Running in retirement

For some reason, I can't get the running thing going anymore, so I have stopped doing it for now.  I just can't get used to shelving the attempts at running even if only temporarily, but I guess I have to. I am learning I can kickbike fine and the mountain bike works too, but something about the stress of running is too much.

Two weeks ago I did one 4 mile run and two 8 milers on the kickbike
Last week I did 12 miles of mountain biking, 28 miles of kickbiking and one 4 mile run.

I think my problem is below the knee and in the ankle-foot area. After I went to the podiatrist two weeks ago I realized he only did two of the three manipulations that he usually does. When I figured out he missed one, I called back to the office and was told I could make another appointment (too expensive for a 5 minute visit), but I was he told didn't do the other manipulation because he thought it might push things too far. I am not one to argue, but it I got one 4 mile run out of the last appointment and then my foot was all off again. I don't feel like affording another appointment so I am seeing if I can get the muscles to pull my foot down on their on. It is still pointing to the side and inverting so the toe is higher than the outside of the foot. It makes it look or act like my foot supinates while I run, but I am not sure of exactly what is going on.

The manipulations I had last December lasted months not days. These manipulations used to be on youtube but were taken down a few months ago. I have found them again here. He did the popliteus and the cuboid mobilizations, but not the first metatarsal mobilization. He also didn't watch me walk after the manipulations so I am wondering if he may have missed something important.

I do see a new Physical Therapist on Wednesday to check out my hip. He is a marathon runner from the Newton-Wellesley Hospital where I had my hip surgery. At this point I need some extra advice on the pressure in my hip when I run and I am thinking it comes from my lower leg throwing my stride off so I hope they can look there and possibly do the missed mobilization and get the stiffness out of my hip when I run.

I already realize I won't be making the full comeback to running this year that I visualized just a couple months ago. I guess I have to keep being patient to get things right.

So to work on my feet I have been doing the Somatic exercises that Sue sent me. I have also been doing these Somatic foot exercises from Martha Peterson (full page with explanations):




These have helped somewhat with my foot positioning and figuring out how the foot should move. I have a hard time everting the foot. I notice improvements on the footbike. I have gone from landing on the outside of my foot to a more flatfooted landing with movement towards controlling my big toe and 1st MTP joint.

I also found these explanations of the anterior tibiallis muscle on the Engaging Muscle Facebook book and website. They are clear explanations of how this muscle works and I wonder if this is causing my foot to land on the side.Rick at Engaging Muscles has answered some questions on their Facebook page to help me understand what is going on a bit more. Strangely enough, right after I wrote Rick, another reader of my blog chimed in with questions similar to mine. I am not the only one with the strange hip-foot rotations and so it is fun to compare notes and figure out what works with other people with similar biomechanics.



This one is really interesting as it shows how the foot moves.



I am looking forward to starting some new PT and asking some good questions. Here is another silly but informative post from the Gait Guys about supination. I am not sure what the exact problem is. I do know my foot isn't working correctly. I have to fix that before the I can run on that hip, I guess.

More on Bekoji: The Ethiopian town that's home to the world's greatest runners

What do Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba, Derartu Tulu and Fatuma Roba have in common, apart from being Olympic gold medal-winning runners? They all come from Bekoji in Ethiopia – and they were all trained by one man

The Guardian has a new article The Ethiopian town that's home to the world's greatest runners by Simon Hattenstone that tells more about the Ethiopian village of Bekojii that I wrote about here. Bekoji seems to be the Ethiopian version of Iten in Kenya, turning out scores of the greatest distance runners this planet has ever seen. It is definitely worth the read. There is also an accompanying slideshow of 12 photographs related to the story here. Here are some interesting tidbits that I enjoyed.

If Sentayehu Eshetu is not the world's greatest coach, he is surely the greatest discoverer of running talent. In London this summer, two of the 54-year-old's most successful former prodigies, Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba, will defend Olympic golds at 5,000m and 10,000m. Then there's his first champion, Derartu Tulu, who won the Olympic 10,000m in Barcelona in 1992 and eight years later in Sydney, and Fatuma Roba, who won the Olympic marathon in 1996 in Atlanta; and the latest generation of champions – Tirunesh's sister Genzebe, only 21 and already world indoor champion at 1500m, and Kenenisa's younger brother Tariku who won the 3000m gold at the World Indoor Championships.

