Feeling My Age

Despite my better judgement, I dragged my sorry ass out of bed early this morning to go downtown to the gym. I'll be honest with y'all. I've just had a long, hard, shitty ass week. The week ahead figures to be even worse. Any sensible person would choose to pull their satiny duvet over their heads, pull an eye patch closely around their eyes and sleep away a good part of the morning, I promise you, I so wanted to do just that.

But no. I got up at 7 am and threw myself together to go to a two hour power kick boxing class. The subways were all diverted owing to the constant construction that happens every weekend in Manhattan on the 1,2 and 3 lines. It took me so long to get downtown (between two trains and over an hour of travel time)that I got to the gym five minutes before the course began. I had mere moments to change into my karate gi and belt before the warm ups began. Why was I here?

I have been rehabilitating my knee for many weeks. I had held off actually taking on kick boxing again but my orthopedist recently gave me a clean bill of health. I ventured a couple of grappling classes as a warm up in the least week but I knew I had to truly embrace regular training. I had to go today.

It was daunting. It was exhilarating. I jumped in and trained hard. It felt incredible. That is until about 6 pm tonight. My knuckles and wrists ache with pain because I failed to tape my hands before class. My knees throb with the reactivation of kick rotations above waist height. I have to admit to feeling every last bit of my age just now. A bath, a listen to Boz Scaggs' "Silk Degrees" on the stereo and an an early night should remedy things.

And certainly a regular schedule of training wouldn't hurt.