Strawberry

When I was little I thought I was allergic to strawberries. My symptoms would always start in second half of June, and they would last for a month. I was convinced that the culprit were strawberries - every time after I ate them, my eyes were itchy, my throat was sore, I had a running nose and I was sneezing. I was deprived of this tasty fruit for a while, until I did allergy test, that actually revealed that I was allergic to grass and 3 types of trees, during its blossoming period.

I was happy that I could eat strawberries now, and I did - I ate them a lot, especially the wild ones.

That's how strawberries became significant fruit for me.

Later, strawberries became significant again, in a form of one chair lift at one skiing hill. People who've skied Banff's Sunshine Village will know that I am talking about Strawberry chair lift.

I personally didn't like this chair lift. It was slow, it didn't gain any sufficient altitude for my taste, it didn't offer any steep terrain, it wasn't comfortable, it would always stop and make you waste your time...There were so many things that I didn't like about it.

I liked though, the fact that I could go to Strawberry and get some rest, as its ride was very long, and the hill below it was not demanding. My leg muscles were always thanking me after I chose to go to Strawberry lift.

Strawberry chair lift was a place where I took Yanna first or second time to ski. It was her favorite chair lift.

Its green runs, wide open area and blue "Strawberry Face" enabled her (and countless others) to ski without fear, and to feel safe and comfortable. For people who started learning any new sport activity, and especially if that was skiing, this feeling must be very much known.

Yanna always called Strawberry, "My Strawberry", and liked to go back. Even after she lost her ski once, when somehow her leg got stuck while boarding the lift.

I learned how to enjoy Strawberry, more and more with years passing. As I was becoming less hard core skier, and more of content skier, I realized that Strawberry lift was giving me something that all other chair lifts were not.

Strawberry was retro, Strawberry was old, and that meant that Strawberry owned a piece of Sunshine and Alberta's skiing history. I thought about skiers who skied on Strawberry lift in 1970, 1980, 1990....Perhaps many of them were not alive anymore.

They would come to ski here, sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy, sometimes upset, sometimes with big smiles on their faces. They didn't know at that moment that their beloved or be-hated Strawberry will not be standing there one day. They also didn't know that all reasons that they were upset or happy about, won't be relevant one day. I am sure that wise ones were enjoying their Strawberry triple chair lift unconditionally.

Strawberry was aging, and somehow, it has offered its 'experience' and wisdom, that we, as people unfortunately rarely demonstrate during our aging process. Somebody might ask, how some piece of metal can offer experience and wisdom - well, it cannot directly, but it can trigger those feelings in us, when we think about people who passed through its chairs and ski runs. Their accumulated knowledge and values they propagated, can only reminds us how important is to enjoy every minute during 24 hour period.

Just couple of days ago I took my last ride ever on "old" Strawberry. On the last day of season, during Slush Cup, I boarded this piece of history, took couple of pictures, and stored these memories into my memory bank.

When new season starts in November, there will be "New" Strawberry chair lift on Strawberry Face.

On Jan. 7, 2010, Sunshine received federal approval to replace the Strawberry lift with a new lift being used at Whistler Blackcomb for the 2010 Games. The installation has begun in April, and the lift will be in operation for the 2010-'11 snow season. The Doppelmayr CTEC detachable quad will carry 1,800 skiers/snowboarders per hour, with a ride time of only 2.7 minutes. It will provide a second high-speed option on Mount Standish, home to the Sunshine's area's halfpipe.

I am looking forward to new Strawberry, as it will have an Olympic legacy built in - it was used to shuttle Olympic and Paralympic spectators during February’s Games in Vancouver.

At the same time I will miss old Strawberry.

Adductor brevis and Adductor longus

During 2007 St.Patrick's 10 km race I was flying over icy course - 40% of the course was pure ice. Snow would melt during the day and freeze during the night, so in the morning, this nature generated ice rink was in a perfect shape. What I didn't know was that during the race, I was compensating to keep my balance using my adductor muscles. I also didn't know that these micro moves could actually tear muscle fiber.

I only felt pain in my groin area 2 weeks after the race. I tried to do my usual training run, but there was too much pain. I experienced my first big adductor muscles strain.

It took more than a year to recover properly - I tried running in October 2007, but without success. I had to stop my running completely, and in the meantime to work on numerous strengthening exercises.

My physiotherapist Glenda told me that it would take "a while" to recover. I already wrote about that in one of my posts from 2008.

I only started running outdoors in July 2008. That was the first time when I didn't feel any pain. It felt great to be back to my x-country routine, and to experience elements of outdoor running. I was very happy about it.

Ever since that injury, I've never been able to get back to my best running. It took a while to get back to routine, to build strength and endurance, and it took me long time to start enjoying racing again.

There is no need to mention that I've been considerably slower than before the injury. I've slowed down 7-10 %, and as it might look as a fraction of time, it is frustrating to realize that all training resulted with struggling and being so slow.

This happened to my right leg. At that time I hoped that it will never happen again.

