HOPEFUL

Could it be that my do nothing strategy is working? So far this week the results are promising.

After succeeding at doing nothing for 5 days my sports chiropractor worked hard on my hamstring and reported that it was much improved. I knew it was because all his hard work on it hadn't caused much pain. Always a good sign! Then he noticed a deep bruise behind my knee which was likely caused by pooling blood from the injury. That made me nervous...I'd never noticed pooling blood after any other injury. Pooling blood can't be a positive, right?

But apparently it's not much of anything. My chiro ignored it, saying when the treatment ended that I was good to go. So off I went. An easy hour on the elliptical on Tuesday. My nothingness streak was, happily, over. Then, on Wednesday I did my 4.5 mile bridal path/reservoir loop in Central Park. It went slow but well. I did it again on Friday and I was 4 minutes faster.

My pace has quickened to high 9 minutes per mile. That's about 30 seconds off the slowest pace I'd ever run when healthy. But it is SO much better than what I've been doing since my calf/Achilles turned against me. In fact, there were times during the run on Friday where I felt something that I haven't felt in a long time...normal.

And that is why I feel hopeful.

SO HARD TO DO

I've adopted a new tactic to heal. I'm doing nothing. A little walking, a little stretching, a little icing. To me that's nothing. I'm not:

-Working thru the injuries.
-Alternate training around them.
-Backing off when it starts to hurt.
-Doing easy stuff like yoga, but cautously.

No, nothing. That's my plan. Because I've tried training carefully. I've run only on grass fields, the bridal path and the reservoir loop. I've run 11 and 12 minute miles. I've gone so slowly on the few down hills that I might as well have been walking. I've worked hard only on the non impact Elliptical. And I've challenged myself with power yoga in a heated room and yoga is definitely not easy for me. Yet all I've gotten from this is a sense of falling out of shape and seeing only the scantest progress in these nagging injuries. And now a slightly pulled hamstring has been added to my out of kilter list. So that's why I've decided to do nothing.

And THAT is just the hardest thing to do.

Oh, I can do it for awhile and feel calm about it. The other day I was stretching in the gym when a friend approached and asked if I was doing the NYC Marathon. When I explained that these little hurts prevented me from doing so, she responded: "You look very peaceful."

Well, I like peaceful and I felt pleased with her comment. I though that it's a sign of mental health to make something good (peacefulness) out of something bad (forced, limited inactivity).

But the good feelings don't last very long. I get antsy. I want to do what I love. I want to be athletic and competitive and challenge myself. And even now I know that I can. I could weight train. I could (carefully) do Hot Power Yoga. I could (perhaps) do the elliptical. Certainly I could swim. But any of them could also exacerbate one or more of the things that ail me. Probably not swimming but that's the most inconvenient and boring.

So I force myself to do nothing. At least for a few days more. I do non physical things that are good. I remind myself that missing a few more days won't have such a terribly negative affect and that when I'm ready I'll come back strong. And then it's okay. And then it's not. So I make plans that I so far manage to keep myself from enacting.

Man, this nothingness is a challenge. It is really hard to do!!

NOT MUCH FUN AT ALL

I have these injuries. They nag at me and refuse to go away. Groin and Achilles Tendon and Soleus. The groin makes it difficult and painful to stride with any length and curtails my ability to sprint. The Achilles and Soleus become extremely uncomfortable after any real distance and slows my pace on even relatively short runs. They've made it SO difficult to compete and SO difficult to run. And SO difficult to have my athletic fun.

I haven't raced since July or trained in a meaningful way. There's no way I can do the New York Marathon in November and I'm having doubts about Disney in January. I've been able to play softball because that doesn't require running for any length of time. But my speed is limited especially when my groin tightens after about an hour or so. Don't even ask about the second game of double headers!!

I go for treatment and I'm told that nothing feels bad. Great! Until I try to do something and keep hitting against these confounding limitations. Of course I cross train and have incorporated yoga in heated rooms into my options. But it's NOT RUNNING!!!!!

I think I need to take a break and let everything settle down but that is very difficult. I feel the summer (and time) slipping away. I've lost my sense of being in really good shape. I've concentrated on softball because I can at least muddle through the game but the fast running it demands probably exacerbates my ills.

