Dead Presidents Day Off

OK. So I took a personal day.

For health reasons.

After walking all over New York, pushing the envelope on my running schedule and swimming routines, my body pushed back.

Enough! said my hip. Give it a rest! said my shoulder.

My rib heads were popping out and my SI joint was burning.

So I decided to lay off today, and went to see my chiropractor and massage therapist.

The visit was long overdue.

John, my chiropractor, did what he could for my rib heads, adjusting me, applying moist heat and using the drop table to loosen me up.

Then he sent me into Tony for a 15-minute massage before taping up my shoulder and hip with Kinesio tape.

Something new. Kinesio taping has been promoted strongly by Japanese chiropractor Kenzo Kase. The book John lent me came with a huge disclaimer that he is not offering medical advice.

Kinesio taping is widely used by orphopedists, chiropractors, sports trainers and others as a way to treat inflammation.

Unlike traditional athletic tape, which compresses the muscles and restricts movement, Kinesio taping allows for free range of motion without over-extension, and widens the space between the skin and muscles to promote the flow of lymphatic fluid, according to Kase's manual.

Getting the lymphatic fluid moving supposedly helps reduce the inflammation causing all that pain in the first place.

John taped up my right back shoulder area and hip and told me to leave it on for 2-3 days to let it work. It's waterproof so I can swim and shower in it.

Nuff said. Here's Jay-Z with, you know....

Another Milestone

Is running in the fog good for you? I don't know if there is any scientific evidence one way or the other, but the last two times I've run under a "spot of weather", my performance was better than it has been in months.

On the other hand, this article suggests it's not such a good idea.

Take today for instance. I had another amazing run, and achieved another milestone: Ran a total of 7 miles -- over the Melbourne Causeway and back --  in 1:12:34, not a great pace compared to what I used to run but respectable for someone recovering from hip injuries. Still, sustaining that kind of pace for seven miles? Pretty cool.

Best part, I ran the first four miles at a 9:33 pace! The last three miles I sort of took it easy, jogged, stretched, ran backwards (it didn't reduce my time, sadly). Call it a recovery run.

Now, 12 hours later, I can say I feel no better or worse for the wear, and I've taken no pain killers today. I think it helped that I rested Friday and got a massage and chiropractic adjustment.

Just hope this doesn't boomerang on me and I wake up unable to get out of bed in the morning.

Anyway, I've reached an epiphany: My hip hurts whether I run or not, so I might as well run.

Here's "Bloodbuzz, Ohio," by The National (one of the best running songs yet):

The Deep Freeze

I couldn't believe my clip odometer when it read that I'd run 4 miles in just 22 minutes. No Way! That would put me in Chuck Engle territory. Jim Thorpe.Frank Shorter. Jim Ryun. Alberto Salazar.

Something screwed up inside my ODO between 6:28 a.m. and 6:50 a.m.

Soon as I got into the house I checked the time on the microwave oven. 7:07 a.m. OK, so that's 39 minutes from the time I started my ODO to seeing the clock on the microwave. Even that would be respectable -- my first 4-miler in under 40 minutes!

But taking into account the ODO and microwave are on separate schedules, and the five minutes it took me to stop, grab the paper and unlock the door, pet the cats and take of my gloves, I think I can safely subtract four to five minutes. Thirty-four minutes would be an 8:30 pace! OK, let's say 35 minutes just to quell any skeptics out there. That is still breaking the 9:00 pace barrier.

And, it's nine minutes faster than the 43 minutes it took to run the same same distance yesterday.

I have not run four miles in less than 40 minutes since I can remember. To run it at a sub-9 pace, even more astounding! Give me a moment, I am obviously not finished being amazed at my progress.

I give full credit to the freezing fucking weather this morning. Two long-sleeve sweaters, fleece jacket, ski cap and gloves below 30 weather! In Florida!

And my doctor's care. Those steroid injections into my right SI joint over three months really worked. And the daily regimen of anti-inflammatory drugs. Does Meloxicam qualify as a performance-enhancing drug. What about a glass or two of Malbec the night before?

I hadn't planned to enter a 5k until the Melbourne Spring Arts Festival in April, but at this rate of progress, I think I'll sign up for that race February 5 my friend Rick was telling me about.

And now, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have a few words for you.

Life ain't a track meet. It's a marathon.

I thought I'd give everyone a break from all the whining about back aches and hip problems and knee pain until I had something substantial to report.

