Today concludes the second day of rest for my achilles. I've been off my feet most of the day, only a little walking in running shoes - no pain, no twinges, just a lingering tightness - but still I came downstairs one step at a time (accompanied by a rather unnerving noise akin to a rice bubble breakfast coming from my left knee) and shuffled to my table as if I was wearing ice skates. I generally find the stairs at home quite narrow, so I come down slowly at the best of times, but I'm favouring my ankles because they don't feel loose and supple.
The key is technique. Particularly when speed in creases, I must be landing too much on my toes and absorbing that and regenerating that giant impact too much directly through the achilles, rather than allowing that wonderful, 20-something boned foot to spread, flex and dissipate the force as it touches down. Perhaps the excitement of running with humans again is distracting me from the lessons learned a couple of months ago - bend knees, land lightly, fall forward for speed. Old habits die very hard.
This is a good time to literally stop and think about running properly.
Motivation. Maybe I could have called this entry "addiction". Two days without running and all I want to do is run. The need for running is twinged with a little edge of guilt that I maybe probably could've gone out gently today, but no.....
I don't seem to need motivation for running now. That's been taken care of by a heightened baseline of endorphins coursing through me, or at least the memory of it. Arriving back at the WAMC clubhouse on Wednesday, I joked "It feels so good when you stop!" - and that was the absolute truth.
But what about life? What's the motivator there?
Why do I show up to work each day - particularly right now with days filled with endlessly dull regulatory documentation? It's mine. Whether dull or fun (that's when I'm making stuff), it's mine. The effort and the results are mine.
Tonight my head is buzzing with new ideas being formed, judged, morphed, discarded and rearranged for a couple of new product design jobs. The sensation of this is something like an endorphin rush - there's a blast of activity, then a stop, accompanied by a whoosh of "I did that" feel-good-ness.
This week I've also been pleasantly surprised to learn that I do have a small but dedicated readership, gaining some level of enjoyment from reading. This takes the "I did that" and validates it.
So this blogging thing is meeting it's objectives thus far: I am keeping a record of my running, which is naturally spilling over to everyday life. Noticing things during the day and crafting some sort of blog entry around it has become a firm habit already, and the discipline of both taking the time to write and live up to it must be a good thing.
Before it gets all too philosophical...
I made a new batch of balls, though they are more like bullets, courtesy of the only tool I could fnd to make round shaped lumps - a measuring scoop. This batch has chia seeds in it as well - I figure if they are good for those Indians galumphing round the Mexican canyons in sandals, they'll obviously turn me into a super hero. (No, really... see "Born to Run" by Christopher Mcdougall and the Tarahumara Indians.... Yes, I read it and Yes, it was the final straw that saw me shell out for funky fingens).
Besides all that, they're yummy.
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