Reflections from the Deep End

Running back and forth in slow, flattened circles in the deep end of the pool affords ample time for contemplation- that is, when one is not actively combating obese 70 year olds.  Generally speaking, a good deal of my mental energy goes into maintaining whatever form of interval-based torture I've devised for the day.  On tough workouts it approximates 100% but today I'm taking it easy, let's say 50%.  Another 25% is focused resolutely out the window, salivating over Twin Peaks in the distance and fantasizing about the time- hopefully not too long from now- when I'll be back out in the mountains.  This leaves 25% open for free-form thought and today I find myself thinking about death.


This is not an unusual state of affairs.  In part it is stimulated by my company: at this hour a cabal of  antedeluvian men and women, hoary and chicken-legged, ticking out the few remaining minutes of their individual lives here with me in this haven of chlorine.


But it is also my physical state.  Injuries, however transient and insignificant, (and I readily admit that on the scale of things mine certainly is both of these) provide a ready-at-hand window into one's mortality.  Bones reknit, tissues regenerate, connective tissues heal but the breakdown of the body inevitably and insistently reminds with all certainty that, above and beyond everything else that matters in the fleeting microcosm of your life, one day you and everyone you know will be dead. 


This reflection on the moribund is not depressive- in fact, quite the opposite.   It is at times like this that I feel the most vital and alive.  I think about the smallness of our lives: here on the earth, an atomic nullity hurtling through space; the vastness of the universe; stars being born, expanding- red and angry- and fading over millenia; my dear life, all its meager yearnings- a millisecond.   As I flail my limbs in the pool, the epitome of absurdity, I resolve- for not the first nor the last time- to more diligently incorporate this form of meditation into my daily life.


One can realize this set of truths on different levels.  There is the abstract and rational acknowledgment.  And then there is the visceral: a sharp pain in the gut, a catch in the breath.  It is an altogether unique sensation.  There are elements of horror, of helplessness and claustrophobia, but also of gratitude and compassion.  And there is freedom. 


It strikes me that running is a uniquely effective method of exploring these issues.  There is the obvious sublimation of death anxiety: you can push the body up against its perceived physical limits and then push some more; you can run harder and faster than you ever have; you can run 100 miles; you can accomplish previously inconceivable goals and, in doing so, in some primitive sense perpetuate the self-deception that you can outrun even your own demise.  You feel superhuman.   This is where most dynamic explanations have stopped, but in doing so they miss the other half.  For running is both a denial and an acceptance.


In this process of exploring your physical limits you brush up against the borders of who you are as a person and what your life is in the most fundamental of senses.  You look directly down the barrel at both your strengths and weaknesses; you look harder and watch them change into the other.  


There are few opportunities in modern life to experience extremis.  Reflect for a moment on a normal day in the life of an average American in 2012.  There are no predators to escape from, no prey to be stealthily hunted, no imminent fear of survival, and limited true self-sufficiency.  While this insulation allows for Netflix, unchecked consumption, and comfort, it obscures some basic truths about our nature.   The act of simply putting one foot in front of the other over and over has been the best way I've found of uncovering some of these.


In other news, despite two weeks of diligent pull-ups I've only increased my total to a measly 16.  I'm not sure when I turned into such a pus$y.  To be fair, this was an attempt at the end of the day wearing both heavy-ish pants as well as my boot, which weighs several pounds.  Regardless, there is clearly work to be done.  

Aquatic Antisocial

It's a bleary-eyed 6am as I hang my legs over the edge of the pool about to embark on my workout.  Today the schedule calls for 8 x 5 minute intervals of pool running with 1 min. recovery, bookended by a warmup and cool down.  I know that in order to complete this I'll need a good deal of mental resolve but I'm not quite there yet.  In the interest of hastening bone growth I've given up coffee and beer- both known retardants of osteocyte function.  This is no small feat as anyone who knows my consumption habits can attest and this morning I feel the unmistakable foggy shroud of the former, amplified by a short night of sleep.  


