Foot Fault

Chapter 1 (of 2)

It looks like I have been in the wars.  I haven’t.  The rest of the body certainly has the overall feeling that maybe I have.  Although, to be fair, I have never been to war so cannot compare to the physical pain those men in the wars went through;  but it is a good turn of phrase when we’ve come out of an adventure or period of time when the body has that feeling of been battered beyond its expectations.

No, there was no war.  And there was no husband so I cannot blame it on ‘battered wife’ syndrome.  The last time I had one of these shiners was due to being a ‘battered wife’ but on this occasion I consider it neither appropriate or comedic to blame being the battered wife. 

So that leaves “walking into a door” or falling down a stairwell as other optional causes for my bruised and battered look.  No doubt if a stranger looked upon the face they would n doubt think it was a battered wife; or maybe a case of walking into a door or stair falling. Don’t think I should enlighten them to the real cause.  A mere foot fault. 

I am always proud of personal achievements, be they mine or others.  I feel these photographs are an achievement I can be proud of.  It’s a marathon war wound.  I’m sure Pheidippides may even be proud of me, should he be watching from somewhere up above.

In thirty-six years of running, or walking, or walking & running Rotorua Marathon it is the first time I have come away wearing a badge of acknowledgement of having achieved something.  Be it only a classic foot fault and face plant.

As in all marathons, when one crosses the finish line one is immediately adorned with a ribboned medal around the neck; the organisers seemingly generous gift to us for our parting out the best part of a hundred dollars, or more, to trek one’s way over forty-two kilometres of tarmac that traverses a big lake to only end up finishing at the exact point where one began.  Tarmac that is heavily cambered for most of the kilometres; tarmac that has parts so heavily sealed with big, New Zealand quarry chip and stones that one can feel each individual stone through the thickly padded soles of the most expensive running shoes. 

For those who run fleetingly around the course in a mere two to three hours those stone chips prove to not be a major factor in their day.  The fleet footed are exactly that – they fleetingly turn those footsteps over so quickly, landing ever so briefly each time their foot meets the tarmac, and landing mostly on their fore foot only, that the consciousness of the big chip stone sea is barely felt.  They fly like tippy toeing fairies.

Those of us who carry the metaphoric extra weight of a child, or several children, and whose entire foot lands heavily onto the seal can feel each individual stone on the under sole of our lumbering bodies.  And whilst that body continues to lumber forward each knee joint and hip joint takes the powerful absorption of the lumbering landing.  Hence we lumber even more.

Consequently, whether walking, or jogging, or running, the more kilometres one galumphs the wearier and heavier the leg lifting and lumbering becomes. 

The fast, fairy-like, fleet-footed ones also have the ability to lift those legs a reasonable distance up from the road surface before dropping down for the next stride.  When one is taking considerably longer to get round those forty-two kilometres the steps become shorter and the leg lift lower.    By the time the six hour finishers are traversing those last few kilometres there is barely a half inch lift of the foot from the tarmac.

Consequently it takes only one minor, three-quarter inch lip on a pathway of concrete to have a sixty-five kilometre mass of human bone and tissue become awe inspiringly airborne;  lifting stunningly and gracefully into the air, higher than her conscious body could ever attempt to fly, only to land totally spread eagled, flat, onto the hard concrete footpath.  The best belly flop of any Toyota “bugger” dog.

Within that flight her fast thinking consciousness knew there was no happy ending to the affair, so she jolted the body into rigid landing mode in the vain hope of creating the least possible damage when the grey, hard concrete below was to be met by the ossified, blubbery flesh from above.

This instantly put both aft legs into instantaneous muscle cramping mode; a spontaneous reaction from those wearying calf and hamstring muscles to the abuse they had been forced to undergo over the previous thirty-nine kilometres.  They tensed and retracted themselves as tightly as possible to not only aid their inhabitor’s foreseeable landing, but to also to protect their own patch. 

Or maybe it was their revenge to the labours they had not been permitted to rehearse for.  Their revenge for the expectation that they should be able to undergo the rigours of forty-two, cambered, hilly and stoned kilometres without the opportunity to prepare for this one-off expedition.

Whatever.  By the time the body made its eventual, spread-eagled crash landing on the concrete path they had contracted entirely from the lowest region of the calf muscles to the expansive and deeply embedded buttocks.  In both legs.

Whilst the flight and landing of the airborne human craft was played out in everlasting slow motion the brain had been so frantically messaging out to the body to protect itself that it forgot to let the neck muscles know they too were supposed to have played their part in tightening their efforts to protect the head impacting onto the hard surface below.

They received the message milliseconds too late. The moment of body impact saw the head jolt rapidly forward in the motion of a mallet driving a steel peg into the ground.

Thankfully a peaked cap and set of purloined sunglasses helped ease the moment of impact by taking the initial greeting of the concrete.

And there it lay.  Face down, tongue licking the concrete.  This stiffly, spread-eagled, rigouress body, jerking uncontrollably on the concrete tarmac with the painful cramping of the lower half of the body.  Unable to move from her agonising state with legs and arms reaching out to all points of the compass, she could clearly be heard making guttural, painful, yet muffled groans of “aaaarrghh…..  aarrrrrghh …..   aaaarrgghhh…” to each exploding muscle spasm.  For eternity.

