The last time I made a post in this here blog-o-mine was when?

January 13, 2020? Yargh.

I won’t go into all the details because I think the title says it all. Let’s just say that as of now, 2020 has been “a hell of a year” for pretty much everyone and leave it at that.

Onward!

After speaking at my mom’s funeral and muddling through the rest of my training for the LA Marathon and the marathon itself, I treated myself to recovery from overuse injuries, primarily to my right ankle and calf. I eased myself gently back into the sport, choosing trails and landscapes to keep myself motivated and congratulate myself for my patience during those early days in the pandemic when I merely walked screaming into traffic instead of risking injury and running into it.

The landscapes included:

A 16 mile round trip trail run in the San Rafael Wilderness north west of Santa Barbara to a historical oddity called Manzana School house.

A run up the fabulous Mt Whitney Trail from Lone Pine camp up to Whitney Portal. That one was a doozy, even if it was only eight miles in length.

One of the most remote jeep roads anywhere: the Tinta Trail, deep, deeeeep in the heart of Texas Dick Smith Wilderness where Highway 33 meets the Lockwood Valley Road. Most of these places don’t have names.

I spent May and June camping the day before these runs, using the ground as my bed (with four inches of PosturPedic mattress doing yeoman work keeping me relatively comfortable) and a 40 degree down sleeping bag separating me from The Vast Uncaring Universe that rotated above my eyes. (Learned that the Andromeda Galaxy, a fuzzy patch of light primarily visible during the fall and winter months can be made out in early mid-summer mornings if you know where to look).

Just–reacquainting myself with why I enjoy running so much in the first place.

Which of course brings us to now:

(Oh, before we get there, here is a small list of runs I have yet to do, and may put off for a while as I formalize my aerobic training for upcoming marathons that may or may not happen. All are google-able if you have the curiosity:

(A 17 mile loop run along a route that John Wayne made famous: Movie Road, up the hill from Lone Pine with Mt. Whitney in view

(A 16 mile out-and-back in Yosemite NP from Tuolumne Meadows into Lyell Canyon along the John Muir Trail. One of the very few extended running routes that features soft, runnable trail and almost no elevation gain, though the trail starts at 8,600 ft (2,620 m).

(An 8 mile loop in the Sequoia National Forest called Big Meadow. I almost did that one a month ago, but realized when my car wouldn’t start while moving it to a more secure spot that perhaps there were other priorities I should focus on, like actually getting home.

(And finally, a horrific little 20 mile too-dee-loo up McKinley Peak Road in the Los Padres National forest to a pine forest and year round spring, and an overlook that takes in the vast Santa Barbara back country.

(Enough of these; I grow weepy and despondent. Carrying on.)

While recuperating from injury, I decided it would be a good idea to take on the following running-related projects:

Flexibility. I have extraordinarily tight calves. I also have an internet connection with my own little wifi hotspot enabling me to view my favorite yoga video of all time on my phone while I stretch. A big lesson I’ve learned over the years is that flexibility is a whole body experience, not a problem to be laid at a specific area. This little 20 minute video is short enough to do every day, but comprehensive enough that I began to notice improvements to my overall flexibility after a week. About 14 years ago, I suffered a near catastrophic calf muscle tear after an ill advised super calf-stretching session. The muscle eventually healed, but as recently as four years ago the injury returned, leaving me unable to run for several weeks while it healed. Lesson learned.

Weight loss. Look at the picture below. There is no reason why at five feet eight inches in height I should weigh 180 pounds. How do I fix this? I tracked everything I ate each day for a week, with no analysis and no judgment. At the end of the week I counted the calories. I was consistently 400 or more calories over what I thought I was consuming, nearly every day.

With that knowledge, I created a plan. I allowed myself to consume 2,000 calories per day. Oatmeal, eggs and a banana were around 500. Lunch would be another 500, same with dinner. The remaining 500 calories were split into two snacks, taken mid morning and mid afternoon. I stopped eating after 6:00 PM.

I surprised myself a couple of days by subsisting on 1,800 calories. Occasionally 2,200. But most days? 2,000 right on the spot. I began to notice a subtle shift in my relationship to food. Eating was no longer a mindless task I did several times a day, it became a way of fueling my body to function at its best. Where am I now? It didn’t take long to lose an “easy eight.” My current daily weigh in bounces around between 173 and 175 pounds. Since my goal is 165, a weight I have no doubt will ultimately be more healthy for me, I need to tweak my project somewhat, including a reduction in calories down to about 1,800 while eating foods that leave me sated and properly fueled, while at the same time taking on the one thing I’ve been waiting for the ability to do since my injuries have largely healed: Run.

And run I have. After the injury healed I worked running back into my life, primarily by running easy on trails out in the back country I mentioned above. I’ll dig into those in my next post, “The Runs of Summer.” But I’ll leave off today with my current base building schedule, which I am following to prepare me for quality training for a marathon that I can pretty much guarantee is not going to happen: The California International Marathon in Sacramento in December. I’d love it to happen, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to expose my sweating, heaving face (with lungs attached) to dozens of other faces at multiple water stops and a finish line. The thought of all those microbial clouds exchanging billions of tiny little micron-sized droplets bearing a certain SARS variant virus which WILL KILL US ALL (or at least make life profoundly unpleasant if one is lucky) gives me the shivers. And if I’m not careful, it could give me the shakes, the gasps, and the regrets as well. It’s better to be patient than wish one had waited for a few measly months (or years) because after a lung infection, running may no longer be possible at all.

Ever.