It Keeps You Running

I thought about writing about running after a lovely and charming young woman I know suggested that now that I am eating healthier, mostly due to her influence, the next thing is that she will get me running. Actually, in truth, it would be to get me BACK to running (but my lovely bride is on record as saying, “No freakin’ way!” or words to that effect and has reconfirmed the judgment just last night.) Running and I have been off and on companions more many years. As a result, doctors of the orthopedic and emergency nature and I have also been companions for many years. It’s not so much that I’m injury prone but…OK, I’m injury prone when it comes to certain bodily exertions.

As a kid, it seems like you can run forever. When the weather is nice, especially on weekends or summer break from school, it seems like you are out all day running from one place to another whether you’re playing baseball, army, Elliott Ness and the Untouchables, tag or any number of other games. You just don’t think about it in the same way that a fish doesn’t actually think about the water in which it swims. It just is and you just do. Even after eating lunch, there was seemingly no break. (This was always a source of mystery to me. If you were at the beach or a swimming pool and you even put your foot in the water for at least an hour after you ate (which magically morphed into a half hour somewhere in my childhood), you would get the cramps from hell and drown. But anything else? Nah. Go run a marathon, you’ll be fine.) During recess periods or gym class the teachers were happy to have you run off that excess energy. Anything to keep us quiet and well-behaved during class….

I recall watching the Summer Olympics on our old black and white TV (yes, the kind that got a total of thirteen stations, had actual dials and knobs that you had to get up to change, a rabbit ear antenna on top and vacuum tubes inside to make it work) and thinking that the running events were the only real Olympic Sport. (OK, maybe swimming, too, but to me swimming is simply not much more than staying alive in the water.) And, of course, the United States always did so well in the sprints and the relays. Guys with odd names like Abebe Bikila or Paavo Nurmi or Emil Zatopek would usually win the distance events but we “real” Americans knew the truth, that the REAL running events were the sprints. (That would all change thanks to Jim Fixx, Frank Shorter and Forrest Gump, but more on that later.)

In high school, I had given little thought to running on the track team. That changed the day our gym coach (who was the assistant track coach) pulled a hurdle out and told us all that we were going to run over it repeatedly. What we did not know was that while we thought we were just doing that day’s gym class, he was auditioning us. He pulled me and one of my best friends aside and told us that he wanted us at track practice that afternoon. Thus began my short and totally non-illustrious career as a high school hurdler. I am short and have always been short for my age. If you look at most hurdlers (most sprinters for that matter) you will see that they are generally tall and long-legged. I was short and proportional. I rapidly learned the technique of hurdling and had little problem clearing the low hurdles. But when it came to high school high hurdles (which were actually three inches shorter than college and Olympic height), I would either slam the hurdle down with my lead leg or, worse, slam my trailing knee into it. One of my more experienced teammates would just stand there watching, shaking his head, picking me up when I tripped and feel and not knowing what to say. If it were being graded it would be technique 9.8, performance 3.2).

I did have a few claims to fame on that track team. One is that I had the best start out of the blocks. I have no idea why but for some reason I was quicker than almost anyone in the county for that first split second right after the gun went off. The coach would use me to test the really good sprinters out of the blocks. I also managed 10.1 in the 100 yard (yard, not meter) dash. Unfortunately, our team had a guy who ran 9.6, one who ran 9.7 and two who ran 9.9 in the 100 yards. My biggest claim to fame, however, was at the beginning of our senior year, the coach decided that one of our best quarter-milers was going to learn the hurdles. Now, let me apologize to the many teachers and coaches for what I am about to say: I was a classic example of the cliché, “Those who can do, those who can’t teach.” The coach and I worked with this guy because, well he was the coach, but I am a pretty good teacher and my grasp of the technical aspect of hurdling was strong. Suffice it to say, he went on to become national high school high and low hurdle champion in 1970. Despite my placing in a few events, that is the accomplishment of which I am proudest.

My first running-induced medical experience came on this team. We were at an indoor meet and instead of blocks, we started on rubber pads that were braced from behind. Uncharacteristically, I got a horrible start and the guy bracing mine took his foot away a split second too soon and the pad slid backwards. My right leg suddenly extended all the way and I could feel the big muscle on the back of my upper leg pop. One of the shot-putters had to carry me to the bus….

College hurdling was out of the question. If I could not manage a 39 inch tall hurdle there was no way I was managing a 42 inch high hurdle. So, I talked to the coach, a very, very nice guy, and we agreed that I would give sprinting a chance. Unfortunately for me, his workout technique demanded a great deal more medium speed running at a distance than I had ever been used to. To his credit, he ran right along with the runners. We would run constant laps of Manley Field House and each lap, the last man would have to accelerate to the front to lead that lap. I was getting close to my limit this particular day when it was my turn to lead. In an attempt to “motivate” me, he got right up behind me urging me forward. Unfortunately his lead foot and my trailing food got tangled up and I went flying, crashing down on my hip. Thus endeth my college track career.

