Running Withdrawal

"Let's talk about stress.

It is defined as a ratio of force per area.

Stress is when your muscles clench up, usually between your shoulder blades. It also applies to when you pronounce a word even longer and more defined than normal, more often than not to imply that the situation is serious. 

In everyday life, you stress out conversations to emphasize meanings. A stress test in material science determines which material is stronger by not showing signs of straining first. Stress to civil engineers is a computer software - STRuctual Engineering Systems Solver. What lucky fools. In the world of fashion, when you 'stress' your jeans, it means that you dragged some rough materials over them to achieve that semi-frayed, distressed look.

In an academic setting, stress has many possibilites. It could mean staying up all night blinking in the dark, going through equations. It results in either rapid weight loss or alarming weight gain. Hair turns gray. PMS cycles are frequent, sometimes faked. You body resorts to causing pain to alert yourself that your systems are frazzled. 

Stress: The gift that keeps on giving."

 I wrote that 3 years ago, when I was a student and dying over my final exams. Engineering was a tough course; sports was the only way I get to unleash all that wound up feelings. Studying after a great run, or running after a great studying session, both were rewarding. I get so tired to think afterwards.

 My knees still hurt. It hurts when I walk down the stairs. They throb for no reason when I watch the television. I eat medication like candy; I am on one everyday for the rest of my life from now on. My knees is more fucked up than Bart Simpson...

 On my calendar at work, today is my running day. I'm supposed to do a short 3.5km of speedwork, running in intervals of RPE 8 for 200m, 400m then 20 seconds more. It's a shoddy speedwork, but it gets my amateur heart pumping. I would be hating the warm up run. I would long to go straight home and read books. I would want to stop.

 Bet you don't know what you've got till it's gone. 

 I'm not having such a great week, even though its only Tuesday. My new job requires me to recall back technical terms I have left in second year. My new colleagues are friendly, but distant, of course, like all new colleagues are. I'm also juggling with some sort of a personal issue that defines adulthood. I'm worried and stressed almost all the time now. I miss running, getting my heart pumped like I'm about to die. I miss feeling awesome even for seconds. I'm feeling horrible and stressed all the time now. 

 Mizuno wave run is this Sunday. I was very looking forward to it because it would be the first race I would be running with my dad officially. My dad is very excited; his first race with an official t-shirt and all. He told me he's been upping his mileage now. I didn't have the heart to tell him I can only hobble to work. 

 The doctor that I went to told me, "Some people aren't born to be runners." He is talking about my legs, their bone structure, apparently I have this genetic bow-legged that was the sole reason why my knees hurt even when I play bowling. The x-rays of my knees were stark and scary - almost too honest and blunt - the wear on my left knee plus the obvious bow-leggedness that I only noticed then. 

 But. I'm still going to run. Maybe not now, but definitely after recovering.

 Anyway, that's a picture of me against the Macchapuchre Mt, fondly dubbed as Mt Fishtail by the locals. This was the first day of the hike.