Although many champion runners come from Bejoki, it is not easy for the young runners, as the coach Sentayehu Eshetu makes clear. Some don't have the talent. Leaving to go to training camps with miserable conditions does not suit many of the runners. Those who choose running fall behind in school. However there is something in the air:

Coach is thinking about why so many great runners come from here – determination, physical strength from working the land, huge lungs, role models, perfect body shape. (Many of the most successful distance runners have been small, light and immensely strong, with a superhuman capacity to endure – the biopic of Ethiopia's most famous runner, Haile Gebrselassie, who comes from down the road in Asella, is called Endurance.) 

The article highlight the new documentary on the town called Town of Runners and some of the runners seen in the film, but it also focuses some attention on some of the greats from the town such as the two time 10000 meters Olympic Gold medalist Derartu Tulu.

Did people treat them differently after Derartu won? "If the neighbours have problems, they ask, and Derartu will help. Even if they don't ask, she can see and will help. That's how she is."

Many of the runners like Tulu came back to Bejoki to thank their coach, but others never offered thanks, although he is OK with that. It doesn't seem like he has been paid well for his coaching and his discovery and mobilization of such talent.

On the way back, Coach tells me Derartu has always been his favourite champion. "Everybody loves her. She is sociable." Do the successful runners keep in touch with him when they leave for Addis? "Some do. Some come back and say thank you after they have won the Olympics, some don't. Derartu and Kenenisa and Tirunesh all said thank you, the others didn't." Does it bother him? "No. The reward is seeing them win."

The author also makes a stop in Addis to meet with Haile Gebrselassie's wife Alem. You might remember her from the Disney Biopic Endurance, both Haile and Alem acted as themselves in the movie and this interview tells more of the awkward scene where Haile first speaks with Alem.

Haile is out working, but Alem welcomes me. She tells me how they got together. She had a shop in Addis, on Haile's running route. She didn't know who he was – just another man who ran past quickly every day. After a year he walked in and asked for her phone number. It took her a while to realise he was asking her out: "He was shy." He thought she was above his station.

And then I guess we learn the real secret to the greatest distance runner of all time. He just loves to run!

 Alem is dressed in an elegant trouser suit. She stands on the balcony as we talk, queen of all she surveys. Is Haile one of the wealthiest men in Ethiopia now? "Yes, he is one of them." She giggles, embarrassed. Does he still run? Try stopping him, she says. "He runs everywhere. There is construction work we are doing, and he runs there. Then he runs in the mountains."

But running is a hard life, more telling is what the Gebrselassie family wants for their children.

They have four children, the oldest 13, the youngest six. Are they runners? She looks shocked. "No! They are students." Would she prefer it if they won Olympic gold or went into business? "For me, I prefer first learning. The same for Haile."

I also liked learning more about about those mysterious Ethiopian form or gymnastic drills.

The emphasis is on stretching and loosening, and he refers to the routines as gymnastics. There are so many different exercises – running on the front of your toes, on the back of your heels, bending low and scattering imaginary crops, skipping with an invisible rope, duck-walking, goose-stepping, horse-cantering. "Up, up, up," Coach says, as the athletes lift their legs ever higher. 

Here is a video of Bekoji made a couple of years ago when some runners visited the town and the coach.






A great DVD starring Ethiopian great Haile Gebrselassie: Endurance

Inspirational Story: Because I Can by Janet Oberholtzer

What happens after a sudden and tragic accident when you go from being a healthy and happy runner on a family vacation to being in an unexpected battle for your life? What happens when the recovery process brings physical, mental, and spiritual pain? Janet Oberholtzer was vacationing with her family in California when a horrible accident left her left leg and pelvis desperately broken. Doctors were not sure she or her left leg could even be saved and there were certainly fears that if she survived walking might be an impossibility too. Running? Surely never again! Because I Canis a story that documents the slow healing process that Janet undergoes in her quest to recover from her injuries and ultimately to recover her stride and her spirit as she makes her way back to running.


Because I Canis not a self-help or self congratulatory book that offers easy answers as easy answers were not to be for Janet. It is more a  book detailing Janet's personal and painful  journey during the process of recovery. It doesn't tell you how to deal with the the emotions and pain of such a trauma. It doesn't tell you how to transform a battered body back to the point where it can recover enough to run and it doesn't tell you how to deal with the spiritual discomfort that comes when you question your innermost lifelong beliefs. Instead, you learn  how Janet overcame the impossible situations and the many struggles that marked her life following the accident.