At least there have been softball successes. My Sunday team won our championship and I played well at crucial moments. I've also done fine with my weekday team, the one that was the source of much dispair a few months ago. I've regained much of what I felt I'd lost there and we are now in the playoffs. We can take the championship there, too.

And in our first playoff contest this week I did very well...till I pulled a hamstring! So now I can't run at all. Maybe the forced rest will help heal the other ailments. But it's depressing. And a drag. And boring. And makes me distrustful of my body. And feel so old.

Get my point? Not much fun at all.

RUNNING PAINS

I must be very fragile. Something always hurts and by that I really mean somethings. And those somethings seem to affect my running, affect my speed, affect my training.

And it doesn't do much for my mood, either.

A few weeks ago I was running in the outfield to cut off a base hit. I stumbled as I got to the ball and kept from falling by using my left arm to brace myself against the ground. Hours later my wrist hurt so much that I thought I might have broken it.

In May I ran a solid Brooklyn Half Marathon. Around the fourth mile I raised blisters on the inside of both my feet. At race's conclusion my feet and shoes were bathed in blood. I've taped mightily, but, since then, I've developed blisters on several long runs, making them extremely uncomfortable and certainly slowing my pace.

And, of course, there was the pulled calf muscle during a mid May softball game that cost me almost 2 weeks of training.

Finally, most recently, all the abdominal work I've been doing with my trainer has given me not six-pack abs but a lower abdominal strain, or, worst case possibility, a hernia. For the past week or so I hurt SO much there as I start to run. The pain generally subsides but is often at least somewhat uncomfortable. It has to affect my speed.

What a mess I am!

Well, the wrist only hurts now when I throw, the calf is healed and the blistering seems much better now that my podiatrist shaved off the offending portions of my orthotics. Since it seems like I can run through the ab problem my strategy is to ignore it as much as possible and hope that it will get better.

Still, I can's say that I went into today's Gay and Lesbian Five Mile Race with a whole lot of confidence. What body part would be most likely to betray me? And then, of course, there was the problem with the heat and humidity...there was too much of both and I don't generally run well in either of them.

So the race began and, to my delight, the lower ab didn't hurt me much. Nor did the blister. Nor did anything else. And my time for the first mile was good. And my time for the second mile was just as good!

Too good, unfortunately. My pace was too fast and I died in the race's second half. Not literally, of course, though I did feel kind of sick. I slowed dramatically, watched much of the running world run past me and, eventually, staggered across the line.

I finished 7th in my age group out of about 65 and around 500th in the race that had over 3000 participants so I didn't do that bad in a comparative sense. It was, I think, my slowest 5 mile race ever. My pace, in fact, was far slower than it had been in the much longer Brooklyn Half Marathon.

But I'm hopeful my abs problem is getting better, nothing else physically bothered me, nothing fell off my body besides lots of sweat and I did run a good two and a half miles.

It would be great if my upcoming running pains would be just from the pain of hard running.

STRUGGLING FOR BETTER

I'm afraid my athletic performances are heading down hill. If that's true, then a big part of my identity is under threat. So evidence that this is the case is VERY upsetting. Any indication that someone besides me recognizes this is INFURIATING!!

That's probably why that last stupid softball game I wrote about bothered me so.

Since then I've played pretty well in my Sunday league and that's cheered me up. It was only this past Monday that we had another game in the week day league, however. I was so nervous about what might happen that I hoped for rain. Let's postpone any potential bad news for about a month!

It didn't rain, though, and only 10 of our players showed up. I had to be in the line up (1 bit of bad news avoided), but, of course, I could play poorly and cement my lowly status and the guy who appears to have replaced me could do well and solidify his.

The starting lineup further darkened my outlook. Once again I was listed in the last spot, the polar opposite of my (once) customary lead off position. I began the game in a foul mood.

The very first inning reinforced all that was wrong. My nemisis lead off with a walk and we started a big inning. I batted with 2 on base and failed to contribute as I flied out weakly on a pitch out of the strike zone. Everything sucked and it was all going to get worse.

And then it turned. My remaining 2 at bats were excellent and I played really well in the field. I worked the pitcher, hit the ball hard, reached base and ran down everything that came near me in the outfield. Suddenly I felt in the groove and my confidence began to grow. My counterpart, meanwhile, hit poorly the rest of the way and had an absolutely disasterous game in left field.

