The Undead Soul of my Soles

It is with a heavy heart that I lay to rest my Asics GT-2140s, a pair of shoes that lasted many miles and traveled with me over countless trails, potholes and...

I'm not dead.

Excuse me? Who said that?

Me. Down here.

Oh, hey shoes. Sorry about that.

What's this about me being dead?

Well, I mean, I just meant to say that, well, you're not really dead but you're...well...

Just say it. I've been replaced.

Well...yeah. Sorry.

No you're not.

Sure I am. Well, a little.

No you're not. You're not sorry at all. You were always planning to get rid of me. I knew it when you got those barefoot running shoes at Christmas. Sure they were lighter and cleaner. But I just chalked it up to a phase. You know, some passing fancy. But now...now you've got this new pair. And BROOKS of all things. BROOKS!

I said I was sorry.

Well sorry isn't gonna cut it, mister. I mean, c'mon, we went through so much together. We ran a MARATHON together.

Yeah, that was my first marathon...good times...good times...But look, it's over. I'm sorry. It isn't you, it's me...No, I lied. It really is you.

Really? What's wrong with me?

Honestly? You stink. Literally. You really stink. And you have holes in the toes.

Yeah, well, you're bald, so what's that got to do with anything?

Touché. But anyway, it's just different. We've just grown apart. That's all. Nothing more. We just have different goals in life.

Oh, I see how you are...just use me until I'm worn out. Just use me until I'm no good for anyone or anything, and what do you do? You just find another pair and keep on going your merry way.

Well, yeah...you're shoes, after all. That's sort of how this works. And you're not good for nothing. That's why you're in the garage. Come spring time, I'll use you when I mow the lawn.

MOW THE LAWN!! IS THAT ALL I'M GOOD FOR TO YOU? MOWING THE LAWN!?

Well...yes.

Oh...well...I guess the lawn's all right. I mean...it'll get me outdoors...

See? That's the spirit.

Promise me you'll say hi from time to time?

Promise.

All right then. Sounds fair.

Glad we got that settled.

Just remember I'm not dead.

I'll remember.

Happy running.

Confirming/conforming my suspicions

Editor's note: This was written in advance. Some a lot of editing was necessary.

I met my nemesis today at the gym. You remember my nemesis, the pompous, egomaniacal jerk nice guy with the Boston Marathon jacket I complained wrote about who occasionally makes a point to show me up runs on the treadmill next to me. His name is Mephistopheles Paul and, as I suspected, he drowns kittens in remote ponds seems pretty nice.

Turns out he stole the Boston Marathon jacket ran the Boston Marathon last year. He told me he cheated ran it in three hours and 16 minutes. He said he's planning to club a baby seal run the Indianapolis Mini Marathon this May.

He told me he was a high school dropout Ball State grad and he was a former ex-con pole vaulter.

I told him I hated him and all he stood for it was nice to meet him and I'd see him around.

I knew I was right about him all along.

ATL, here I come

I'm getting excited. In a little more than a month I'll be heading to Atlanta to run the ING Half-Marathon with one of my best friends from college. What makes it even cooler is my other best friend from college will be joining us.

But what makes this cooler still is that, had it not been for some great doctors, my friend's unbelievable spirit and a pro athlete with an inspirational story to tell, this event could have never happened.

That's because just 13 years ago, my friend nearly died.

Sean, my fraternity pledge brother, my cycling partner, my roommate, my bud, was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1997. I remember the date well because it was the same year I got married. Sean was supposed to be one of my groomsmen. He'd already gone through a few rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, but he was bound and determined to make it to my wedding.

He made it through three pictures.

On our wedding day, the photographer came to Sean and Doug's apartment. (Doug is the other friend who will be joining us in Atlanta. We all roomed together in an off-campus house our senior year in college, and, once my wife and I got married, Sean and Doug still roomed together in the same apartment complex where I lived.) The photographer wanted to get candid shots of us guys getting ready. Once we were all suited up, we stood in a row outside of Doug and Sean's place. There were three shots. In the first, Sean was smiling widely. In the second, his smile had faded. By picture three, the smile was gone.

Sean never made it to the wedding. His sickness made it impossible for him to attend. I know it devastated him.

I have never seen someone so sick in my life. As Sean would often tell us, his doctors needed to treat the cancer agressively, to the point where they nearly killed him. That was by design, he said. The treatment was geared to kill the cancer, and in order to do that they had to nearly kill the patient. It was a tenuous line between life and death that Sean walked for several months.

But a few key elements kept Sean pushing forward. One was his amazing family. Sean's parents dropped everything to come and take care of their only child. That type of unwavering love must have been a beacon for Sean. Another was Sean's health before he got sick. To put it mildly, Sean was an athletic maniac. He had been a member of the Ball State cycling team and his mile splits in runs put mine to shame.

The other element was Lance Armstrong. Yes, THE Lance Armstrong. You're probably familiar with Lance's story, how he battled testicular cancer and came back to win an unprecedented sever Tours de France. Well, Sean had the same cancer, and as a cyclist, he had followed Lance's story as it had unfolded, this just a year or so before Sean was diagnosed. That story gave Sean hope. In fact, Sean ended up having some of the same doctors as Lance from the IU Med Center.

Sean wrote Lance once, when Sean was in the midst of his illness, and Lance took the time to write back. Lance sent a photo, and on the photo he had written, "Sean, Believe in yourself. Believe in your doctors. Believe in the treatment." It wasn't until after Lance's book It's Not About the Bike came out that those words would make more sense. In the book, Lance talks about how he wasn't a particularly religious man, so he found the things that he could count on—namely, himself, his doctors and his treatment. Those words made a difference for Sean, and they did for me, too. To this day, I still wear my Livestrong bracelet proudly. I don't care what people say about Lance Armstrong, about his personal life, his place in history; all I know is that when my friend Sean needed a lifeline, Lance Armstrong was there.