Now, in all the hundred plus marathons I have run there have been many an incident where an athlete has befallen the fate of cramp.  Or nausea.  Or dizziness.  Or some other unexpected unwellness.  In the true form of sportsmanship, or sportswomanship, one could never consciously walk or run on without stopping to aid the ailing individuals.  There have been many marathons, most particularly Rotorua marathons, when we have come across an athlete in need, either physically or mentally, or even morale-wise, when it is sheer instinct that tells you another of your compatriots is suffering and in need of help.  You instinctively are compelled to stop and help.  It is called being compassionate.  Being empathetic.  Sympathetic.  Caring.  Being human.

Never in my thirty-six years of marathon running, ironmanning or multi-sporting could I, or would I have witnessed either a fall of an athlete, or come across a body splayed face down on the tarmac, or see one lying in any manner on the ground in a jerky, seizure-like form….  and just continued on.

But someone did.

Whilst I was laying on the earth’s concrete crust in excruciating pain, unable to control the continual muscle seizures and was making the low but very audible sounding groans, I specifically remember hearing some footsteps heading in my direction and sensed an immediate relief in knowing help was running in my direction.  As the footstep came closer I heard a woman’s voice calling, “Are you all right?  Are you all right?” 

Wracked with pain, and shock, and still jerking uncontrollably, I could not answer with anything other than “Aaarrgghh…. Aaarrghh..”   I heard one more, “Are you all right,” as the footsteps traversed a mere few inches from my ear drums ….  and then the footsteps continued on.  And on.  Plodding into the distance, quietly fading from any perception of hearing.  She had gone.

Clearly the lady had decided that although there was a possible corpse-in-motion laying on the road, spread-eagled in full body spasm and unable to respond to her enquiries of wellness, that it was just a tad wee inconvenient for her to stop and give aid;  after all she had a marathon to finish.

To any who had medical training this could have very easily been seen as an individual in the throws of a heart attack or seizure.  But that marathon of hers had to be finished and by hook or by crook, no ailing or dying individual was going to stop her achieving it.

It should be noted, that when one is about to achieve a six hour marathon finish, there are not a lot of people out there.  The gaps between athletes are wide, often hundreds of meters between one to the next.  I happened to be in a gap where the only person who would have seen my flying, death throw dive was the lady with the footsteps.  Once she had departed into the tarmac distance, there appeared to be no other athlete in immediate proximity. 

What seemed like eternity but was probably only minutes two spectating passersby came upon my still spread-eagled and writhing body. Two very small ladies of Oriental descent, who clearly spoke no English as in between my still frequent groans of pain I looked up and appealed to their sensibilities to help this ailing athlete out.  They stood and looked and offered no assistance.  I repeated I needed help, “can you help me get up please,” I implored.  Twice.  They eventually got the message.  I rolled onto my back, raised my arms and pleaded they help haul this dead weight up.  They did.  

Once upright, but in a bend over stance, the cramp seizures were able to be controlled and carefully but surely the body began to relinquish the agonizing raptures of muscle bound cramping.  Very soon I was able to stand fully upright. 

It was then I realised my head hurt.  Hand to forehead told me there was a sizable lump, but no blood.  The blood on hands was irritatingly small and minimal.  The cramping would just have to be managed but being upright meant I could analyse the state I was in and have more control of the situation no one else wanted to assess.  The ladies picked up my sunglasses and hat, looked gormlessly at me as though I was a zombie, clearly of no use to me, so I turned and began to stagger forward.  After all, there was only two kilometres to go and I’d made it this far on my thirty-sixth bloody year, I was not going to let one tiny lip of concrete foil what had, until now been quite an unexpectedly pleasant day.

Slowly walking, stiff legged for the next two hundred metres  I came across one of the ‘old timers’ of marathon running.  Someone I had come across much earlier in the day and we had trotted and chatted and reminisced together for some kilometres before coming upon a drink station when one or the other of us had proceeded on without the other; only to meet again further along the course and chat pleasantly until the next aid station.  A man many years my senior who put into perspective that what I was doing was less inane than his doing it at eighty years of age.  A man to be admired.  Will I still be doing this silly business at eighty?  Did I want to?  Can I imagine it?  Nah.

So just ahead of my face-plant position was Gary, having a similar affliction to myself.  Although he had not fallen and was upright and moving forward it was obvious from where I was that Gary was having cramping issues with one of his legs.  I watched him try to move forward with one good leg and the other as rigid and as stiff as a fence post.  He stopped, and rubbed.

I came alongside as he rubbed his cramping hamstring.  I did not do what my fellow lady athlete had done to me, keep moving, I stopped.  This was a markedly different scenario though.  He was upright, compos mentis and moving.  But I knew there was nothing I could do to ease the pain or help the cramps go away.  He knew there was nothing I could do.   I offered him my genuine condolences and we walked a couple of rigid steps.  I looked with frustrated helplessness at his situation.  All my pain was irrelevant.  He was eighty and suffering.  I could do nothing.  He did what all us old, wily and wise heads do, he assured me he would be all right and said he knew he would still make it to the finish line; he instructed me to go on.  I did.  Not because I was more interested in myself and finishing my marathon day, but because I know from experience that in this situation I would have been more of a hindrance to him by staying than by going.  I knew he would make it too.

And I had hoped karma would be that I would catch the cold hearted, individual who left me for dead.  I didn’t.  I do wonder if she’s given any thought since of her actions?  I hope so.