That was Awful

I gave up running 31 years ago.  In 1989 I discovered the bicycle and, sufficient to say, since then bicycles and bike racing has been the focus of most of my outside time, exercise, and socializing.   

I ran in high school and in college.  I could clock sub-5 minute miles with no effort.  My resting heart rate was in the 30's.  Running a half marathon was as joyful as floating in a farm pond with my best.

Right now, though, after 31 years of sitting on a saddle I feel, as I run around my block, my running pants slowly and inexorably creep down my backside.  This is because my bottom is moving around in ways that defies known physics.  My gut is impossible to corral as well.  I knew this was going to be awkward, but words come up short.  My entire body feels like the last time I spent in a small boat on a choppy day, and the moment just before I lurched for the side only to lose control of my breakfast and the last shred of my self-esteem.

So, why am I suffering now?  Standing at a party not too long ago, after a while, and with a beer slowly warming in my hand, I realized that my back was starting to spasm, my feet were starting to throb, and my quads were quivering like I had just descended the several miles and the couple of thousand vertical feet from an all day climb in the Flatirons without a water bottle.  "I am only 62," I said to myself, "what it this going to be like when I am 72?"  "I have to do something," I said, "I am coming apart at the seams."

In what is probably one of the more impulsive moments in recent memory I decided to pull on something from the closet vaguely passing for workout clothing and went for a run.  Well, not really a run - more like a limp with a side of stagger.  "This is awful," I say.

It's dark and drizzling and near freezing so while I am avoiding puddles I am patting myself on the back for thinking this through.  I walk a block.  I jog a block.  This goes on for a while.  You get the idea. And then I am home.  0.75 total miles.  "That was awful," I said.