All week I've been coming to this pool with the singular goal of just getting it done.  I don't chat it up in the locker room, sit in the sauna with that hairy dude, or otherwise engage in any form of social contact.  I wear a heart rate monitor, a waterproof Ipod, and I'm in and out: all business.


Wearing this walking cast problematizes certain things.  For instance, the obligatory shower before entering the pool.  To do so I must first remove the boot (which has a wieldy outer shell), hop over to the shower, shower, put the boot back on, walk out to the pool, then take it off again to get in the water.  In my desire for efficiency I've taken to simply walking over to the showers and getting my hair wet as I hold my leg away from my body.  I'll rub some water on my chest so as to give the impression of having taken a full bath prior to entering the pool.  I then hurry over to an open lane and jump in before anyone accosts me.


15 min. warmup.  Once I'm in and going I'm glad to be here.  I'm even developing a fondness for this routine, despite myself.  I begin my intervals.  The effort feels surprisingly hard and I'm again reminded at how intense the work sessions must be to elevate my heart rate appropriately.  The 1 minute recoveries pass almost instantaneously.


I pee in the pool.


I can't help myself.  Just being in water makes me have to urinate, even if I emptied my bladder immediately before entering.  I slow my cadence imperceptibly but keep a look of stern concentration on my face so as to avoid detection.  The only evidence of my infraction is a small envelope of surprising heat for several seconds.


As I finish #6 I notice that they are pulling lane lines to prepare for the aqua-aerobics class.  My heart rate is 160- with the 10% rule I equate this to around 176, or right around lactate threshold.  I'm now without a lane to run in but I keep going, hugging the plastic barrier as the deep end slowly takes on the feel of a geriatric unit.  There are only 8 ladies in this class and a vast swath of aquamarine real estate to be had so I feel justified in hugging this barrier, well out of their slow-moving, age-spotted, telomerically-compromised grasp.


The instructor- about 20-  is energetically jumping up and down on the sidelines but the old ladies pay no heed.  They are clustered in 3 small social groups chatting avidly, the water lapping at the hair on the base of their neck so that it hangs down in dark gray tendrils.  They bob slowly up and down effortlessly, legs moving in distracted, desultory circles: giant floating bags of jelly encasing small skeletons of brittle, osteoporotic bones.  


I continue straining, a slight wheeze on my expiration now. 


There are two aerobics participants that seem uniquely uninvested in the class proceedings.  As I slowly make my way to and fro across the pool I note them coming closer and closer to my line, eventually planting themselves directly in my path, now full outliers from the rest of their group and with their backs to the instructor.  I make a large slow-motion arc around them as I complete my seventh interval.  This takes longer than you might expect- long enough in fact to catch more than one dirty look.  On my way back on the recovery interval one of them addresses me haughtily: "this area of the pool is for deep water aerobics only.  You'll have to use one of those lanes."  She gestures with her head.  Those lanes are 5 feet deep or shallower, the suggestion untenable for my lanky body.  I say nothing, smile benignly, and begin my last interval, again sweeping wide around their pale, motionless bodies, distorted and condensced as seen through the refracting surface of the water.


Keep focused.  I can feel my face and head sweating.  It is now getting light outside and there is a fresh dusting of snow on the peaks outside the window: Mt. Wire, Grandeur, Mt. Olympus- all my regular training routes.  A ray of sun beams across the pool lighting it on fire and for a moment I am blinded, suddenly transported outside onto a summit, the front range of the Wasatch spreading out before me in entropic waves.  It is momentary but glorious and I get goosebumps.  Out of the corner of my eye I see one of them, the woman who addressed me, move more aggressively than she has all class to get to the edge of the pool, water droplets flinging off her hair.  She pulls herself out and pads determinedly down the concrete length to the lifeguard.  There is vigorous gesticulating and pointing but I can't catch what is said.  Only 2 minutes left to go.  I spin around on the east end and churn my legs as fast as they will go over the final stretch, all hamstring and hip flexor.  Tag the wall and I'm done.  I pull myself up out of the water, hop over to the bench, take off the flotation belt, strap on my boot, and without looking back limp to the locker room, my boot making heavy, echoed thuds with each step.

A Change of Plans...

