Earning the right to run

Rebooting this blog ... again ...

So, take a look at the bottom of this shoe. This was why I stopped running last year. It only takes 2-3

months for me to tear into a pair of running shoes like this.

What I realized was that because of my extra weight, my center of gravity had been thrown off and the extra pressure was causing problems throughout my body and the shoes were only the most visible examples of the damage. My knees and feet were not standing up to the punishment.

I stopped running last summer and told myself I would have to lose at least 30 pounds before I could run again. This was frustrating for me because running had always been my favorite exercise.

Losing 20-30 pounds without running ... easier said than done. Too often I skipped going to the gym, didn't watch what I ate, drank too much red wine. (I'd started red wine because of the health benefits, but that only works if you can drink ONLY 5 ounces a day.)

The wake up call came in February. On a routine doctor's visit, I found my weight had gone UP 10 POUNDS and my blood pressure had reached dangerous levels. My doctor put me on new medication and ordered me to lose weight.

The medication has helped tremendously. The blood pressure came down. I started getting to the gym more, started using a calorie counter app and quit drinking red wine. By my last doctor's visit, I'd dropped the extra 10 pounds. But I have more work to do.

I realized that when I started running ... for office.

Last week, I declared myself a candidate for Chemung County's 4th Legislative District. And as I edited the announcement video, there were a few frames that caught me from the side. See, when I look at myself in the mirror, I don't see my obesity. Whenever a camera catches me from the side, WOW! That is not the mental image I have of myself.

But I live my life as an open book. I'm not going to hide from this. I must tackle this head on. So, I am running for office and also working to earn the right to run again. I don't have time to write a blog post here every day, so from now on I will post videos, photos and screenshots from my phone to keep track of my progress. This is really just to keep me motivated and on top of my goals.

Follow along if you like. My aim is to return to regular running before election day in November.

[Quick shout out to Finger Lakes Running Company in Ithaca where I bought my first pair of running shoes in 2013 as I recovered from foot surgery. I'd injured myself badly running the Los Angeles Marathon in 2000, and that led to a slow decline in exercise, combined with age, working nights as a copy editor and a failure to adjust my eating habits that created my obese state by 2006. After struggling along for a few years, I finally had foot surgery in 2012. The owner of FLRC is Ian Golden, a Democratic candidate for Congress. Good luck Ian!]

First run

So, I did it.

However, yesterday was the first time I actually jogged. I drove up to the Finger Lakes Running Company in Ithaca to find a new pair of running shoes.

"What did your physical therapist suggest?" said Lisa, the sales clerk.

"They suggested I go to you," I said.

After some checking, Lisa brought out three pairs of Asics.  White, grey and black. The grey pair in the middle were just right. As soon as I put them on, my foot felt better and I immediately went outside to jog in front of the storefront. My first jog since the surgery.

I wore them home -- after paying for them.

So, this morning, after my physical therapy and breakfast, I went outside to do something I had not done in more than 1 year and 4 months. I stretched out on the front step. It all went fine.

It was a very easy jog/walk, alternating with the telephone poles. Luckily the telephone poles on Middle Road and Greenridge Drive are spaced tightly, so I never had to jog for too long before switching back to walking. I covered a mile in about 18:16.

Everything felt fine except for a minor pain in my left ankle on the left side. This is on the opposite side of the foot from the injury, and after I thought it through it was not from the running.

On Saturday, I had pushed myself a bit more than usual in my balancing exercises on the BOSU ball. I had felt that minor ankle pain since then. Icing had made it settle down mostly, but I was still aware of it, and I was more aware of it when I jogged.

My plan now is to give the BOSU a rest until the pain goes away completely and have my second run after that.

So, we'll see.

Thanks to everyone for cheering me on during my recovery. It means a lot.

Next I'm heading to the gym to do circuit training and work on the ellipticals.

Suspension lifted

So, today I got some unexpected news from the assistant at my foot doctor's office.
It is now OK for me to try running again!

I need to go very slow and easy at first, and I need to get two new pairs of shoes, but she said my foot strength was good enough to give it a try.

