Funny what a difference a little ball can make. I'd been a runner all of my life, enjoying any running game as a child and parlaying that love into a string of amazingly gratifying years of competitive running in secondary school and college. By my 30s I'd run nearly 30,000 miles and hundreds of races, including marathons, half marathons, 10 and 5Ks, as well as dozens of triathlons. Still, even though my body was beginning to tell me that I'd pushed hard, I kept on running. Dam the torpedos!
Gradually, however, running became less fun, the body less able to recover from good runs, the mind less willing to embrace the idea of another run. So I did what most inveterate endurance athletes do - I began coping by doing other sports, like blading, skiing, cycling, and then swimming, etc. And I tried to forget running.
No matter, once a runner, always a runner. Meaning, any time I had a chance to include some running, like with ski bounding up and down hills with poles, I would will my body to run.
The only problem is that by 40 running was not only not so fun, it had become downright painful, at least after the fact. Knees and hips would be sore or tight, and a lower back, which I'd never noticed, would occasionally trigger its presence, especially after longer runs on harder surfaces. But most of all, my achilles tendons, especially the left achilles, would let me know that they'd put in too many extra hours, without benefits, and needed a break.
Then along came the mid-century mark of life, a chance to get back into Kona Fit, and I just pretended that all was well. I mean, if I was going to get through the swim and bike legs, as a lifetime runner I was damn well going to make it through the marathon!
And, frankly, that was largely my approach. With the proverbial band-aids and hope, and just enough mileage to be a pretender and contender, I held the running body together just enough and made it through the marathons in Port Elizabeth and Kona, never running the mileage I knew an age group victory at Kona demanded, yet running just enough to fake it through the 42.2K at both races. For neither event did my weekly running mileage top 25 miles, and let's remember that 25 miles isn't even the distance and Ironman must run!
Finally, this year, a little green ball came into my life. I'd tried new shoes of all sorts, inserts of every variety, various stretches and strengthenings, read articles of all persuasions - and at the end of the day it was the little green ball that did the trick. Cost: less than $5.
So what do I do? Twice a day I place this textured ball (bigger than a golf ball but smaller than a tennis ball, with the density similar to that of a little league baseball) under my foot and press down hard. I then roll my foot around, self-massaging each foot's undercarriage, pushing the ball into the metatarsal, the joints of each toe, the arch, the heel, and essentially any tiny part of the foot I can. At first I was a bit timid, but now that my foot is used to it, even craves it, I press down with quite a force, taking the time to work the ball into the myriad geometries of the foot, noticing how the foot gives out a silent sigh of relief each time.
The last year has been telling. In the lead up to Kona 2011, my running mileage plateaued at about 20 miles a week, with many a week not even reaching that. I wanted to run more in preparation, but May - Sept. Saudi Arabia was blazing, the tread mills were boring, and my running body was bust. The finish line at Kona couldn't come fast enough, in part because I had essentially faked the final 10K, in part, let's face it, because the last 10 Kona K are a tough bargain no matter one's condition!
So I just about quit running altogether, and in the following two years I don't think I ran more than once a month, if that, each time knowing my body would tell me all over again that running was dumb.
But the little green ball has allowed the runner and me to believe again. By rekindling the nerves and tissues of the feet and reworking the body's natural root system, I've allowed my feet to reawaken, and I've been as astonished as anyone since, as I've said, I honestly never expected to run much again.
Why the change? Our feet are complex, 3-D appendages that, until very recently, lived largely in a similar, unpredictable 3-D world. Then along came shoes, limiting each foot's mobility. And paved, hard, flat surfaces, forcing the foot to go through repetitive motions each time, recruiting the same muscles, using the identical bones and tendons and ligaments. And soon the natural foot of the homo sapien was coping with a world it did not know. Hence foot problems. Hence foot doctors. Hence millions and millions of otherwise hopeful, intelligent, active folks, each with foot issues.
The little green ball attempts to reboot the foot by reawakening the muscles and nerves of the foot and essentially teaching the foot to be its whole, vital, helpful self again. Thousands and thousands of hard-pavement miles had essentially deadened my feet, forcing them to cope easily in my teens and twenties, but less and less well thereafter. It was as if I'd been born with a full marching band but was now relying just on the snare drums and clarinets. You can make music; it just probably won't be pretty!
Yet now, with the little green ball, my feet are gradually undergoing an unanticipated renaissance. Where before I dreaded running and looked to other sports for physical outlet, now I look forward to running a few days a week, almost as much as before. At Kona in 2011, the swimming and cycling propelled me into the top three in the 50-54 age group by T2; now, with the runner in me gradually reawakening, I feel another Kona Comeback is possible.
