Bang on cue, on turning 50 I'm having to come to terms with what I'll call OOA - the Onset of Old Age.
Well, if you're a runner you know how it is with injuries. You carry out a training programme, doing progress towards a given goal, but you're always prone to injury or illness, which forces you to take a break from training.
With OOA it's exactly like that for me, but the other way round. As a general rule I'm injured, but every now and then I take a break from injury to do some training.
I may be exaggerating, but it's not far from the real situation. Since April, when I ran the Madrid marathon, I've had to take long breaks from running, first due to a seemingly never-ending cold, then a pain in the knee that slowed my walk to a limp, and most recently a severe back pain that immobilised me almost completely.
This latest mishap floored me, literally at the worst point, and very nearly metaphorically as well. It's so frustrating to carefully build up your training over a long period of time and then to lose the fitness and endurance gained after so much hard work, having to start all over again after succumbing to an injury or illness. I almost concluded that maybe the time has arrived when I should hang up my running shoes and call it a day.
But, deep in my heart, I knew that after recovery I would resume my training, and by the first sign that my back muscles were back to their good old normal fragile self I went out into the street for a five-minute jog. The following day I did 18 minutes and today 30 minutes. It's such a good sensation to feel the soreness in my leg muscles again!
No, retirement can wait a few more decades. So many thousands of marathon runners are over 50, over 55, over 60, even over 70, and as long as I'm healthy I'm going to compete with them. So, no, dear Mr OOA, Sir, you'll have to do much worse than what you've thrown at me this year to make me stop running.
Well, if you're a runner you know how it is with injuries. You carry out a training programme, doing progress towards a given goal, but you're always prone to injury or illness, which forces you to take a break from training.
With OOA it's exactly like that for me, but the other way round. As a general rule I'm injured, but every now and then I take a break from injury to do some training.
I may be exaggerating, but it's not far from the real situation. Since April, when I ran the Madrid marathon, I've had to take long breaks from running, first due to a seemingly never-ending cold, then a pain in the knee that slowed my walk to a limp, and most recently a severe back pain that immobilised me almost completely.
This latest mishap floored me, literally at the worst point, and very nearly metaphorically as well. It's so frustrating to carefully build up your training over a long period of time and then to lose the fitness and endurance gained after so much hard work, having to start all over again after succumbing to an injury or illness. I almost concluded that maybe the time has arrived when I should hang up my running shoes and call it a day.
But, deep in my heart, I knew that after recovery I would resume my training, and by the first sign that my back muscles were back to their good old normal fragile self I went out into the street for a five-minute jog. The following day I did 18 minutes and today 30 minutes. It's such a good sensation to feel the soreness in my leg muscles again!
No, retirement can wait a few more decades. So many thousands of marathon runners are over 50, over 55, over 60, even over 70, and as long as I'm healthy I'm going to compete with them. So, no, dear Mr OOA, Sir, you'll have to do much worse than what you've thrown at me this year to make me stop running.
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