Since my last post in June, I have been through all sorts of ups and downs. The flare up of my foot injury in January 2012 had made me stop running and switch to biking, and then I switched to walking instead. But the weight started to creep back on me, and the pain was not getting any better.
Finally, I reached a choice that I had been avoiding for a long-time. I needed surgery.
Surgery had been scheduled on my foot way back in 2003, but in between the time the appointment was made and the day of the surgery, the pain had gone away. So, I cancelled. This time, I knew I couldn't avoid it.

So, on Dec. 3, 2012, I walked able-bodied into the orthopedic department at Arnot Ogden Medical Center for "day surgery." A little more than 24-hours later, I was wheeled out to my car with my foot in a cast and was loaded like cargo into the back seat of my car. Amy drove me home. (Thanks hon, for that, and all the other driving and care-taking you did for me.)

What the doctor had done was to replace my bad tendon -- the posterior tibial -- with another tendon from one of my toes.  Then she cut my heel bone with a saw and repositioned it to better protect the tendon from injury. To hold the heel in place, she drilled screw straight up the middle of the heel bone.

Whenever I go through these things, I am always reminded that there is someone else out there in a worse spot than me. My roommate in the hospital was a guy who had lost half of his foot to an infection. It started from just a small cut on the underside of his big toe. First he lost the toe, then later it was found it had infected the bones of his foot.

"The frankenfoot has landed," Amy said as I hobbled into the recliner in the living room. The next month was unusual.  I took pain drugs regularly and spent most of my time in that recliner, using the laptop to stay in touch with the world. I used crutches or a walker to get around when I needed to. Later, we got me a little knee scooter to make it easier. However, I occasionally fell. Once I went head-over-broken-heel off the scooter while we shopped for a Christmas tree.

In early January, I was put into a walking cast, and I was able to get around with the help of a cane. Next came physical therapy, which at first focused on stretching and loosening up the muscles and tendons that had tightened up while I was in the cast. But by February, when they started adding strengthening exercises, I immediately noticed a difference. The pain started to go away.

We finished the formal therapy sessions in early March, and I continued the exercises at home. What I came to realize is that one of the big problems with my feet has been an overall weakness. I am flat-footed and have weak feet. These new physical therapy exercises did a lot to build up the strength. The stronger my feet became, the less pain I felt.

The lesson I realized: Running doesn't exercise your feet. At least not my feet, and not in a way that builds the strength they need.

When the doctor had me stand on my bare left foot in early March, I discovered another problem: "Balance!"

I seemed to lack the muscle strength to balance on one foot. So, I added the BOSU ball to my routine of daily exercises.

Next, I joined a gym, starting with the elliptical machines, then the circuit training, then the ab workouts. Regaining my fitness will no longer be about just running. My legs are and always have been in great shape. But my feet and ankles are weak, and the rest of my body has been neglected too long.

Throughout the rest of March, April and until today, I have spent hours most days working on getting back my strength. The time spent on my physical therapy exercises with the therapy band and ankle weights has gotten longer and longer. I will now do 200 reps of each exercise.

Then I try to spend half an hour on the BOSU ball to rebuild those balancing muscles. I can now stand on my right foot for a count of 86, and on my left foot for a count of 14. Making progress.
Trips to the gym can take as long as two hours, including travel time, warming up, exercise and cooling down.

In my mind, I had expected that I wasn't going to be able to run until after my ability to balance on my left foot was full restored. (Restored? Or found for the first time?) So, I was quite surprised when I went to the foot doctor's office this morning and was told that the balance will take time, but I could still start jogging now.

Getting new shoes -- two pair -- are the next priority. I hope to find new shoes and start using them next week.

The plan will follow the one I laid out in my earlier blogs. I'll try to go one mile, alternating telephone poles with walking and jogging.

If it starts to hurt, I stop.

But I'm back. Yay me.

Suspending my running

I haven't posted on this blog since January, and it is now June.

Today, I thought I'd just drop in and let my followers know what happened.

In January, I had every intention of running through the entire winter, but it didn't work out that way.

