Perspective

Bob -

I like to think that I don't complain too much.  I have normal aches and pains that someone my age typically would have, I have some aches and pains that come with my job and I have others that come with the running.  There are days when they are worse for whatever reason.  The funny thing is, that once I warm up and start running, they typically feel better.  I limp around a lot when I walk.  I can't jump for shit anymore.  I have only taken up "serious" running in the last 3 to 4 years.  I used to play tennis or basketball or racquetball to stay in shape.  Actually, it wasn't even to stay in shape.  It was because I loved to play these sports.  In my younger days, it was football and rugby and competitive track.  I loved the fact that I was quick and fast.  Age and my job started taking the speed and quickness away.  Actually, I will blame it mostly on my job.  Repetitive climbing and kneeling and lifting stuff for years, along with gaining weight, took a toll on my knees.  My left knee especially.  It would lock up.  While walking the dog, it would almost buckle if she pulled me too quickly.  I am not tall, but I loved to play basketball.  My shot was a fade away jumper.  I could get that shot over people.  When my knees started to give me trouble, that shot went away.  Playing with my teenage(at that time) sons was especially humiliating.  I would try to take that shot, get like an inch off the ground and they would just stuff me.  And then rub it in.  "You suck dad!", or something to that effect.  I took up running again around 2007.  I could barely run around the block but I wound up signing up for the New York Marathon with the Lance Armstrong Foundation.  The reason is a story for another day.  So many people told me that it would ruin my knees.  How many of us runners have been told that running is bad for our knees?  All of us?  I have been told that as I have been running.  Once I ran by a guy who was eating a giant hoagie and he told me how bad running was for me.  I wanted to tell him how bad standing around and eating a giant hoagie is for you.  For those of you in different parts of the country, a hoagie is a hero is a submarine sandwich.  Around these parts, it is a hoagie.  And he was eating one and telling me I was being unhealthy.  As I write this, I am thinking you all have a picture of how slow I am.  I am running by a guy and conversing about a hoagie.  I'm here to tell you that it was not actually a conversation.  He said it, I grunted and kept  moving on.  It just left an impact on me of how exercise is looked at by certain people.  At any rate, there were times that the knee did hurt, but I typically knew it would warm up over time.  I also knew that there were times I should just stop.  That is just was not a good day.  Over time, the pain went away.  The feelings of it locking up, clicking,  that it needed oil all went away.   This is my experience.  It may not be every one's, but my knee got better due to exercising and running more.  I still can't do the jump shot I used to be able to do or chase down a tennis ball the way I once could, but I can run.  And I can tell you it wasn't easy, it was painful at times, but it was so worth it.  Now for the perspective.  I was telling this to a new member of my running group a few years ago.  He was an intense guy.  Super nice, but intense.  Ironman Triathlons, Ultras and other pretty extreme stuff.  We were just talking and I was feeling kind of tough for overcoming some of the stuff that I had and he told me his sister died at age 30 of colon cancer.  That he had colon cancer a few years back.  That he almost died.  That he had a colostomy bag.  That he spent a year feeling sorry for himself and then realized that was bull crap.  I have had so many awesome runs with so many incredible people, but I will never forget that run and that conversation.