we ran down the road, I was struck by a thought: The racing season is upon us. Adrenaline coursed
through me. I usually run alone, so this race was a good stimulus. I got a pretty good feeling for the
pace I should maintain in the marathon next month. For what will happen in the second half of that
race, I’ll just have to wait and see.
When I’m training I regularly run the length of a half marathon, and often much farther, so this
Boston race seemed over before it began. Is that all? I asked myself. This was a good thing, though,
since if a half marathon left me exhausted, a full marathon would be hellish.
The rain continued off and on for quite a while, and during this time I had to take a work-related trip,
so I wasn’t able to run as much as I’d have liked. But with the New York City Marathon fast
approaching, it really isn’t such a problem if I can’t run. Actually, it’s to my advantage to rest. The
problem is, I know I should take a break and rest up, but with a race coming up I get excited and end
up running anyway. If it’s raining, though, I give up easily enough. I suppose that’s one good side of
having it rain so much.
Even though I’m not doing much running, my knee has started to hurt. Like most of the troubles in life
it came on all of a sudden, without any warning. On the morning of October 17, I started to walk down
the stairs in our building and my right knee suddenly buckled. When I twisted it in a certain direction the
kneecap hurt in a peculiar way, a little different from an everyday ache. At a certain point it
started to feel unsteady and I couldn’t put any weight on it. That’s what they mean by wobbly knees. I had
to hold on to the railing to get downstairs.
I was exhausted from all the hard training, and most likely the sudden dip in temperature was
bringing this to the surface. The summer heat still lingered in the beginning of October, but the
weeklong period of rain had quickly ushered in the fall to New England. Until a short while ago I’d
been using my air conditioner, but now a chilly breeze blew through the town, and you could see the
signs of late autumn everywhere. I had to hurriedly drag some sweaters out of the dresser. Even the
faces of the squirrels looked different as they scurried around collecting food. My body tends to have
problems during these transitions from one season to another, something that never happened when I
was young. The main problem is when it gets cold and damp.
If you’re a long-distance runner who trains hard every day, your knees are your weak point. Every
time your feet hit the ground when you run, it’s a shock equivalent to three times your weight, and this
repeats itself perhaps over ten thousand times a day. With the hard concrete surface of the road
meeting this ridiculous amount of weight (granted, there’s the cushioning of the shoes between them),
your knees silently endure all this endless pounding. If you think of this (and I admit it’s something I
don’t usually think about), it would seem strange if you didn’t have a problem with your knees. You
have to expect the knees to want to complain sometimes, to come up with a comment like, “Huffing
and puffing down the road’s all well and good, but how about paying attention to me every once in a
while? Remember, if we go out on you, we can’t be replaced.”
When was the last time I gave my knees any serious thought? As I was pondering this, I started to