It’s amazing how difficult it is to run correctly. To consciously breathe appropriately, to lift your legs using the right muscles, to strike your foot and keep your ankle strong and roll through until you lift the leg again. And you have to do this with both legs! Seriously. I am supposed to coordinate both legs as well as my core? I find it almost impossible some days.
I went out for a run yesterday. Notable, I went out, but I am not sure I managed to accomplish a run. It was more an attempt than an accomplishment. It seems that after a few weeks of travel, with countless hours of stationary sitting on planes, trains and automobiles, my ass has decided to retire. As a result, my knees, achilles, and pelvic floor muscles are aggrieved at being asked to do more than their fair share of the work. In simpler terms, I hobbled along trying to keep my groans and gasps to myself.
I’ve been pondering why it’s so difficult for me to learn to run late in life. I think my brain is struggling to learn how to use my muscles differently than from how they’ve been being used.
Years ago I taught an introduction to programming course. Programming languages may share certain concepts but there are considerable differences. You should use the appropriate language as necessary. As with any field in which specialization occurs, programmers who master one language may be able to read other languages readily enough, but if it’s necessary to write a program quickly, they will turn to the language with which they are most familiar, even if it ultimately is not appropriate for the task.
Another way to look at this would be a team with a new player. The coach may know that theoretically the new player would be more suited, but in a pinch, the coach may play the rougher older team member with whom the coach is familiar.
Learning to run when you are a kid is easy. Your muscles just do what they are supposed to do. This is why I think all kids should run into their teens. Long enough for the brain to record the routine or program that puts the right muscles into play. Maybe the kid takes a break in college or even longer, but when she decides to go out for her first run later in life, her brain will dig up those memories and engage the appropriate muscles even if they’re weak.
My problem is that while I generally stayed fit walking and doing some other activities through my teens, I was not an athlete, and I NEVER ran. I stopped running voluntarily when I began wearing a bra. Until my breast reduction, I required a very accommodating brassiere. Anyway, now, 30 years later, when I decided to start running, my body has no idea what to do. It seems to have cobbled together some set of commands that unfortunately keep breaking down my body. The physical therapist that I’ve been seeing for running has helped immensely in giving me exercises to “recruit” my gluteous muscles. And I think I was making some progress, but then summer travel seems to have invited my ass to return to retirement.
So thankfully I see the physical therapist again on Friday. Maybe she’ll have some advice. Certainly, she’ll remind me of exercises to perform. This dog is trying to fetch, but trust me, what it knows to do best is sitting and shaking your hand.