Running Reset
Finding the love of the sport again after a wake-up call
I’m running on a treadmill, supervised by a cardiologist. This is a stress test. The idea is to get my heart rate above 180 beats per minute and keep it there for a while. After a few minutes, she stops the treadmill and asks me if I ran as a teenager. “I ran on the cross-country team,” I reply. “Then this is a waste of time,” she sighed. “We’ll never get your heart rate up. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your heart.”
I graduated from high-school 50 years ago and, at the time of the test, it had been 15 years since I’d last gone for a run.
What prompted the stress test was a minor health alert. One morning after some gardening, I could feel my heart pounding away twice as fast as my normal resting rate of 46 beats per minute. A little weeding couldn’t have caused this. A much more likely cause was stress from work, where I was coping with task overload and unrealistic deadlines.
My hiatus from running was caused by severe plantar fasciitis in both heels which took over a year to shake. I never wanted to go through that again. I still had hiking, golf and gardening, and I started frequenting a gym. But I missed running. The sterile confines of the gym in no way provided an enjoyable aerobic substitute for my regular morning canter.
The doctor’s comment got me thinking about how much I missed running and how I needed to find a way back to a sport I really loved.
First, new running shoes – ones that would hopefully reduce the risk of injury. I purchased a pair for a whopping $200, and it was the best $200 I’ve ever spent. Three years later, they still serve me well with very little wear despite my running three to four times a week. I’ve had no injury, no pain – no problems whatsoever. Starting off again wasn’t easy. My legs and ankles had absolutely no spring, like running on stumps of wood. A simple jog around the block was painful. Running in my 60s is very different from running in my 40s, but I knew I could get it back. Soon, I was able to run three kilometres, then built up to five, and then I was nearly back in the groove.
My new groove is a lot less rigorous than my old groove. Ever conscious of the dreaded plantar fasciitis, I never run two days in succession. My weekday morning runs are between four and six kilometres, while my weekend runs range between 10-15 kilometres. I’m not fanatical. If it’s raining hard I don’t go. I’m under no illusions about my inherent ability. I know I’m not fast but I feel like a teenager again as I trot along. But I’m enjoying it more than ever.
I feel like I’m running on a chunk of time that I banked during that 15-year hiatus, and that I’ll likely be able to run well past what would have been my “best before” date.
The sweetest benefit of my re-entry into the runner’s lifestyle is that I now run with my daughter Katie each year at the Lululemon Seawheeze Half-Marathon. It’s wonderful to be able to do that, and I’m already looking forward to this year’s event. Simon Ruddell ran cross-country as a high-school student, and coached teams as a high-school teacher in B.C.