We won the game and the manager said to me that the team really needed me in right field. Okay. Well, we'll see what happens when (and if) those missing guys start to show up.

But for now at least it's better.

THIS HURTS

Hurts and sucks, actually.

My weekday team has struggled from the start, losing 3 of 4 games. Yesterday we faced the league's first place team, an opportunity for us to go deeper into the hole or pull off a big win and turn the season around.

And there was good reason for optimism. Our #1 pitcher, Jose, was scheduled to appear with us for the first time!

Meanwhile, our manager, perturped by our lack of hitting, sent an email to expect line up changes.

Game time arrived with ominous clouds above and, much more threatening for us, Jose not present. In his early season sabatical we'd used 3 other pitchers. NONE of them were there either. We had NO pitcher to go against the best hitting team in the league.

So I was asked to step into the vacuum. I hadn't pitched a game in years nor been a regular pitcher since 1997. But I'd do my best in what would be an almost hopeless situation.

And then the manager read the starting lineup. Remember those line up changes he promised? There was only 1. I was dropped from my customary lead off spot to the last position in the batting order.

Apparently I was the cause of our poor run production. In fact, I wasn't. I'd missed 2 games with injury and work and reached base safely in half my at bats in the contests I'd played.Nothing great, nothing terrible. So why had I been booted from a key spot to the least important? I was stunned.

Nevertheless, I went out to pitch and did reasonably well. They scored twice on hits and once on an error and that was all for 2 innings. Believe me, it could have been much worse. Our bats were silent again and mine, in the 10 hole, was unused as we hadn't even reached my spot in the order yet.

We trailed, 3-0, going into the 3rd inning when Jose arrived. It was a no brainer to put him into pitch, and it was, apparently, a no brainer for the coach to remove me from the game to make room for him though it could have been any other player.

We now had 11 guys at the field. I spent the rest of the evening watching the other 10.

Jose pitched extremely well and added 3 hits including a game turning triple and we came from behind to win. The guy in my spot had 1 hit in 4 turns...nothing special...but his single and speed on the bases helped tie the score.

It was a great team victory but I shared in none of the pleasure. I'd been told where I stood on the team...least important and most disposable of the 11. And considering that there were several others who weren't at the game who would probably play before me, my value is likely even less.

A coach's decision, a coach's evaluation. Coming off a very solid 2007 I'm not sure what I'd done to merit it.

What a drag for this to be my first post in all these months. But boy, does this hurt and embarass and anger me. I've been suddenly marginalized. This used to be my team and I used to matter.

LENNY

Lenny Kasten died last month. He was 80. From my athletic life, he was one of the people that I liked the best.

I met Lenny when he and his family came to the bungalow colony, Lansmans, where my family and I had long spent our summers. It was the mid 1960's and I was a teenager and he a grown man of about 40.

Lenny wanted to play on our softball team. The team was mainly, though not completely, pretty young. Most of the players were my age or just a few years older. "What's an old guy like that doing coming out for our team?" I thought to myself.

After Lenny smashed a bunch of long drives deep into the outfield in batting practice, including some that rolled into the woods surrounding the field, I understood. He was coming out because he was going to be one of our best players. Lenny made the team, becoming our starting third basemen and cleanup hitter.

Here's the way many of our games would start. I would lead off and get on base. Either Bobby or Tony, batting behind me, would also get on (sometimes they both would) and Lenny would get the long hit that drove us home. We had so many big first innings! We'd just blow teams away before the game had barely begun.

We won SO many games with Lenny, made the playoffs EVERY season and won more than our share of championships.

I don't think Lenny loved playing third base, however. He didn't really use his glove very well there. In fact he'd often let smashes bounce off his big barrel chest, fall to the ground at his feet where he'd pick the ball up and throw the runner out at first. Unconventional! What Lenny claimed was that in his youth he was a fleet footed outfielder. He said that at my age he was as fast as me. Sorry, Lenny, I never believed that one, maybe because I could never imagine that you were as young as me!

