Athlete

I was never the best athlete in the world. But in high school I came to the realization that my body worked really well in terms of it's physical approach. This meant I could run really well for long periods of time and I could jump and I did a nice job during competitive sports understanding what was going on. It was actually the first place in my life where something worked well and people could actually give me positive feedback,

I remember in high school I went out for track and the first time I ran a lap and realized how well my legs worked I was astonished. It gave me the opportunity to explore things like the hurdles (a way to get caught if you didn't life your legs high enough), the broad jump, the triple jump and other events. There came the day when we had a home meet and the two mile race was called. We didn't have anyone to run it so the coach put me into the race. I actually finished second. Someone had told me it was important to chew gum when running a race so I put in three sticks of grape gum into my mouth prior to the race. From that day to today, I have never ever eaten another piece of grape gum. My body revolts at even the thought of grape gum.

Soo I staggered my way through the track season and got some seconds and third in some events. It was pretty cool to be part of the traveling team. I remember a meet at Billings. At the start of the two-mile run, the clouds got dark and the temperature dropped. The race itself was eight laps. I remember coming around the first lap with seven more to run. At that very moment, it began to snow and the wind began to blow into my face. I wondered what in the world I was doing running.

I picked up other sports and eventually spent a lot of time on the basketball court. I played in a number of leagues so twice a week I played competitive 'city' league' ball. I can remember one night I was feeling under the weather. I seemed to have a touch of the flu and a high temperature. I had heart that when ill, play and you will sweat the illness out. They had to help me home that night but I did sweat it out and I even scored 13 points though we lost. I was still playing city league basketball once a week at the age of 42 in 1990. Was I still competitive? I played one Saturday game all out. The next morning I got up and fell to the ground. I had injured all the tendons in the back of my legs attachiing to the knees. It was a week before I could walk again.

But then came the adage that we must keep in our lives. If we work out all of our lives, then we can't suddenly stop all exercise. So for a number of years I stopped all movmment and now I am paying for that. I get up each day and take up exercises around stability and flexibility and movement. I still don't have the regiment as part of every day habits but it is closer each day that I do my exercises. Today is another day to get better. It's another day in paradise!!!