Shortness of breath...

You'd think I'd just played tag with a hundred kindergartners.  Nope.  In fact if you thought that I'd done any sort of physical exertion you'd be incorrect.  What was the cause for the sudden difficulty in breathing?

The shortness of breath was nothing more than reaching down to tie my shoe.  As I did so my gut was pushed up into my ribcage making it hard for me to breath.

Stupid gut. 

It asked me to give it a ride about 5 years ago.  I didn't say yes, but then again I didn't exactly say no either.  Apparently, I was for sale at a relatively low price and he took up residence in some prime real-estate just around my midsection.

I tried to serve an eviction notice tonight...

I told you so…

In deciding to become an Aspiring Ultra Runner a few weeks ago I thought it would be a good idea to get to know some.  As posted on my RunningAhead page I mentioned an Ultra running forum that I joined or recommended.  In posting a question about training for the race in June several people said I needed more of a base before starting to train for something so close.  I blew that advice off.

Big mistake!  It wasn’t long after that my shins started hurting.  The pain started about half way up my ankle and went all the way to my knees.  It felt like steel rods had been driven through my knees and stopped just before my ankles.  Today is the first day that it does not feel like I am walking around on the ends of those rods.  If I would have listened, and not started out so aggressive, I probably would be out running instead of typing this.

Lesson Learned!

…and I ran.

It was a cold day today.  Walking to work at 6 am this morning it was approximately 18 degrees Fahrenheit.  A smart guy would have warn more than a sweater on the mile and a quarter journey from apartment to place of employment.  On my walk to work, and during part of my split shift, I was trying to figure out when I would be running today.

I knew that I would be getting off close to 11am, but back to work at 3 pm.  With only 4 hours to run, eat lunch, and spend time with the Spouse and Offspring excuses began knocking around inside my head with cold using an air horn instead of the doorbell. 

However, I had read an article in Runner’s World a while back and that gave some advice on running in the cold.  As I geared up for this run (with sweat pants, t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, long socks, stocking cap, and a sweatshirt)  my excuses began to dissipate into nothingness… and I ran.

Cold and Nipply

The other day I was out on  my first out and back long run in quite a while.  It was cold, raining, and the wind was blowing against me the whole way out to my turnaround point.  I was adequately dressed with my wind breaker, long sleeve shirt, undershirt, sweat pants, stocking cap, and even my Garmin.  All the necessary equipment for running was on me or so I thought…

After the turn around point I began to feel discomfort in the chest region of my body.  As I continued running the pain and discomfort grew.  Towards the end of the run my nipples felt as though they had been dragged across the carpet of my elementary school music room floor and then passed over a hand held cheese grater.  My elementary school was too far away for that to have happened recently and the cheese grater was back at the house so I figured the t-shirt, soaked through by the rain, had something to do with it.  At some point during the four mile trek back to the house I realized that all that talk about Band-Aids and Vaseline on long runs was not some ruse, but sage like advice to protect that sensitive area of the body.

When I got home I told the Spouse that I was pretty sensitive.  I promptly pulled up my shirt to show her and gain her sympathy and perhaps empathy.  She had nursed our kids for a while; and I felt that for a person of similar experiences and traumas, empathizing, would be a simple task.  However, my Spouse did not seem to understand the extreme pain I was in and even laughed a little when I suggested I knew how she felt when nursing. 

It has now been two full days since the injury, the run was Saturday morning, and the scabs are well formed.  As the healing process continues I have two points of caution for anyone out there who has yet to got through something of this nature.  First, wind breakers are not ‘rain’ breakers.  Sure the jacket deceptively repels water for the first few minutes of your run, but after that you might as well ditch the jacket and try and dodge the rain drops.  Second, whether nursing or running long distances Band-Aids are a necessary piece of equipment for anyone interested in either of these forms of entertainment.

For more information go to About.com.