Disabled by the snow
OK, now I'm starting to get a little worried. After having a great month or so of training things have gone a little haywire. I was able to get out running twice this week - including a killer stair workout on Thursday that had me climb the Main Street stairs three times in the middle of my normal run - but I missed my Wednesday bike session and my long run Saturday because of the snow. Next Saturday I have to go to an engagement party for my brother in Belleville, putting that long run in jeopardy as well.
I've also got a nagging injury. Last summer during one my duathlons I had what I thought was a massive cramp in my calf at the start of the second run. I was able to push through it and finish but it was sore for several days afterwards. Maybe it was a pulled muscle. It's flared up from time to time whenever I've trained hard and after the stair workout on Thursday it was hurting again. It's not debilitating, just annoying - and I worry that it could worsen over the course of a 30km race...
While I feel like I'm in pretty good shape, I do worry that I haven't built up enough distance. I worry that my body won't be able to take the pounding 30km is going to hand out. That being said, I've never done a lot of heavy mileage in preparation for any of the races I've done - I always prefer faster, more intense workouts to long slow ones. And my body, given its unique design, always hurts somewhere...
There's one other element of my sporting life that I haven't really delved into during this blog. I suffer from partial paralysis in the right side of my body that most notably affects my arm and leg strength and flexibility. It means, among other things, that I have typed this blog entirely with one hand and I have a bit of a gimpy gait for a running style. One of the reasons I haven't talked a lot about running form - posture, heel strike blah blah blah - is that it's completely useless to me for the most part.
I wrote an opinion piece about my situation in the Spec this week, using the situation with runner Oscar Pistorius as a jumping off point. I've pasted it below.
And while I think my situation is relevant to my training, I've also come to realize that most runners battle challenges, whether they be mental, physical or personal. And while it exists as a crutch to lean on if I wish to use it as an explanation for poor performance, the reality is much simpler: train more, do better. Missing long runs can't be helping.
It
seems, on the face of it, a simple enough task. Carry a plate of food
down the hall, open the door to the basement and descend into my lair
of La-Z-Boy chair and big-screen TV.
Except I can't do it. I'm physically incapable of opening the door while holding a plate:
my right hand and arm aren't strong or dexterous enough to either turn
the handle or carry the plate without dropping the chicken wings all
over the hall floor. As tough as it is for me to admit it -- and I rarely do -- I'm disabled. At this moment, my right hand sits next to the keyboard, tightly
clenched in a fist, all but useless for the task of typing. I also
can't play piano, ride a motorcycle or knit with authority. These are
just some of the manifestations of a partial paralysis that limits the
strength and mobility in the entire right side of my body by, roughly
speaking, 35 per cent. It has been this way since birth, or so they think. The root cause
-- whether it be a lack of oxygen at birth or some gestational defect
has never been made clear. But despite the challenges -- the paralysis
is universal enough that I can wink with my left eye, but not the right
-- it's hard for me to say that I'm disabled because I don't think of
myself that way, despite the obvious physical limitations. Humour has been a key feature in my approach to coping. I had
surgery on my arm when I was 18, leaving me with better mobility in my
hand and a nasty nine-inch scar on my forearm. Instead of hiding the
scar, I made up stories on how I got it -- my favourite tale was about
saving a friend from a shark attack -- and then I would see how far I
could push plausibility before someone called me on it. When my chuckling stopped and I told them the real story -- I've
never been shy about the truth, when asked -- most people would express
sympathy and then inevitably launch into their own tale of woe
regarding their own personal physical deformity or challenge. Bad
backs, horrible operations, weird diseases, trick knees -- most people
took twice as long to describe their maladies and it wasn't nearly as
engaging or funny as my shark-attack story. What became clear is that I'm not the only one who deals with a
physical limitation: everybody has something screwed up about them.
Some maladies are more obvious than others, but this idea that some of
us are disabled while the rest of the world carries on its merry way is
a fallacy: all humans come off the assembly line with their own set of
imperfections. Which is why I feel for Oscar Pistorius, the Spanish runner who has
been told by the International Association of Athletics Federations
that he can't compete in the Olympic Games. Pistorius has no legs below
the knees -- he was born without fibula bones and had his lower legs
amputated at 11 months. The prosthetics he wears to run, called blades,
were determined by scientists to return energy better than the human
ankle, not making him faster per se but at least more physiologically
efficient than someone with all their leg bones intact. "An athlete using this prosthetic blade has a demonstrable
mechanical advantage (more than 30 per cent) when compared to someone
not using the blade," the IAAF said in January. Pistorius had his own tests done and contends they produced
different results but the IAAF said Wednesday they wouldn't reconsider.
"It is really not up to us to judge because we have already made a
decision," an IAAF spokesperson said. There are a multitude of flaws and contradictions in the thinking of
the IAAF -- an organization busily reclaiming Olympic medals from the
litany of athletes who have tested positive for steroids -- but at the
root is this: It's based on the idea that a "normal" athlete is one
born with two legs and arms and without any other physical deformity
that requires some improvisation to compete. It assumes, by definition and by rule, that Pistorius, me and all my
deformed but determined brothers and sisters, are somehow abnormal.
It's that sense of exclusion, as accidental as it may be, that makes
those of us with a sense of humour and at least a modicum of plausible
deniability do our best to make light of the bad bits and just press on
pretending we're just like the rest of the able-bodied folks.
Pistorius, unfortunately, doesn't have that option. Pistorius could run
in the Paralympics of course but he's already conquered that challenge.
Pistorius owns the Paralympic world records at 100, 200 and 400 metres.
He wants his shot against the big boys -- last year the 21-year-old
finished second in the 400 metres at the South African national
championships against able-bodied runners. What he wants -- what all athletes want -- is the opportunity to
compete at the highest level possible, with no quarter given and none
taken. I've played sports my entire life, including football, baseball,
hockey and golf with reasonable success, though it's not always pretty.
The baseball trick of throwing and catching with the same hand is
particularly nifty. Recently I've taken up cycling and running and hope to take on my
first marathon this year. I've got a gimpy gait, but I'll make it. I'm nowhere near the elite athlete Pistorius is, but I want exactly
what he wants: to compete against all the other so-called able-bodied
athletes. Experience tells me they are coping with their own
imperfections -- they're just not necessarily as obvious. As for that door and the chicken wings, I just put the plate on the
washer in the hall, open the door, pick up the plate again and go on my
merry way. If Pistorius was over to watch the game, I'd probably let him open the door for me -- then race him down the stairs.
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