See, while I’m running, I’m not thinking about much in particular; contrary to what my physical therapist believes, I’m not obsessing about my form or worrying the whole time about how my knock knees are going to inevitably lead to injury. Instead, I’m usually wondering about what I can eat when I’m finished running, or whether or not I remembered to pay my rent, or imagining what Kate Middleton’s wedding dress will look like and whether or not it would be worth it to be a princess if you also had to have the Queen as a grandmother-in-law. But also, when I’m running, I tend to feel pretty good about myself. I stop worrying if my thighs have gone from “thunder” status “to just plain freakish,” and I never think about whether my mascara is running or if my hair looks ok. I’m content. I’m running.
THEN with only the warning of rumbling footsteps, some collegiate cross country team glides past. They’re young, attractive, and so much faster than I will ever be. Up until that moment, I was cruising; I was pretty-fast-for-a-girl; I was someone of whom people referred as “a crazy runner,” which all runners take as a compliment. But behind a bunch of 19-year-old athletes, I’m just old and slow. It’s a bummer. It snaps me out of pleasant dreams of a unicorn-emblazoned finisher’s medal back into the reality in which I have not even completed a marathon this year. In this instance, it’s better to be oblivious.
Then again, from another perspective, I should be a little more tuned in. I went to meet Jae of the Balanced Runner. Just to preface this, I still don’t know really what Feldenkrais is. Before Jae got to work on me (or we got to work together; it’s still hard to say), she told me she was skipping the basic runner’s session and moving me right into something more targeted to my IT band pain. The downside of this approach, she warned me, was that I may still not get the “why” part of Feldenkrais yet, since she was passing over the introduction in our session. So, I am not really going to try to describe what Feldenkrais is all about because I will get it wrong and may either mislead or offend people.
What Jae asked me to do was to run some short distances while she watched, and each time, she asked me to think about a different aspect of my running: my foot strike, my angle of incline to the ground, my arm swing, my pelvic movement, etc. Now, it’s not that I’ve never thought about these things. But I’d never bothered to compare if my right foot, arm, half-of-pelvis, and rib cage were moving any differently than those on my left. And the worst part is that, even after running while thinking about it, I still couldn’t really say.
Now my mom has called me “oblivious” more times than I can count and my boyfriend is terribly patient every time I try to stop and figure out why I’m mad or upset, and then struggle to articulate it. I know I’m not a really reflective person, and I tend to refer to myself as a “big picture” thinker. Now, however, I’m confronted with the possibility that I’m not just oblivious, but that I cannot understand the way I feel (physically, in this case) even when I’m trying to. Scary.
So there I was, standing in the cold darkness in the middle of 11th Street with someone whom I’d just met, trying to tell her that it wasn’t that I didn’t notice a difference between my left foot strike and my right, but that I couldn’t tell if they were different or the same. Like I was tone deaf, except in my feet. Jae was also terribly patient and nodded and said encouraging things. She then brought me back inside (which was great, because I was wearing just a t-shirt and jeans and it’s November) and set me up on a table and basically moved me around for forty minutes or so. When she was done, she asked me to stand, walk, and run again, and she asked me if I felt different. I did—definitely. However, there is no way I can explain how. What I told Jae was that I felt “heavier but in a good way,” which is not terribly clear and sounds like the opposite of what ever runner wants. What I think I meant was that I felt more connection to the road below me, which is also not that useful.
I haven’t had the chance to run since. Yesterday was filled with work and physical therapy appointments and dog walking and family-related obligations; every time I tried to find a twenty minute window to at least get a little sweaty, something would come up and stymie my attempts. Louie and I will run today, and I will try not to think about my knee, as Brynn, my PT, requests, but at the same time be in tune with my foot strike and torso rotation and arm swing. It’s a lot to think about and not think about all at the same time. I’m wishing I could stay oblivious.