When I was a kid, I would often read through old copies of Reader's Digest when I was bored. It seemed every issue has some fantastic survival story about how someone overcame a tragedy or illness of some sort and beat the odds of survival. I always enjoyed these short stories demonstrating the power of the human will and spirit. Janet's story is more in depth than any Reader's Digest story. It gave me the appreciation for the length of time and the many emotions that someone goes through as they overcome an adverse situation and that is something that no Reader's Digest condensed story could ever do.  The book is not really about running, but we do learn how Janet started as a runner willing herself to build up to a 10 mile workout within a one year time span. Janet accomplished her goal on the last day possible. While in the hospital her words certainly define her as a runner:

Thinking of running made me want to get off the bed and run! My brain works better when my body is in motion, so running around the block would have helped me process what I was in the middle of. Or even better, run away from the nightmare I'd been in for the past seven weeks.

And later on her journey back to running:

With each step I took I again realized that there's something about running that makes me feel alive. I can't even explain it, but I am drawn to it and find meaning it it. So the months of half-marathon training were not only good for my body, but also my mind and spirit.

But before that, we find Janet in California on vacation with her family. She gets into that terrible RV accident leaving her at death's door. The injuries and slow progress towards healing lead her to a place of pain, confusion, and doubts. The book is a memoir of her many struggles while in and out of hospitals.

Janet gives an honest appraisal of her emotions and thoughts as she tries to piece herself back together. Her struggles in the hospital made me realize how difficult it is for someone to fully recover from trauma  as she rebuilds her fractured body and spirit. As I struggle with minor injuries that keep me from my athletic goals, I can certainly  admire someone with much more severe struggles and use it as a lesson to enjoy my own health and what I do have. Janet's journeys through multiple surgeries and recoveries were eye-opening to me. I am not sure that I would handle her situation well at all and because Janet emphasizes her frailties rather than describing herself as a hero, I was able to identify with her more closely. That is what made Janet's book fascinating to read. She tells it like it was and it wasn't always pretty. Her doubts were real, but through the process she eventually finds herself in a new place. Her body does more than she and others imagined. She learns to run again. She works through difficulties in her marriage and her tendency to blame her husband for the accident. She appreciates more deeply the struggles of her sister Rosene and she redefines her relationship with God.

I enjoyed reading about Janet's journey throughout the book. As I was reading it on my Kindle, I had a hard time picturing Janet, even though I felt like a family member reading her intimate story and it wasn't until later in the book that I got a grainy glimpse of Janet on my black and white Kindle. I kept reading about her troublesome "deformed" calf and at the end of the book she finally "revealed" her injury. I think it is a battle scar that should not be hidden, as she reluctantly learns, for it is a testament to her strength and resolve.

I understand that Janet's journey continues on and she is looking forward to running her first marathon since the accident near the end of  May. How great is that! If you want to keep reading about Janet's adventures and her writing you can visit her blog here.
 Don't ever think you can't!

Ethiopian Running Documentary: Town of Runners

Here is the trailer for a new documentary on an Ethiopian town that has produced some of the greatest distance runners the world has ever seen: 

Town of Runners is a feature documentary about young runners from Bekoji - an Ethiopian highland town which has produced some of the world's greatest distance athletes, including Tirunesh Dibaba, Kenenisa Bekele and Derartu Tulu. 

Watch and share our trailer here, explore the stories behind the film, and follow all our news up to the film's release on April 20th April 2012.

Runners from Bekoji have won 8 Olympic gold medals, broken 10 world records,  and won 32 world championships.  This feature length documentary follows a few young runners from this town in their quest to achieve running greatness. It also looks like it follows female athletes, which is an interesting twist on the African running documentaries that seem to focus more on the male runners. It looks fascinating and I hope it makes it across the ocean someday as it seems like it is playing more in the British Isles. The Town of Runners website has additional information and video clips highlighting the town, the featured runners, and other things like the yearly remaking of the town track.


Town Of Runners Trailer from Met Film Production on Vimeo.

Some of the clips on the trailer reminded me of scenes in the Haile Gebrsalasie movie Endurance (which is finally out on DVD at Amazon), although the parents in this movie seemed more accommodating of their children's desire to be great runners than Halie's father did in that movie.

Update: Here is another athlete from Bekoji who is running the Boston Marathon this year. Askale Tafa Magarsa ran 2:22:23 in Dubai in January, a marathon she won last year. She also was the Paris Marathon winner last year.

While I was in Kenya this summer, one of the most relaxing times that I have ever had was at an Ethiopian restaurant outside Nairobi. We had traditional Ethiopian food.

I am not a coffee drinker. I tried it once in high school and didn't like it, so I never tried it again. However, this young lady was making the coffee for us in front of the restaurant, so I had to give coffee another go. It was good, but it kept me up most of the night!

Standing outside led to lots of conversations with the Ethiopian servers. I talked with this gentleman about the great Ethiopian runners, the history of Ethiopia (it is 2003 on their calendar), and their writing system. He wrote my name out for me and somehow I lost it . He also said that the Ark of the Covenant is in Ethiopia. I always though we lost it in some USA military warehouse!

