Does it ever stop hurting?

I survived another day of training.

I only have one question: DOES IT EVER STOP HURTING???

Knowing fully well that there are people for whom walking and running doesn't hurt isn't a motivating issue right now. The fact is, there is NO time in which doing said activity doesn't leave my legs feeling as if they took a trip down a stump grinder.

Lifting weights is a necessary evil that keeps it possible that I can lift Jared on a daily basis when we are here at the house alone. But that does NOTHING to stop the cramps that occur in the middle of my back for no particular reason unless there are hidden cameras to record that sharp intake of breath and the gasping while I struggle to reach the offending area of my back that feels like it might fall off.

Of course, in retrospect, it might feel much better if it DID fall off.

Today, I endured the savage for half of the walk and took her to the house on the conjunction of the figure 8 that represents the 5k+ distance I have mapped out for the practice in the neighborhood.

I also have a surveyed map for the 5k that is coming up in the historic district. There is a distinct possibility that my Mother's name for the area might apply when the actual event is underway. She always called it the 'hysteric district' because the snooty people who lived there when I was just a child were always up in arms about one thing or another. But come the 20th, I'm hoping the hysteric portion of the area will NOT have my name on it.

Mentally I can see it all. Huddled pitifully into a ditch or lying cramped up in the gutter along Beaty street with the finish line in sight. Moaning.

This image stirs my 'attitude'. You can't tell me I'm gonna fail! I took pre-emptive measures.

I sent an email to the course organizer and obtained the course map and used it to take the Assassin and myself for a 'let's check this puppy out' walk.

While Gypsy was in rare form in her attempts to murder me in front of oncoming traffic on numerous stops for directional shifts, she was unsuccessful and will not be receiving any inheritance - today.

The route itself is no big deal. It weaves through the older section of town like a thread in an ancient tapestry. The distance is no big deal. I have actually now done MORE distance and not died in the attempt.

The big deal is my own level of performance and expectation. I desperately want to do better and NOT pay for it all that afternoon by eating Advil like it was candy and sucking back the G-2 like they will never make anymore.

I want to post a good time.

But the pain factor is a constant. There are few days that I don't have some pain. But you have to get to the point where you realize that 10 out of 10 people die and I personally want more to show for my life than the world's largest naval lint from my years spent as a dedicated couch potato. I have wasted enough time on that activity already.

If I am going to hurt ANYWAY - it might as well be for a legitimate reason I can chat about with the people who actually listen when I talk. Some of the time.

According to calculations, I did 3.73 miles in 1:05 today. And no, that is not minutes. That is an hour and 5 minutes.

The good news is I walked and jogged a bit to get that time. The bad news is that I still have to do it again tomorrow.

But having a goal keeps me focused. I am looking for other 5k events nearby so that I can say 'this is what I am aiming for' and mean it. So that the weights and the treadmill and the street outside don't make me feel guilty, but instead are my friends in this journey of self-discovery.

Of course, if I get to the point that I can do this and it doesn't hurt, I will know I am dead.

Dead people don't feel any pain like that anymore.

But just in case I'm not totally dead, please tie a string around my wrist and attach it to a bell so I can let you know before it's too late and the cocktail weenies are all gone. This, of course, makes the broad assumption that should I be able to become a 'dead ringer' and let you know that you have buried me alive that you would charitably come and dig me up before the funeral potatos and ham are gone.

I may be relying upon the kindness of strangers by this point.

I know how you people are about your dang funeral buffet.

Meanwhile, I'll try to remember that I'm not yet six feet under and continue practicing for my life. I know that our existence isn't a dress rehearsal, but I am SO prone to error, I will require several run-throughs before I get it right.

Be patient. Even the slowest walker can eventually cross the finish line. It may not be a milestone for you, but it is for me.

Meanwhile, I am going to fill up the tub with Icy Hot and marinate.

Tradeoffs

While recharging the mower, I did a bit of laundry with another basket on standby. The thought crossed my mind that we have conveniences our ancestors never dreamed of having but I think they had a sense of peace that eludes us in our daily pursuit of faster, better, bigger, higher and more.

