Muscling In

I’m not used to running any more. Until fairly recently I went jogging quite a lot, even completing a 10k road race a couple of years ago. I used the time out on the road as a necessary break from writing, somewhere that I could try to switch my brain off and let the steady rhythm of my feet take over. I was aiming for the ‘healthy mind, healthy body’ perfection model but it soon became apparent that I was never going to be a fully fit fighting machine. And anyway, I have a dirty body…

Life, as they say, got in the way and I simply got out of the habit of getting up early and doing it in the dark before the locals awoke. So this week I decided to dust off my running shoes and hit the streets again. But sadly, the streets hit back. I’d done my warm up stretches and started with a brisk walk before moving up to what I laughably call a run. Others may see it as the world’s fastest nonchalant stroll but it’s the best that I can manage, OK?

I hadn’t been running for very long – half an hour maybe? – before I felt a twinge in my right calf. Within a few steps the twinge turned into an ache, which turned into a nagging pain, which soon felt like I had an angry tiger trying to give birth to the world’s fattest and sharpest tiger kitty quintuplets under the skin in my leg.

I had cramp.

I know, cramp is a bit of a wussie excuse. It’s not like I’d been hit by a beer delivery truck or I’d fallen down a manhole due to daydreaming about hot baths and hotter pasties, but it was painful and debilitating just the same. And anyway, this was more than your average cramp; this was man-cramp. Apparently somebody had inserted a lump of lead just above my right heel. And worse, it didn’t just sit there weighing my leg down as I tried to run. It extruded molten fingers up my calf, higher and deeper into the muscle.

I tried to run it off. I’d heard footballers and other sporty types talk about running it off for as long as I can remember – ‘Ah, he’ll be alright, it’s just cramp, he’ll be able to run it off’ – but in truth I knew no more how to run cramp off than how to steer into a skid without crashing into a wall, or how to smile on the other side of my face without opening up a big gaping wound in the back of my skull.

So I just kept going. I ran and I ran and I ran. That was a total of three steps before I had to stop completely. I put my foot up on a wall and tried to reach my toes so that I could pull on them as I’d seen footballers do. No good. Footballers don’t have my belly restricting their reach.

There was nothing for it but to try some freaky hop/limp combo to get me home. One step forward, stop for a minute to swear, a little hop, a stumble, some more swearing and trying not to look at the drivers laughing at me as they tore past. Repeat until back to the house.

I eventually made it but my time was a personal worst for that particular circuit.

Which leads me to right now, the morning after. I’m back at my desk typing away and my foot’s raised up on my printer to increase the blood flow to the calf muscle, or to stop it getting gangrene or something. Whatever, I’m told that elevation is good for it so it’s up on the printer like Jerry Lee Lewis’s on his piano. Only more tunefully.

I’ve hidden my trainers under the kitchen table, which is the last place I’ll look for them. Anything that puts me off hurting myself further seems like a good thing.

© Shaun Finnie 2012