Hitting ReStart: When in doubt always go back to the feet!

After nearly one month of not feeling right and barely running and just feeling like I was wasting time on Stand By mode, I have hopefully found a Restart point again as well as a new perspective of how long it may take to recover my stride. Last week's mileage was minimal again. After running 3 miles on Sunday, I did the same thing on Monday. I ran 2 miles on the trails, did a lunge matrix and other mobility and stretching moves and then went to run the mile back to my car. The glutes started tightening up again, so I walked it in. I knew deep down what was wrong, but I am trying to do one thing at a time to see what works and doesn't work and at this time the trigger point injections from the previous week did not do much. When things started going south a few weeks back as I was upping the mileage, the glutes were the obvious thing giving me pain, but I also noticed my left foot was pointing  out to the side more and not landing correctly on the ground. In the past couple of weeks I tried everything to fix it: rest, different stretches, mobility exercises, massaging or pressing on tight spots on my lower leg, but nothing would fix the rotation around the ankle joint  or the stressing of the muscles, joints, and fascia going up the left side of my body pulling and pinching.

I then got an another appointment with podiatrist Dr. Howard Dannanberg to have him do adjustments on my lower leg and foot. The last time he did this back in December it helped bring that foot rotation under control. Friday, I went in and had the simple adjustments to my stuck fibula and then to the cuboid bone. It was over quickly, but Dr. Dannanberg knows his stuff and works magic on those bones. I get pretty much instant relief and then it takes a couple of days for the muscle tissues to readjust and finish calming down.

According to Dr. Dannanberg the bones just get stuck and or get out of position. There doesn't seem to be a real stressor that "makes" that happen and not much I can do, except come back when it happens again. He does say that in time it will take more and more time between adjustments until I won't need it done again. It does seem to be the best magic bullet I have to get things back into the best alignment that I can.  I guess next time I notice the glute pain coming on along with the joint and muscle pain, I need to look down and see where my foot is pointing as well as notice that my foot cannot roll on the ground properly, then I need to make a phone call as soon as possible to get those bones manipulated back into position.

I lost a lot of my enthusiasm for getting back into shape as quickly as possible with this setback and realized that I may not be ready for 40-50 mile weeks just yet or trying to get into some sort of racing shape by the summer. I think this is going to take longer than I thought, so I don't want to blow it by being too ambitious. Dr. Dannanberg told me the same thing. I need to tone it down. My bones may be fine, but it takes a long time for the soft tissues to catch up. He thinks I should stick to 20-30 miles per week with runs between 3-5 miles for another six months. This is hard as I think an 8 mile run is a happy run, but I see the sense in being patient even when I don't want to be patient. I need to start cranking the kettlebells more again and take out my TRX and must work on overall strength and fitness instead of jumping into the marathoner mindset.Maybe I can throw a little speed in there too.

I ran 3 miles after my appointment and then finally decided what training shoes to get so that I can do my best running in the next few months. The four shoes I have used running since the operation in July are unusual shoes: the Skechers GoRun, the Altra Instinct, the Hoka One One Bondi B, and a 5 year old pair of extremely worn out Asics HyperSpeeds. Most people might consider my shoe choice quite interesting, but I won't spill the beans just yet. It took a lot of thought and experience of using the different shoes with and without orthotics over the past two months. I got the new shoes on Saturday and ran 4 miles in them on Sunday and am pretty much pleased with my choice!

Total miles for the week: 9 miles

Dr. Dannanberg also told me to try this topical creme on my muscles and joints pre and post run or when my muscles are tight. It is called Motion Medicine and it looks like he is introducing it here in the USA after discovering it Canada. Dr. Dannanberg is a very smart guy who knows his stuff so I am giving it a shot. Strangely enough, when my foot is tweaked to the outside, I get really tight all up my leg and lower back. The night before seeing Dr. Dannanberg, I spent an hour or two not sleeping and using a stick and foam roller on my quads which had somehow tightened up despite not exercising for a few days. I think it is a chain reaction effect from one thing being tight and passing it on upstream as that leg goes out of balance. I haven't used anything on my muscles like this for years (could have used it the night before), so I will be interested in seeing how it works for me. It has a camphor oil smell-so yes, you will get noticed if you use it out in public, and it goes on cool and then is supposed to feel warm. It doesn't overheat if you run with it on. I tried that with a Capsaicin based creme once right before a run many years ago and boy did things heat up to an intolerable level! Never used that stuff again!

Here Dr. Dannanberg explains how he was introduced to Motion Medicine and how it works.



