10 things I learned about running
Last October, I needed to put my car in the garage for periodic maintenance. The garage is located 3 miles from my house, so I decided to run the way back home. After 31 very long minutes (I can swear each minute contained more than 60 seconds), I arrived home and concluded that I am totally out of shape. The same day, a friend who never used to run posted on FB that he registered for Nike night run, a 10k race. I had only four weeks until the event, but I decided to register as well.
Surprisingly it was much easier for me than I expected. I managed to finish the race in 58 minutes, definitely not a personal record, but I was delighted to exercise three times a week, which isn’t trivial when you have two infants at home.
The slope of my improvement was spectacular. In December, I finished 10k in 50 minutes. In February, I did my first half marathon, and four weeks later, my second half in 1:50. There was a 10k race in my hometown in April, and I beat my all-personal record finishing the race in 47 minutes. My corridor chats at the office were about cadence, the new Garmin, and spring marathons results.
The next month we had a family vacation, and while walking in a ravine where there was a thin stream of water flowing, I slipped, twisted my knee, and tore my left knee lateral meniscus. It took six months of exhausting PT, but I am running again. The pace is not as before the injury, but the satisfaction of arriving at the office after finishing 10k morning jogging is priceless.
In the meantime, I would like to share with you ten hilarious facts I discovered about running during my journey.
- Garden Hills is actually located on a hill. Funny, for years, I was driving there and never noticed that.
- Burning calories is much harder than consuming. Burger and fries equal to half a marathon.
- Meniscus is not a nasty word in Greek. It is a crucial part of our knee.
- Tearing it (Meniscus) is one the worst thing that can happen to a runner, not Greek but nasty.
- Physiotherapist and dental hygienist share much in common. They both share sadistic characteristics and provide a “todo” list (dental flask, one leg squat with closed eyes), which you’ll quit doing after two days.
- Even the toughest guy will drop a tear watching his nipple bleeding.
- No matter how tired you are, a non fastened dog will make you run like Usain Bolt.
- If you think a minute goes by really fast, you have never been on a treadmill. What can I say? I’m a street jogger.
- You know you are a runner when you run up and down the street 3 or 4 times to get the last 1/4 of a mile in your Garmin.
- Running is the answer! The question is pretty much irrelevant.
