaker-wearing fanatics who find pleasure where they, the non-runners, see pain and boredom.

I've experienced the runner's high may times and it felt a bit different each time. It always comes after running for a fairly long time, when the muscles are warmed up, the body sets into a cruise-control mode, the heart beat stabilizes and the endorphins kick in. I've had short and intense highs -- a brief state of euphoria that makes me smile, do a little dance or shout the lyrics of whatever song is on my iPod -- and longer ones -- when I reach a fantasy land of daydreams and ``wake up'' three miles later. But don't get me wrong, I tell the non-runners: it doesn't happen every time I run. Far from it. There's no runner's high at the start of an early morning run when it's pouring rain and freezing outside.

Lately, I've had none of that runner's nirvana, for a simple reason. I haven't been able to run in two weeks. To a non-runner, it's a non-event. To a runner, it's a disaster. To a runner training for a marathon coming up in less than 10 weeks, like me, it's a nuclear catastrophe.

It started mid-January, about two weeks after the official start of my marathon training, with pain in my left calf and shin. I attributed it to possible early signs of shin splint or the fact that I had been running faster on the treadmill, during my weekday tempo runs and speedwork session. Or perhaps I needed new shoes. The key rule of marathon training is to gradually increase speed and mileage, ideally not at the same time, to avoid injury. That's what I thought I was doing. I had been running 20-mile hilly runs ``for fun'' (as my husband puts it) during the previous months, and on some weeks I averaged close to 50 miles. The whole point of my long runs at the end of the year was to make the transition to the actual marathon plan smoother. I decided to ignore the pain and continue running. The shin pain went away but the tightness in the calf worsened with every run, forcing me to run slower.

On Jan. 16, I skipped a 10-mile race, knowing I wouldn't be able to run fast, but would still try to, possibly injuring myself. Skipping the race was the reasonable thing to do, I thought. Somehow I also thought it was reasonable to run about 18 hilly miles that day -- 15 miles by myself and 3 with my dog. This tale is familiar to runners: it's called denial. How bad could tightness in the calf be? It's just a muscle, it just needs to get used to the training, it will get better if I run through it, I thought.

I iced my calf, I got massages and I stretched, to no avail. The last straw was a hilly 15 miler through pain on Jan. 23. It took me 6 minutes longer than usual. I couldn't walk for two days afterwards.

Rather than writing this entry, I had planned a review of my birthday present: a treadmill. But it's been sitting in the basement, unused, while I kept my stationary bike busy: that's where I do my speedwork now.

(My corner of the basement: On the left a treadmill sits unused. On the right, a bike gets overused.)

My other consolation prize is the elliptical machine at the gym. They have different types at the YMCA, and my favorite model is one without handles that mimics the best the movements of running. I can ``run'' close to 9 miles in an hour on that machine, while on others I can't even master 7 miles.

Yesterday, after 40 minutes or so of an uninspired fake run, during which I was trying to push my heart beat to levels close to an actual run, it happened. I experienced a brief bliss that made me forget about the badly-lit gym, the backs of treadmill runners and the hospital parking across the street. I was listening to Built to Spill's ``Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss'' from the Ancient Melodies of the Future album. It was a short moment of sheer elation that made me forget that I can't run: the elliptical high.

I'm going back tonight.

(The new object of my affection: ``Pass the elliptical trainer.'' Photo credit: Rico Shen.)