Going Downhill

Too many things to write about, but I want to talk about knowing our limitations.

 I have a training journal and when I looked back at past entries I realized I went too hard on running. This was last year before Ramadhan. I was obsessed. I think I ran everyday. During the fasting month I managed to sneak in 17 days of running. Some were done without having any sahur the night before. My knees were already hurting then. 

 I came back from Nepal with a pair of horribly hurt knees. And yet I still ran - I ran a 10k, an 11k, and 2 half-marathons, and finally the Malakoff 12k. And what did I get in the end? Bad timing, and a degenerative disease that I could never repair. Cartilage isn't something that you could produce back. It's like neurons you see. You lose them, you lose them forever. And I have people telling me, "And you're so youngggg."

 Thats right, I have early arthritis, and I'm not even 30. Blame it on my foolish obsession. 

 The same thing goes to my swimming. I swam so hard and so often and so long (hitting 3k on a normal day) that now my left shoulder is rendered useless. 

 If I had listened to my knees last year, if only I'd stopped when my knees started to hurt, I COULD have saved them, or at least extended the symptoms' appearance. If only I had held back on swimming, took my time without adding a lot of mileage every week, I could still be swimming to this day. Moderation should be the key word for both cases, one I didn't take heed on. The most important thing is sensible training. 

 I have been sick for 3 weeks. Viral fever, and then a nasty lung infection. I missed out on a lot of my workouts. Some days, you could see me packing my swimming bag only to be defeated by an aching shoulder at the end of the day, and driving straight bag home. I tried going for a run and if I didn't get reduced to a walk I would be huffing so badly an asthmatic person would gladly loaned me his inhaler. I remember telling someone what my time for a 10k was and I had two answers: before injury, and after. She said, "That is really sad. Aren't you bummed?" I never thought about it that way before, but now that she mentioned it, yeah maybe a little. Only because I was foolish.

 I would have gladly blamed all of this (my downhill fitness) to my fever but truth to be told I wished I had listened to my body when they waved out the white flag. MODERATION. And SENSIBLE training. This isn't something you could call an adversity, or something you need to experience to learn and get better. With body parts, you go down and you'll never quite get up the same way.

 On a brighter note: Bidor half-marathon this weekend. I have always wanted to run this ever since I found out about this run 2 years back. I hope I will get the chance to one day. Who would be doing this? Good Luck to all runners. Well, this weekend would not be so bad for me either. I would be having fun up north with the company of 2 girls and about a hundred more of men in tights! My fitness is in shambles and I am in the lowest state of fit, but life is NOT all about being fit.

 Remember everyone, MODERATION and SENSIBLE TRAINING. Good, repeat after me, your friendly ol arthritic friend.