Running did, however, provide me with one opportunity to help my fraternity big brother…or so I thought. All the Air Force ROTC cadets who were either in their last two years or who had an ROTC scholarship had to run a mile and half run each year under a certain time. (This still goes on in the Air Force.) Big brother appealed to me because I was such an experienced runner and he needed someone who could pace him because he wasn’t sure he could run a good enough pace. I was fighting a cold and tried to beg off but he sounded so pathetic that I agreed. So there I was, running with him to make sure that he did well enough to pass the run. When we were done I dragged myself back to my room, took a cold pill, flopped on my bed sweaty clothes and all and proceeded to fall into a deep, drug-induced coma. A bit later, my roommate opens our door to an insistent knocking and there is my big brother with another one of the guys from the fraternity telling me I have to get up, there’s an important meeting. I wanted to change out of my cold sweaty clothes but they hustle me out because there is no time. Shortly thereafter, I learned that the real reason he wanted me to run with him was to tire me out as part of the beginning of Initiation (a/k/a Hell) Week. Thanks. Love you, too.

One of the first times that Americans, as a whole, took notice of distance runing was in the 1972 Olympics. Frank Shorter won the marathon, the first American to do so since Johnny Hayes in 1908. While I had the greatest respect for the accomplishment, I could never, in my wildest imagination, see myself running distances greater than a quarter mile at a clip (with the exception of my once a year mile and half for Uncle Sam’s Air Force. Sad to say, as college went by and I entered the Air Force, I had let my conditioning go. The year I had to do the test in navigator training, I was too slow. (Back then it was no big deal. I understand now it really is a big deal.) That was a bit of a wake up call but, still, not so much.

In 1977, the late Jim Fixx wrote “The Complete Book of Running” which became a runaway national best-seller. I took subliminal notice of the growing “running craze” but the tide merely washed over me, leaving me unaffected. That began changing in 1979. I was a member of the Charleston (WV) Jaycees and one of our fund-raisers was a five mile race. I worked on the race but did not run but now a little bug was beginning to buzz around my ear.

After moving back to Connecticut the following year, I decided that if this many people thought running was a good idea, I would try it. About six weeks into this initial foray, I was at the extreme end of my run when my knees became so painful that I had to limp home. I stopped running until the pain went away and then returned to it. Six more weeks, same result. So, to an orthopedic doctor I went. He prescribes Butazolidin Alka, an NSAID that I understand is also used on HORSES. I take the pills, the pain goes away and I go back to running. Six weeks later, back to the doctor for another round of the same medication. I think I went through at least four visits before I realized that he was treating the symptom, not the problem. Let’s also recognize that little old OC me had become a complete running devotee (no, that doesn’t begin to state it, I was completely running-obsessed and based my day around my run) and could not do without it the obsession. (The running community likes to refer to it as a positive addiction. That may be but for someone with OC issues it goes way beyond that.) Realizing that the doctor I was seeing was not addressing what might be an underlying issue (I have the world’s flattest feet a/k/a pronation. Can we guess where this is going?), I saw a new doctor. He examines me and proceeds to schedule me for a nerve conduction study and a venogram…on the same day. Know what a nerve conduction study is? They touch nerve points with an electrode to stimulate it. That’s another way of saying they give you a series of controlled shocks that increase in intensity as they go on. Now, add to this, that my mother-in-law, an experienced RN and nursing instructor had informed me that the venogram is one of the most painful medical procedures she had ever endured. By the time my wife gets me to the radiologist, I am a quivering mass of terror and tears. As it turns out, it’s not that bad a procedure. Thanks for the terror warning, Ma. (After the Department of Homeland Security was created I thought she should have had a great career raising the terror threat levels to scare the whole country but she had retired by then.) So after subjecting me to all of this, the doctor announces that his diagnosis is that I have flat feet and all I will need is a good pair of orthotics and I will be able to run pain free, his diagnosis from the first exam. Of course, I ask why the other tests. His answer is that he was 99% sure it was the flat feet but he just wanted to be 100% sure it wasn’t an underlying problem. (Thanks, Doc, love you, too.) He writes me a prescription and sends me to the Children’s Hospital. Happy as I was about what promised to be a miracle cure, I felt really conspicuous being there. Here I am taking up their time to make orthotics for me to be able to run comfortably and there are all the kids who are being fitted for prosthetics so maybe they can just walk. I voiced this to the technician with whom I was working and his response was that it was a pleasure for him to be able to work on a healthy person. That made me feel a wee bit less guilty but not much.

To be continued….