A month ago, in affluent darkness, I jogged six kilometers, the first time above five in a couple of years. It had taken me close to a year to work back up to a regular five kilometers, and when I reflected on how I used to run ten kms four times a week at age sixty, just a few years ago, my new distance set me afire. I daydreamed steadily increasing my distance, that hazy longer-distance haze. Perhaps I should aspire to a half marathon at the end of 2022. I knew a cycling coach: might he “coach” me for a fee I’d willingly double?
Wind forward. Niggles in the left arch turn into a limp. Right hip twinges, so familiar over the last two decades, intensify and settle in. Two visits to an earnest, thorough young physiotherapist offer good news and bad news. I’m so happy to hear that the left foot is just minor plantar fascitis, again familiar, “fixed” within a week, and that the right hip is not terrible muscle or tendon damage but just my worn-down back facet joint reasserting itself. The bad news is that I’m back running two kilometers (“I’d caution a slow increase in load,” the physio says) and am patently aware that my daydreams were just daydreams.