Raising the bar

At some point along the road to recovery, I knew I would have to get back on the horse and enter a 5K -- a real bona fide, sanctioned, timed running event.

I was putting it off until my pace had improved. I didn't want to run the risk of entering a 5K and finishing in over 30 minutes.

Turned out I had nothing to worry about.

Yesterday, I ran the Downtown Melbourne 5K, a charity run for The Haven for Children, a home for neglected and abused kids managed by my favorite shoe store, The Running Zone.

It was my first in two years. And I did it with brand new shoes: a pair of Brooks Ghosts.

I finished in 26:00.6, not my PR but a respectable 8:23 pace. I actually blazed the first mile out in 8:02.


I rewarded myself with a therapeutic massage after the race.

Frankly, I was surprised I did as well.

I'd been running e months for about four months following the steroid injection therapy into my SI joint, upping the mileage each week, trying to quicken my pace and gauging the pain afterwards.

I was afraid I'd never be able to run faster than a 9:15 pace. Glad I was wrong about that.

Next step, to up the ante. Get my pace down to 8 minutes per mile by the Melbourne Springtime Arts Festival 5K at the end of the month. My goal is 24 minutes.

See you at the finish line.

And now, here's Placebo doing their kick-ass version of "Running up that Hill."

High in the Andes

Back from Bogota less than a week. All I can say it's great to be breathing again at sea level.

I went for a few days of R&R, heard good things from friends who had been and looked forward to sightseeing, hiking the Andes, dancing the night away and maybe even some hang gliding.

I even took my running gear thinking I'd work in some mountain running.

Nobody mentioned the altitude sickness.

Day one was rough. I'd been up since 5 a.m., and spent about 10 hours traveling. When I arrived at the hotel I had to find a place to cash some travelers' checks, and was directed to an AMEX office at a mall around the corner. Walking across the street at a mild incline had me gasping for air.

By the time I got back to the hotel, I was exhausted. My lungs were burning. I downed a Club Colombia beer and slept for the next 14 hours.

The next day was better, but I never got used to the thin air at 8,600 feet. Didn't stop me from spending dawn to dusk exploring every nook and cranny of the city, from La Candelaria (the old colonial district downtown) to Usaquen in the north. So many museums and cafes and restaurants to see!

And Botero everywhere.

All that walking left me with no appetite to run, especially after taking the funicular up to Cerro de Monserrate, a beautiful cathedral on a mountain overlooking the city at 10,400 feet. Just walking the steps up to the cathedral took my breath away, let alone the view!

The real hike came Sunday, when I went to explore Laguna Guatavita, a circular lake of legend and myth. The Muisca tribal chiefs would paint themselves in gold and hurl themselves into the lake. I felt like doing the same thing after hiking an hour about 3,000 feet from the parking area.

We were above the tree line, looking down at an incredible countryside.

It wasn't until my last day that I discovered Coca Tea, which the Colombians drink to combat altitude sickness. Oh, well. I'll be better prepared next time.

Meanwhile, it's great to be back at sea level, breathing the moist, salty Florida air and running again.

And now, here's Cut Copy doing "Sun God," the last track off their latest album, Zonoscope:

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....

Manhattan Marathon

Running around Manhattan for four days must have been just the cross-training I needed because the second day I got home I ran 9 miles at a solid 10-minute pace.

That was the good part.

The downside of all this is that about eight hours later I was having a blazing muscle spasm in my left hip.

That was odd. I've spent the last 18 months recuperating from an injury to my right hip's SI Joint, culminating in three months of steroid injections.

So what's this?

Fortunately, the spasms hit toward the end of the work day. I managed to get through the last hour, walked out to my car and popped a Tramadol and a muscle relaxer. By the time I got home, the pain was subsiding a little bit. Two glasses of Cotes du Rhone later and the pain was gone.

This morning, I feel like my old self again. Which is to say, a little sore but ready to run.

Maybe I'm ready for a half-marathon, after all.

And now, here's The Stranglers, with "Something Better Change."

Telltale Signs of Wear & Tear

The pool where I swim is one of those places where triathletes gather to train, shoot the breeze, compare performance times and trade war stories.

One of those triathletes is a friend I'll call Wolf. He's about two years older than me and had a hip replacement two years ago and has recovered marvelously. I see him running every now an then at a pretty good clip on the same street  run on, and he is swimming, biking and doing yoga.