Unfortunately, it did happen again. It was not Murphy's Law, this time it was a culmination and result of other injuries that I didn't pay close attention to.

I injured my left leg.

I crashed in November 2009 while mountain biking, by miscalculating a ramp - I went over my head, did a salto or somersault. As I am not build for such acrobatic moves I crashed heavily. I could hear how my lower back muscles 'snapped', contracted, protecting my spine from even worse injury. Well, I got up, stretched a bit and continued my bike ride. I pretended to be tough.

Next day my lower back was....let's say... not in good shape. I kept stretching it, icing it, but I didn't go see Glenda. I thought it will heal itself. I even went to Bikram yoga, as in the past, it would help me to fix my back ailments.

I also kept running throughout the winter. While running, my back didn't bother me, but I noticed that my left hip and gluteal muscles were getting very tight. This was painful when I was doing my long runs. However, the pain would diminish after I was done with my workout.

During one of 'famous' long runs, I felt a bit of pain in my left groin area, where adductor muscles enable your leg to move. I didn't pay attention to that.

I wish I did.

This time I screwed up my left groin area adductor muscle(s). "Adductor Longus" was a mean culprit. Adductor Brevis was involved as well.

However, I kept running, as I was focused on my goal - Midnight Sun Half Marathon in Tromso, Norway, in June.

In February, there was much more pain, and I was able to do only 65% of my planned training. I did go to see Glenda, but she took some time off, so Andrew took care of my injury.

He started with my lower back, and it took 4 weeks to experience better feeling there (no pain). Then, he moved to the hip area - it took another4 weeks to fix that.

I continued running (beside that I did all of my skiing, including master racing), but I did only 40% of my training.

At the end of April, I knew I won't be able to do my planned half-marathon in June/July. However, I was still able to do some shorter races, again St.Patrick's day, and all X-country races. And I did them.

I wish I didn't do them. It would've probably helped me to start healing process earlier, and by now, to start some training.

So, I kept running. I did a race every week, and then I would run twice between races. In the meantime I would go to therapy.

It was interesting that I was faster on every race I did this year. I would feel pain only after 7, 8 km, so during shorter races, there was no pain.

Every time Andrew asked me was it getting better, and my answer was that: "It was not". He was puzzled. I thought that it would heal itself, with Andrew's help.

But it didn't.

I stopped running last Monday. Completely. I won't run until May 17th,when I will take my corporate challenge team for a training run. It will be a good test to see if there is a pain.

I am hoping that this injury is not that severe as one from 2007. I was still able to push hard and to race, to be competitive, and that's different than 3 years ago.

I will probably take an extended break until August. I want to give it sufficient time to heal.

Who does the injury?

Some things are so effortless. When I think about it, I have a nice image of it - a sailboat. When a sailboat has a decent wind in its sail, it glides along so effortlessly that the skipper and other boatmen has nothing to do but steer. The skipper makes no effort; he doesn't push the boat.

Same image should apply when we want to change something - it actually only happens when change comes about through awareness, through understanding. It feels as we are sailing....

I was going through some of my old notes and I found some quotations that go well with what I've been saying above.

"There is nothing so cruel as nature. In the whole universe there is no escape from it, and yet it is not nature that does the injury, but the person's own heart". Does this make sense? It isn't nature that does the injury but the person's own heart.

There is a story of Alma, who fell of the tree and got a good bump. They asked: "Did the fall hurt you, Alma?" And she said, "No, it was the stop that hurt, not the fall". When you cut water, the water doesn't get hurt; when you cut something solid, it breaks.

We've got solid attitudes inside us; we've got solid illusions inside us; that's what bumps against nature, that's where we get hurt, that's where the pain comes from.

This story comes from an Oriental sage, and I don't know which one. It really doesn't matter who is the author. What is said is what matters.

"If the eye is unobstructed, it results in sight; if the ear is unobstructed, the result is hearing; if the nose is unobstructed, the result is a sense of smell; if the mouth is unobstructed, the result is a sense of taste; if the mind is unobstructed, the result is wisdom".

Wisdom occurs when we drop barriers we have erected through our concepts and conditioning. Wisdom is not something acquired; wisdom is not experience; wisdom is not applying yesterday's illusions to today's problems. As somebody said to me while I was studying for my degree: "Frequently, in the life of an architect, thirty years' experience is one year's experience repeated thirty times".

You get the same solutions to fall back on: This is the way how to deal with the alcoholic; this is the way to deal with homeless; this is the way to deal with children; this is the way to deal with a divorcée. But that is not wisdom.

Wisdom is to be sensitive to this situation, to this person, uninfluenced by any carryover from the past, without residue from the experience of the past. This is quite unlike what most people are accustomed to thinking. I would add another sentence to the ones I've read: "If the heart is unobstructed, the result is love".

And this is another dimension. There is nothing that can be said, really about love. We can only speak of nonlove. We can only speak of addictions. But of love itself nothing may be said explicitly.