Ctrl-Alt-Delete

I wish my body had a Reset button.

It solves a lot of problems, doesn't it? I first learned about the glory of a Reset button back when we had our Intellivision (my Dad thought it was infinitely better than Atari, and maybe it was, but I was the only kid I knew who couldn't play Pac-Man or Kaboom at home) and spend at least a small chunk of my day doing Ctrl-Alt-Delete on misbehaving library computers. It works more often than not.

Which is why I wish I could press a button on my poor, aching body.

I feel old today. And I felt old yesterday. But I felt great for a little while on Saturday morning, and I guess that's where my story starts.

I have blogged before about running 5Ks in the summer. I'm not great; I am not an athlete now, nor was I ever one. But I can hold my own in that 30-39 age group. I finish right in the middle of the pack, which works for me. Once I even finished 3rd in a race. Never mind that I was third of 6; I just focus on the whole "3rd place" part.

This spring I've been running with a vengeance. With all the stress in the house with Kathie's illness and passing, there was only one thing I could do that would really get my mind off of it for a while: go out my front door in running shoes, turn right, and come back 4 miles later with a red face, jelly legs, and a clear mind. I was ready for that first 5K Saturday morning. I had it in my head that I was going to kick some ass and take some names and post my best time ever. It's a course I've raced in two other times, and it only has 2 nasty hills, and you get in line for a pancake breakfast when you cross the finish line. I love this race.

I started out with my best first-mile pace in years. It didn't feel like I was pushing too hard, though; I was comfortable. I was hanging with a pack of female runners around my own age who seemed to know what they were doing.

You rock! I told myself. And then I felt the pain.

I've never woken up in the middle of the night with a charley horse. I've had muscle spasms in my neck, and sometimes when my feet get cold my arches cramp. But I've never had a full-blown leg cramp.

Until right around mile 2 of the 5K.

It started as a warmth. And then I noticed I was limping. Not because I was trying to, but because my right leg wasn't really capable of holding my weight. It took a while to start feeling actual pain or to be able to isolate where the pain was coming from; I had a lot of adrenaline pumping. But when the back part of my entire right leg from heel to glute seized up in a fiery blast, I realized something uncool was going on.

I broke my cardinal rule of running: no matter what, don't stop. I see people stop to walk in races all the time, people who sprint then stop, sprint then stop. They usually finish ahead of me, and I find myself hating them. Because I can't let myself stop. Even if I am so tired that I am running at a pace that causes women pushing strollers, elderly speed walkers, and 8-year-olds to pass me by. At least when I cross the finish line behind these folks and behind the walker-sprinters, I get the satisfaction of knowing I ran the whole thing, darnit.

So I stopped. And stretched. And re-tied my shoe. And stretched some more. But the burn just wouldn't go away. I tried to run, and had to stop. Again. And again. Until someone in a golf cart came up behind me to ask if I was okay, and a lady stopped to help me stretch out. And still it hurt.

I almost cried. I was convinced that anything that caused me that much pain had to be a serious injury: a stress fracture, perhaps. Or something requiring amputation.

I got it together and crossed the finish line almost 2 whole minutes slower than last year. And engaged in some serious self-loathing when the pain went away and I was just left with the knowledge that I am a complete wuss.

As I told people my time, I was hoping for some kind of swelling or lingering pain to give credence to my poor performance. Is a little discoloration too much to ask for?

The next day, I did wake up with a very stiff calf muscle as the only proof of the horror I'd felt the day before.

I was complaining about it to Jason. I was frustrated; I hurt my shoulder this winter, and I seem to have something going on with my left big toe that causes it to sometimes swell and get stiff. When I first started running this spring, I had some pain behind my knee that caused me for two weeks to take as long getting into and out of a seated position as I did when I was largely pregnant.

"What do you think, Jason? Do I have some joint or muscle disease? What's wrong with me? Oh, God. It's arthritis. Or gout. Or something undiscovered that they will name after me later."

"We're getting old."

Bam.

As I sit here typing, right calf still dodgy, big toe aching, left knee twinging, waiting for the Alleve to kick in, I wish for a way to be able to reset myself. To push a button and get a fresh start. To feel...if not 25 again, maybe 33 again.