verging_on_random

Old? Who’s old?

October 29, 2006 on 1:05 pm | In Uncategorized |

I started jogging more than 20 years ago. i could never claim to be an athlete but I loved jogging. For some reason I found it a great way to enjoy travel. Some of my most vivid memories of distant places involve jogging, usually in the early morning. The Swan River like a mirror in Perth. Moisture in my eyes and nose freezing to ice in a New Hampshire winter. When I think about New Orleans and the hurricane the first picture that comes to mind is an early morning jog along the levee bank, marvelling at the way the houses on one side were lower than the river on the other.

Anyway I gave up jogging 6 or 7 years ago. The chronic injuries just got too painful. If it wasn’t the knee it was the achilles tendon, and if wasn’t that it was the hamstring. One day I walked off the beach with an aching ankle and thought “That’s it … never again.” Which made me sadder than just about anything else associated with growing old .

About two years ago my vital signs all started to go in the wrong direction, weight and cholesterol, that kind of thing . So I spent $250 on one of those thingies that tells you if you’ve got plaque in your coronary arteries. I did. A lot. So the doc sent me to do a stress test on a treadmill, which showed the arteries weren’t blocked but my blood pressure nearly went off the meter .

That was kind of a wake-up call. I didn’t really want to drop dead of a heart attack just yet, or even worse, get some crappy disease like diabetes. So I started to do lots of walking and to really watch what I ate. Slowly I lost weight and about 6 months ago the vital signs were all going in the right direction … except for the blood pressure. After a bit of trial and error I found that the only way to get the blood pressure down was to cut right back on the rum . Oh well, at least it means I can stay awake to mark assignments after tea now.

But one day a few months ago I was walking on the beach and I had this urge to break into a trot … do I did. Nothing bad happened, except that I was bloody sore next day. So I started to do it more often. Then a few weeks ago I splurged on a pair of proper running shoes … the first ones I’ve bought for 15 years. I’m up to 15 km a week now and feel great … I might keep it at that I think. Hopefully I can stop the injuries coming back if I don’t overdo it.

Now if only I could find a way to make the hair grow back …