Running for Your Life: Chi Plea

Maybe it’s my stronger core, smoother foot strike, overall body strength, but I learned on Aug. 30 that I can still run, continue to train, while waiting for my orthotics to be refurbished. Thank God for that – and for Eddie, who runs the coolest shop in the Rockefeller Center concourse, old school cobbler who I trust will make those pain-relieving lifts as good as new on Wednesday (Sept. 4), a week before I’ll be taking on that pesky long run (Sept. 11th, of course, and my route will take me right past Ground Zero . . .) with the idea of getting in three hours, running or walking, whatever it takes to put in the long one, 20 miles to 22 miles. From Brooklyn brownstone to Harlem. While I had hoped to do it at the end of the August, Sept. 11 will mark 32 days before Steamtown. Pretty much exactly where I want to be, in my training schedule, with tapering beginning two weeks later, around Sept. 25 . . .

In the meantime, I’ve been able to keep up running without the orthotics. In the past few days, I’ve managed, 1.8 miles (Aug. 30), 7.6 miles (twice) Saturday and Labor Day, and today (Sept. 3), 3.8 miles. And I’m sitting, now, with the slightest of left forefoot pain.

All of this is to say, that I’ve passed through the down moment that I wrote about here in my last post. In fact, here’s a diary entry from Bellport, LI, after that 7.6 miler on Saturday (Aug. 31):

"Run was great! Thinking core all the way, lift up and separate, in part, I think, what had hurt me was the hardness of my body, how I wasn’t thinking chi, and here I’ve done so much work on the core, as strong as I’ve ever been, if that’s possible. Instead, by not feeling light on my feet, a string puppet held aloft by two fingers, I do not “go away” in my mind and spirit; too much hard, not enough soft, how soft works to prepare the body, also the mind and spirit, if you don’t go away, then what, pray tell, is the point?”

Next: Running for Your Life: Fall Mood