Crippled
A marathon has been completed and some questions were answered. How fast can I do a hilly marathon with minimal training? Four hours, forty-three minutes. Was it painful? Yeah, it was fairly painful. Will I do it again? Probably. What did I think about during the time? Eh, nothin’. Did I learn anything important? No, not really.
The one thing about the marathon that took me by surprise was the hills. I had trained on completely flat ground and was not prepared for movement along the Z-axis. It wasn’t took much of a factor until mile eighteen or so. Then my body shut down. There was no conscience decision to start walking; it just happened. Like trying to move a limb that had fallen asleep, my legs could not perform run mode up the hill any longer. After walking a bit, I tried running again and was able to manage for fifty yards or so before needing to walk again. This continued the rest of race.
Today, my legs hurt, but it is my lower back that is the bane of my existence. I, again, blame those hills. I am crippled, albeit temporality. To rise from chairs is a chore and bending over to pick something up is Herculean.
I keep my alarm clock on the other side of the room. It is part of feeble attempt of waking myself up in the morning. Today, it alerted and I lay immobile listening to its monotonous buzz for a few good minutes. Slowly, I moved myself to a sitting position and, then, like Atlas lifting the sky, I lifted my body to a standing position. I inched across the room, hit the snooze and then returned to the bed’s foot, falling on in it like cut timber. Twice more, I suffered through this routine, idiotically.
It occurred to me that I am extremely lucky. I brought this upon myself and I know that these annoyances are temporary. For legions of others, like my father, they must go through every day being crippled. Every day, they must fight to do the simple things and bear pain that we will never know until a late age. It is rather surprising that society celebrates “uber-humans” who are born with the ability to do every day tasks easier that the average man rather than those who have been disadvantaged. Those who can play a sport better, those who are born with a beautiful face and those born fabulously wealthy are placed before us as models. Maybe their success is either to measure. Maybe humans deal with jealousy better than guilt.
The one thing about the marathon that took me by surprise was the hills. I had trained on completely flat ground and was not prepared for movement along the Z-axis. It wasn’t took much of a factor until mile eighteen or so. Then my body shut down. There was no conscience decision to start walking; it just happened. Like trying to move a limb that had fallen asleep, my legs could not perform run mode up the hill any longer. After walking a bit, I tried running again and was able to manage for fifty yards or so before needing to walk again. This continued the rest of race.
Today, my legs hurt, but it is my lower back that is the bane of my existence. I, again, blame those hills. I am crippled, albeit temporality. To rise from chairs is a chore and bending over to pick something up is Herculean.
I keep my alarm clock on the other side of the room. It is part of feeble attempt of waking myself up in the morning. Today, it alerted and I lay immobile listening to its monotonous buzz for a few good minutes. Slowly, I moved myself to a sitting position and, then, like Atlas lifting the sky, I lifted my body to a standing position. I inched across the room, hit the snooze and then returned to the bed’s foot, falling on in it like cut timber. Twice more, I suffered through this routine, idiotically.
It occurred to me that I am extremely lucky. I brought this upon myself and I know that these annoyances are temporary. For legions of others, like my father, they must go through every day being crippled. Every day, they must fight to do the simple things and bear pain that we will never know until a late age. It is rather surprising that society celebrates “uber-humans” who are born with the ability to do every day tasks easier that the average man rather than those who have been disadvantaged. Those who can play a sport better, those who are born with a beautiful face and those born fabulously wealthy are placed before us as models. Maybe their success is either to measure. Maybe humans deal with jealousy better than guilt.
posted by American Dilettante at
2:43 PM
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