Running Miseries

July 24, 2010

I ran 10 miles at Stone Mountain Park this morning. During my 43 years of running I’ve probably done a thousand of these long runs; literally, a thousand of them. (Altogether, around 13,000 runs) There was nothing exceptional or different about this run. During these runs something always (strikeout) usually (strikeout) often (strikeout) occasionally (yes!) goes awry. Not everything goes awry in the same run, but all too often several things do go awry. This is an account of the unwelcome nuisances I typically encounter.

It was 79 degrees with a heat index of 82 degrees when I started running at 7:10 am. The temperature rose quickly as the sun rose. It was so hot and humid today that I had a difficult time managing my body temperature. While running I used my hands to squeegee sweat off my arms and rubbed it on my head for cooling; disgusting, but effective.

The sweat got in my eyes repeatedly and made it difficult to see; it stings when it gets in my eyes. The sweat also got on my glasses and dried there leaving a white crusty substance. Some of it dripped off the bottom of my glasses before it had a chance to evaporate.

My lightweight sleeveless running shirt got soaked with sweat. The shirt was matted to my chest, but through thousands of small repetitive motions it rubbed my nipples raw. I typically don’t know I’ve been rubbed raw until someone points out the two streams of blood running down my shirt at the end of the run. Sometimes the nipples get rubbed raw, but don’t bleed. In that case the discovery is made upon the first contact with soap in the shower. Double ouch.

I sweat so much during summer runs that it runs down my arms and comes slinging off my hands and elbows during each stride. Ann, Chris, and Ben have asked me not to run next to them so they don’t get hit with my sweat. I thought you might like to be aware of that small piece of running etiquette.

During the last two miles of the run I started to feel a blister that was forming on the arch of my right foot. There were also three other blisters that formed on the tops of two toes and between two other toes that I discovered when I took my socks off. I didn’t feel those blisters until I stopped running, and again when I showered. God bless soap; a necessary evil, but ouch, it hurts.

By the end of the run the sweat from my shirt and shorts had also made its way down my legs and collected in my socks and shoes. These too were soaked. Sometimes they get so wet that each foot strike splashes enough sweat out of the shoe to leave a wet outline of the shoe on the pavement. When I got home I was able to wring out the socks just like the other gear. The skin on my feet was pale and white, and was wrinkled as if I’d been swimming for hours.

By the time I finished the run my shorts were dripping with sweat. After the run I changed my shorts in the parking lot while using a beach towel for cover. When I rung them out there was a large puddle of sweat next to my car. The sweat had had more than an hour to ferment during the run, so the shorts smelled awful. I had to put the shorts in a plastic bag so they wouldn’t continue to drip on the car’s carpet and so the upholstery wouldn’t soak up the stench. I didn’t discover that the wet shorts had rubbed my left and right crotch raw until I got in the shower and applied soap and water. Ouch yet again.

I knew I would be dehydrated after the run, so I brought a 20 ounce Gatorade to drink in the car on the way home. I don’t care for the stuff under normal circumstances, but after a run it tastes un-by-god-believably good. My urine is a dark yellow immediately after the run due to the dehydration. I end up drinking fluids all day long before I am hydrated again and my urine turns a lighter color.

I have thick calluses on the edge of my big toes and also on the balls of my feet. The prolonged contact with sweat made the calluses soft, so in the shower I took the opportunity to scrape some of the dead tissue off with my fingernails. If I don’t do some scraping regularly the calluses become too thick and the entire callus will peel off from the foot, which leaves my flesh unprotected from the sock and shoe.

I was lucky today. I didn’t get chafed in the all-time worst location. Sometimes the bottom side of the scrotum gets rubbed raw by the wet running shorts. This is another discovery that is made via contact with soap in the shower. Only in one severe case has this resulted in a bloody scab. Nothing is more frightful to a man than injury to the private parts; absolutely nothing.

When I tried to take a nap after the run my toes kept curling down and a cramp formed in the arch of my foot. Several times I had to get out of bed and stretch the foot straight to eliminate the cramp. The muscles in my calves were also twitching involuntarily during the nap. The twitching felt like I had spiders or flies crawling on the hairs of my legs. It was hard to sleep when my body kept demanding attention.

For the remainder of the day I was tired. My entire body was achy and sore. I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. I dropped a sock on the floor and it was a minor catastrophe. It’s a major effort to bend over and pick anything up. Sometimes I will take an entire minute debating whether to pick something up or let it lay there. If I do pick it up, I do so in slow motion as if practicing a tai chi movement. I might hurt myself if I do anything quickly.

And then there is the physical discomfort of running itself. The mind, muscles, tendons, heart, and lungs all being pushed to operate in an uncomfortable realm.

Given the collective miseries of running, it is a wonder that anyone runs.