Tag: headphones

may 12/3 MILES

mississippi river road north
57 degrees

Another great morning and another great run. Found myself composing poems to keep my rhythm. At first, the chant was pretty mundane: this is the path/that I like to/take all the time or this is the path/that I run on/most of the time. I came up with a variation on this that had 2 lines with four beats and one with three, like 2 measures with eighth notes and one with a triplet, but I can’t remember it. I played around a lot with how I matched my feet to the words. Sometimes I chanted a word–mostly in my head, but occasionally out loud–with each step. I did this when I wanted to go a little faster.

this is the path
step, step, step, step or ♩♩♩♩

When I wanted to go slower, I chanted one word for each two steps.

this step is step
the ♩ path ♩

So much fun. I’m a musician who played clarinet for over 20 years (only occasionally now), so I like to think about things musically. Rhythm and beats might become a new focus on some of my runs.

In the last mile, I came up with a different chant. It was inspired by Marie Howe’s discussion of poetry as counter-spell in her interview for On Being:

Poetry has a kind of trancelike quality still. It has the quality of a spell still. My daughter came home one day and she said — she did this whole snappy thing. “Don’t make me snap my fingers in a Z formation, explanation, talk to the hand, talk to the wrist. Ooh, girl, you just got dissed.” And it’s this whole thing the girls were doing when they were 11. And I said — a counter spell. It was like a counter spell for a mean girl. And I thought this is what we all need to walk around with, a handful of counter spells. And, and poetry, when you think of its roots, is that.

this is my charm
against all harm
this is my spell
as you can tell
it works real well
I mean really
but it did not
work in the rhyme

It’s a fun challenge to try and compose lines on the spot, while you’re running at a brisk pace (8:45 minute per mile, at that point). I wasn’t happy with the last two lines and how they didn’t work for the cadence. So, after I finished my run, I came up with these lines instead:

I hope you see
but it did not
fit in the slot

this is my spell
as you can tell
it works real well
I mean really
I hope you see
but it did not
fit in the slot

may 9/5 MILES

56 degrees
mississippi river road north

Wow! Another beautiful morning. Can it be like this all year? Wasn’t planning to, but as I ran towards the Franklin hill I started composing a poem in my head. Is it a poem? Or just a rhythm to repeat in order to create a steady cadence? Whatever it is, it was fun and it worked. My running felt strong and steady. And the chant helped me to slow down my heart rate after the tough hill. Because I didn’t want to forget it, as I was running, I recorded myself reciting it into my voice memo app.

There’s a path

there’s a path
there’s a path
that was closed
that was closed
up until
up until
late last fall
late last fall

there’s a path
that was closed
up until
late last fall
there’s a path
that was closed
up until
late last fall

then they opened it back up
then they opened it back up
to the runners thump thump
and the bikers thump thump
and the walkers thump thump
and the drivers thump thump

on the path
on the path
there is a hill
there is a hill
a steep, long hill
a steep, long hill

as you turn back up the hill
you’ll see a bridge at the top
look at it, look at it
never stop, never stop

there
was
a
hill
there
was
a
hill
that
I
climbed
up
that
I
climbed
up
now
that
I’m
done
slow
down
the
run
now
that
I’m
done
slow
down
the
run

may 6/8 MILES

51 degrees
mississippi river road path south/lake nokomis/mississippi river road path north

Another great morning. Sunny. Not too much wind. Great air quality. Wish I could say the same about my run. Most of it just seemed hard. I couldn’t really focus on anything but how I didn’t feel the greatest. But I did it. There was a moment on the “moustache bridge” (called that because someone, at some point, spray painted a hipster handlebar moustache on it. It’s no longer there, but the name stuck with us–me, Scott and the kids) when I really wanted to stop. I could almost feel myself stopping, but I didn’t. I made it through the moment and kept running. Eventually, around 7.25 miles,  I did stop to walk for a minute. I’m fine with that. Hopefully tomorrow’s 5 mile ran will be better.

