Meniscus Tear Rehab 1-Hour Barefoot Jog on Grass

Sept. 10, 2022

1st K: 5:54.56

2nd K: 5:38.49

3rd K: 5:42.46

4th K: 5:43.58

5th K: 5:36.83

6th K: 5:22.86

7th K: 5:29.11

8th K: 5:22.08

9th K: 5:20.13

10th K: 5:19.24

11th K: 4:48.15

Total 11 K: 1:00:11

 

I hit a nearby park after getting off work and jogged on grass for an hour in bare feet. It was another pain-free running session. I take it as proof of steady recovery. 

The late afternoon park was filled with active visitors of all ages. A group of teenagers were playing soccer. Parents were having fun with their small son or daughter with a ball. Middle-aged runners were lapping the track, some at a brisk pace, others at an easy one. Groups of elderly women were going round and round as they enjoyed chatting with one another. With the warm early autumnal sun pouring over all of us, it looked like a typical late Saturday afternoon at the park. And I was one of these many locals that constitute this peaceful view.

On reaching the park, I took off my flip-flops and started running with them in my hands. I dropped them off on a speaker's platform stationed near the exit to the parking lot. After that I lapped the track again and again as I listened to a You Tube lecture by Paul Roetzer about AI, one of a number of subject matters that I want to delve into these days. It is informative in that it gives you basic knowledge of what AI is and what it can do. There are some examples to illustrate how AI works. So it is a good introduction to the technology, especially to someone like me who is a relative novice on the topic. 

While running, I simultaneously listened to the audio, and thought about my knee and what it would be capable of doing down the road. From time to time, I had this iffy feeling creeping up around the injured area. My heart sank, afraid that I might have to take a long break from running again. My spirit lifted, though, when the iffy feeling evaporated as I moderated the pace and adjusted the form. 

Thirty minutes into running, I asked myself, "Shall we call it a day? Or do you think it's OK to go on?" The iffy feeling had long gone. I felt slightly exhausted, but I thought I could cope with that if I slowed down. On I went. 

It's funny, though, that once I decided to go on, the slight hesitation that I had left before making that decision seemed to transform itself into some kind of fuel. What I mean is, though I decided to go on, on the condition that I would slow down, the pace did not change so much. And the slight feeling of exhaustion almost seemed non-existent from the start! 

I was checking my lap time each time I ran 1 K. But I lost count about 45 minutes into running. My Timex has recall function, so I checked how many Ks I had already run. It showed I was in the middle of the 8th K. I decided to run at least 10 K, and then was going to decide whether or not to go for an extra K to make it a solid one-hour session. 

When I finally covered 10 K, my Timex said 55 minutes something. Another K would make it a one-hour session. At this moment, I slowed down and tried to enjoy warming down. But when I ran the first half of the remaining K, I could not control the burning desire to pick up the pace, especially when I saw the blazing late afternoon sun shining on me, I injected the pace in the remaining few hundred meters, of course without taking wider strides because that could kill injured knee, but by increasing cadence while keeping the strides small.

The watch said 4:48 for the last K. And I was pain-free. Another mission accomplished. 

I look forward to seeing how my knee will feel tomorrow morning. Hopefully, just a little soreness and Baker's cyst just slightly more swollen. But that's it. I hope.  I do not care so much about Baker's cyst because it does not hamper anything of my daily behavior. It is just a visual abnormality, plus my body's natural attempt to heal the part of body that worked very hard. We all work hard sometimes. So do some body parts. And we all recover when we rest well. And so will body parts. Human body is resilient   

 

Midnight 7.4 K Jog & 10 Reps by a 12-Sec Hammer Pull-Up

Sept.5, 2022

3.4 K: 22:46.09

Park Workout: 9:59.88 / 10 Reps by a 12-Sec Hammer Pull-Up

3.4 K: 22:51.11

Total 55:37.08

*****************

I jogged at midnight. There were two purposes. One, I wanted to improve my cardiovascular capacity. Two, I wanted to listen to some audio. Listening at my desk does not have any athletic benefit. So, I listened while running. 

As far as my first purpose, my focus tonight was controlled running. By that I mean running that causes minimum impact on my once-severely-injured and now steadily recovering left knee. Two things were important:

1) Never to kick strongly.

