Winter Run

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I embarked on a Saturday outdoor run just before noon as a snowstorm was subsiding. It wasn’t the storm that the forecasts expected and there was only an occasional thin patch of snow sticking to the ground. Interspersed with these thin and dusty white blankets were rain puddles and slush.

I turned left onto Chestnut Street toward the Arch. The first three minutes I felt a dull ache in the right foot but as the blood flowed to the feet the ache seemed to fade. “Just keep going,” I told myself. The heart beat fast at first, not used to the relatively more intense cardio. After a few minutes the heart, like the foot, adjusted, and I settled into a comfortable rhythm.

I planned to jog for about twenty minutes, which would be five minutes longer than my longest of the week. That’s not bad considering this is the first week I’ve been able to run since last August.

I crossed the Old Courthouse on the side of the Hyatt Hotel and kept going, determined to let my foot feel some natural turns and inclines. With the lugged soles of my Xero Aqua X shoes I had a pretty decent traction through the soft snow patches and puddles.

My foot is tender but I considered what my physical therapist told me: it’s time to push through some pain. I turned left at the arch and ran through the downtown park, then kept running down an outdoor stairwell that led to the Mississippi River and the Riverfront Trail.

I went north on the trail and crossed a homeless camp where a bonfire was blazing and a cluster of figures in soiled coats stood hovering over it for warmth. I kept jogging until a concrete wall blocked my path. Then I turned back.

The run totaled well over 20 minutes (I don’t time myself, but I have a good sense of time) and it was by far my longest run since my foot injury in August.

The foot is definitely aching now, but it doesn’t seem to be an injury setback. It’s the kind of pain you get from using a muscle for the first time after it has been trapped in a cast for a very long time. The foot is just learning to run again.

Next week is my final week of physical therapy, assuming I have no further setbacks. It was quite a journey to get to this point and now I have every intention of finding out how far my feet can actually take me.