My body is screaming this morning. No, not literally; that would just be weird. More like a rusty gate being blown by the wind. My back is stiff, my legs are stiff, my arms are stiff, and there is a large abrasion at the edge of my armpit. And I'm still just getting started with my 20s!
My friend/grasshopper suggested we go running yesterday. I thought this would be a great idea, because I've been slacking a little too much lately on the running front. We settled on Runyon Canyon at 1:00. Swell. Well, as it turns out, this Saturday happened to be the first of the month, which means that my running group goes to Santa Monica, which is one of those things I just don't miss. So I went, and nobody else showed, which meant that I got to choose my own run, about three miles across the sand (and through flocks of snowy plovers, which, I might add, are arguably the most adorably squeaky birds in the world). It was cold, but the beach was empty and the sand pleasantly squishy. I felt pretty good by the end.
By the time young Grasshopper and I arrived at Runyon Canyon, I still felt pretty good and even suggested that we take the steep trail, just for some extra hill work. The only problem was that the last time I had done these hills, I'd been hiking, not running. Big difference. It didn't take long for Grasshopper to hop ahead of me, perhaps fifty feet after the trailhead.
By the time we reached the top of the tallest cliff/hill, I was staggering with legs of Jell-O and lungs of dust. He was tired, but hardly doubled over and wheezing. He'd joined a marathon team, on my own recommendation, and clearly, it was paying off for him. By contrast, I've been running with this group for almost two years, and I've been getting less and less enthusiastic about it by the day. Why?
I joined the group solely because it was a gay group, intent on finding instant commonality and perhaps romance. Not so. After two years, I'm still regularly the youngest person in the group by ten to forty years. I'm still regularly the fastest person in the group. Once in a while, there will be a visitor who pushes me, but as was made painfully aware to me on the run yesterday, I have been slowing down, a lot.
I acknowledge that my competitive days ended in high school and that my passion for running has largely eroded away, yet the realization that I was the struggling old man, reluctant to take that second lap, hit me hard. I'm still sitting too much for work, driving to the gym instead of running, losing my flexibility, to the point that, although I will never be a medal-winning runner again, I miss the potential. I think that I need to seriously rethink my workout plan, i.e. find a new group with better workouts and faster, more passionate runners. I'll add that to the list of New Year's Resolutions, and maybe next year, the Year of the Rabbit, I'll be ready to face those hills of Runyon again and show that young whippersnapper what's what. First, though, some hot tubbing and an Advil may be in order. Ooh... Ah...