Now, I do. I'm back to a regular running schedule -- four miles a day, three days a week just to get back into the groove, and I've already dropped my pace by almost two minutes -- from well over 12 minutes to just under 11 minutes. It is a good feeling to move along at a 10:30 pace, even if it's a far way off from the under 9-minute pace I need to set for myself to beat certain people I trash-talked last week.

The biggest news is that for the first time since I began running again, I didn't have that hip socket pounding that had been plaguing me, and my SI joint didn't flare up. That is true progress.

I had laid off running for about a month over the holidays. I was having serious hip pain on both sides, right above the posterior saddle. And the SI joint, blah blah blah. I fought it with anti-inflammatories, ice packs and pain killers and just good old fashioned slackitude. Nothing like lazing around for two weeks watching TV, reading books, eating junk food and guzzling red wine for proper R&R.

But when I got on the scale and saw my weight had climbed over 210, I had to take action. I decided, Fuck this pain, it's just something I'm going to have to live with, laced up my running shoes and hit the road. And it felt like hell, the femur grinding into my hip socket, sending sharp stabbing pain into my SI joint.

Ice and Tramadol followed.

Two days later, I went out again. Ran four miles. Pounded away like a lumbering ox. Ice and pills.

Saturday, I had my first breakthrough. Ran four miles at a 10:35 pace. Ice. Pills.

Sunday. Forty minutes of yoga. No running. No ice. No pills.

Monday. Every muscle in my body ached from the yoga.

Today (Tuesday): Ran four miles. Feeling no pain. Yet.

And now, Ice Cube has a message for ya.

Master of the Universe

OK, so I am not the fastest runner in the universe. Never was. Not even in high school.

But I wasn't the slowest, either.

And as a middle-aged adult, I was putting in respectable times, 22-23 minutes for 5ks, finishing the first half of a marathon in under two hours, hitting a personal record of 4.06 two years ago at age 50!

So when this hip injury sidelined me, I was bummed. I was on my way to breaking the four-hour marathon!

But I had to stop running for a year, until I finally got diagnosed with a Sacro-ilial joint injury and got referred to a specialist for steroid injections. He told me to stop running until he was through treating me.

After my last steroid injection, he advised that I could run again, but not all out like I used to run. Two-three miles at the most. He said my disks were so shot, running for me was akin to riding on the rims of a car after the tires had blown.

I wouldn't want to take a car like that out to Daytona, would I? 

I've got news for him:  I couldn't if I wanted to.

Now, I find myself running at a 10-11 minute pace, barely covering 3 miles in under 40 minutes. I suppose that is what my doctor had in mind when he said to "use it, but cruise it."

Today was my fourth run since he gave me the green light. I'd say my pace has picked up since that first run, and the pain doesn't increase after a run. Those are good signs. My goal is to slowly and steadily improve my pace to under 10 minutes a mile.

Ultimately, I want to get to where a 9-minute pace feels like cruising, not racing.

And I want to lose another 20 pounds. I reached 205 this morning, good for 6'1" but be better. I still feel like I'm holding a 20-pound bowling ball in my lap when I sit down.

Slowly, once again, I am becoming master of my own universe again.

Now some Pulp:

Riding on the Rims

OK, so today I had the third and last of the steroid injections into my Sacro-Ilial Joint. Have I told you how painful it is to have a long needle jammed through your back muscles and into your hip? My doc calls it needle trauma. Ouch!

But hopefully it is the last time I will have to endure that, at least for a long while!


Anyway, while I was there, Doc and I chatted about my back. My spine. We looked at the MRI of my spine and he pointed out some salient features on that road map of my life.

Why? Because I asked him about post-treatment activities, like running. He said one or two miles a day -- or three to four in my case -- would be all right.

While my L3-4 disc was nice and plump, my L4-5 and other discs were toast. Flat as pancakes. My vertebrae were riding right on top of each other, without any shock absorption in between. And the facets were sitting on top of each other's gel-covered tips, where all the nerve endings are.

He explained that bone-on-bone was like riding on the rims of a car. Would I want to take that car to Daytona and drive around the track at 150 mph? No, I think not.

But, that is what I'd be doing if I ran more than a couple of miles a day. So be it.

Question is, really, can I pull off one more marathon on those rims? Can I qualify for the Boston? Don't trains run on rims?

Stay tuned. These tires are blown and I'm riding on rims, but I won't slow down.

Here's a new guy named Brock Zeman, with some pals, singing "Riding on the Rims."

