WHO WANTS TO BET ME?

After my heroic accumulation of mileage Tuesday and Wednesday, all came to a stop. I joined my daughter who’s husband is out of town, to care for her 2-year old. 

Laughing replaced running for me. My granddaughter did the running on very short legs. From the back, she's a tiny copy of her grandpa, a  linebacker, broad shouldered and fast.

However, she stops in the middle of a run to give her doll a little bottle. Funny she’s so fixed on bottle-feeding her “baby” because she was a nursed baby. 

Anyway, I did NOTHING for five days, right in the middle of marathon training. My back hurt and my knee pained me. Unusual for me, I struggled and groaned getting to a standing position from the floor where I spent lots of time with a 2-year-old. 

Got home Monday night, rolled on the rumble roller. It hurt. Spent an hour at the gym stretching. Went to bed in pain.

Got up 5;30 a.m. Tuesday in a dreadful mood. Held on to my back as I went out the door to run. Met my fast friend, Evie  pulled me along for 14 miles. Said “Bye” to her and added  7 miles to reach my goal of twenty-one miles. 

Wednesday, I ran 8 miles around a dirt track, fast as I could. 

NOTHING HURTS. Talk about counter-intuitive! By the way, I am not here to explain why running way too much on a aching back and bad knee results in the disappearance of pain. I’m not recommending running twenty-one miles to everyone. 

You never know where writing takes you and I didn’t start this to say the following BUT—I do think the human body is made to move in a natural fashion. Not necessarily running long distance, but brisk walking, mixed with some comfortably-paced running. 

I’ll put lots of money on this wager: If everyone did a comfortable walk/run six days a week, there would be less heart disease, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, colds, depression. 

I just betcha.