Reading, Running and back to Hiking in style (Nisene Park June 5, 2010)

After Quicksilver Almaden Park Hike on April 17, I stopped my weekly hikes; and tried my hand (or leg) in running. I had never run in my life earlier. I do not remember last time when I ran even a mile. I tried treadmills earlier, and did not like running on them. It was rather a balancing act on treadmill for me than running. Some runners in office did confirm the same, and mentioned if one had a choice, always run outside.


I tried that. And after 200 meters or so I was out of breath. I found outside running even harder than treadmill, could not pace myself at all. Since I was an extremely slow runner and did not have any luck running, I thought (Half) Marathon running may suit me as I can hike 20 miles without any aches and in decent time. I knew that there is some minimum time one had to finish the race in, and came to know for Half-Marathon, the time is around 3 hours (and in some races it is even more than that). Like most Indians, I was good in mathematics, and calculations told me that it was doable. This gave me a lot of confidence.


I would like to call myself a reader, as I read every day, however, if I exclude all the Magic Tree House books which I read with Prem, I just read 1-2 books a month, most of them non-fiction. Needless to confirm I am as slow as a Turtle, both in reading and running. At times, I wondered, of all the reading I have done so far, have I really implemented any of the knowledge gained, into something worthwhile. At that time, I had the Eureka moment. No, I didn’t run naked in street from my bath tub. As most of you are doing right now, I just went online, to Amazon.com, looked at the books on long distance running, short listed 3-4 books and then looked them up in the local library (I know I am cheap !) and got them. Idea was to convert all the readings into some tangible achievement, like Half or Full Marathon.


One of the book recommended the Run-Walk method for long distance running. I was very relieved to read that. It recommended running for 30 seconds and take a walk break of 2 minutes (I can certainly do better than that !); and slowly increase your running time to 4 minutes and decrease walk breaks to 1 minute. Just reading this again and again energized me. And so began my running exploration. I started running in Murphy park. I started with 3 mile (with frequent walk breaks) loops two times a week and 6 miles on Sunday. As per the book, Saturday was my rest day; so I stopped hiking; thinking it may be using the same muscles. Every weekend, I increased my Sunday mileage my one mile (again lot of walk breaks).


After about 3 weeks, I started dreaming. I can do this. Ego took over. Every book I read, recommended not to increase mileage by more than 10%, and also for your first Half-Marathon, timings should not be a goal, only finishing without injury, should be a goal. Still, I tried to run faster on every run, ignoring the advice that one should not have back to back hard runs. I rationalized that I am so slow to begin with, my runs would not count as hard runs. Though definition of hard run in books was very clear, that if you are huffing and puffing, you are running hard; one should try to run at a pace where there is no huffing and puffing.


Next step was to go to visit a running store to get a good running shoe. I did not want to leave any stone unturned. The store was run by runners, and of course the one I got was very frank. He videotaped my gait while running outside; and then he confirmed what I already knew; that I reminded him of Charlie Chaplin somewhat. He did not advise me to change my natural (rather unnatural) running style. Needless to say my dream to run Boston Marathon was pushed to another 20 years. I started thinking that may be if I still kept running for next 20 years with current pace, I had a chance to qualify in 60 plus age group.


Though I had calf pains soon after I started running, it used to go away with proper stretching. And I would continue to man my runs. Soon, I was doing two 6 miles run during the week and 10 miles run on weekend. Needless to say my mileage increased dramatically and I was I egged on by looking at improvement in my pace, reduced my walk breaks to just one, and that too less than a minute. I started obsessing with improving my pace still more. Now pains in calves were accompanied with pain in shin. The pains used to go away after 10-15 minutes of warm up and jogging, before the start of my runs. However, throughout the day, I was in pain and dreaded to go up and down the stairs. I was finding excuses for not going to the park and play with Prem; few instances I did go, I was hardly able to run as muscles were so stiff from recent runs. I talked to couple of coaches in office and read books, all are indicating that shin pain happens because of overuse (too much too soon). I thought I was unique, I read another book on pain (Divided Mind) which mentioned that at times pain was created by mind by reducing the supply of oxygen to certain part of the body.


