Side by Side – Stride for Stride

Ambitious goals and a torn muscle make for maximum frustration.

Two weeks after ripping a muscle in my lower leg, I tested it on the trails.

The first couple minutes brought a gnawing sensation that something wasn’t quite right. By twenty minutes in, my calf felt like it was in a vice grip being squeezed slowly and gently. Every step brought more pain. So I stopped. Angrily and reluctantly.

That was five days ago. Five more days without running. Five days of being hyperconscious of that injury every minute of every day. Grimacing when it causes pain. Rejoicing when I realize an hour has passed and I haven’t felt anything at all.

Days pass quickly. Weeks disappear. Months accumulate. Injuries take time. Goals loom. Training falters.

In September, I’m supposed to run my first marathon in six years. A trail race in the Cowichan Valley. I’ve targeted it. I want it. Not for a time goal. Not to be competitive. Just to complete it. To prove that I can get through the training injury free. To show myself, and my family, and the world that as I near 50, my body can still do what it did at 40, and at 30. And then a muscle tears, and mileage stops and race day nears quickly as I heal slowly.

But the marathon doesn’t matter. Not really. It’s a nice to do, not a must do.

Two weeks later there’s a must do. The Peace Officers Memorial Run from Abbotsford to Victoria. A marathon a day for 3 days straight. I’ve never done that. And I’m honoured to be part of a team that’s trying. We’ll run to honour colleagues and friends who died on the job. Adrenaline and emotion will fuel us. The run will be bigger than any of us. This one matters.

And as I write this, slouched in a chair, leg stretched out before me, I feel that calf muscle. Tight and sore. Reminding me to not even think about running for another week or two. So I won’t. I’ll ride the bike, and stretch and hit the weight room. I’ll yoga myself upside down and punish my core with crunches and leg lifts. I’ll use a heating pad, and ice, and three times a day I’ll choke my coworkers when I sit at my desk, roll up my pant leg and massage A535 into my body, convinced that the more I use and the harder I push, the quicker it will heal.

Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t. Time. Patience. Acceptance. I’ve had many running injuries. Sometimes they go away completely. Like they never happened at all. Others come and go, flaring up and subsiding with a will of their own. Some linger. Weave themselves into my body. Attain permanence. Forcing me to learn how to run around them or through them. To navigate the pain.

I walked this morning. With my daughter and our dog. While we played beside a stream my wife ran. Battling injuries of her own she relished a rare few minutes alone.

We hadn’t planned to meet up but we did, in the woods near our home. Our walk in the woods ended in tears for Molly when she banged her finger against a tree. There was no scratch. Not even a hint of blood. But she cried, desperate for a Band-Aid and for her dad to carry her home. Which I’d started doing, when Sonja turned the corner, mid-run. My daughter sprinted to Sonja and showed that uninjured thumb to her mother. And the tears subsided. And she didn’t need a Band-Aid anymore. And she asked to run with her mom.

So she did. In dancing shoes along a dirt path they ran away from me, side by side. Joyful strides both of them. And they were gone for a while. Because Molly kept running and running. Until they turned around and ran back to me. A happy dad taking picture after picture of his daughter and his wife trail running together.

Running. Family. Almost everything I write has those themes. I wish my range and imagination were broader. I wish my writing was funnier. I have taken to heart “write what you know” so I return again and again to those themes. I take inspiration from moments and from pictures. And most of those moments and pictures are running and family.

That’s how a post that started with a torn calf finished with a mom and daughter running together. My calf should heal with time. But it may hurt for a long time. Time will tell. And yet running brought me joy today. A mother and daughter, side by side, stride for stride.

… Although if you look closely at the picture, I’m pretty sure Molly won.