I Feel 20 Again

6 min read

The back-step ritual

Forty years of morning runs, and nearly forty years of what came after. In the beginning it was a bag of frozen peas balanced on my knee on the back step, tea in the other hand, dog at my feet. Later it was gel packs with a strap. Later still, a zip-lock of ice wrapped in a tea towel because the gel pack had split, as they do.

I am 61. My 5k time has moved from respectable to philosophical. But the running was never the bit that changed. It was the half hour after, when my old legs offered their review of the morning's work. A long, cold, uncomfortable review, delivered by peas.

Runners of a certain age know exactly what I mean. The run is easy. It is the sitting afterwards that catches up with you.

What changed

My son gave me a compression sleeve. I will be honest, I rolled my eyes. I have tried everything in forty years, and I was polite about it in the way you are polite when your adult child buys you a present for what he calls your old-man knees.

Then I used it, and I stopped being polite about anything.

It slides on like a sock. No straps, no balancing, no towel origami. It lives in the freezer and it stays flexible in the freezer, so it wraps around the knee instead of perching on top of it. The cold goes where you want it and stays where you want it while you read the news. You sit on the step with your tea like you always did, only the knee gets looked after without ceremony, and the peas remain in the freezer, in the dinner section where they belong.

Forty years of peas, gel packs and tea towels, and the answer turned out to be less fuss, not more.

There is a warmth function too, microwave it for a bit and it is a wheat bag that actually stays on the leg. I have no use for that yet, but I file it under things this sleeve can do that a pea bag cannot.

Parkrun mornings now

I am faster at recovery than I am at the 5k, which is its own quiet achievement. I get home from Parkrun, sleeve slides on from the freezer, tea in hand, and I read the results while the cold quietly sorts out the knee. By the time I have checked where I placed in the 60-64 age group, the legs are sorted and the day proceeds.

My son was insufferable for three days about being right. Fair enough.

I did not expect to feel 20 again at 61. I run like a man of 61, and then I recover like one who has figured something out. That is the whole of it, and it is enough.

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