Why is it that I can stand in a starting corral with 9,999 other people and remain focussed on the task at hand, yet the very idea of going to a mall in December makes me want to hide under the bed until April?  I’m not entirely sure, but here are a few reasons…

In a race when there is limited parking there are usually shuttle buses. At the mall, you wait patiently for a space, only to lose it to someone coming from the other direction.

In a race, the runners are all going in the same direction. At the mall, you risk being stepped on, cut off, darted in front of, or squeezed out, all between the two sets of front doors.

In a race, there is etiquette around passing, and even if people don’t follow it, at least you’re all going in the same direction. At the mall, see above.

At a race, there are huge restroom line ups, but they move pretty quickly. At the mall, there are huge restroom line ups and they barely move at all.

In a race, when you need refreshment, there are volunteers happily holding out cups for you. At the mall, you have to stand in line, pay far too much for something that isn’t good for you, and try not to spill it.

In a race, people cheer for you and point you in the right direction. At the mall, people swear at you and tell you where to go.

At a race, when you get to the finish line, there are usually enough medals for everyone; when there aren’t, you get a sincere apology and information on how the situation will be rectified. At the mall, you are told gruffly that they are all out of iPods, but that you are welcome to buy a lavender sachet and a sweatshirt with kittens instead.

In a race, when you cross the finish line, you’re finished.  At the mall, you will invariably forget something or someone, and will have to go back.

Got more for me?  Feel free to add them below!

I finally finished Again to Carthage by John L. Parker, Jr.  As promised when I reviewed Once a Runner,  I will share my thoughts on its sequel.

Again to Carthage is a good book, if you’re just looking for a novel. At first it seems like a book about fishing.  Then it becomes apparent that it is actually a book about midlife, about mortality and regret.  It’s a story about lost youth, and a lot of it is really sad.

Sadly, however, it isn’t really a book about running.  In fact, you don’t even learn what our beloved Cassidy’s hope for catharsis is until almost 200 pages are behind you.  And the really serious running doesn’t really show up until near the end.  There are lots of little side stories, anecdotes shared between characters that visit running, but for the most part, it didn’t engross me in the life of a runner.

In the final few chapters, Parker recaptures a glimmer of his excellent narrative on running, however.  When Cassidy runs in the Olympic Trials for the marathon, I found myself swept up in it.  And at the end it kind of struck me that if you just change a few details about the goal, the pace, and an unfortunate fall under sinister circumstances, the description is remarkably similar to my own experiences, and a lot of race reports that I’ve read.  It reinforced for me that most, if not all marathoners do go through a lot of the same things.

If you are looking for a really great book that is all about running, read Once a Runner.  But if you’re looking for a novel that is a good read and includes a running theme, then you might like Again to Carthage.

Okay, so it doesn’t take much.

This was taken back in the summer, but I ran by there this morning, which reminded me of this picture.  It was pure luck that we discovered we could trigger it on foot because it doesn’t always work – but once we did…

Ever have one of those days?

You know the kind I mean.  Nothing seems to go right.  Your ability to cope like a rational person decreases disproportionately to each thing that goes wrong, so that by the end of the day, you are a cranky, sour, angry bucket of acid, only marginally more fun than an alligator with a toothache.

I had one of those days.

I came home and pouted.  I scowled.  I seethed and I churned.

Then I put on my shoes and headed for the treadmill.

I put in a DVD.  I warmed up.

Then I cranked up the speed as fast I could handle for 800 metres.  I mean I really red-lined it – for me, anyway.

I dropped the speed back to a jog.  I mopped my brow.  I caught my breath.  Then, I did it again.  Then once more after that.

Of course, a funny thing happens when I go all out.  I have to adjust my stride and control my breathing.  I have to convince myself to hang on because I know I can complete the 800m. I really have to concentrate.

In that time, my pout receded.  My scowl turned into an expression of concentration.  My seething was redirected to powering my muscles, and my churning stopped so all my energy could go in the same direction.

And just like that, I felt better.

