I have had a bit of time to reflect on my last posting… and as I was walking into work today, I came to a rather unsettling realization.
I tend to think of myself as more athletic than I probably am.
When I was younger, I was an avid soccer and tennis player. I was never really in tip-top shape, but I could perform. I could run a mile without getting out of breath, and short sprints wouldn’t kill me. I used to play 90 minutes of soccer without much problems.
Now I feel my legs getting tired after walking up 2 flights of stairs. Yes, I’m sure this has a lot to do with me being overweight and basically not exercising. And yes, I know that I could probably get back in shape by doing some workouts. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I still feel like I can play 90 minutes of soccer without any problems, even though logically, I know I can’t.
Do you have an overinflated sense of physical prowess? Doesn’t it suck to know that as you’ve gotten older, you’ve lost some of your abilities through lack of use?
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:21 pm
I know exactly how you feel. I recently(2 years ago) had a race, actually two races. One was against a shit talking old friend of mind (36 years old) and the other was a young shit talking co-woker/friend (25) years old. I won both races, not by much, and felt great. Three weeks ago, I had a small bar-b-cue at the casa and my 16 year old, 110 pound, 5′10″ nephew starting talking crap about my age (32). Well I challenged him to a race. I was humiliated by the ease of which he beat me with that I demanded a re-match only to fall in the second race and hurt my ankle. My only redemption was the fact that I could bench press almost twice his weight but I was a broken man that day. I’m not sure who I was kidding but my days of being the Flash are long gone.