Runt Run

Things have been busy. But here’s the rub: I’m still getting the rub, twice a week, from good ole Fabian my PT. And it’s still painful. He takes his forearm and tenderizes my soleus. He takes his knuckles and rakes the soles of my feet. He takes his elbow and he breaks up the knots in my ass.

Yes. I did just write, “He takes his elbow and he breaks up the knots in my ass.”

Apparently, the top of my glutes are extremely tight and have a lot of adhesions due to asymmetry and evil repetitious movements. Yes, ERMs, that is a clinical term. A lot of these knots have clustered around my soleus. Here is a breakdown of what this means.

1. Fabs has me lay face down me on this massage table that’s slightly convex, so my butt sticks in the air. Oh yes, so helpful, thank you for calling attention to the part of my body which has been the first to show its age.
2. He takes his hands and palpates the upper parts of my tush, to see where the knots are. This is the part where I hope he won’t strike up a conversation with me. It’s worse than trying to talk to the dentist when he’s got his prong on your teeth. (That is not a euphemism, but if it were it would be an excellent one.)
3. When he finds the knots, he takes his elbow and leans with all his weight into the problem areas. I think this is called trigger point release therapy? This brings his torso against the back of my legs, and his face is near the middle of my back. There we are: arranged in this unintentionally intimate position. Um, again.

Once, a male patient walked up to ask about his own therapy while Fabs had his elbow pinned into my butt. The patient says to him, “Comfortable?” I of course hear this and start laughing. Now, whenever Fabs works on the muscles around my sacrum I remember that comment and inevitably get a fit of giggles. Which is awkward; so it becomes an awkward sandwich: My Giggle Awkward on top of his Elbow-in-My-Ass Awkward.

Today, the muscles were really sore, so as he was therapizing my glutes, I may have moaned once or twice. That was probably not the right thing to let escape my lips, though surely it was better than what I was thinking, which was, Fuck me! You know, because of the PAIN.

After he made me moan by rubbing my butt, Fabs stretched out my hamstrings and hip flexors. This is the stretch I illustrated for you previously. Today when he did this, I was extraflexi because he said to me, “Most humans can’t do this!” (Woot! Gold star!) Then, while still postitioned between my legs and facing me, he took my left leg and spread it perpendicular to my body and said, “Oh yeah!”

Remember, I’m lying on my back on a table at hip-level.

I couldn’t make this up.

Well, actually, I could. But if I was making this up it wouldn’t be about physical therapy. And it wouldn’t be posted to this particular blog, a blog about running. I feel I must remind you my blog is about RUNNING, since I has been quite some time since I’ve actually RUN. Which, in nice circularity, reminds me…

I RAN ON SUNDAY!

It was just a little runt of a run. It took me more time to dither around preparing than I actually spent running. I tweeted the whole build-up. I got reacquainted with Little G (I had to charge him up). I spent a good while debating: shorts and long sleeves or capris and short sleeves? (Shorts and long sleeves.) IPod or no iPod? (No iPod.) Most notably, I wore my hair in a bun. No pigtails, not even a ponytail.

I ran for 25 minutes, just under 2.5 miles. Remarkably, I worked up a sweat. My plantar fasciitis did not hurt, but the rest of my body was a bit disturbed. What, it wanted to know, are you doing to me? After about a mile my lungs were a little burny. I wasn’t panting, but my lungs were definitely unused to being asked for such a favor as I was asking. In addition to this, my arms were flapping as if they thought I was trying to fly instead of run, and I was hyperaware of the way my feet were hitting the ground with each stride. My posture was like a cooked noodle, it couldn’t hold itself in one position. I made the tactical error of starting the run on the downhill side of my Sunnyside Loop, so the final stretch towards home was more of a challenge than I remembered. When I got back to my front stoop and clicked off Little G, I wondered when running had gotten so hard.

Nevertheless, it’s the most fun I’ve had since I raced with the body of another woman in Houston. I think I’ll try it again tomorrow.