Part of my route today was on the Minnehaha Creek trail, from Minnehaha Falls to Lake Nokomis. When I lived in that neighborhood, I used to walk with my kids on that trail a lot. We named all the bridges: the duck bridge, the echo bridge, the step bridge, the hole bridge, the stinky bridge. A few years ago, I made a video about walking on that path:

may 5/4 MILES

59 degrees
mississippi river road path north

Yet another beautiful day. Sunny. Hardly any wind. Everything seemed to be moving gently, without hurry. Even the cars on the river road approached as if they were on a leisurely Sunday drive. Tried out my new running shoes for the first time. Excellent. Dependable. Cheap. Since I started running almost 6 years ago, I’ve worn Saucony Grid Cohesion shoes. $39.99. I think my first pair were version 4. Now I’m on version 10. An intense blue with coral stripes. Great for someone with a “neutral” (as opposed to pronate or supine) foot strike and a super wide (thanks, freakish bunions!) foot. I used to be envious of Scott and his fancy and brightly colored $100+ Nike shoes. Why can’t I find cool, high-tech shoes like that to fit my foot? But for the past several versions, my bottom-of-the-line basic Saucony’s have been available in more than boring white or gray. I’ve worn bright orange, teal and now a deep blue.

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about slow time and gave myself a task: write a poem using “syncing” unexpectedly. This morning, I started the poem; I finished it just after my run. It’s inspired by bits and pieces from Gros’ book and my experiences running.

how do you slow down time?

stop thinking
about things you must do!
right now!
before the day ends!
and the sun starts sinking
below the trees
and behind the garage.

start drinking
your coffee earlier
so that you can wake up
and get outside
before that cooing bird starts syncing
up with the rest of the chorus:
the barking dogs,
the rumbling cars,
the humming city.

move your legs.
first one, then the other.
head to a field or the woods or a path,
anywhere on the edge
of civilization.
maybe above a gorge or under a bridge?
walk or run,
both will work,
as long as you move
 without haste or urgency.

use your lungs:
breathe in deeply
through your nose,
with your diaphragm.
as your abdomen extends,
so does your invitation to the world
to enter and fill you
with wonder and gratitude.

feel your skin
as it absorb the trees,
the blue sky
the freshly cut grass
and releases toxic worries
through its pores.

Attend to the beauty of being
not doing anything but moving
,
listening,
looking,
feeling
time
slowly
drip.

may 3/3.15 MILES

54 degrees
mississippi river road path south

What a beautiful morning for a run! I reminded myself, before leaving the house, to listen today. Birds. Cars, Crunching feet. The most unusual sound was a group of kids singing…what were they singing? Some popular song that I almost, but can’t quite, remember. They were on the other side of the river road, near Minnehaha Academy. I’m not sure what they were doing, other than being loud and joyful. Oh…I also heard water emptying out of the sewer pipe, just below the path. It wasn’t quite gushing, but was doing more than trickling as it traveled down the slope of the gorge. The water probably didn’t look too pretty–sometimes it’s a ghoulish green–but it sure sounded pretty. Like a waterfall. (note: several hours after writing this, I happened to walk by this pipe. I was much closer and slower than when I was running, so I got a better look. It was very pretty and the water was clear.) Tried running faster for 9 minutes and then stopping and walking for a minute. It was somewhat successful, but my hamstring was still getting tight. I better start doing some core exercises today.

After returning from my run, I sat on my deck and read a few chapters of A Philosophy of Walking by Frédéric Gros. I just picked it up from the library on Monday. I can’t remember where I found out about it. One of the many sources on walking that I looked at last week, I guess. I’m really digging it. I love walking almost as much as I love running, but for different reasons. I’m interested in pushing at what those reasons are and how running and walking are beneficial and harmful to me.

In Gros’ first chapter, “Walking is Not a Sport,” he defines sport, mostly negatively, and contrasts it with walking. I feel inspired to play with his prose. In the first part of the following experiment, I’m using his actual text, but replacing “sport” with running. In the second part, I’m offering my own response.

Walking is not Running/Running is not Walking

Walking is not running.

Running is a matter of techniques and rules, scores and competition, necessitating lengthy training: knowing the postures, learning the right movements. Then, a long time later, come improvisation and talent.

Running also obviously means cultivation of endurance, of a taste for effort, for discipline. An ethic. A labor.

Walking is not running.