We had a bunch of hot heads and crazies on our team who would provoke huge arguements and even fights with the oppostion. Lenny was not one of them; he was almost always calm and soothing. I only remember a single time that he got mad. It concerned a most unusual game...

...It was played entirely in the rain at the Friedlander's field. They were a tough rival and the game was very close and very messy. I dropped a fly ball in leftfield. I caught another that travelled through a bunch of tree branches that overhung the leftfield foul line. I stretched a single into a double and scored the tieing run...maybe Lenny drove me in?...late in the game.

And all the while it rained. The rain got heavier and heavier but the umpires insisted that we play through it. They promised that, no matter what, we'd finish. But then it rained harder. And harder. And it became very difficult to even see the ball. But we were batting in the top of the last inning with the game tied, 2 out, 1 on and me coming up. Conditions were near impossible, however, and the umpire, who was from Lansmans, stopped play.

Friedlander's was furious. They thought this was a ploy on the part of "our" umpire. How it could be I still don't understand. But, as a compromise, "our" umpire agreed that the game would resume the following weekend exactly where it had been suspended, that is, with us batting with 2 outs and a runner on first.

While this sounds reasonable, it went against league rules which stated that a rained out game should be replayed in its entirety. Arguable Friedlanders would have the competitive advantage by this ruling since we had only 1 out remaining in the 7th inning while they had a full inning to work with. If we didn't rally and score and they did they would win this important game.

And that is exactly what happened. A week later we travelled to meet them, took batting practice, warmed up and then I grounded out on the very first pitch and they quickly scored a run and prevailed. We had spent over 2 hours of our afternoon to play for about 5 minutes and get stuck with a loss.

As we walked off the field, Lenny said: "I've never felt more humiliated in my life. Never." And he kept repeating it. Never had I seen Lenny so upset. But that just made the rematch with our arch rivals all the more exciting when we met them at the end of the summer in the championship contest. And, of course, it made our hard fought victory that day all the sweeter!

The softball times that I enjoyed most with Lenny, oddly enough, occurred when we didn't actually have a game. Lenny, as many of the men, worked in the City throughout the week and came up to Lansmans late on Thursdays. Those evenings, after dinner, deep into the twilight, he and I and a few others would go to the field for extended batting practice.

Except I wouldn't hit. I didn't care about hitting. All I wanted to do was play the outfield and chase long fly balls. And that was certainly okay with Lenny. He didn't want to go to third base and take more drives off his chest! And he was way more than happy to stand in the batters box till it got dark. So that's what we did. He would hit long, towering drives and I would run them down. Sometimes he'd get a little frustrated because he couldn't get too many over my head and out of my reach. But, since he didn't play much in the Lansmans outfield, he didn't fully realize my big competitive advantage...the field was on the top of a hill that sloped downwards from the middle of the outfield to the surrounding woods. Hit one over my head and, as I ran back for it, I was running down hill. So when I tracked down his long drives I had the help of gravity. The sweat was dripping from my face, the bugs were all around and I was flying! Oh, did I ever love that!!

As good as Lenny was at softball, I think his best game was paddleball. I can not remember EVER having beaten him. Of course I hope this is only due to a failure of my memory...though I must admit it's not like me to forget many successes!

Lenny was a smart player, he took good position on the court, he could hit the ball hard with either hand and he could place it expertly. He chose a very good partner who was also smart and complimented him well. And the two of them shared another characteristic in common...they were both SO BIG!

The key to getting good position in paddleball is to get in front of your opponent and close to the wall. From that position you can reach their killer shots more readily and place your own shots more effectively. But getting in front of Lenny and his partner Sol was SO difficult. They were so wide and bulky that I'd practically have to run off the court to get around them and, in this fast moving game, there just wasn't enough time to do that. So I played practically the entire match behind Lenny...from where I could barely see the wall, let alone the ball!

But these troubles disappeared one summer when Lenny and I were paired in the Men's Paddleball Tournament. We swept away all our opponents without any trouble. The finals was an absolute route. It was just another championship trophy that Lenny helped put in my hands!

To think there was a time that I viewed a 40 year old as, well, old. Now I think of them as young! Whatever our relative ages, though, Lenny was a great athlete and a wonderful teammate and partner.

Championships have been a lot tougher to come by without this old cleanup hitter.