The slippery slope

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Today I had to fight the urge to meet with an old love. As Rohan’s car pulled out of the driveway the thought flickered across my mind, ‘I could go now’. I looked outside, the sky was grey, a light drizzle of rain fell, I had an hour or so to spare before work, enough time. I told myself that Rohan didn’t need to know, that no-one needed to know. This could just be my little secret.

I stopped myself, wondering what the hell I was thinking. You might be wondering the same. What is this desire to hook up with an old flame?  I know it will only end one way. It’s a slippery slope and it leads to disaster.

I think the slippery slope began last Monday.

I woke up, rivers of irritation and adrenalin flitting under my skin. I jumped on the bike and pedaled, hard and fast until beads of sweat rolled down into my eyes. 45 minutes later, I stepped off, my heart beating faster but the itch still needed scratching.  I walked into the kitchen, sneakers still on and announced, ‘I’m going for a run’. Rohan looked at me -no words - just a look that said ‘do you not remember last November?’

Ah yes, November. Maybe that’s when the slippery slope began. The fateful month when I sat in a surgeon’s office in Hawthorn, an office normally filled with AFL players. Instead it was me and I was shown the images of bruising running all the way up my bones, the lack of cushioning in my knee and the inevitable signs leading to replacement surgery. This was the last in my list of surgeons, a recommended knee surgeon, a specialist for people like me. When I asked him about running, he told me my running days were over, possibly my bike days too - pointing once again at the MRI showing the bruising on my bones, he tapped home his point with his pen. The bruising extended high up despite the fact that I hadn’t run for 4 months and was still recovering from an arthroscope. ‘Find something else,’ he said.

Find something else.

Instead, I found myself in the kitchen on Monday, 7 months later, arguing my case. ‘I’ll just go for a short run. Just 2ks. Just to the bridge and back. I just need to run off this stress. Once I go, the itch will be scratched. It will be fine. One last time’.

Rohan looked at me like I was a maniac. I became defiant. ‘I’m going anyway, so don’t tell me not to. I’m not asking for permission. I’m just letting you know where I’m going’. He looked resigned, handed me his crappy, old phone and I zipped it into the pocket of my leggings and took off.

Out on the footpath, the air was crisp and cold and my feet tapped lightly on the concrete. I crossed onto the grass down by the creek. The path was quiet and still. Me, my thoughts, and the track before me. My knees didn’t feel creaky. There was no noise from them, none of that crepitus that sounds like a rusty gate scraping over concrete. My breath fell into a familiar pattern. Thoughts flicked in and out of my brain. The lyrics of The Cruel Sea thrummed like a mantra in my head, ‘my heart is a muscle and it pumps blood like a big old black steam train, my veins are the tracks and the city is my brain’. Here in this moment, I had a surge of pure happiness.

All too soon, I had reached the bridge, the halfway mark, it was time to turn back. Is this it? Are we done so quickly? I headed back and into the house. I handed Rohan his phone and he exchanged it for ice packs which I strapped onto my knees with a pair of old stockings. Ice, elevate. Ice, elevate. Ice, elevate. That night, I rubbed arthritis cream into my knees and hid the fact that when I walked my knees felt stiff and clunky.

Easy. The itch was scratched.

Until this morning.

This morning, the itch was back. I contemplated running, and not just going for a run, but taking it up again. Just a sneaky run, once a week. No more, no less. I don’t need to tell anyone. What kind of damage can one short run a week do? If I don’t tell anyone, no-one will know. Surely with just one run, the bruising won’t get too bad? There’s no cartilage in my knees anyway, so it’s not like I can damage it any further? Just one little run each week. No big deal. The desire intensified as I read a newspaper column written by someone I went to school with. Brigid is writing of her foray into running and I’m seething with jealousy. Here she is, on the verge of the infatuation, about to fall headlong in love with it. Oh, those halcyon days when you strap on your shoes, head out the door and all is possible. I remember them. I want to feel them again.

See the slippery slope? Like an abandoned lover who just wants to go back for one last night of passion, I yearn for another run.

 I can justify it in a million different ways. Reason has left the building. The person in the surgeon’s office looking at that fateful MRI seems like someone else.

The problem is that it won’t just be one run. I had one run on Monday and look at me now - jittery, jangled, wanting more. Hooked on the endorphins that running blasts through my system, I won’t be able to satisfy myself with just one run a week. So I try and talk myself out of it. I try and talk myself into swimming. It’s cold and wet and miserable in Ballarat and the thought of pulling on bathers makes me nauseous. I think of heading to the Pilates studio, but the thought of it makes me more frustrated and I’m not seeking the stillness it provides. I’m seeking something that makes my heart pound until I am breathless.

I jump on the bike again and pedal hard until my knees ache.

Meanwhile, the itch lurks beneath the surface. Is it only a matter of time until I scratch it again?