2) Increase cadence and take short strides.

I stack to these two policies. As a result, I completed the run pain-free.

As to the second purpose, I focused on four things:

1) Stay in dead-hang position for two seconds.

2) Take two seconds to pull up.

3) Isometrically hold pull-up position for four seconds.

4) Eccentrically pull down taking four seconds. 

By doing the above, I wanted to build my shoulder stability in dead-hang position, increase concentric speed, keep the shoulders in more stable positions to avoid injury, and trigger micro tear which happens most typically when muscles are under tension as they are being elongated. 

Let's see the effect by observing how soar I will be a couple of days down the road!

Midnight 1-Hour Jog on Road in Shoes

Aug. 26, 2022

0.9 K: 5:06.57

10 K: 1:03:25

0.9 K: 5:13.50

Total 11.8 K: 1:08:39

I ran on road after work. I ran in shoes. My doctor friend advises me not to run on road without shoes. Although I will probably override his advice at some point in the future to run a road race without shoes anyway, but at this stage of my rehabilitation, I consider it wise to stick to his advice. I wore a pair of NIKE with minimum cushioning. I hate a thick sole. I don't feel stable in them. I even feel a risk of straining your ankle increases when running in those. 

Anyway, it was an another 60-min + session completed without pain nor discomfort. Breathing wasn't hard either. But of course, it's because of an easy pace. I will stay at this pace for the time being. And I will extend my training distance without increasing pace so much. I want to regain the endurance that I used to take for granted before injury. It's so humbling to see how hard it is to get it back once you have lost it. But I will not give up on it. Going slow is the key.  

 za

10 K Barefoot Jog on Grass / 10㌔裸足走

Aug. 21, 2022

I completed another pain-free barefoot jog on grass. It is part of my on-going rehabilitative effort to someday run a marathon in bare feet again. Today I comfortably covered 10 K in about one hour. I am happy. 

I had been sore from body weight muscle training that I had done 3 days before. The soreness almost receded by this late afternoon. So after prepping for a couple of lessons that I'm scheduled to teach next week, I hit a nearby park for a run.

It was past 5:00 p.m. when I got to the park. It was busy with locals, some taking a walk, others practicing soccer, and yet others playing with hand-made stings hanging on branches of cherry trees.

I started off without pre-determining how far I would go. I ran at an easy pace. Much slower than usual. 

I listened, while running, to a few different lectures all by biological anthropologist, Helen Fisher. She is one of a number of academics that I like. She discovered biological proof for different social styles. One thing that I learned from her is that people are sometimes hard to deal with not because they intend to give you a hard time (though it is possible that in some case they do), but because that's who they are. She makes to become more open-minded to people whose personality types are largely different from mine, which is a good thing, because I can avoid unnecessary friction with others. 

Anyhow, back to talking about running, because I ran at such an easy pace, I still felt full of energy after running 8 K, so I decided to increase the pace and finish fast at the end, which I did. I was expecting a 1:02-ish finish. But the time was well under 1:01. But time is not so important at this stage of rehab. Distance. That's more important. I want to be used to running longer distances. But I'm in no hurry. What took long to lose will take long to recover. I'm going to go slow. 

 

Reward Barefoot Run

Aug. 14, 2022

I feel...serene. Very much. I am deeply content. Physically, I feel a little tired. But not in the negative sense of being sluggish or unwilling to do anything. Perhaps I could go for a slow bike ride or something if somebody wanted to do it with me.

From Aug. 8 through 14 I taught 6 five-hour seminars. The participants were English teachers of various levels: junior high, senior high, and college. The topics covered include reading, logic and expression, introduction to English training, and conducting lessons in English. 

Thanks to Zoom, teachers from across Japan were able to join the seminars, some one, and others more than one of those seminars. They were eager to brush up their skills as well as to get fresh ideas for the lessons they teach in the fall semester. They were all positive and asked me lots of questions. They were all so enthusiastic I fully committed myself to sincerely addressing all the questions they asked. 

But probably the best part of most of the seminars I teach is model lessons. Over the course of one week, I demonstrate countless small activities, and a few 50-minute full model lessons. The participants join the lessons as students. This is important for a number of reasons. One, if they have fun, they can believe that they can also share it with their own students if they try the same. Two, if they disagree with my approach, they can ask me questions after the demos, and through discussion, we can discover a way to address the concerns they may have, suppose they apply the same approach with their students. Either way, it takes us a step further toward better lessons. 

