A co-worker was deriding me for running in the rain and I explained to him that I’m from Vancouver, where, if you don’t run in the rain you don’t run regularly.  And the best thing about running in the rain in Halifax is that it means it’s too warm to snow. 

Not that running in the snow is bad.  It can be kind of romantic in a the-minute-I’m-back-inside-it’s-hot-bath-and-hot-chocolate kind of way.  But it is also slippery so I run on side streets in the tire tracks, which adds a whole other level of treachery with the potential hit-by-a-car thing.  But hey, ya’ gotta live on the edge right?

The run in the rain was awesome. I was in the park that’s on the water and there was no one around and a moody Massive Attack song was playing on my ipod and I felt great and was giving thanks for my Osteopath Dusan who seems to have fixed my knee.

All summer at about the 30 minute mark during a run my knee would start killing me.  And I would slow to a walk because I figured whatever it was would cripple me if I kept going. So I went to Dusan, the Osteo with the nice smile, who found that the mobility in my knee was lousy because all the tendons on the outside were way too tight.  Also, the muscle that runs up the inside of my knee to my thigh was twisted.  As well, there was roughening under my knee cap.  No wonder I was in pain.

So he addressed them all.  The tendon part was sore for three days afterwards but I told him he was allowed to hurt me as long as he fixed me and it appears he has, I haven’t had the knee pain since.

I was telling someone the other day that the very first organized run I did was the CFOX foxtrot.  Yes there’s a radio station in Vancouver named after me :-) .  I didn’t tell them that it was the 80′s and I was wearing silver tights under my shorts - god what was I smoking?  But I did tell them that when I finished, I finished next to a 72 year old woman.  My time wasn’t all that bad and I decided I wanted to be that woman.  I want to be running 10k’s when I’m in my 70s.  Or just plain running.

But I’m clear that I’m not the greyhound of humans.  I’m not a natural runner, I just like doing it.  It’s going to take folks like Dusan lengthening my tendons, untwisting my muscles and unroughening my knee caps.  It’ll take regular yoga and ice packs.  Heck, it’ll probably require a wizard in a purple dress.  But I plan on being that fit little woman who ran well and had better fashion sense than I did.