Old Man Running

I was never a runner. Even in school I hated running laps in practice. During track season my friend Kenny and I used to cheat on our warm up laps because we didn't want to run. Until we got caught. Our argument was we throw shot and disc, doesn't require the ability to run, so why should we? We were prepared to debate this with the coach in standard debate league format: 3 minute opening statement, 1 minute for rebuttal, impartial judge makes the ruling. The coach decided we should run the full laps or not be on the team.

So it was odd last summer when I decided to try running at 49 years old. It was more accurately plodding or lumbering. A friend was training for a half marathon and it inspired me to see if I could run a half mile before having a stroke. I did it, barely, so the next night I went out again to see if I could go further.

It became a challenge for me to increase how far I could go each time I ran. Eventually I also saw it helping my blood pressure. Last November I ran my first 5K, I just recently ran my second.

The thing is, running isn't easy for me. I'm not a natural runner, I'm overweight and to be frank, I'm lazy. Sitting on the couch reading a book or watching a movie is my natural state of being. I do enjoy the challenge, but not the pain. This is what my body sounds like when I get up in the morning to run:

"Oh great the alarm is going off. Crap, another morning to go to work. This is a little earlier than usual . . . and hey, we're not getting into the shower. Why are we getting dressed already? These aren't work clothes either. Wait a minute. Shorts, t-shirt, running shoes . . . NO!!! Don't you do it! Don't do it! Oh no we're outside. Too early, it's still dark. Wait, we're moving. Ahh! Running! The legs hurt already, lungs are burning for air. What is wrong with you? You dirty, rotten traitor. Back to bed! To the couch! Please sit down and watch TV."

This goes on for the first mile. After that I fall into slow, steady rhythm and my body gives up complaining. At least until later in the day.

"Oh, you feel a little tendinitis in your foot? That's from running! Your knee is sore? Running! All your problems are from running! Stop! Repent! Pray at the altar of laziness and immobility."

Man, my body is annoying.

A Boy and his Bike

I bought a bike. A used, blue mountain bike that I wanted to ride to enjoy being outside in the sun and get some exercise. We made a good team out on the trail, my legs pumping and growing stronger, the bike gleaming proudly in the sun.

This is the story of how the bike turned on me.

On only my second ride on the trail, I was going through a railroad tunnel. When you hit the middle, its pitch black. The light from in front of you and behind you has all dissipated and you are alone in the darkness, just the sound of the bike tires rolling through the dirt and if you’re like me, your heavy breathing because you’re fat and out of shape.

After about thirty seconds of just me and the invisible things in the dark, a faint trace of light illuminated my front tire and I saw a ridge at the edge of the path. Then I saw the tire smile: A deep, snake-like grin. A licorice-black tongue snapped out, grasping the edge of the path. The bike slid out from under me and I went down, dragging my left leg through a morass of mud, gravel and dirt. When I stood up I was filthy and bleeding from the palm of my hand, my knee and from scratches all over my lower leg.

It didn’t make me “mean mad” as Ma Joad asked in the Grapes of Wrath. I felt stupid: An adult who can’t go on a simple bike ride. I did have questions about the bike though. I had the whole damn tunnel to ride in so how did the tire catch the only place that would send me to the ground? I didn’t want to believe the bike was bad, didn’t want to make the obvious “Christine” comparisons, but then it got worse. The bike lulled me into a false sense of security. I continued to ride it for weeks with no problems. On the road, on the trail, took it on vacation with me to the shore. I put dozens of miles on the bike without incident. Except for one thing.

I had a cut on my knee, a remnant of the crash, that wouldn’t heal properly. It started bothering me again on vacation and continued in the weeks after until last week when my own knee joined forces with the bike in a diptych of evil. Pus-filled blisters started appearing around the original cut. I drained them, put on ointment. But then, in a move straight out of the necronomicon, the demonic pairing created a blister on the back of my knee. Of course I didn’t notice it because who the hell looks at the back of their knee except for deviants and the Dutch? The abscess soon swelled to the size of a golf ball. By the next day my knee and ankle were swollen and hot and I knew. I knew that my bike had corrupted my own body against me. In the libertine smoke of the early morning hours, I had been infected.

I had to alight to the hospital where I was put on nefarious drugs which broke my skin out in hives. I was tortured by a tall man in a blue smock who resembled the angel of death. With metal instruments he cut and poked at the bulbous growth on the back of my knee, delighting a contingent of Dutch residents there to observe and squeezing out tainted, hellish pus. By the next day, immobile and itching, mercy was relayed to me by an angel with better drugs. I spent the next 4 days sitting on the end of my couch, my leg propped up and hurting. My cat used me as a bed and cleaning station. And all the while, from my spare room, I could hear the bike laughing, low and wet.

And the moral of the story comes from my brother: “It never pays to exercise. Put the bike away and forget it exists.”

Sage advice.

Too Old to Exercise

Last year I did the exercise program P90x for about 4 months. I lost 20 pounds and felt really good. But then on my way to losing another 20 pounds I started getting minor muscle strains which hindered my workouts: First my calf, then my forearm, then my back. The medical reason for these muscle strains is that I am old.

There’s a lot of warming up and stretching before each routine in P90x and I followed them and still hurt myself. I was thinking back to when I was a kid and there was no “warming up” or “stretching”. We rolled out of bed, got dressed in yesterday’s clothes, ran down the stairs like we were on fire, slammed the door open to leave the house and then proceeded to run around the neighborhood like maniacs on methamphetamines for approximately 23 hours before coming home to devour the contents of the refrigerator and fall into bed to go to sleep.

Fast forward to today at 46 years old and if I roll over in bed in middle of the night I pop a hamstring. Having to go to the bathroom at 2 a.m. is like maneuvering through a minefield. If, and it’s a BIG if, I manage not to stub a toe on the bed frame unleashing new and creative expletives that Webster’s is considering adding to their dictionary, I have to avoid the clothes hamper while making a sharp right turn to make it past the bedroom door without cracking a knee into it or raking my knuckles while reaching for the light switch. With eyes still glued shut as if I was sleeping in a bed of tree sap there is a narrow strip of wall in the hallway I have to avoid walking directly into then have the presence of mind to turn right again to enter the bathroom. I almost never run this gauntlet without free-flowing blood or a new, shiny bruise.

When I was 9 we were playing football 18 seconds after waking up. Tackle football. Without any protection. I never pulled a muscle. Yesterday I stood up at my desk at work and my kneecap popped so loud I thought I had been shot.

Eventually last year I stopped exercising. Not because of the never-ending muscle strains but because I got lazy. My couch made a persuasive argument as to why I should sit on it and watch Justified and Burn Notice on TV. I’m telling you my futon must have been on the debate team in college. I regained the 20 pounds plus a few more because that’s how I roll. Literally, I roll across the floor to the kitchen for another corn dog.

This week I re-started P90x. In some ways it feels good to be exercising again, in others, not so much. I am so sore every movement is like someone sticking a lit match under my skin. Friday’s workout contained a lot of lunges and squats and now my gluteus maximus is sore. Did you know there were muscles back there? I didn’t, and now they hurt. Apparently I am too old for exercise.