Running... It's Just Like Riding a Bike Up Hill

At least that's what I've been told now by half a dozen people. Knowledgeable people, supposedly.

Hmmm, let's see...

During the first few minutes of a run, my feet feel as if I'm scampering barefoot across hot coals. No, not coals.... more like hot, spiny sea urchins. Soon it feels as if Rambo is thrusting his serrated knife up deep inside my shins ...metal on bone... then he twists it to scrape out the marrow.

Seems like my calves rip on most runs. Imagine a heavy-duty meat hook attached to a rope with a metal anvil at the other end. Now bury one of those hooks deep in each calf muscle, and run along while dragging the anvils behind you. It's sorta like that, only worse.

I'm also convinced that a gang of invisible evil elves run beside me smacking my kneecaps with invisible little hammers.

My side cramps feel like I just had an appendectomy--without anesthesia--only upon completion, the surgeon decides to tear open the incision, reach up into my abdomen, and stab each lung rhythmically with his own Rambo knife.

That's not the only abdominal discomfort either. I find that, when running, any morsels of food I've eaten in the previous 12 hours mysteriously bulk up to the size of a Jumbo Deluxe Combo Burrito. This mass hurtles down an express lane of my intestinal plumbing, and soon demands to exit the freeway. With each footstep, like a SWAT team pounding a battering ram against a tightly closed door, that burrito wants out.

And as if these problems weren't dire enough, when I do longer runs, my nipples feel like they've been sanded by a sheet of 60-grit sandpaper. They bleed sometimes.


But yeah, other than those things, running is just like riding a bike up hill.