Yesterday, I told him about my hip injury from the Tupelo Marathon a year and a half ago, the terrible time I had getting a proper diagnosis, and the steroid injections in my right SI joint that got me back on the road to recovery. Because of my lingering concerns about hip deterioration and thinking one day I might need hip replacement surgery, I asked him what sort of signals he was getting from his body before he needed surgery.

"I broke my leg running the New York City Marathon," he said He'd been running with a hairline fracture that broke clean through and left him laying on the pavement waiting for an ambulance.

The hospital repaired the damage with a bunch of pins, the hip got infected and after several surgeries he had the hip completely replaced.

His hip is fine, he said. Now it's his left knee.

"Sucks getting old," I told him.

We had a laugh about that but it got me thinking. What if I've been running with a hairline or stress fracture and don't even know it? I could be running merrily along when, Pow! My hip breaks, or my femur shatters and down I go. That feeling I had at mile 20 in the Tupelo race sure felt like something snapped.

Stress fractures don't show up on regular x-rays. You would need a PET scan, my chiropractor friend John said over drinks at the pub last night.

I'm sure that's not the case with me, just arthritis from age. As I told Wolf, it sucks getting old.

Which reminds me. Time to sign up for the NYC Marathon.

And now, here's "Duchess" by The Stranglers:

Stars of Track & Field

Because I was unable to run the Melbourne and the Beaches Music Marathon this past weekend, I did the next best thing: I volunteered.

• Out at the starting area and registration table at 6:30 a.m., greeting runners in the light drizzle and cheering them on.
• At the starting line just before 7 a.m., a megaphone thrust into my hand, telling everyone to stay to the right of the orange cones if they wanted their race chips to activate.
• Moving boxes to the storage trailer and heading over to the finish line to await the first finishers for the half-marathon.

It was at that point that Deb, the volunteer coordinator, handed me a key to the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce building and said, "Go over there and open it at 8 a.m. for the elite runners."

It wasn't what I had in mind. I had imagined myself handing out water and Gatorade at one of the dozens of stations along the course, or riding my bike back and forth looking for stragglers, the injured or the lame.

But staying out of the rain and cold for a couple of hours wasn't such a bad thing, and I'd still get to watch the middle-pack runners come across the finish later. My people.

I was sitting at a computer in the lobby when the first runners came in. They startled me so that I grabbed my flimsy styrofoam cup of coffee and spilled it on the floor. After cleaning up, I started greeting the incoming runners -- among the best amateur athletes in the nation. They'd come from Colorado, Chicago and northern Pennsylvania to run in our little race.

But the biggest moment of the day came when Bill Rodgers (seated in photo at right) and Frank Shorter came into the room. Rodgers sat, exhausted, drenched in sweat. I shook his hand and told him what a fan I had been since high school. We chatted about his performance a bit, the course and the weather. 

Shorter came in moments later, wearing a hat and sweating. He said he had run the course backwards. I told him it was because of him and Rodgers that I began running cross-country in high school and continue to run to this day.

They both seemed like really nice, down-to-earth guys -- and a lot smaller than I'd imagined.

Zola Budd (standing in photo) was there, too. And for the record, yes, she was wearing running shoes.

It was a grand moment in my life, and my reward for helping out. From now on, whenever I'm injured or not ready in my training cycle to run a marathon, I'd gladly volunteer again.

And now, here's Mercury Rev with "Goddess on a Highway":

Grease is the word

When you haven't run real distances in a while, say anything over 4-5 miles, you sometimes forget one crucial ingredient: grease.

Last week, when I wound up running 9 miles, I forgot to grease up the legs and I suffered all day for it with raw, chafed skin on my inner thighs.

Today, before I kicked off a moderate 7.5 miler, I applied Vaseline to the upper legs. 

What a difference a little lube job can make.

So, from now on, whenever I run over 6 miles, out comes the jar of petroleum jelly.

The hard part is washing it off afterwards. I recommend Dr. Bronner's peppermint castile soap.

For the record: 7.5 miles at 1:18:52 for a moderate 10:30 pace. That's far off from what I was running before my SI Joint and hip socket injuries, but I'll take it.

The idea for now is to increase distance on weekends, and increase pace during the shorter runs during the week.

Swimming complements the road work perfectly. The muscles I work out running get a rest when I swim, and the swimming strengthens the core for when I'm running.

Thursday's swim was so much better than Monday's. I cannot wait to get into the pool again.

And now, for your musical entertainment, here's the original video of Flaming Lips doing "She Don't Use Jelly."