C'mon Body.

The instant I stopped our final group run on Sunday, the outside of my right knee locked up.  I limped back toward the parking lot, switching between a hobble and a Frankenstein-like monster walk.  A friendly teammate struck up a dialogue about the pain--an injury she's all too familiar with.  It's the iliotibial band, the tendon running along the outside of the quad and around the knee cap (what?  a syndrome?!).

After some ice, stretching, and time on a foam roller, I seized the chance to check out Elite Spinal and Sports Care.  They work with many of the elite marathon runners and triathletes in the area, and over full body treatment for injuries many of us have come to perceive as localized issues.  Dr. Lau essentially used his forearms and elbows to break up fascia in my muscles and tendons.  It was a rather painful experience--I did a lot of uncontrollable shouting and practiced (what I imagine are) LaMas-style breathing strategies.  The end result seems worth the pain.  I'm sore, but I have confidence that my body can rebound in time for the race.

However, there's much more work to be done on my end in the lead-up to Sunday's marathon.  More foam rolling, constant awareness while running this week, and anti-inflammatories.  The plan to run remains, although the prognosis and personal goal is subject to change.  

The Puking Tree - Part Deux

There's a secret story behind the puking tree, one we tell out of earshot from the neighbors.  They're at work today, so I'm going to proceed.

The neighbor's disdain for the puking tree predates my arrival at this house.  The legend goes, Stephanie's former landscaper (coincidentally, her father) was approached by the neighbor and asked to bag the leaves so as to keep them from her driveway.  It was a ridiculous request, but the landscaper obliged, because he is a nice man.

There's a caveat to this legend, one that involves our optometrist down the street. A nice man himself, he decided to help Stephanie by using his leaf blower to clear her yard of the puking tree's leavings.  His kind deed was met with stiff rebuke from the neighbor.  Thankfully, he still agrees to annually examine our eyes. 

The puking tree, then, must be seen as the neighbor's enemy.  It is the vexing figure by which all yardly tormenting emanates (for her, at least).  As a result, I must constantly be on my toes.  I must carefully survey the depth of the piling leaves.  I must watch their subtle encroachment toward said neighbor's cold and clammy driveway.  I must consider my manner warily when I carry on with neighborly business.

Because the puking tree and its reveling compadres in the neighborhood spill their contents all fall long, the Land Park community provides a pickup service.  We pile our lawn clippings and leaves in a in the street, and a rumbling claw shovels them into a truck.  It's more environmentally efficient, yes, to use the yard-waste bin for such matters, but the sheer volume of trees and their habit for puking still render the claw a viable and valued option for residents.

Not here though.

Our neighbor's location behind a storm drain provides her with an unprecedented level of angst.  The street piles, she proudly argues, always lead to clogged grates, flooded streets, and unfit suburban living conditions.  Letters! she told me, will be sent to those who continue to clump fallen leaves in the street!  (In a connected story, the sheer fear of this woman led to an evening excursion during last week's storm, when I found myself achilles-deep in water in front of the neighbor's house at 9:30 p.m.  I was only raking a puddle, but still.)

Thankfully, there's yet another story behind the puking tree.  It's a developing story, you might say.  There are three-parts currently, but like the steady drop of leaves, parts are most certain to continue accumulating:

1. Leaving the house last Saturday, we found a family of three on the sidewalk beneath the puking tree, taking family photos with a professional photographer.  "We love this tree," they told us.  "Louder," I thought, staring toward the neighbor.
2. While on the roof this week, I noticed an elderly woman in a minivan slowing in front of the house.  She rolled down her window to tell me, "This is my favorite tree in all of Land Park."
3. Today, as I piled leaves from the puking tree into our (now full) green-waste bin, a woman hopped out of an SUV and asked to collect some leaves.  She, here visiting her family from Arizona, began to describe how the ginkgo leaves can be used in select pottery designs to leave imprints during the firing of ceramics.  

The Puking Tree

The Zook/Petty family knows when autumn is near because the beautiful tree in our front yard begins belching up branches.  In the narrative I concoct while working in the yard, these branches signify the tree's hearty metabolism.  The tree wants to know what life is like in autumn--wants to see what the nightlife is all about, you could say.  It starts shedding branches to get in shape for the well-to-dos and floozies in neighborhood.   

The season's parties are underway.  This week, the branches that survived the belching began throwing up.

 

















This tree gets drunk on November, binging through windy afternoons and rainy weekends.  Heartily soused, it challenges the other trees on the block to drinking games, then shames them back into their sophomoric corners with its strong arms raised to the darkening skies in exaltation.  Even the most diligent humans, armed with the finest machines that Sears Robuck and Company can provide, remain unable to intervene with this lush's tear and the aftermath of its leafy vomit.

Then, quite quickly, the tree's indulgence subsides.  Surrounding trees remain indignant, stuck in destructive cycles of addiction and perpetual hangovers brought on by their inability to purge.  Fall turns to winter, and autumn walks out without so much as a kiss on the cheek.

Let the tapering begin!

Training for the California International marathon on Sundays offers one unforeseen gem, hidden deep in the heart of autumn: it's an extra hour's sleep, once daylight savings ends, before the longest training run.  Last night we made preparations for the big sleep-a-bration by gallivanting through the house and rewinding time.  We set off for bed, relishing in the thought of added REM before embarking on our greatest distance.

Turns out our alarm clock, a sorcerer of grand futuristic wizardry, already possessed the internal programming to set itself.  Thus, in a groggy haze--the gurgling coffee pot behind me and the boiling pot of oatmeal before me--I glanced at the clock and realized it was actually 6:30, not our ritualistic 5:30.  This meant we'd need to eat and ready, forgo digestion, and get to Howe Avenue in a mere thirty minutes!

Undaunted, we arrived in time to join the tail end of our group as they strode into the morning.  And though there's a certain degree of comedy, and a bit shame, in the way it all started, the run itself went well enough.  The intermittent rain came down heavily at times.  The American River Parkway offered one bird bath after another for bodies to dodge.  My left orthodic bunched beneath my foot for the better part of twelve miles, necessitating two stops and thoughts of just push through it, right?  Right?  My training mate stopped three times for various reasons.  All told, we ran off and on for nearly three hours.

Next week marks the beginning of our tapering.  We run 16 miles--13 at our marathon pace.  After that the mileage falls until December 5.