Pain is good

Pain is good… or so they say. Sign of progress. No pain… no gain… and all that stuff. When I was younger and much lighter… I could run all day with relatively no pain. I didn’t even know what sore was really. I can remember running the Seaside half marathon and suffering pretty much no pains.

But that was then. Now… and pretty much from age 30 on… sports and activities hurt. With running… I feel I am in a constant state of pain and recovery. If I am feeling good… I am not pushing it enough. I have to play Sherlock Holmes to decipher exactly what my pain is saying. I have to sort out for instance… if it is saying ‘you ran too far… or too fast’, or ‘Houston, we have a problem.’

So far I have been just about injury free with running. All those horror stories about ruining knees etc… seem to be just stories. But pain free? Yeah right. I am to the point where I can feel pain after regular day-to-day activities. Pull a few weeds… and the back hurts. Paint a room… arm does.

I suppose I should be grateful at least my parts are functioning enough to be yelling at me. Oh… I try to take care of them the best I can… a few supplements, aspirin, a lot of water and a massage here and there if my sweetie has time. But I have to wonder if young people really understand what is in store for them. I remember older people telling me… but really… I thought they were just out of shape. I had no idea that being *in* shape could be the cause of so much pain.

SportsFest is just about over. Soccer and basketball are done… so just softball now, which (knock on wood) is one of the few sports that doesn’t seem to bring me much pain.

I realized yesterday that I probably missed my chance to run the Portland marathon this year. My measly mileage this summer is not enough of a base for me to hit training full steam. I will have to set me sites on something later like Seattle.

Mia is sleeping enough now that I may be able to continue running in the morning… that is if I can garner the motivation. If I just circle something on the calendar I think I will do it. Just haven’t grabbed a pen yet.