Sunday morning surprise

I headed down towards the bay this morning, unsure how long it would take as in would I walk or run, unsure of how my legs would go after a slow jog of 45 minutes yesterday. Of most concern again was my right knee, which was yet again the reason I’d done little enough running recently that a slow jog of that length, never mind a proper, energetic run, had been a real struggle. After a bit of walking, legs feeling OK, I said to myself, “I’m gonna have a run again”, took note of the time and started – though cautiously.

Half an hour later, the beach on one side of me and the busy road on the other, I saw something bright and orange ahead – plastic cones laid out in a line, in the middle of the path. When some fit looking dudes started to appear, coming at me with at least twice my speed, it dawned on me. Since I have a day off, this was the run I should be doing today! I remembered they put it on every year. The one I was going to enter several years ago if I hadn’t had work on the day. But this time I had stumbled on it by accident. Just past the beginning of the cones, the turnaround point for those who had started running from far away in the direction I was going – they came, with their numbered bibs – and past me they hurtled. Yes, I should be with them, I thought. Going at their speed, or at least somewhere near it. Because I should be in their condition. Should have done the half-marathon in May. Should have done the City2Surf in August. I should be going as fast as them because I should look like them, that is about 30-40 kg lighter than I am. But I didn’t, I haven’t and I’m not. My right knee has seen to that for more than 2 years now. It’s true I’ve been going somewhat in the right direction (as far as weight is concerned) using the newly discovered (for me) slow carb diet, but all too slowly. Soon they were past the turnaround point and coming back behind me, and whizzing past – yep, confirmed – at least twice my speed. I tried to “keep left” to stay out of their way.

Now I was getting tired. I made up my mind to get to the water fountain a bit further ahead, have a nice long drink and turn back. I’d already got to the 30 minutes my knee had typically allowed (though not too many days in a row) in recent months, and a bit beyond. Soon the density of athletic looking people powering past in both directions increased. It took a tricky manoeuvre to go across the oncoming traffic to the welcome water source. Then back in the other direction. The people a bit further back in the race were now going past at a little bit more like “my pace”, with emphasis on “a little bit”! It would have been easy to assume, approaching from behind, that I was in the race. After all, the bibs indicating participation are worn on the front. One would have to assume I’d been one of the foolish ones without the training behind me, having gone out too hard and now already spent approaching halfway. For a brief moment I could imagine the times I had been in running events like this, and take in the atmosphere, as if I was a real participant – with all the colour, excitement and sound of all those pounding feet and heaving lungs. But I couldn’t fool myself. I didn’t belong. Not any more. Everyone was still surging past me. I eased back on the effort level, insisting to myself that I was just going at my easy pace on an easy Sunday morning run (even though my lungs were pretty much burning), so I didn’t have to compare myself to them.

Then I saw the turnaround point, saw them all turning around and continued onwards – and boom! silence! I was alone again, on my own “easy-paced” run, like waking up from a dream. That was sobering, I thought. How far I have fallen from the times I was in among all that, all due to that stupid damn knee. But then a pleasant realisation hit me. I’d reached 45 minutes. For the second time in 2 days. And I was still going. I made a determination that I would keep going, for longer. Now the bay was behind me, the journey home ahead. 55 minutes. Something felt a bit niggly, was it just my imagination? Never mind. Enough for today. The rest of the journey home would be a walk. At the end of the walk, no knee soreness, just the vaguely felt muscle fatigue throughout the legs that says “how good is this – I’ve been for a run again!” and this without one Voltarin tablet entering my body during at least a few days before. But I was still feeling the difference between now – running dead slow for less than an hour and being physically spent, and then – running for over 2 hours at a much faster pace, and getting to the end feeling like I could have some more.

I guess there is now an elephant in the room – the question of does this story have a glorious epilogue? After all, it would seem running is not hurting my knee now. Well, for that particular race anyway, it will take about a year to answer that. For now, I await the telltale onset of soreness in that familiar right knee medial meniscus region this evening or tomorrow that tells me “you shouldn’t have done that”. I have been here before during the past year, only for it to hit later. There have been too many false dawns now not to expect it. But it may be different this time, one can only hope.