I continued for another week; I knew I can complete Half Marathon. Last I ran 10 miles was on May 30 in 1 hour and 33 minutes. From April 18 till May 30, around 6 weeks of training, I was impressed by my progress; and then I gave it a thought, if I had to make running as practice (just like hiking); I should slow down and not be obsessed with it. Since my father’s day hike of Half Dome was coming, I decided to give running a break for now. I could feel my legs completely on June 4 (took 5 days of no exercise). Now I know what it is meant by fresh pair of legs. I have switched back to Elliptical Machines; I think I can break world record of Marathon on it ! Now I know for sure that running requires a different set of muscles than hiking and they need time to build up.


I did a 12-13 mile hike on June 5 with Liz and Paul. We went to Nisene Park near Capitola, Santa Cruz. The park is famous for Redwoods and is the epicenter of Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. It was nice to remember how much I enjoyed hiking, bantering and pulling legs of fellow hikers (if I missed any opportunity during the hike then later in blog). Liz told me and Paul that this time she would just follow us in the car; as she had friends near the beach to visit. Though I think real reason of not sharing the ride may have to do with all the sweat and smell after the hike. I read somewhere that sweat make human male irresistible, though I strongly doubt it.



As the fate would have it, when we reached the park, there was a Full and Half Marathon scheduled at the same time. No, I did not participate in the run, however for a long time we hikers shared the trail with runners, and I had to run with them few times to get out of the narrow ways. This was my first time to see them up and close. Some of them were pounding hard, some of them were leaning too much forward and lot of them were huffing and puffing in first few miles only. Hard to admit it, but this gave me a lot of hope.


And finally after couple of hours of hike, we met one of the runners who had lost her way and fallen couple of times. Paul’s first aid kit again came in handy. This is the 3rd time I saw him use it. Again thanks to Paul for suggesting and then leading the hike, without the map; I must say we walked on the path less travelled. We stumbled to a waterfall in the park, crossed some bridges and scampered our way out of thick undergrowth. The path was full of poison oak, luckily nobody got it.



While returning back we saw few runners finishing the full Marathon. Most of them were in excellent physical shape, and still struggling to complete last few miles. Some of them were stopping, cramping, throwing up, and everybody looked dead tired. This reminded me what most of the books were saying; that any run which was more that 90 minutes long, takes something out of your body and you need time to recover from it; i.e. benefits of running more than 60 minutes in a single run, start reducing very quickly; and that is why, specially for beginners, it was recommended to restrict long runs to at least once in two weeks.

I had no aches or pains after the hike. So where does that leave me now, which one do I prefer, running or hiking ? Hiking suits me better as I can pause to look at the nature and appreciate it; social aspect of bantering with friends is huge too; you get to see different areas. Running, for me, though may not have the same advantages, however, I did discover few benefits on the way.

I used to dread as how would I occupy my mind while running (most of the races do not allow MP3 players); and that it would be really boring. Once I started running and did runs consistently over 50 minutes for few weeks, I did not find it boring at all. My fears were baseless. Running brought a kind of quietness to my mind, a blank mind, almost a meditative state. I did not think of anything. Though my weight has always been well controlled for my height, I lost my love handles which were always present. Finally, running needs almost no gear, it is very green, you do not have to drive to Gym or tennis court or a state park, simply wake up, have a good pair of running shoes, and out you go. Personally it has proved to give me best bang for the time I spend in fitness.


Of course it helped if long runs are not on tracks where you move in circles, running on long trails helped. I found it was easier to recover from trail running than on pavement. At the time of this writing, and not running for last 10 days, I see love handles creeping back up. I have not given up on running. Based on my self-analysis, I think I was over-striding during my training to run faster (not that I was fast by any standards, but much faster than my body could take). I have to experiment with my running form, see if I could re-learn running, through baby steps and make it at least pain free, and somewhat enjoyable (not funny like Charlie Chaplin as seen in image on right); and it definitely suits my cheap style.