During this non-stop seminar week (the teacher seminars I offer in my company are called APET seminars) I wake up at 8, start teaching at 10:30, take a lunch break between 1 and 2, finish at 4:30 pm. I usually go for a jog in a nearby park right after the seminar. By the time I get home from exercise, I feel hungry, so I have dinner. Somehow, as soon as I finish dinner, I feel sleepy, so I take a nap for a couple of hours. I wake up between 10 and 11 or thereabout. I preview the seminar on the following day. I also research the schools where participants work. I use the information for an icebreaker when I see them the following day. They often look surprised that when I mention some of the things that I found on their Web pages. They do not seem to expect the facilitator to be interested in participants' schools. To me everything related to my participants are valuable information. My preview also includes going over the PowerPoint slides that I will be using on the following day. The information gets imprinted in my subconscious this way. When I wake up the following morning, my mind is already focused on what I'm supposed to present. I can always make a good start. 

During the seminar week, I eat lightly. I eat lots of fruits. I try to eat veggies. I eat fish also. I eat carb of course, but only a moderate amount. This is because somehow, I feel that you are what you eat. If you eat garbage, you feel like garbage, you become garbage, and so does your work. I don't want to let that happen. When I see my audience, I want to be presentable like a well-trained, well-disciplined athlete ready to run a race. And I feel that way of thinking is not totally off the mark, because all professionals are, in more ways than one, like athletes. 

Today marked the last day of the APET seminar week. When I said goodbye to the participants in today's seminar as I thanked them for their active participation, I felt numb like your feet often feel numb immediately after you take off your ski boots after hours and hours of hitting the slope. I was like, "My goodness, it is finally over."

After the seminar, I threw myself into running gear and hit the nearby park for a jog. The grass felt refreshingly moist after a typhoon passed the day before. The sunset looked like an oil painting by a maestro. As the sun got nearer to the horizon, the air got cooler, which made the run more pleasant. The park was being visited by like-minded fitness buffs. Some were elderly with walking sticks in both hands. Others were local sisters kicking a ball back and forth between them. Yet others were fathers teaching their sons how to play soccer or rugby. People exercising in the park all seem to me to be cheerleaders for one another. We don't say it, but deep inside, we all admire each other for our motivation, and wish each other's well-being.  

 

 Aug. 11, 2022

Another refreshing barefoot run completed after work. Totally pain-free during and after the session. Highly motivating. I didn't mean to, nor did I particularly want to, but ran all 7 Ks under 6 minutes. It just feels like a good pace for me right now. Not particularly trying to push hard or anything. It just comes naturally. 

Wednesday Afternoon Barefoot Jog

Aug. 10, 2022

It was a beautiful sunny day today. I had a 5-hour seminar to teach between 10:30 am to 4:30 pm. After that, I hit a nearby park to refresh myself. 

There were a number of like-minded athletic people of all ages in the park. Some kids were practicing soccer with their moms sitting in the shade under a tree, watching their boys play while chatting. 

Quite a few elderly people, both men and women, enjoyed walking. Some had walking sticks in both of their hands. Others walked at a quite brisk pace for their ages. 

I started off at a little slower than 6-min/K pace. I ran a 500-M track twice counterclockwise to run 1 K and timed. Then I ran the same track this time clockwise twice and timed. 

I felt fatigued after running 5 K. I thought of calling a day. But I changed my mind in the last minute and carried on. But I slowed down a bit to warm down. 

When I ran 5.5 K, I had a choice: Will I stop? Or will I carry on? I carried on for another 500 M because a slow lap allowed me to refuel my legs. But I decided to make it my last lap for the day. This lifted my motivation slightly and allowed me to pick up a pace just a little toward the end. 

All in all, it was a pleasantly pain-free barefoot session. I feel increasingly confident that sooner or later I can run a race again in bare feet. But I will take baby steps. I will also keep in mind that resting at my age is as important as pushing myself. 

I am still trying to figure out a weekly training regimen that is sustainable. But the process of thinking about what works best for me is so much fun. And that's what keeps me going.