The Race To The Stones is only a few weeks away now and I have not been able to do any running at all. This is more than a little worrying.
It all started with the calf injuries caused by the new shoes. I switched shoes around and the calf injuries abated but then I got a niggle at the back of my right knee. This developed into a full on strain running from back of knee toward my bum causing me to limp home from Parkrun.
Damn!
I did the sensible thing and ceased running immediately.
Then I did the not sensible thing and signed up for the Flaming June Half Marathon only a week later.
OK, it might sound extremely foolish but it did feel as though the leg was completely healed. Or rather, it didn’t seem to hurt when I walked on it.
Flaming June was, as you might expect flaming hot. Everyone struggled that day and many ran between 10 and 15 minutes slower than usual.
Poor running friend Lloyd was absolutely distraught running more than 2 hours when his usual time is much much less.
I was running fine and feeling good and then at around 3 miles I felt a bit of a twinge at the back of my knee. I passed 4 miles, ran down the road a little and then a whole bunch of horrible happened and I was brought to a complete standstill with one leg hovering in the air and the cold realisation that my race was over. I was injured again and now only 6 weeks away from my attempt to run 100km over two days at Race To The Stones.
It was a long and miserable limp back along the busway as I contemplated my situation. Maybe I should just accept that Race To The Stones isn’t happening for me this year.
This time I waited for around 16 days before I attempted to run.
I trotted out around my usual route through the trees near the dump (it’s much nicer than it sounds).
I ran across the bridge and down past the Park and Ride site toward the recycling centre.
Another runner approaches me and nods and smiles. So far this is fine. This kind of limited reaction is something I can cope with without even stressing a neuron. Then she says, “I have that T-shirt”.
I am immediately thrown into a bucketful of quandaries.
This runner is a happy smiling person and has reached out to a fellow runner to acknowledge a shared experience. Something is obviously expected of me in return. I can’t get away with the minimal runner’s nod. I must engage in some way. This should be easy but I failed abysmally in my attempt to run the Flaming June Half Marathon and am not entirely sure I deserve to wear the T-shirt. Of course I realise that none of this really matters but suddenly I feel like such a fraud. Should I explain to her that I DNF’d after only a few miles and did a sorrowful limp back to rhe start/ finish line? Should I tell her that I don’t really deserve this T-shirt?
There is only a second or so to decide and no time for proper explanations however I must respond. She has taken the trouble to engage and it would seem churlish to ignore that.
Panicked, I reply with the words, “so do I”.
As I was wearing the T-shirt this was probably the lamest response in the history of responses ever.
Oh well, hopefully we will never meet again and my shame will remain forever a private internal scar that claws at my insides and scratches away at my self esteem for the rest of my life.
I carry on running and soon duck under the trees to enjoy my glorious little trail on the other side of the recycling centre past the grazing horses, the hunting owls and alongside the routes of the grazing muntjac. It is bliss indeed, and only marginally violated by my memories of my dismal attempt to interact with other runners.
As for the injury – I can still feel that twinge at the back of the knee. I ran in the old running shoes this this time and it didn’t make it any worse. Maybe this is the answer. These shoes may have lost most of their cushioning but at least they don’t seem to be injuring me.
