endorphins are your buddies

Date	Place of exercise	Duration (minutes)	Classic Sprint	Start time
16 Apr	Park	28	1:02.14	19:05

          An evening run through the park. I could hardly take a full stride without running into an old lady, a kid on training wheels, or gaggle of giggling girls. 

But the body felt good.  There was a time in the middle of the run when I even sprinted. I wasn’t going at top speed, but I was giving it extra effort. Then I got to the final sprint.  Usually, there is one or two people in the road…today there were fifty, and half a dozen cars. It hasn’t rained for a few days, but the restaurateurs were busy watering down the road in front of their places, so I still had to dodge puddles.  Even with all those complaints, I felt like I was moving fast. I decided that the time off had healed my legs somewhat, and I was surely going to have a decent time. I wouldn’t be breaking any records—sub 47 seconds or anything—but I was surely going to break one minute. The disappointment upon seeing the time was real, but not real bad.

          Yes, it has been three weeks since I ran last. A horrible situation. I haven’t been doing yoga, either. Even more horrid.  What have I been doing?  I’ve been doing the exercises the PT doctor prescribed to get my shoulders back into line. I am supposed to pinch my shoulders together and pull with my arms.  It is not designed to build muscle, but only to retrain my shoulders how to work correctly.  The PT and I are working on the shoulder, which admittedly is the most troublesome injury because it affects me at least 15 times a day—putting on the shirt, putting the backpack on my shoulders, putting on the coat, lifting plates from above the sink, putting dishes in the dish drainer…  I guess you could say that my leg affects me often, too—possibly constantly throughout the day.  But the shoulder is the thing that is keeping me from Ultimate Frisbee. I can hobble around the frisbee field, but I must not continue to strain my shoulder all the time.

          At a party the other night, I talked to a guy who has the same attitude about exercise as me. He said that the main reason he runs, or works out in some other way, is for the increase in Endorphins—the “feel good” hormone that is generated in the body during physical exertion. Exactly. Sometimes, I have read that people become addicted to such chemicals. I’m sure I am.