You don’t ask a lady her age
but by now you know I’m 64 years old, I’ve raised 7 kids, ran a preschool for 21 years, and now I’m running a 100 mile race in April 2024 in support of climate action. You can learn more about why I’m running and how to help here.
I’m ticking off the weeks until race day, with weekly workouts amounting to ten hours of run/walking, stadium stair climbing, yoga and strength exercises. I'm not measuring miles as much as time on my feet and how I’m feeling. The point is to complete the race in under thirty hours with a smile on my face at the finish line. Everything is going great except for one little barking right hamstring that sent me to my physical therapist last week.
“If you want to run, you have to do it on one,” says Brian Beatty, my friend and physical therapist. In the university town where I live, Chapel Hill has great PT’s and really great PTs. Brian is one of the best. Brian explains how strengthening our balance on one leg (run=do it on one) keeps us injury-free. He practices the Feldenkrais Method which he describes as working with the guy up in the control room, monitoring and bringing balance to your muscular system. I imagine my "guy" as a geeky engineer in front of a large console of buttons and levers. “If I pull on this lever, I can make her hip move this way and I’ll straighten out her gait.” That geek knows body mechanics and works to bring about balance to keep me functioning at my optimum performance. But sometimes my creaky body objects, and like a naughty student, goes rogue. And while I’m off playing hooky, my new movement patterns throw the system out of balance. Like a groove in a vinyl record, that new pattern thinks it’s creating a beautiful new tune but it’s actually wreaking havoc in the control room. Eventually, my hamstring can’t take it any longer and sends out an SOS.
Okay, I think this is what is happening. We all have these sweet individual muscles which when stressed help each other out. If there’s a weak one, your other dear, sympathetic muscles will step in, no questions asked. Like with an injured teammate on the bench, the rest of the team will pull together and do their. best. But after a while, the team misses its injured teammate and cries out for her to heal and get back out there. So it is with my right hamstring. My overachieving hamstring is like the perfect child who said she could do all the jobs that my quads and glutes decided they just weren’t up for. And now she is paying for it on the bench. But do we admonish the girl for being an overcompensating, type A, workhorse? Or the glutes and quads for sleeping on the job? Noooo…. Oh how we have to be careful not to be angry or lay blame on muscles that are holding us back from achieving our goals! So we do our best to speak kindly to them, send them all chicken soup and flowers. Back in the control room, our guy is working overtime, gently bringing order to the muscular team and suggesting that maybe, just maybe it might be time to start working together for the greater good. If that doesn't work, get ready for some tough love.
A week has passed since my session with Brian and I’m happy to report that Righty Hamstring, though still a touch touchy, has joined the party and is a more active participant on the dance floor. Glutes and Quads have returned to enjoy the roles they were born to play and everyone seems to be getting on just fine. As for my gal in the control room, she's got her feet up on the desk, enjoying a little time to check her TikTok. And training this week? I’m back to stadium stair climbing and more time on my feet.
Brian Beatty, PT, CFP has a full line of great online workouts. Check out his website here. Apologies for any metaphor inaccuracies in trying to explain the therapeutic magic of his work.
Pen and ink by yours truly on the road (some parts rocky) to Santiago de Compostela, September 2023.
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