The Pain of Running Again
The creak in the knees, that's the first thing I notice. Like a sacrament, like the outward sign or an inward state.
At my age now, after a long layoff I first feel soreness in my joints, not while I'm running but after and for a few days. They complain at any sudden movement, any odd angle, and especially when I rise from sitting or lying down to standing. I remember when I could shift from sitting cross-legged on the floor to standing without using my hand to grab or lean on or pull myself up, when I could rise like that in one movement.
I run behind the elementary school across the street from my house. A 600-yard track stretches in one long loop around a field and playground and basketball court and a small ramada. In a few places, acacia and mesquite trees hang their thorns over the red clay of the track. I run through sand, in spots, and over gopher holes and clumps of weeds and grass.
Three laps to the mile, roughly, and I try to manage six laps. Now the desert days have cooled, and I start a little before sunset, see deepening blue whenever I'm facing the east and yellow afterglow when I turn to the west. It takes me at least ten minutes to get warm.
During the run, I usually don't feel any pain. My muscles groan a bit at first, but then they work; they remember, and they pull, stretch, extend, and shrink. I sweat pretty easily, and I let the breathing come and go as it will. I let my lungs take care of themselves, filling and emptying.
My wife doesn't like running much, which is okay because, though she's done it on and off, it's never really been her sport. She's a swimmer, and I love watching her move through the water almost as though she didn't need to come up for air; as thought the surface of it were holding her while she slices through. And that's how I feel when I'm running.
But afterwards, the pain starts. I run my laps, walk a bit, then slowly jog across the street back to my house. The pain creeps up then, at the knees and hips and ankles, radiating up and down through me. If I stretch, it quiets down to a dull, almost pleasant ache. It returns the next morning, when I move to get out of bed, and I carry it through the day.
Mostly it's memory that hurts; it's time. Time lost and let go. I think of the miles I haven't covered, on and off over the years. I think of where my body might be--where I might be--had I kept in motion. The months and years I watched slip by, sitting still, echo through me and it hurts, it hurts. A part of my head tells me that what's gone is gone, but I know this heaviness.
The heaviness looks like weight, on my thighs and my butt, on my arms, the fleshiness that pads my face and neck and shoulders. But I recognize it for the grief it is. Grief over what I have wasted, over everything I have wasted. And grief will have its own tempo and time. It will have its pain when I finish running the evening's 600-yard loops. Salt sweat, like tears, pours from my skin.
At my age now, after a long layoff I first feel soreness in my joints, not while I'm running but after and for a few days. They complain at any sudden movement, any odd angle, and especially when I rise from sitting or lying down to standing. I remember when I could shift from sitting cross-legged on the floor to standing without using my hand to grab or lean on or pull myself up, when I could rise like that in one movement.
I run behind the elementary school across the street from my house. A 600-yard track stretches in one long loop around a field and playground and basketball court and a small ramada. In a few places, acacia and mesquite trees hang their thorns over the red clay of the track. I run through sand, in spots, and over gopher holes and clumps of weeds and grass.
Three laps to the mile, roughly, and I try to manage six laps. Now the desert days have cooled, and I start a little before sunset, see deepening blue whenever I'm facing the east and yellow afterglow when I turn to the west. It takes me at least ten minutes to get warm.
During the run, I usually don't feel any pain. My muscles groan a bit at first, but then they work; they remember, and they pull, stretch, extend, and shrink. I sweat pretty easily, and I let the breathing come and go as it will. I let my lungs take care of themselves, filling and emptying.
My wife doesn't like running much, which is okay because, though she's done it on and off, it's never really been her sport. She's a swimmer, and I love watching her move through the water almost as though she didn't need to come up for air; as thought the surface of it were holding her while she slices through. And that's how I feel when I'm running.
But afterwards, the pain starts. I run my laps, walk a bit, then slowly jog across the street back to my house. The pain creeps up then, at the knees and hips and ankles, radiating up and down through me. If I stretch, it quiets down to a dull, almost pleasant ache. It returns the next morning, when I move to get out of bed, and I carry it through the day.
Mostly it's memory that hurts; it's time. Time lost and let go. I think of the miles I haven't covered, on and off over the years. I think of where my body might be--where I might be--had I kept in motion. The months and years I watched slip by, sitting still, echo through me and it hurts, it hurts. A part of my head tells me that what's gone is gone, but I know this heaviness.
The heaviness looks like weight, on my thighs and my butt, on my arms, the fleshiness that pads my face and neck and shoulders. But I recognize it for the grief it is. Grief over what I have wasted, over everything I have wasted. And grief will have its own tempo and time. It will have its pain when I finish running the evening's 600-yard loops. Salt sweat, like tears, pours from my skin.
posted by A Pilgrim at 6:46 AM
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