Funny story:  one day I was out for a run on the rail trail with my brother, and we encountered a pedestrian walking a dog off-leash.  I am somewhat knowledgeable about dogs, having worked at a vet clinic in my youth, however this was not a breed I recognized.  It was a tiny, white puffball of some kind.  Anyway, the dog saw us, and predictably, gave chase while the owner screeched “get back here!”  I stopped running, and the dog stopped and looked at me; the owner came and got it, and we continued on.  Quite a few seconds later, we heard the owner screeching again from a long way back, just before the dog was hanging on to the back of my brother’s ankle.  I knew enough to stop again, and this time I added a stern “No!” but my brother, who is so skinny I can see why he would be mistaken for a stick, was hopping around trying to avoid the dog.

Yes, the image of my 6′ 4″ brother hopping around with the puffball will forever make me chuckle; but the principle behind it isn’t so funny. This dog was off leash in a leashed area, and clearly outside of the owner’s control.

As much as I like dogs, I hate it when I am running along, and someone’s dog comes bounding towards me, while the owner is yelling “don’t worry, he won’t hurt you!”  Well quite frankly, I don’t really care that he won’t hurt me; I just don’t particularly want to pet him (I need those hands hair and slobber free to wipe sweat out of my eyes!), trip over him, or have to stop running so the owner can regain control.  If I am running in a leash free area, that is my stupid fault; but if not, I don’t want to be harassed by a dog.

Even worse is when I am running on a country road and a dog comes tearing off its property after me.  Once I can recall that happening when a car was coming and I was on the opposite side of the road.  Fortunately the owner was outside and I was able to get their attention to call the dog back before it got into the path of the car, but not before I felt thoroughly sick with panic.

Almost every runner I know can recall a story of being chased by a dog.  It can be inconvenient, or downright terrifying.  There are a number of reasons why dogs like to chase runners, be it playfulness, protectiveness, or just the compulsion to chase moving objects.

If you are being chased by a dog, the best thing to do is stop, stand at a 90 degree angle to the dog, and shout “NO!” at it.  Most times the dog will lose interest when it realizes that you are human and not interested in being chased.  Then you can back away so you can keep an eye on it; do not start running again until you are sure the dog is either back in the control of its owner, or is no longer in sight.

If the dog attacks and bites, you are well within your rights to protect yourself.  If you can get your knee up as it is jumping at you, you can catch it in the chest and knock the wind out of it, which might make it think twice.  If it is determined to get a piece of you, however, a sharp kick to the chin should cause the most amount of pain with the least amount of damage.  When it is over, by all means feel free to take appropriate legal action; after all, if letting a dog attack people is a habit for the owner, you could be doing a public service.  If you are a dog owner having trouble with your dog’s compulsion to chase, this is a great reference article that might help you.

And a video on the subject…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU2-scHsucM

Sometimes “running injuries” aren’t really caused by running at all.  Don’t get me wrong; they might be due to running, but aren’t necessarily caused by the running.

Way back in March,  I shared how my physiotherapist, Brenda Scott-Thomas, taught me that a lot of our problems can come from taking our asymmetrical bodies, caused by our asymmetrical lives, and asking them to do a repetitive, symmetrical activity.  That means that running may show us where are imbalances are, but didn’t cause the imbalance in the first place.

Last month when I went to see her, she caught me standing with my knees locked.  This is apparently another one of those activities that causes problems that turn into injuries when we run.  Over subsequent days I paid attention and realized I stand with my knees locked a lot.  I first noticed in the shower.  Then when I was standing at the sink brushing my teeth.  Again when I was in the kitchen making my lunch.  In fact, anytime I wasn’t standing with all my weight on one leg (the habit I had worked so hard to kick), I was standing with my knees locked.

I may not have all of the science behind this correct, so if you are an expert, feel free to leave a comment, but here’s what I got out of it:

When you stand with your knees locked, you take the responsibility for holding yourself upright off of your muscles, and place the burden on your fascia, especially the infamous iliotibial band.  Then you run.  When you run, you are asking your ITB to flex and keep everything in your legs aligned, but the problem is that it is all locked up from keeping you upright when you’re standing still.  It’s taught, and therefore can’t guide your joints properly, and that causes pain.

