Old Man Shuffle

It's been quite a while since I last posted...in fact, a little more than a month. What a slacker!

The Pear Blossom 5k gave me motivation to try to get in better shape. I'd forgotten how much fun races are, but as I mentioned a month ago my time was worse than atrocious, and I really do think that I could have walked almost as fast as I ran.

The week after the Pear Blossom I did 3 1/2 mile runs on two consecutive days, and then managed to strain my left calf. Rather than try to run through the pain, as soon as I felt the first twinge of pain I started walking, and was able to keep the injury fairly minimal. Since then I've gotten in 6 or 7 runs, and have gone on two 4 milers this week. My time is still really slow, but at least I'm getting some miles in.

This morning on the way to work I passed a guy that reminded me of something Tom posted in one of his blogs...the "Old Man Shuffle." For those of you who don't know what it is, it's when an old codger (like me) goes for a "run." They act like they're running, but their strides are usually really short, and they don't go much faster than a crawl. They don't pick up their feet - they just kind of slide them along the ground. They pump their arms, and bounce up and down, but their forward progress is pretty slow. I saw an old guy (older than me) on the OC&E Trail a couple of weeks ago, and his strides were short enough that his tracks were overlapping. I asked him how far he was going, and he told me "this run is pretty short. I'll get in about 8 miles today." I know from watching him before I passed him that he literally COULD walk faster than his running pace.

Every time I go for a run I think of Tom's post. I really hope that I'm not to the stage where I'm doing the "Old Man Shuffle."