Beg for it.
I rolled out of bed while the little hand was still on the four this morning, and strapped on my sneakers and went out for a run.
For yards.
And yards.
Maybe three hundred of them.
Jesus. The pain was remarkable. I did this the day before yesterday, I went out for a bit of exercise before daylight and decided to run a little bit. I jogged almost to a particular tree on the way to the park. When I approached I was beginning to get winded and said to myself, “I’ll make it to the tree tommorrow, and then go a little further than that on subsequent days, until I regain the ass and legs and lungs I had ten years ago.” I really don’t speak to myself that clearly, but you get the gist. After running the first day, running the second morning was out of the question.
Just walking was something I had been taking for granted. I simply couldn’t get out of the house before before daylight, and I would just like to get to the point where I look just a leetle better before I run primetime, for an audience.
But I got my ass up and out there this morning. I don’t wanna screw around about this. Poor physical health is a guaranteed shitty old age, and you will arrive suddenly, surprised the horizon you’ve been watching approach for years is now in your face, like these last couple of sentences.
Oops.
Sorry. I was in self-motivation mode. Talking sweet to me is generally not a great policy until after the job is done. I do need affirmation, but you need to shame or embarrass me a little to get me off my ass. It’s my Asian roots, coupled with my western sense of entitlement.
Anyway, I get to the tree, and I’m nervous. My chest is tight, each breath seems devoid of oxygen. My knees are competing to see who can scream submission the loudest (We are your bitches! Please stop this!). I wonder if running during the late morning is a better idea…at least someone might see the beached whale flopping about in the throes of a heart attack ( is that a pain?…shooting down my left arm?…WTF? OMFG!) and as Wycleff asks Mary J. Blige…please call 911.
I think jogging and running, are bad for you. The impact on the knees, that is. Inertia, and the fact that we live so much longer then naturally selected for suggest that we break from nature a little. Especially after middle age*. Running is the is the ideal exercise in terms of body maintnence from a design perspective, but progress has enabled us to outlive the warranty on our knees, so really, I guess old farts like me need to ride bikes and swim.
Or Nordic Trac, which is low impact on the knees.
And hey, that’s cool. I get it.
But running is still the ideal exercise, and from an evolutionary standpoint, running keeps you alive in the whole “Catch food, don’t be food” system. Running is nature’s fitness test. In simplest terms, if you can’t run, you die. I want to be able to pass nature’s fitness test. I will do the biking, hiking, aerobic thing as well, but I wanna be able to run. I haven’t figured out how far this needs to be, but right now… after about half a mile I can look to my left and see a dark figure pacing me, lookin’ like Gandalf in a hoodie with a big sickle, and that aint good enough.
Not for me.
now, you do not have to run…
Hell, you don’t even have to exercise at all.
Have another bon bon.
But my spidey sense is tingling. I add my observation of the the lives of old folks who had a few bad habits to what I learn about the rythyms of growth and deterioration in the human lifespan, and my Ideas of what needs to happen politically in the world if we are going to eradicate poverty, and what will probably happen instead on account of human nature, and I realize:
1. If I don’t get on the ball about some significant changes in my lifestyle, I will have a poor quality of life when I am at my most helpless.
2. This will be followed by a painful death.
3. At my age, It’s right around the corner, If I don’t quit screwing around. In case you haven’t noticed, time is picking up speed.
Stanley, in one of his series (The Path Principle, maybe) talks about praying for God to tune him into potential trainwrecks so that he can avoid them…The ol’ “Lord, keep me from screwing myself through ignorance or inactivity.” prayer.
I have had flashes of insight, and seen where that prayer was answered when I never prayed it. We can probably all look back and see places where we are grateful we chose a particular direction at a fork in the road. Hopefully this will be one of those times for me, as I look back. My father died early because he made some poor cardiovascular choices. He left when he had stewardship of greater resources than ever before. His potential to impact the world for good was greater than it had ever been, and he left at a time when I really needed my father. All of this could have been otherwise if he had picked differently at a couple forks.
* And hey…for those of you who have trouble with the concept…if you don’t expect to double your age before you die….IT’S AFTER MIDDLE AGE!
