Stride

I felt the shift on a mountain trail in Lake Tahoe. I had been jogging rather slowly down a steep hill as part of the daily run that made up the unofficial college cross country summer training camp. I felt my left hip sway out to the side and my right hip spasm and pull in toward my spine. I looked down and my left kneecap was sticking out to the side like a gargantuan tumor that had somehow gone unnoticed. I screamed, my left leg locked up, and my kneecap snapped back into place. I fell backwards and a fellow runner caught me and held me up – I could feel his arms shaking, and when I looked down, his legs were trembling.

We limped down the mountain, and I shook my head ruefully at the antics of my body that would probably put me out of commission for the next few days. I was 19 and still thought that I was invincible. Two days later, my ankle and calf of my left leg had swelled into a cankle. A week or so later, I was running the track during cross country practice with an uneven stride until the coach called for me to stop. I went to see an overweight physical therapist from the school; he told me that my days of running hills were over before putting me in a leg immobilizer.

I wore the immobilizer for about a week before starting physical therapy sessions outside of the school. My thigh muscles had atrophied considerably by then, and the professionals there told me that wearing the immobilizer hadn't been a smart decision. I went through the therapy halfheartedly and wasn't diligent about doing my exercises at home. At that point, I had already taken the injury as a sign that I wasn't cut out for running any longer. After a month, I could walk decently but I had lost my stride.

And that's when I first encountered the fear of being broken, a gimp. Have you ever watched someone with a hip problem stagger asymmetrically through a crosswalk or perhaps observed an old man shamble down the sidewalk back bent impossibly low? The usual reaction is a twinge of sympathy followed by a thankfulness that isn't you. But think about this: at one point, that person you're observing was probably whole and healthy, observing past gimps and feeling glad that they would never be like that.

Remember my Dad on the Segway, the Doctor who helped me through the hospital corridors? He has broken both ankles multiple times – one is surgically fused to help with the pain, and the other one hurts but can't be fused for walking purposes - sports injuries, a motorcycle accident, crackity-crack snap! At the same time, he's in excellent shape for his age, he does not take any sort of heavy pain medication, and he very rarely complains. He will never run again, but he's not a gimp.

I ran sporadically after my injury (it was actually the second time my left knee had been dislocated – the first time was in high school, but it was minor and I was even more invincible back then). But in my mind, I was a gimp.

16:42 – 3 miles, 2:01 – 800 meters, 4:55 – 1 mile. I kept remembering those times and swearing while I struggled to run a 10 minute mile with my now uneven stride. There's not much more to that story other than feeling past my prime. I developed the habit of cracking my knees whenever they ached – if I stretch out my left leg and keep my knee loose, then I can wiggle it from side to side, a treasure treat sliding along a jelly foundation. My favorite part is walking up stairs and hearing my left knee keep time in cricks.

The nice thing about getting both surgeries over the past few months is I finally feel that I have the excuse to start slow, to not feel ashamed by my uneven stride. I've been running about five days a week since I started this April trip. I had forgotten to pack running shoes in my haste to leave Chicago, but my favorite Floridian park had a rubberized track for barefoot running.

No such luck in Richmond, Virginia. The paths were steep and rocky, so I settled for a pair of cheap running shoes. Bell Isle in Richmond is a runner's dream. I stayed a few blocks from the park and went there nearly every day. The park is a 54 acre island set in the middle of the James River – the quickest way to get there is by walking over a hanging bridge, suspended from the highways above and set over the rapids.

Bell Isle is a collection of lovable historical ruins (used to be a prison during the Civil War), hilly paths surrounded by impossible green, secret lagoons, and rock beaches set in the rapids. For the first few visits, I'd jog lightly across level ground and prance fearfully down any sort of incline. I noticed other faster runners with level strides and perfect knees and tried not to stare. By the time I got into the forest paths, imagination had taken over fear.

There were wooden posts arranged in such a way that the site could only have been a training ground for kung-fu monks. I pulled with all my might on a metal pin stuck in the path before realizing that it could be attached to a enormous, buried grenade. I found a wall covered in crooked portals and kept walking through them, not knowing if I'd ever make it back to my world. The best experience by far was walking across water – dozens if not hundreds of Virginians do it every day since that's the only way to get to some of the better rock beaches in the rapids.

Signs set around the park listed the water as 9 feet high, and a small asphalt damn had been overrun with about 2 feet of that water. I walked unevenly along this underwater sidewalk at first, but after several visits, I knew where to place my feet with a smooth, well-timed stride.

The Red Love house where I was staying had an impressive collection of magnetic words. I tried to make a poem without messing up any pre-existing lines:

Ask calm fire why

almost amuse nature but

bring that wish past names

I'm not sure what the means, but that's how I feel when I think of getting over my fears. I know that I want to face them, but other than a vague sense of possible happiness, I'm not sure what comes afterward. I've considered making a list, but so far I've just been doing what feels natural.

Some of the best friends are the ones who help you find that natural path. Four years ago, I told a friend who I hope to see in Boston that I really wanted to run but was scared that my knee would pop out of place. She simply said that I couldn't be afraid of that. My friend that I was staying with in Richmond, who looks like a druid and is also a poet, told me about his past fear of running hills. He soon realized that the best way to get past that was to run down the hill as fast as possible. He became the fastest downhill runner on his cross country team. I remembered that my knee had crumpled to the side while taking my hill very slowly.

I tried to combine these pieces of information on the day that I placed my magnetic poem, but all I could feel was this joyful rage. I went to Bell Isle and ran instead of jogged. I threw myself down hills and tried to stick behind an aggressive biker as he burrowed through people walking the hanging bridge. I ran and ran and stopped when I came to the underwater sidewalk on the other side of the island. I walked to the rock beach, sat by myself, and let my feet trail in the water, remembering this recurring dream I have of my feet floating, hovering over the asphalt. I wanted to do something, I needed a challenge. I looked across the rapids and thought about fighting the current and crossing before realizing that'd be a pretty dumb way to die. I did realize that I wanted to cross that river in some way though.

On the far side of Bell Isle is about five stories of stairs leading up to the street and back to civilization. I put my shoes on and jogged up. I found the highway above the hanging bridge, the one that crossed the river. It had a sidewalk along the shoulder that seemed very narrow once I peered over the rail and saw ground several hundred feet below. I felt dizzy, breathless – the way I used to feel before a race.

As I jogged along the sidewalk, I estimated which light pole corresponded with the start of the river crossing. That'd be the starting line. Not...yet...not...yet..not..yet.not.yet.notyetnotyetnotyet – GO!

I sprinted and felt the wind rush past my ears. In my peripheral vision, I could see the rushing waters far below. When it became land, I went back into a jog and congratulated myself on crossing the river.

Thirty seconds later, I heard the rapids again. I'd forgotten that I'd just passed over the island and that there were essentially two rivers to cross. This section of the river looked much wider. GO!

I felt my knees pounding into the pavement and this weakness in my shoulders and chest that meant I was nearly spent. I held my breath (Valsalva acceleration technique), leaned, and felt the second burst of speed come before my feet floated over the sidewalk and broke off into a gasp. I had to repeat this breathless floating several times before making it across the wider stretch of the James River.

I slowed to an exhausted jog back on land and collapsed, gasping in the grass. I had almost forgotten that dazed happiness, but for an instant, maybe even several seconds, I had found my stride.