When I went back to see Brenda today, I told her that I had been working on it, then proceeded to describe how I still have pain, but that it’s different now.  She told me that it sounds like adaptive-pain to her – that is, my body is re-learning to hold itself in a proper stance, so my muscles and joints are hurting from the adjustment.  After assessing my various tight spots, she told me that all of the tightness felt more like a healthy-tightness; that my joints were learning to stabilize themselves, because previously, they were floppy when she would bend them, since my ITBs had been doing all the work.  The result?  Things should improve.

I’ve never seen anything on the subject, so I had to share.  It was such an unconscious thing for me, one I didn’t even really know was bad.  So if you experience ITB issues, try to pay attention to how you stand.  Try a neutral posture, distributing your weight evenly between your feet and keeping your knees soft.

It’s a hard habit to break! And be prepared for it to hurt differently for a while; not worse, just in different places.  But that’s good, because it means it is making a difference!

Dear Inconsiderate Driver:

If there is frost or snow, please scrape your vehicle windows before driving away.  You may think that making a gap in the front wide enough to peek through is good enough, because, after all, you’re only driving a short way, or your defrosters will take care of the rest before you arrive!  But when you have nothing but a peep-hole in your front windshield, it makes you like an ISU-122 tank in more ways than just the scope of your view.

Let’s do the math:  let’s say your lane is approximately 10 feet wide.  If your peep-hole is 12 inches wide, directly in front of your seat, that leaves 9 feet of lane that you can’t see, and that’s just in front of your vehicle.  So if someone is in the crosswalk on the passenger side of your vehicle: Surprise! You can’t see them!

Then there’s that intersection you are approaching.  If there is a car with the right-of-way that you can’t see, you will sometimes inch forward and hope they’ll honk, then when they don’t, you gun it so you can clear the intersection.  Well guess what?  Pedestrians don’t have horns, and you won’t hear a bicycle bell with your windows up while playing your stereo and talking on your cell phone.

I have heard all kinds of excuses why you might not scrape your windows.  My favourite is “I didn’t have time.”  Well if you’re involved in a collision, you’re going to be a heck of a lot later than if you’d just taken the 2 minutes!  It isn’t like you don’t know frost and snow can be an issue at this time of year.

If you think the risk of “that happening to me” is so low that you can’t be bothered, think instead of the consequences if you take that risk, however remote, and it happens to be your unlucky day.  How will your life change in an instant (never mind the life of the person you hit)?  At best, you’ll have to pay a ticket, make an insurance claim and be very late.  Anything worse and you could be looking at serious charges, court dates, explaining to people you know why your name is in the local paper….

Is it worth it?

Love,

*Runners, Pedestrians, Cyclists, and Smart, Considerate Motorists

P.S. If you think I am being harsh, I am sorry about that; but I guess it’s because I think you are being stupid.

*I am sure every reader of this blog falls into one or more of these categories, so just so you know, I realize I am ranting preaching to the choir here!

As runners, we often find ourselves in places where others aren’t, or gain a perspective on an area that just isn’t possible when driving through.  It’s no coincidence that it always seems to be runners that find dead bodies.

So when I was out for my Saturday run, the one day at this time of year that I can run when it is light enough to run on country roads, I made a gruesome discovery.

It is that time of year when the roadkill count is way up.  I am not talking about just any roadkill, either.  When I was out on my run, on a 6-kilometre stretch of road, I found no less than 4 squashed pumpkins.

The most heart-wrenching part about finding smashed pumpkins is that sometimes, you can still see the expressions frozen forever on their poor little faces.  Some of them were terrified; some were really angry.  Others, poor dears, didn’t see it coming at all and were smiling obliviously.

Clearly this is a problem that is preventable.  I mean, I know they don’t move very fast, so if you don’t see them in time, there’s little hope.  But come on, they’re bright orange!  At night they tend to be lit; they don’t exactly blend in with their surroundings.  In addition, their movement patterns are pretty predictable – if you pull out to pass, it isn’t like they’ll dart in front of you, even if you’ve startled them.

I know that the season has come a little later than usual, but it is still only once a year, so please drive with caution.

If you think I am exaggerating about the severity of this problem, you need only go for a run to see what I am talking about.

If your excuse for not running is that you might look stupid, this should make you feel better.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR0Rj9Dh-dM&feature=player_embedded