rehabilitation

When I was young, I used to work out a lot, and rehabilitate injuries occasionally. Now I'm old, I rehabilitate a lot, and work out occasionally. Bah.

I have my first overuse injury from swimming, some kind of rotator cuff problem. Suspect infraspinatus tendonitis but it hardly matters, since the rehab is going to be much the same whichever of the rotator cuff components is busted. Usually with overuse injuries, the cause can be tracked back to some change - more volume or intensity in workouts, new running shoes, old running shoes, etcetera. This time nothing changed, swimming the same distances and intensities as in the past seven years. Then I realized, oh something did change - I got older :-( again :-(

Frankly I'm devastated. Swimming used to be a reliable fallback position, whenever some run or bike or paddling injury sidelined me from the usual pursuits, I could work out as hard as I liked in a swim, with no let or hindrance. Now it's gone, and probably forever: tendinitis in my experience is never cured, only managed. So, I can add regular shoulder icing, stretching and strengthening, to the routine of achilles icing, stretching and strengthening. No time left for actual workouts..

me and Moominpappa

"I cannot stress enough the perils of your friends marrying.. One day you are all a society of outlaws, adventurous comrades and companions who will be pushing off somewhere or other when things become tiresome; you have all the world to choose from, just by looking at the map...
... and then, suddenly, they're not interested any more. They want to keep warm. They're afraid of rain. They start collecting big things that can't fit in a rucksack. They talk only of small things. They don't like to make sudden decisions and do something contrariwise. Formerly they hoisted sail: now they carpenter little shelves for porcelain mugs. Oh, who can speak of such matters without shedding tears !"
Moominpappa's Memoirs, Tove Jansson.

And how much worse it is when you marry in fact your own self, carpentering quietly in a warm little house and wondering where it all went, what was all that ?