sidelined

An elite level cycling mate of mine always used to say you only had so many heartbeats before you die and in participating in high performance sport you just got there sooner.

Today in the SMH today Mike Agostini writes a terrific article that puts that to the test in a number of ways.

Perhaps like tobacco, alcohol and most performance-enhancing drugs, sport and exercise should carry mandatory labels warning of the risks of serious injury – and even death.

Instead, they are treated the way cows are among devout Hindus: as being holy and allowed to do as they please. Despite the fitness that sport and exercise are supposed to provide, the costs could well outweigh the benefits if one looks at the statistics.

Of course there are lies, dammed lies and statistics, however if high intensity sport doesn’t kill you, once you reach your middle years you do feel every knock you ever took, every mile you ever rode and every step you ever ran. I know I do.

Specifically the aches and pains coming from a misspent youth of tennis – hips, ankles, knees and right shoulder. Of course the Ironman Triathlon and Marathon thing didn’t help either.

No question that hard running turns all your joints to pudding eventually, that’s why cycling has become an elephants graveyard of sorts for the running community. It’s easier on the joints and they still get that runners high.

Still, knowing all that, sport is more fun than a barrel of monkeys and I’m seriously glad that I’ve had a life of running, throwing, hitting pedaling and swimming. Just not at 5AM on a cold winters morning. Or when the bunch is scattered all over the road like in the image above.