Well, shit.  After nearly two weeks of mid-foot pain after the Antelope Island 50m I had an MRI this past Friday. 

Stress fracture of the lateral cuneiform, bone contusion on the calcaneus, peroneus longus tenosynovitis, and mild achilles tendinosis.

Of course the only real game changer in that set of diagnoses is the first one.  The stress fracture: bain of the runner's existence and inevitable harbinger of 6 weeks + of no running whatsoever and then a gradual reintroduction of stress to the bone.  The imaging gives clues to the likely etiology.  I had entered the race with a slight achilles injury which flared at about mile 12 or so, forcing me to alter my biomechanics and foot strike.  The rearrangement of my gait, compounded over the course of a fast 50 mile race (in the context of having done very little specific training for this type of running) provided an overload of stress on my foot resulting in breakdown.  Seems like a good hypothesis at least.

It's interesting how quickly so many things can shift.  Just days prior I had been pounding up and down Mt. Wire and Mt. Olympus, telling myself that my foot was indeed getting better and it was nothing to worry about, that the Zane Grey 50 was still in the cards for me in a couple weeks.  I disregarded the fact that every step brought on a wince and my foot hurt to touch.  Running hard involves in large part the ignoring of bodily distress signal, or at least the recasting of this signal in a different light.  I've run through plenty of injuries in the past (for better or worse) so wasn't thinking this one was going to be very different. Now, suddenly I had a broken bone, a heavy plastic walking cast, a crushing sense of disappointment, and a lot of time on my hands.  The stark, honest rupture of calcium hydroxylapatite matrix and some tough existential questions.

As I re-equilibrated over the weekend, lounging about, doing housechores and spending time with family, I thought to myself, baffled: "so this is what being a normal person is like."  It's amazing how differently a Saturday goes when you aren't spending 5 hours running.   I might actually be a productive person if I didn't spend such large amounts of time either in aerobic exertion or basking in the hazy, contented afterglow.

Yup, not that big a deal in the larger scheme of things.  But the sense of loss highlights the tenacity with which running entwines itself amidst one's meaning-making machinery.  There are other factors at play here to be sure that help explain the malaise: the fostered dependence on one's endogenous opioid system (the associated squirts of dopamine and the withdrawal thereof), habituation to routine and expectation, the social outlets afforded, competitive goals.  And there is this: running has become an inextricable part of me.  It is a reflection of who I am, my means of connection and exploration, a domain to test myself and grow, an expression of love. 

With cycling out of the question for now I've been trying to make friends again with the pool in all her chlorinated claustrophobia.  Water running is likely the most mind-numbingly boring activity of all time, surpassed perhaps only by swimming itself with its insular immersion, redundancy, awkwardness, and peculiar cadre of lycra-clad, large shouldered, strangely-non-athletic looking mammals who, for some bizarre reason, have forsaken the sublime mountains just outside the window in favor of this overcrowded cesspool of chloramine vapors.

In sum, it is mental training par excellance.

Without the same gravitational forces to overcome and because of the compressive forces of the water which increases venous return, to achieve any semblance of a workout pool running you need to hammer at what feels like significant intensity.  Even so, heart rates are around 10% lower for the same aerobic efforts.  The plus side is that without any eccentric muscular damage you can do intervals every day without risking injury.  And so it is: Monday- 10 x 90 sec. with 30 sec recovery, Tues - 6 x 2:30 with 30 sec recovery (interrupted by Masters Swim class, arg!), Wed- 12 x 2:30 with 30 sec recovery (to make up for Tuesday's poor showing).  I read an article about Paula Radcliffe destroying herself with marathon pool running sessions and vomiting on her way home as she came back from injury and have made this my new goal over the next 6 weeks.

I've also resumed doing pullups in earnest.  While this has little if any specific impact on maintaining running form it at least provides a handy outlet for short-term goals.  Having neglected my upper body for the better part of 4 years my lats and biceps are as flaccid as Claire Meuse's (my grandmother).  My inaugural showing resulted in a pitiful 15 pullups: a far cry from the legendary 5 sets of 10 pullups of 2008 , but at least it is a starting place.