For some additional perspective on injuries, one of my favorite long-running threads on Letsrun.com is the "loss of coordination in leg" thread started in 2006. I started chiming in back in 2007 before I even started this blog. It is where I first met other runners with similar problems as mine and we shared all sorts of ideas and information. I first heard of labral tears on this thread. Last week there was a sobering thread by a poster named "tumor". I am TDF on the thread. Tumor talked about the symptoms he had the led to a scary problem:

A couple of years ago I started to develop some scuffing in my left foot. I also found myself tripping while I ran in the trails. I would also find that my big toe would tingle or occasionally go numb. I also had three stress fractures occur in my left shin two years ago. The doctor took an MRI of my lower back two years ago and they felt it was a pinched nerve at L5. 
Fast forward to this past summer I found myself scuffing and an increasing pronounced foot drop. I asked to have another MRI and all looked good. The doctor agreed to take another MRI further up my spine and they found an egg sized tumor in the upper thoracic spinal canal. I went in for surgery to have my tumor removed and thank god it was not cancerous. I was left paralyzed from the waist down and rehab has been going well and there is hope I may be able to walk and possibly run again. My recommendation to anyone with loss of coordination is to make sure you advocate for yourself. The neurosurgeon told me that if I had not pushed for the another MRI of the upper spine I might of had only another month and it would of left me completely paralyzed from the waist down.

Sunday morning, an article on the local newspapers website caught my attention. I realized that I knew who Tumor was. He is a local runner, teacher, and coach and the article tells more about what happened to him. I am very glad Art found the tumor in time and wish him the best on his recovery. You can't complain about your own injuries when someone you know is dealing with so much more.

 I think about how valuable the internet is for runners and other people to share and learn from each other. I know I would be completely retired from running if I didn't' do the diligence to find out what was wrong with my leg and hip.  We also get to meet people with similar problems and offer help and advice to each other in many ways like on message boards. A runner named Sue has written back and forth at times with me before and within hours after my appointment on Friday, I got another email that was just spot on! She is working through problems with the ankle joint like I am and has a similar stride. She mentioned getting foot mobilizations and that she was doing Somatic exercises too! I liked the line she sent, "When in doubt always go back to the feet!" That was perfect after realizing the same thing hours before. She also sent some Somatic foot movements that were simple and just what I needed for exploration, so thanks, Sue! We'll get this thing licked sooner or later!

Just run until you throw up!

What makes Iten, in Kenya''s Rift Valley, the home of champions? Is it the altitude, the genetics, early identification of talent, the lifestyle, or simply the diet of Ugali (it did not taste good to me!)? CNN takes a look at what makes the Kenyan runners so great. Can it simply be the hunger and motivation for success. As one Kenyan athlete said, "Just run until you throw up!"



 Whatever it is just take a look at the Kenyan runners doing some track workouts. I think it is more than just a mindset. Take a look at those bodies move. Is it mightily impressive.
Compilatie CPC from Like2Run on Vimeo.

The Great American Footrace

The Great American Footrace is a documentary on the amazing 1928 "Bunion Derby" a footrace across the United States. Back then there was no highway system and roads were poor, so to celebrate the opening of Route 66 the footrace was promoted to gather publicity. Maybe people would realize, "If you could run across the country, certainly you could drive across it without fear." So a promoter who was likened to P.T. Barnum , one Charles. C. Pyle was hired to organize and run this trans-continental race with an advertised winners prize of $25,000.

This documentary highlights the 1928 era with historical video footage and photographs as it tells the tale of this great adventure. It also highlights a 19 year year old Cherokee youth who, "Simply thought he could do it." And he did. I remember reading about this race years ago in a book which may have been this one: The Bunion Derby: Andy Payne and the Great Transcontinental Footrace. There are newer books detailing this race including Bunion Derby: The 1928 Footrace Across America, and Cash and Carry: The Spectacular Rise and Hard Fall of C.C. Pyle, America's First Sports Agent. The DVD or instant stream is on Amazon: Great American Foot Race, however I was able to watch the video online for free here: The Great American Footrace. Snag Films is a website that makes me want to get a Roku Streaming Player so that I can watch other documentaries like this for free on my television rather than on my computer.

Here is a preview of the movie. Click on it to see the whole movie.




 Here is a long biography of one of the participants as printed in Marathon and Beyond Magazine.

Stone lets you feel the misery of surviving on horrible food, sleeping in leaky tents, and running, on average, 40 miles a day over some of the most challenging terrain on the planet. After reading his account, you begin to understand how seemingly normal men could overcome the challenges of transcontinental racing. He gives you a window into the souls of the 55 men who finished the race.