No knee is not a good thing

Yesterday, I talked with my neighbor Chuck who is awaiting knee replacement surgery at the Mayo Clinic. This will be the six or seventh attempt to get it right. He’s actually lost track. Both knees are shot, and he’s in a lot of pain much of time.

The man literally has no left knee, no nothing, holding his tibia and femur together currently as far as I understand, and he's pretty much in constant pain, it seems. Before they can operate again, the doctors are waiting for an infection to clear up, which has lingered for about a month already.

The damage to Chuck’s knees came from a lifetime of factory work on a hard surface floor.  I suspect  his case is not entirely  unlike the sort of overuse injury that life-long long distance running can produce.

About two years ago, an orthopedic surgeon suggested I may have damaged my knee enough that I’d soon be looking at knee replacement surgery.  In training for a second marathon in 2010-2011, I pulled up with a torn meniscus and a bony edema. The doctor implied it might be time to quit running, and certainly to lay off the marathons.

Since then, I’ve run a couple half marathons and a number of shorter races.  I’ve been able to keep running by taking up a mostly self-designed rehab combining shorter distances, slower speeds, more rest, specific leg and core strengthening exercises, and a daily dose of glucosamine sulfate.

Mostly, the program has worked. But, a week ago, the darn knee started feeling pretty sore again. A physical therapist once described  that such an injury is rather like having a hang nail in the joint.  It just never quite goes away.

When the pain crops up, as it does from time to time, the words of that surgeon resurface and I wonder if I’m doing the right thing by keeping after it. And, when I see my neighbor Chuck wheeling around in a motorized cart, not even able to get around on crutches, well, there get to be moments when I wonder what it would be like not to have a real knee, or no knee at all.

Chuck’s going in for surgery next Sunday, we hope. Good luck, Chuck!

Elegy for Boston

I took a long coffee break this morning to watch the later stages of the Boston Marathon.  While television hasn't perfected its coverage of a marathon, the program was amazing in its depiction of the drama possible in sport. I was inspired to take a short run at noon to kind of commune with all the folks running the big race today.

Later, when I heard word of the tragedy, I watched the new images from the scene and saw the world in a whole different, but familiar way.

All of a sudden the evil of the world again dwarfed the drama of sport. Malignant forces exploded from the sidelines of our lives, as they have fallen from the sky or surfaced from below. The awful irony of people dying and suffering "severe trauma" to their legs at a foot race is finally ineffable: three dead and more than a hundred injured, the blood rippling through the lives of so many others.

The Boston tragedy recalls how everything in sport can suddenly become so inconsequential, in the way that in the wake of 9/11 pro football seemed like such a trivial thing.

Long distance running is often seen as a metaphor for life, and today, for me, it resonated as a reminder that despite all we do the finish line is not ours to set.

But, here’s hoping that Boston will find justice, healing and a redemptive race in the year ahead.

Barefoot in the sand

Today, on another chilly April-is-the-cruelest-month day in Iowa, I feel like I’m coming down with a cold. My left knee aches. There’s a little voice whispering that I’ll never run well again, or perhaps never run at all. The week’s forecast is for rain, rain, rain.

Ah, the frailty of the spirit sometimes.

Was it only a couple weeks ago that I was running barefoot in the sand along the Pacific? Better yet, I was spending time with my granddaughter Neena  on the southern California oceanfront. It was an utter joy to usher her down to the ocean’s edge where she viewed vast water for the first time. We took off our shoes, walked in the sand and listened to the waves roll in. (Those are Neena's feet in the photo, feeling ocean sand for the first time.) Normally an expressive little thing, she was quiet and in awe of the scene—as was I.

Later in the week I began experimenting with barefoot running on the beach. First a few hundred yards, then a mile or so, and finally a couple 5K type runs.  There was an evolution of technique—an adjustment for the canter of the beach, an effort to keep to the harder sand of a receding wave, a slightly shorter stride, etc.  The further distances came without even a twinge of complaint from arch, knee, or hip.

The experience was almost otherworldly -- simple motion, wave, breath, and sky.  It is the feeling of being a child again.

A recent study of barefoot Kenyan runners cited in Runner’s World (story) describes their environment as being a “firm sand surface.” I think I experienced something of that foot-surface feeling in California.

Is there a way to emulate a barefoot run on the beach or Kenyan sand?  On a lark today, I jumped on the treadmill in socks and ran for fifteen minutes.  Interesting experiment. The nagging knee was calm, the feet tilted to a mid- and front-foot landing, and the energy felt like, well, a little like running barefoot on the beach.

Although  I can’t imagine running barefoot anywhere but along the ocean (or on the treadmill), its appeal is now clear. And, it makes one wonder if a more minimal shoe would resonate some of the same experience. Certainly seems like something to explore.

Now, toting Neena along the Pacific. That’s something I wish I could figure out how to do more often, too.