Walking is the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has ever been found. To walk, you need to start with two legs. The rest is optional. If you want to go faster, then don’t walk, do something else: drive, slide or fly.

Running is not walking.

Walking is a matter of moving without a useful purpose. Meandering. Wandering. Getting lost.

Walking, especially when done at the glacial pace best suited for paying close attention, doesn’t demand endurance or require too much effort. It’s undisciplined and prone to unruly wandering off the path, dawdling.

Running is not walking.

Running is the best way to deplete excessive energy and restlessness that I have ever tried. Run for only 30 minutes, not even that speedily, and your body feels grateful for having been used.

To run, you need to start with two legs and a urge to fly, not fast, but free. The rest is optional. If you don’t want to fly, then don’t run, do something else: sit, watch or sleep.

may 2/5 MILES

46 degrees
mississippi river road path north

As I ran, I tried to keep thinking about poets, intense feelings, whether or not living “like an engine with the governor off” is a good thing and how this relates to running. I couldn’t. Not because I don’t have any thoughts about these issues, but because I was distracted by an impulse to monitor my pace, heart rate and running form. And preoccupied with thoughts of leg injuries and how I probably need to strengthen my core.

What else do I remember? There was wind in my face as I ran north and at my back, helpfully pushing me along, as I turned around and went south. The Franklin hill wasn’t too bad. My pulse seemed to go slower as I went faster. The trees at my favorite part of the gorge are covered in leaves, making it hard to see the floor of the gorge. I think I encountered 4 or 5 dogs and about 15 humans, some walking the dogs, some walking alone, some running and some biking. I smiled at several of them, but didn’t speak. Neither did they. I don’t remember hearing a single bird or the wind rustling or the gravel crunching or traffic moving.

Even if I don’t remember thinking about poetry and intense feelings, I’m sure I did, at least fleetingly. And, even if I didn’t think about it consciously, the ideas were there, hovering around me as I ran, inspired by the discussion I started about George Sheehan in my log entry yesterday.

Sheehan argues that we should try to be poets, “responding to everything around us and inside us as well,” like engines with the governor off. Then he adds: “The best most of us can do is be a poet an hour a day.” And laments: “There are times, more often than the good times, when I fail. I never do pierce the shield. I return with a shopping list of things to do tomorrow. The miraculous has gone unseen. The message has gone unheard.” His words got me thinking and inspired me to create:

A 60-minute Poet

George Sheehan claims that,
for an hour a day,
while we’re running,
we can try to be poets.
Feeling everything intensely and without restrictions.
Like an engine with its governor off.
We can try.
But we’ll frequently fail
A thick smog of obligations, worries and regrets
makes it harder to breathe.
And to see.
And to feel.
And to remember to let go and let in
more air,
more ideas,
more of the world.

A Deep Core Workout for 60-minute-a-day Poets?

60 minutes a day of intense feelings seems like a lot.
How can we train ourselves to feel deeply for that long?
What sort of strength and stretching exercises do we need to build up our “deep core” feelings?
To prevent hyper-awareness related injuries brought on by overuse or improper form?
To help us stretch our imagination?
Limber up our ideas, so we can bend, twist, contort them?
Strengthen our resolve against the worries and regrets that distract us?
Lengthen our vision to extend farther, beyond our myopic preoccupations?
Quicken our reflexes for faster responsiveness?
Attune our senses to the too-often invisible or ignored encounters?

I’m thinking about “core” workouts lately because so many things that I’ve been reading recommend core exercises for preventing injuries. A strong core stabilizes your bones, joints, muscles and internal organs. I’m terrible with scientific/medical terminology–I can’t seem to retain the information that I read or hear–but I’m fascinated by the names and some the descriptions of the “deep core” muscles, especially the multifidus.