I will never reclaim my mid-20s running body, but over the past few months, whenever I'm out on the beautiful trails in Stuttgart's uibiquitous urban forests, I occasionally feel like the young man, now long ago, who ran a 1:10 half marathon and 2:29 marathon. I know I don't have that speed today, but my happy feet make me feel like a true runner again, and that's a feeling I thought had disappeared forever. It's like getting back in touch with a long lost friend.
Gradually, however, running became less fun, the body less able to recover from good runs, the mind less willing to embrace the idea of another run. So I did what most inveterate endurance athletes do - I began coping by doing other sports, like blading, skiing, cycling, and then swimming, etc. And I tried to forget running.
No matter, once a runner, always a runner. Meaning, any time I had a chance to include some running, like with ski bounding up and down hills with poles, I would will my body to run.
The only problem is that by 40 running was not only not so fun, it had become downright painful, at least after the fact. Knees and hips would be sore or tight, and a lower back, which I'd never noticed, would occasionally trigger its presence, especially after longer runs on harder surfaces. But most of all, my achilles tendons, especially the left achilles, would let me know that they'd put in too many extra hours, without benefits, and needed a break.
Then along came the mid-century mark of life, a chance to get back into Kona Fit, and I just pretended that all was well. I mean, if I was going to get through the swim and bike legs, as a lifetime runner I was damn well going to make it through the marathon!
And, frankly, that was largely my approach. With the proverbial band-aids and hope, and just enough mileage to be a pretender and contender, I held the running body together just enough and made it through the marathons in Port Elizabeth and Kona, never running the mileage I knew an age group victory at Kona demanded, yet running just enough to fake it through the 42.2K at both races. For neither event did my weekly running mileage top 25 miles, and let's remember that 25 miles isn't even the distance and Ironman must run!
Finally, this year, a little green ball came into my life. I'd tried new shoes of all sorts, inserts of every variety, various stretches and strengthenings, read articles of all persuasions - and at the end of the day it was the little green ball that did the trick. Cost: less than $5.
So what do I do? Twice a day I place this textured ball (bigger than a golf ball but smaller than a tennis ball, with the density similar to that of a little league baseball) under my foot and press down hard. I then roll my foot around, self-massaging each foot's undercarriage, pushing the ball into the metatarsal, the joints of each toe, the arch, the heel, and essentially any tiny part of the foot I can. At first I was a bit timid, but now that my foot is used to it, even craves it, I press down with quite a force, taking the time to work the ball into the myriad geometries of the foot, noticing how the foot gives out a silent sigh of relief each time.
The last year has been telling. In the lead up to Kona 2011, my running mileage plateaued at about 20 miles a week, with many a week not even reaching that. I wanted to run more in preparation, but May - Sept. Saudi Arabia was blazing, the tread mills were boring, and my running body was bust. The finish line at Kona couldn't come fast enough, in part because I had essentially faked the final 10K, in part, let's face it, because the last 10 Kona K are a tough bargain no matter one's condition!
So I just about quit running altogether, and in the following two years I don't think I ran more than once a month, if that, each time knowing my body would tell me all over again that running was dumb.
But the little green ball has allowed the runner and me to believe again. By rekindling the nerves and tissues of the feet and reworking the body's natural root system, I've allowed my feet to reawaken, and I've been as astonished as anyone since, as I've said, I honestly never expected to run much again.
Why the change? Our feet are complex, 3-D appendages that, until very recently, lived largely in a similar, unpredictable 3-D world. Then along came shoes, limiting each foot's mobility. And paved, hard, flat surfaces, forcing the foot to go through repetitive motions each time, recruiting the same muscles, using the identical bones and tendons and ligaments. And soon the natural foot of the homo sapien was coping with a world it did not know. Hence foot problems. Hence foot doctors. Hence millions and millions of otherwise hopeful, intelligent, active folks, each with foot issues.
The little green ball attempts to reboot the foot by reawakening the muscles and nerves of the foot and essentially teaching the foot to be its whole, vital, helpful self again. Thousands and thousands of hard-pavement miles had essentially deadened my feet, forcing them to cope easily in my teens and twenties, but less and less well thereafter. It was as if I'd been born with a full marching band but was now relying just on the snare drums and clarinets. You can make music; it just probably won't be pretty!
Yet now, with the little green ball, my feet are gradually undergoing an unanticipated renaissance. Where before I dreaded running and looked to other sports for physical outlet, now I look forward to running a few days a week, almost as much as before. At Kona in 2011, the swimming and cycling propelled me into the top three in the 50-54 age group by T2; now, with the runner in me gradually reawakening, I feel another Kona Comeback is possible.
I will never reclaim my mid-20s running body, but over the past few months, whenever I'm out on the beautiful trails in Stuttgart's uibiquitous urban forests, I occasionally feel like the young man, now long ago, who ran a 1:10 half marathon and 2:29 marathon. I know I don't have that speed today, but my happy feet make me feel like a true runner again, and that's a feeling I thought had disappeared forever. It's like getting back in touch with a long lost friend.