I Walk The Line

I decided this morning that, rather than drive or ride my bicycle to the corner 7-11 to get my Sunday New York Times, I'd walk the short (half-mile) distance.

So, I put on my sweat pants, draped a hoodie over my long-sleeved Giants T-shirt and set out down my driveway. Imagine my consternation when the joint pain settled into my hips and I could barely stand up straight. Hands on the back of my hips, I hobbled down the street like an old man. Oy!

"Good morning," the chipper store clerk chirped as I entered the sanctum of fresh brewed coffee, 12-packs, and assorted degrees of fried food-like objects. "Morning," I grumbled, paying for my paper via debit card.

On the way back, I forced myself to stand up straight, swing the shoulders back and pick up the pace. The sooner I got home, the sooner I could take the pain pill I'd forgotten to take before my outward bound trek.

Once home, I settled onto the couch with a fresh hot cup of coffee and started dissembling the Times, eventually getting to this story about Jon Mendes, a 90-year-old man who was still running the New York Marathon. Well, running isn't quite the right word, more like walking, although he planned to jog the last 100 yards in. “Makes it look like you ran the whole way,” he told the Times.

And he likes to finish the race with a glass of Black Label!

I was inspired by the story of this ex-Marine colonel who flew with John Glenn and Ted Williams so much that I've decided, should I make it to 90, I will celebrate by participating in the New York Marathon. If I can't run it, I will walk it. And I will finish, even if I have to crawl across that line.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Johnny Cash:

Dry the Rain

I've been bicycling as a substitute for running. Pumping my mountain bike over the Melbourne causeway makes me wish I hadn't sold my road bike, but it's good exercise.

I do 12 miles -- over the causeway to Melbourne Beach and back. It's a good workout because it takes about an hour, doesn't pound the hell out of my SI Joint or aggravate all those bone spurs lined up between the sacrum and ilium like so many coral formations. And that incline is a bitch.

But the traffic is hell, especially with all that construction going on. I have to share the path with walkers and joggers, something I'm not fond of doing, especially when I whiz by at 15 mph and make little old ladies jump when I say, "Bike left!" or "Heads up!"

Days I'm not riding my bike, I'm doing piriformis stretches, yoga, physical therapy floor exercises. And I use a styrofoam roller I got from my chiropractor, Dr. John Workman.

I was doing quite a bit of that with the rain we've had these last two days.

One thing I've noticed: as the pain eases in my SI Joint, it seems to be centering on the hip socket. My massage therapist, Tony, has done a lot of work trying to calm down the tendons and fibers that connect my femur to my hip. It hurts like a mother fucker.

And it makes me wonder how that would feel if I were to take to the trails.

And now, here are The Shins doing a song of one of my faves, the Beta Band -- "Dry the Rain."

Bone-spurs on the saddle

This is depressing. I was doing great. Really enjoying building up my running regimen to about 20 miles a week.

But now I have to put a kybosh on the running, for a couple of months, anyway.

When I went in this morning for my second steroid injection for my SI Joint inflammation, my doctor and I discussed my running, how much of it I was doing, whether it was causing pain. He showed me a whole mess of bone spurs along my sacro-ilial joint. Strenuous exercise, pushing too hard, causes those spurs to jangle.

"Your injury is related to high levels of pounding," he said, preaching moderation in all things. "Although I suspect you and I have very different ideas of what moderation means."

Well, yeah. For more than two years I was training for and running in marathons. I was going through a new pair of training shoes every three months. So the idea of running three to five miles a day, with one nice 8-miler thrown in on the weekends didn't seem unreasonable, and it didn't seem to be hurting.

"The medicine I'm giving you lasts 4-6 weeks," he said, during which time I might not feel the pain that would normally register from my injury. Once the medication wore off, I'd be going around saying, "Like, hey, where did that come from?!"

Point taken: I'm still injured. His goal is to correct the injury, get me back to health and keep me from doing anything that would make that injury permanent. Pain has a way of following pathways, he said. If this had gone on for another year, I'd be owning this pain for the rest of my life.

That's why I'm here, I told the doc. Stop running, he said.

Do things that don't pound the joints. Stretch. Bike. Swim. Walk. Do yoga.

But for the next two months, he said, do not run.

That is going to be very tough indeed. Because these boots were not made for walkin'.

Now, here to ease my pain is "Blood on The Saddle," a classic Tex Ritter song done to death by The Dropdead Beats (with a lead singer channeling Tom Waits):