Enter an Aging Lady, Hobbling

Aching knees used to be a surefire sign that it was time to buy new running shoes. Now, they're just a sign that it's Wednesday.

Time was, I could get my body to do pretty much anything I wanted it to do. Sure, I would have to practice, train it, learn the skills -- and I'm not saying that was necessarily a picnic. But if I decided to take up rock climbing on a whim (the whim's name was Julian, or it should have been, and he was the tall dark and handsomest boy-man who'd ever asked me out, and he was a pretty serious climber who was willing to teach me in exchange for sewing lessons because he really wanted to learn to sew and then to make himself a jump suit, as in a suit for jumping out of planes with a parachute strapped on -- so obviously, I WAS going to learn to climb, and I WAS going to kiss him somewhere between all those lessons)...anyway, if I decided to take up rock climbing on a whim, I could figure out the basics pretty quickly and, over the course of a summer, become quite respectable at it. Not great, mind you. But strong enough, flexible enough, and with enough technique to finish climbs that weren't just little beginner ones and wouldn't embarrass me in front of anyone who could really climb. If I took up rock climbing, I could, in the space of three months, gain five pounds of muscle weight and lose a whole clothing size and become pretty buff and be able to do ten pull ups unassisted.

Or, if I preferred, I could run. I could be a research-paper-writing, peanut-m-&-m-by-the-pound-eating, over-extended graduate student all winter, and then, come April 1 when I got an invitation to a wedding to take place on the beach in Mobile, AL over Memorial Day, resolve to look great in a bikini by then, and easily enough trot my way back into bathing suit shape. I wouldn't have to do anything too crazy, either. Just strap on the shoes every other day, and take off. I could manage 30 minutes of running with four one-minute walking breaks tucked in there on day one. And by about two weeks in, I would be able to run those 30 minutes without stopping. And by week eight, I'd be up to four miles in 35 minutes. And then I'd trot to the store and buy sunscreen, and pack for a wedding where I didn't know anyone, and have a fabulous time spending the entire weekend in either a bathing suit or a fancy dress, and meet a new fabulous boy-man, this time one who was training to be a neurosurgeon.

I do not say these things to brag but rather as a benchmark for reflection.

I jumped into a similar kind of goal not too long ago. This time there was no boy-man involved (I've pretty much lassoed the one I'm planning on sticking with). It's just me, myself, my winter body, and my sights set on completing a local 10K with some friends on Father's Day. I've been slowly working my way up in distance, carefully creeping up the pace on the treadmill, which is the best place to run during a long Michigan winter. I hit four miles on Tuesday and I managed them in 35:44. I felt great, flying along with a nice little kick at the end of the run, putting on that burst of speed with the fast-paced song that finishes my running mix. I stretched, sat in the steam room for a few minutes, showered, and went about my day.

But here's the thing: on Wednesday, my knees were achy. And then I realized that last week, my knees were achy after my "long" Tuesday run too. (Fridays we do speed work, Tuesdays we work on adding distance). And the week before that, they were so achy that I actually took a glucosamine tablet, which is the stuff that naturally lubricates your joints when you're young, and that you can buy in giant bottles at Costco when you have an aging arthritic dog who needs something to make her hips feel better, and oh my heavens, I actually just took aging-joint medication without even thinking twice about it!

It used to be the case that I would adore a pair of new running shoes until the day I was clattering down the steps in my apartment building and realized that there were little twinges in my knees. And then I would pause, do some calculations, figure out that I'd probably surpassed the recommended 500-mile life limit for the cushioning in running shoes, and I'd go buy a new pair. Voila! Problem solved. No more aching knees.

But now, I'm running on shoes that I've had for less than six months, during much of which I was swimming rather than running, which means they have less than 200 miles on them.

The only conclusion I can come to is that my knees don't ache because my shoes are getting old. They ache because my knees are getting old.

I see other signs of this aging too. My body is not as responsive as it used to be. It takes me longer to work my way up to a distance and running pace that used to be "easy." Sprains take more time to heal. The extra weight in my thighs, the small poof on what used to be my very flat stomach...these things are more resistant to budging. My running is finally getting to the point where I want it to be, but my body has not reshaped itself the way it once would have by the time I reached this point.

In short, I am no longer 25.

This, of course, is no great revelation. I haven't been 25 for a long time. But I have gotten used to being able to set a goal for myself, tell my body, "make it so," and have it happen. Now, I feel a little unsure. I know that I will be able to run 6.2 miles before June comes. But what I no longer am confident about is my comfort level along the way. I am not used to inhabiting a body that reminds me almost daily that I am pushing it. I am not used to walking on legs that talk back.

It used to be the case that every spring, I went through a sort of crash course in running, where I had to remind my limbs and heart what this was all about -- but it also used to be the case that after that first two or three weeks, my body and I would be in synch, happy to stretch and push, grateful for the bright elasticity of a sunny day and the wind off the lake. Now, my body is beginning to sound a bit grumpy, crackling ominously with no provocation, aching in between runs, sending twinges to my knees as I walk up the stairs to tuck in my children, reminding me constantly that I am pushing it.

I have tried to be very careful about not increasing my distance or pace too quickly, followed all the rules of running safely after a hiatus. As I have paced my breathing and plotted out my distances and times, I have been doing so according to the rules that worked for my 25-year-old self. Those rules, discovered when I first began to take running seriously, worked for me for over a decade. Now, it seems I need to modify them to take into account the fact that my body has suddenly aged.

It may not seem to make sense, but I feel right now that I have been working, exercising, loving, running, and living in a body that was ageless, and that suddenly, nearly over night, time has caught up with it. My body was in its early-20s prime for 15-odd years. Now, quite suddenly, it is 38. No warning, no slow decline. Or at least, none that was perceptible. Perhaps, had I not been so busy being pregnant, nursing babies, working at a career, stripping wallpaper, planting gardens -- making a life and a home and a family -- I would have noticed subtle signs along the way. But instead, I feel blindsided. Hit out of the blue with the fact that my physical self no longer matches up to the abilities I imagine it to have. It is as if I have been living with an idealized image of my body's capacity, and someone has abruptly shown me that ideals are not reality.

I am sure I can work with this body. It has stamina. It has borne children strongly and well. It has soft places on which they can lie their heads in the middle of the night when they cannot sleep. It can carry their increasing weights back to bed, or across a parking lot, or out of danger. It can still rally in the morning despite being kept awake too late at night.

I can work with this body, although I will have to rethink the rules for doing so.

And yet I still hope that, if I work with it a bit more gently, it can also run as far as I want it to go.