It is unarguably our faster pace of life that will kill us faster than any speeding bullet or locomotive.

We stress about EVERYTHING. Including things over which we have absolutely no control. We have become a generation of walking Freudian slips. Everything is analyzed for the hidden message or meaning. Seldom do we take people at face value because we are too suspicious to believe that warm smiling countenance is all there is.

Sometimes I think we talk ourselves into helping someone else find their dark side just so we can blame them when they bring it out for a walk in the daylight.

While our ancestors had issues that most certainly stressed them, they didn't have the instantaneous mediums of whine that we afford ourselves now.

What would happen if something bad occured in your personal life and there were no phones, no internet, no instantaneous way to 'reach out and touch someone'? How would we deal with our sorrows, our disappointments and our griefs of life? Could we?

I wonder if we have become slaves to the ease and prosperity which has become the norm instead of the exception?

When was the last time I had to saddle up Old Blue to go anywhere? Or hitch up the wagon for that ride to church on a rainy Sunday? Other than walking for exercise which my jerkey filled buttocks most assuredly need, can't I possibly make it to the store and back on my own two feet? Or must I bow down and kiss Saudi butt in order to fire up the car for the ONE MILE drive?

I got baskets for my bike. I can walk all the way to and from the down town area without dying.

Yeah, I know, I was shocked too.

I do want our town to put in some bike lanes though. Even as big a visual target as I am, I don't want to become a literal target for some insensitive jerk who is laughing so hard they turn me and my bike into pavement pizza. That might hurt.

We have so many things that are so taken for granted, I wonder if we all took a step back, just how long we could make it before the tears began.

When was the last time I did my laundry in a tub of water and wrung it out by hand to prepare for drying on the line in the summer breeze? It's been over 25 years. I actually did that a few times in college when I was broker than old Job's turkey and didn't have the cash for the laundromat. The clothes got clean and dried and I managed to survive the taste of what my Grandmothers' did every single week.

Oddly enough, people didn't have 800 changes of clothing either. Boys and men had a couple of pairs of pants and if they were lucky, a half a dozen shirts which they would alternate around in order not to make a mountain of laundry. And play clothes used to be the norm for some families back in the day.

Women had a couple of 'housedresses' for days that they weren't expecting company or a trip to town. Generally speaking, they also didn't wash their hair 7 times a week either.

Almost everyone had a 'Sunday-go-to-meeting' outfit that was reserved for the one day a week that was a brief respite from the sunup to sundown of daily life.

Shoes were generally kept for school and church and children seldom wore shoes the rest of the time because they were growing so fast that they didn't replace them unless they had to.

Cooking over a cast iron stove or a gas stove was also normal to a lot of people. They didn't have any notion that cooking wasn't a hot job. Microwaves weren't even science fiction and it didn't matter anyway because the average person couldn't read. Schools were not 'everywhere' like they are now.

There were whole generations that came and went without knowing what we take for granted as normal.

Then again, our generation would be foundered helplessly on the rocks of our inexperience if we were compelled to become participants in the lifestyle of our ancestors. Even those just a couple of generations removed from us lived an existence so foreign to us that we just might not make it.

They used to have a program on tv where they took people to these remote locations away from everything and had them cope with life out of their element. We all want to think we would be the exceptions to the rule and do oh so well. But I believe most of us, were we to be attached to a wagon train and expected to pull our load, might make cannibalism seem an attractive option tp the other party members if for no other reason than to make us shut up the whining.

The point is not that we are useless. Far from it. But in every generation, life changes measurably from what the previous one endured. We might find ourselves uncomfortable in the life that our grandparents lived, but I believe we would get the hang of it and eventually be able to succeed.

Either way, there are tradeoffs in whatever life we have been given and have chosen to make for ourselves from the circumstances under which we live.

Happiness doesn't depend upon circumstances, but upon choice. Man can live in splendor and be in misery or be in abject poverty and lead a life of joy. It's about your disposition to find joy not your depth of pocketbook.

God Bless!