On January 15, at about 15 minutes into what would have been an hour run, I felt a pain in my left foot. It was a very specific pain, and that is what worried me. The pain was in the arch of my foot, exactly where I had injured it on mile 20 of a marathon that I ran back in 2000 in Los Angeles.

I had damaged a tendon in my arch in that marathon, and what made it worse was that I didn't stop running. By that point, I was feeling aches and pain throughout my entire body and one more bit of pain in my foot didn't seem to make much difference. I finished the marathon.

However, because I didn't stop, I damaged that tendon even worse. When a doctor checked it, I could give no resistance as he pushed against the foot from the side.

This sidelined me from running, and it took years for the pain to go away. My weight slowly creeped up as I worked two jobs and became more sedentary.

When I started my latest running effort in the summer of 2010, it had seemed that with good shoes with special inserts and the foot and knee braces, that I could run without pain. I had beaten it.

I made a lot of progress. I dropped about 20 pounds. It seemed I had rediscovered my love for running and that this would carry me back to a healthy weight.

But when the pain returned in January, I knew I had to take a break.

The specific pain in the arch went away after a few weeks, but the weight crept back on. This was followed by a slowly increasing general pain in my feet.

I'm wearing the foot braces almost all the time now. I don't seem to be able to do much without them on. What is obvious is that my extra weight has taken a toll on my feet.

I've recently come to terms with the fact that I can't run anymore with all this extra weight.  I have to lose the weight without running. I also have to strengthen my feet.

Here's the new daily plan, which I started doing at the beginning of this week:

1) Half-hour on the exercise bike in the morning.

2) Half-hour on the real bike. I've decided that for now I will do the real bike riding by doing laps around Country Estates, a loop neighborhood nearby with little traffic and lots of hills.

3) 20-minute dog walk.

4) Half-hour on the exercise bike in the evening. I've found I can't do more than half-hour at a time on the exercise bike. It just gets unbearable like that. So, I break it up into 30-minute sessions.

5) Cut out as many fats and carbs from my diet as I can. Eat more roughage and vegetables -- celery, carrots, etc. I'll still eat whole wheat bread, but I've been eating cereal without milk, cutting out the margarine on toast, and cutting back on cookies. (But I'll still eat Oreos. They seem to be a low-fat treat and will make it easier than cutting everything out cold turkey.) These are all meant to be slow, gradual changes but hopefully will be a healthier way to go. I said goodbye to red meat a long time ago. I don't really want extra diet advice or special plans. I have done research and have a good idea of where I need to go. I just need to find a way to get there that works for me.

6) I need to resume the foot therapy exercises I learned after my injury.

7) Try to keep more active. Fortunately, I have a good list of projects to tackle around the house.

The bottom line is that for me this is NOT as much fun as running, and I will not lose the weight as quickly as I would if I were still running. But the fact is that I was relying on the running to do it all for me. I didn't change my diet very much because the running was more than canceling out the need to make other changes.

But now, if I have any chance of running again, I need to lose the weight first. So, all the other changes have to happen now, and maybe the running will be possible someday.

So, unfortunately, it will be a while before I resume this running blog. But now you know why.

Thank you for all your support.

Ed Bond

A Long-Overdue Update

So, it's been about two months since my last post. I'm sorry about that. To bring you up to date:

• I returned to running in November. Jack's sickness was finally diagnosed as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and it ultimately had to do with a lot of stress from playing trombone in the school band. With medication, a change in diet and the removal of Jack from the ensemble performances, he's gotten much better and has been pain-free for about a month and a half.
• In late November, I started running every other day again, or at least three times a week, weather permitting. Fortunately, the weather has been very mild this year, especially through much of December. I had a couple of good runs around Christmas, but the holidays derailed the routine. 
• I also wore out another pair of running shoes around Christmas, and it took a while to find a new pair. The outlet stores were all out of my style of shoe on our trip to N.J., so I didn't find them until after the first of the year. But this time, I bought TWO pairs, so that when I chew through the current pair, I will have a backup pair at the ready.
• I've also worn out the knee braces I've had for the past year and a half. Parts of them are falling out, causing them to lose support and I could feel a slight strain in my left knee on my run today. I need to get another pair from Walmart.

