Rabbit at Rest? March 12, 2007

I’ve been wracking my brain for a good 8 Mile/Eminem joke, but I have yet to come up with one. The closest I’ve come involved John Updike, and I’m pretty
sure the Rabbit connection is a little oblique, even for me.

This week’s 8 mile run covered about 4 miles in scenic, trendy NW Portland and the Pearl district, and then about 4 going up to Forest Park and coming back down. The NW/ Pearl part was nice–there are lots of windows and shops and things and people to look at as you toddle past them.

The only problem with that is the relative frequency of opportunity to catch a glimpse of yourself reflected in the store windows. If you, like me, are more likely to envision yourself in a MADTV parody of a fitness class than in an actual fitness class, this is not necessarily a welcome sight. As I passed a row of dress shops, hair salons, and $6 coffee joints, I made the mistake of catching my own eye in the reflection.

Holy crap! Those people who were moving out of the way as I barreled through? I realized they weren’t kindly letting me pass–they thought I was on the way to the hospital and didn’t want to slow me down mid-heart attack.

Ah well. After that, we headed uphill to the park. “Uphill” is really too kind. When I think “uphill,” I think UP a hill, and then DOWN a hill on the other side. What we did was climb one of the Cascades. I’m pretty sure they were handing out picks and crampons at the aid station halfway up.

Ok, perhaps I exaggerate. But when you’re coming off of seeing your own reflection and confusing it for being chased by Roseanne Barr circa She-Devil, I think you can be forgiven a little bit of overstatement.

And it was on this “hill” of a mile up and a mile back at a 56% grade that I learned my lesson of the day: when you’ve got a bum knee, downhill sucks WAY harder than uphill.

As with most lessons, this is not one that I enjoyed learning. So far, training for a half-marathon has not yet afforded me the kind of lessons I’d prefer to learn– lessons along the lines of, “eating ice cream after 8pm is actually one of the most effective ways to lose weight.”

Alas.

Turns out, after pounding on my knee for a good 5 miles or so, then hauling up a hill for a mile, trundling down a steep hill can actually set off involuntary spasms of pain and cursing.

However, I’m sticking with the whole icing-as-much-as-possible thing, and it seems to be working out. It was still sore into Sunday, but was pretty ok by this morning. Which was fabulous, because that meant I could go to the gym this afternoon and torture myself with speedwork.

It’s a glamorous life, really. I know you’re jealous.