Which brings us to next month and the ING Half-Marathon. Yes, Sean recovered from his cancer but not fully. He still experiences difficulty with his legs and feet. He can't run or ride nearly as fast as he once did. He even told me I could run off by myself down in Atlanta; he didn't want to hold me back.

Are you kidding me? We're running that whole race together, and we're going to have a great time. We're going to soak in the scenery and enjoy the whole experience of it all. We're going to relive college memories and make some new ones along the way.

And it's gonna be awesome.

Happy running.

IT's a pain in the band

When I ran my first (and so far only) marathon this past November, I felt great for more than 15 miles. And by great, I mean really great. I knocked out the first 13.1 in way less than two hours and I thought, with a pace like that, I'd be well on my way to breaking the four-hour goal I'd arbitrarily set for myself. In fact, part of me thought a finishing time of a little over three and a half hours was even an outside possibility.

My hip, though, felt otherwise. Just past Mile 15 I started to feel something—a dull throb that started on the outside of my left hip. That ache quickly became a sharp pain, and no matter how great I felt in the rest of my body (my lungs, my feet) that pain wasn't going away. Pretty soon it was all I could think about. I didn't want to stop, but by Mile 18 I had no choice.

I tried to stretch, but nothing worked. Nothing I did really addressed the root of the problem. I tried to do the few hip exercises I knew, but they didn't get to the source of the pain. Whatever ailed me seemed to be deeper than my muscles. I pressed on, determined to finish this race I'd trained so long for, but as I watched the four-hour pacesetters, then the 4:15 group pass by, I knew a good time wasn't in the cards. I limped over the finish line in just under four and a half hours.

After the marathon, I came home and showered, and while my hip still hurt a bit, it wasn't debilitating like it was during the race. In fact, a couple of days later I ran on it again—just for a few miles—and I felt fine. And that was frustrating. How could a 38-year-old in good physical shape with no other ailments suddenly start experiencing these problems? And how could these symptoms go away as quickly as they started?

I researched a bit, and while I've not completely diagnosed the problem, I had a theory. Last week, I tested it out.

On Wednesday I ran a 12-miler on some great country roads by my house. I love runs like that, out in the middle of nowhere. As I usually do for safety, I started my run facing traffic, but after about six miles, I felt the beginnings of that same hip pain. Rather than stop, though, I simply switched to the other side of the road so I was running with traffic (thankfully the roads I run are not heavily traveled). What was interesting was that, instead of intensifying, the pain in my hip abated. After a few more miles, it was gone. All from simply switching to the other side of the street.

Funny thing about roads that I've since learned, especially roads out in the country: They have a high "crown" to them, a high spot in the center to allow water to run off to the sides when it rains. Run long enough on one side of those roads—say, facing traffic with your left leg lower than your right—and eventually you're going to feel some pain.

Turns out, I'm not the first to discover this. An article from the Running Times discusses how the iliotibial (IT) band, which starts in the pelvis and runs along outside of the leg, can be aggravated by just such an activity as running along the side of road. When I switched to the other side, I was able to alleviate the problem by taking that constant pressure off my left hip.

Now I'm not sure if this is the medically correct answer to my problem. All I know is that when I switched sides of the road, the pain went away. I was able to run 12 miles pain free. It's definitely something I'm going to keep tabs on in the future.

(Oh, and to keep you up on my calf, luckily it was a small(ish) pop. It still hurts a bit, but I'm going to try running on it this evening at the gym. Wish me luck.)

Happy running.

A pain in the leg

So I was going to write about my hip and how, after a long run, I feel pain. I was going to write about how I discovered that running on country roads where there's a high crown can lead to problems in the IT band on your left side if you run facing traffic. I was going to write about how I discovered if I ran on the other side of the road, with traffic, the pain in my left hip went away.

I was going to write about all of that. But now that story has to wait. I've got a bigger pain to worry about, this time in my calf.

It all starts with a pop. I'm running along, as I was tonight, and I can feel and sort of hear (though that latter is probably in my head) a "popping" sound. It's the sound of my calf muscle, wound tighter than a drum as always, pulling or tearing or something to that effect. When it happens, as it has several times before, my heart sinks because I know it means several days, or perhaps weeks, of recuperation.

My recovery depends largely on the severity of the pop. A little one means a little discomfort. It means lots of extra stretching and some stiffness each morning. But a big pop is worse. A big pop means my calf swells up to twice its normal size. It means I can barely walk, let alone run, for a week or more.

No amount of stretching beforehand seems to help prevent the pop. It just happens. Like tonight. I was just running along on the treadmill, not terribly fast, just moving at a nice steady pace. I was shooting for seven miles, but by Mile 5 I was feeling so good I thought I might run a little longer, nine or even 10 miles. I was watching the Texas v. Oklahoma basketball game on the TV above my head and I was thinking about the ING half-marathon I'm planning to run in Atlanta in a little more than a month with my good buddy from college.

And then came the pop and all of my thoughts went to my leg. As is usually the case, I can still run on my damaged calf; it's afterward when the pain really sinks in. So I ran a little bit more hoping I had imagined it, hoping the problem wasn't really a problem at all. No such luck. I shut the machine down after 6.2 miles and attempted to stretch. The problem is, the pull is so deep inside the leg I have yet to find a stretch that really gets to the root of the problem.

It's now been a few hours since the pop, and I'm sitting here on my couch waiting to see what the outcome of this pop will be. So far, it seems like this one may be rather minor, but it may be too soon to tell. Tomorrow morning will reveal a lot.

Until then, I'll keep stretching and cursing my muscles.