So, today was my first run since around Christmas, and it was GREAT! I felt strong. I ran well, and best of all it was a great day for a run. The temperatures were in the 50s, which is wonderful for early January.

For me, winters are miserable. I get depressed with the short days and the sub-zero or single-digit temps that keep me inside. To actually get out and run in January was a big boost for me, and my hope is that this will help carry me through the winter. 

We've had only a couple of days of bitterly cold weather, and my hope is that the temps stay in the 20s or 30s most of the time. If that happens, I should be able to keep running regularly. I am at the point that it feels like I can run easier when the temp is around 30. 

So long as I cover up with sweats, all I need is a couple of minutes to warm up, and then the weather feels perfect. 

For Christmas, Amy gave me a knit hat I can run in. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I am looking forward to it.

Sidelined

Jack's been sick for most of the month. He missed two straight weeks of school because of a stomach ache, and a lot of other days aside from that. The pain began on Oct. 2 and has stayed with him most of the time, with occasional respites here and there. But the doctors don't know what is causing this yet. We keep doing tests and hope to get an answer soon.

This has thrown off my schedule for running because when he is home sick I don't like the idea of leaving him alone. Sure, he could always call me on the cell phone, but if I'm half an hour into the run and he needs me suddenly, I wouldn't be able to get home any sooner than half an hour.

So, I've missed a couple of weeks of running so far.

Except today I finally got myself out for a half-hour run. Amy was home anyway, so it was OK. The run felt good. I felt strong and I feel that I could get back to running an hour every other day if I can schedule it.

Jack was back at school for four days this week, and I'm hoping he'll be able to got back on Monday. If he can keep going to school -- and it really seems to be a good idea because it helps him manage his pain -- I think I can get back to my running routine.

But the concern is that this could be a chronic problem, which will permanently change the rhythm of our lives. Even so, with a new reality, I still should be able to keep running. And I need to keep running so that I can stay healthy and help everyone else cope with whatever lies ahead.

The good news?

The good news is that even though I had not run for a couple of weeks -- and I swear I felt like I was putting on pounds -- I found out today that I had not gained any weight. I am still at 235.

That's very good news because it means my calorie intake is probably even with my energy output even when I am not running. So there is nothing in the way of the running taking off the pounds.

Operation Butterfly

The other day, I outran a mail truck. It was not a superhuman feat. It's just that mail trucks have to stop at every mailbox to make their deliveries. It was a day that I noticed a lot of public service and delivery activity on my run.

I was running strong on Wygant when a state trooper pulled over two women in a van in front of me. I wondered what they could have done to get pulled over, but I'd have no way of knowing. A few minutes later, I was on Oriole Drive in Birdland when I came across a UPS, FedEx and U.S. mail truck one after the other.

I was aiming to run 45 minutes, so I turned around at 22:30 on Redwing Drive. My primary goal was to get home before Liam got off his bus.

As I came back on Oriole, I could see the mail truck was way down on the other end. It disappeared around the corner. As I turned the corner onto Wygant, I saw it in front of me. I realized that with a little burst of speed I could get ahead of it.

I ran on the grass to get by him. I nodded to the carrier as put the mail in the box, then I kept going. When I got more than two stops beyond him I started running in the road again.

I got back home at exactly 45 minutes.

The new every-other-day schedule seems to work better for me than trying to run five days in a row. The runs seem more productive and enjoyable. I can achieve more with them if I have that rest in between the runs. But I need to make sure I use the exercise bike on the off days. The good thing about the bike is that it allows you to multi-task. You can read or watch TV during the workout. Anyway, I am hopeful that I will be able to maintain this through the winter.

Winter running will require some adjustments, figuring out what kind of gear to wear and how to manage the conditions. I may be forced to stop altogether when major snowstorms hit. That's when I need to make sure I keep using the bike.

My hope is that as I bundle up for the winter runs, I will continue to drop pounds. So, by the springtime I will be a whole new person, emerging like a butterfly from a cocoon.

I checked my weight recently. I am down to 235! Woo-hoo!

Amy and I have decided that when I get to 230 I can reward myself with a trip to Aniello's Pizza in Corning for one of their meatball subs.