The Multifidus

The multifidus
pronounced: mull tiff a dus
The muscle consisting of a number of fleshy
not flashy or flesh-eating or flesh-colored or thin, but plump and succulent
 and tendinous
sounds like tenderness or tendon-less, even though it means “consisting of tendons”
fasciculi,
pronounced: fa sick you lee or fa sick you lie, depending on if you want to rhyme it with an old oak tree or a key lime pie
which fill up the groove
the groove in the dirt trail, winding through the gorge? the groove of a Funkadelic album? what you’re in when it’s going well?
on either side of the spinous processes of the vertebrae,
not a process but a bony protrusion where the muscle attaches to the vertebrae
from the sacrum
pronounced: say crum, as in, “say crumb, why don’t you hop into my mouth?”
to the axis
aka C-2, aka epistropheus. Contains a bony protuberance, another fun word to say, on which the C-1 vertebrae rotates.  

april 25/5 MILES

57 degrees
mississippi river road path north

Another great morning for running. Intended to ruminate on the differences between running and walking in terms of how I think and generate ideas for the entire 46 minute run. It didn’t happen. I can’t really remember much of anything that I thought about. Devoted most of my attention to my running form and keeping my pulse steady.

Running Form

Keep it slow
don’t start fast
Keep it steady
find your rhythm
Breathe     i       n
Breathe     o  u  t
Check your pulse
Lift, lift, lift the knees
squeeze the glutes, squeeze the glutes
breathe in, 2, 3
out, 2, 3
drop your shoulders
lead with your chest
relax your arms
loosen your hands
roll an imaginary pencil between your thumb and fingers
l   e   a   n  forward
lift, lift, lift, lift, lift, lift the knees
raise your eyes, stare blankly at the top of the bridge
check your pulse
keep it steady
don’t lose your rhythm
breathe in, 2, 3
out, 2, 3
lift, lift, lift, lift the knees
slow it down
squeeze the glutes, squeeze the glutes
relax your arms
drop your shoulders
breathe in, 2, 3
out 2, 3
check your pulse
lift
lift
swing
swing
pump
breathe in out in out
pump
pump
lift
lift
breathe in out in out
in out in out
in out in out in out
FLY
l  e  a  n
lift
breathe i       n
breathe o  u  t
relax your arms
slow your pace
stop.

april 23/3.15 MILES

51 degrees
mississippi river road path north

Another beautiful morning. A nice run. Can’t really remember that much of it. Ran each mile faster than the last by about 30 seconds. No hamstring pain. Could it be that my “deranged” experiment with injury terms helped? Even though I know that’s not possible, I’d like to think so. The power of poetry!

april 22/10 MILES

57 degrees
mississippi river road path south/lake nokomis/mississippi river road path north

Beautiful. Sunny. Hardly any wind. A perfect spring morning for a long run. Focused on lifting my knees and “activating my glutes.” It helped. My left thigh felt a little sore, but not heavy and I was able to run the entire 10 miles without any problems and without stopping. This is one of the main reasons why I’ve been working so hard these past couple of months on my running. So I could run today for a little over 90 minutes without pain or doubt, on the paths that I love. The Mississippi River Road path, the Minnehaha Creek path, the Lake Nokomis path.

Shortly before leaving for my run, I looked over some notes that I took a couple of months ago about writers who run. The writer/runner Rachel Toor discusses the state of vulnerability that both writing and running create:”When I think harder about it, what I believe running and writing have most in common, at least for me, is the state of vulnerability they leave you in. Both require bravery, audacity, a belief in one’s own abilities, and a willingness to live the clichés: to put it on the line, to dig deep, to go for it. You have to believe in the “it,” and have to believe, too, that you are worthy.”

I wanted to reflect on this statement as I ran. For the most part, I didn’t. I was focused on keeping my breathing steady, making sure I was using my legs properly and enjoying watching the creek as it gently flowed towards the falls. But, about halfway through the run I started having some dark thoughts about my son’s upcoming trip to Europe that he’s taking with many of his 8th grade classmates. He’ll be gone for 10 days. It’s his first time away from home for that long and his first time on a plane. I haven’t been too worried about him. He’s a confident, relaxed kid, so I was surprised that worries about what might happen on the trip were suddenly erupting in my mind. Would the plane crash? Would he get sick? Would something happen at the airport? Then I remembered this notion of a “state of vulnerability.” Running makes you vulnerable. Toor understands this as an opportunity to prove your mettle, to “put it all on the line.” Today during my run, I saw the state of vulnerability as an opportunity to be open, to allow the feelings that I’ve been hiding from myself to surface and be addressed. In the past, my inclination would have been to quickly tamp down my dark thoughts, to dismiss them as ridiculous or overly dramatic. Today, I let myself experience them, allowing them to linger beside me for a few minutes as I ran by the main beach at Lake Nokomis.

In an interview about their documentary, The Runners, the filmmakers talk about the purpose of their project of filming random runners in a park, while asking them serious questions mid-run:
“We were trying to understand what goes on in the minds of runners as they charge through the streets. What does it do to them and what can we find out about ourselves by interrupting them at this moment of vulnerability and clarity?”

I feel like now, almost 400 miles into this project, I’m finally using running to tap into my own vulnerabilities and being willing to acknowledge and accept them.

Hover over the entry to reveal the erasure poem.

april 21/4 MILES

47 degrees
mississippi river road path south

A beautiful morning. The run started and ended well. Somewhere in the middle, after running up and then down a steep hill by Lock and Dam #1 and Wabun Park, my right thigh started to bother me again. It never really hurt, it just became harder to lift. Then, when it became harder to lift, my right calf tightened up too. For 2 or 3 minutes, it was a struggle as I tried very deliberately to lift my right leg, focusing on my glutes and hips. By the last mile, I felt better and was running much faster than I had at the beginning of the run. Strange.

When do you take aches and pains seriously? When should you rest? Tough questions. I’m extremely cautious with my running; I’ve never tried to push myself too hard. It took me two years to build up to running 10ks, 4 years for a 1/2 marathon and now, 6 for a marathon. I have only had one substantial injury.

The Injury, first version

My first big injury happened exactly a year ago in April 2016. I had been struggling with running all winter. Had even taken half of February off–about 2 weeks without running, the longest I had gone since starting in June of 2011. March was okay. But then on April 2, while doing a flip turn at the pool, something suddenly hurt. When I got out of the pool, I was limping. Within a few days, I couldn’t bend my right knee. It was so strange. I forgot how to walk. My leg and my brain couldn’t get the motion right. The most I could manage was shuffling for a block or two. It sucked.

I didn’t know what was wrong with my leg, just that it was not good. Googling medical and sports websites convinced me that I had a meniscus tear (don’t know what is? don’t google it; blissful ignorance is underrated). I went to a sports medicine doctor to verify this diagnosis and discovered that I had a much less catastrophic injury: a bone spur in my knee. A jagged little knob on the inside of my knee. The bone spur wasn’t directly causing my problem; it was the tendon that, after repeatedly rubbing over the spur, had become inflamed. The area around my knee had swollen and I couldn’t bend it properly. The solution: lots of ibuprofen (9 pills a day), lots of ice (3 xs @20 minutes a day) and physical therapy for about 6 weeks. No running, barely any walking. I was able to swim and bike some. I can’t quite remember when I was able to run again–early May? I do know that my first 5K was on my fifth runniversary, June 2, 2016.

A few months after all of this transpired, a friend, who also runs, asked: “Will the bone spur go away?” I didn’t ask, I said. I was so freaked out about the injury and spend so little time in doctor’s offices that I didn’t think to ask. I’ve looked it up online and still am not quite sure. Sometimes spurs dissolve and sometimes they don’t. It hasn’t bothered me since.

Notes:

This is the first version of an account of my injury. In working to express how it feels to run, I’d like to develop this account to more effectively express my emotions surrounding this injury. Right now, it’s pretty boring and lifeless. That might be partly because I don’t like thinking about injuries–it’s my biggest fear. It might also be because I’m uncomfortable describing my experiences, which seem so trivial and ordinary compared to the physical struggles of other people I know.

Where to start on pushing this version?

  • Expand on “it sucked.” So many feelings crammed into those two words! Fear, frustration, anger, resolution and more. Push at these emotions.
  • What does it mean to forget how to walk? What does that feel like?
  • Say more about this: “The solution: lots of ibuprofen (9 pills a day), lots of ice (3 xs @20 minutes a day) and physical therapy for about 6 weeks. No running, barely any walking. I was able to swim and bike some.” Maybe write a list of what I know about running injuries?
  • Write some more questions and answers in response to this: Will the bone spur go away?

Update: After reading this post, I decided to experiment a bit with thinking/writing about injury. The experiment I did today was all about trying to lose some of the fear that haunts my thinking about injury.