There’s no doubt that as I have gotten older, my body has changed. Coming back to running a bunch this summer, I’ve noticed that I tend to be stiffer on the days after a hard workout, and I pay the price if I don’t take days off. I’ve had fairly regular lower back issues, though (knock-on-wood) all has been well in that area since last summer. And I seem more prone to muscle strains – for example, I somehow managed to strain a rib muscle while pumping up the tire of my riding mower – that made it pretty painful to even breathe for the rest of the day.

One issue that cropped up a bit over a week ago still has me a bit perplexed. I woke up one morning with a sharp pain in my hip. The pain wasn’t there the day before, and to be honest I’d never even felt tightness in my hip region. But it hurt, and it made it difficult to run up any kind of incline/hill for the next week.

The logical answer is that I probably slept on it weird in order to compensate for a lingering shoulder injury suffered when trying to make a diving save in my son’s soccer practice (stupid move for an older guy…). But to just wake up with a pain so bad that even the slightest incline causes trouble? Is this an old guy thing, or do younger people have these issues as well?

Just writing this post has made me realize a theme for the past year or so – I get injured more easily. Part of it must be age, part of it must be that I am less fit than I used to be. In any case, be careful out there, sleeping can be pretty dangerous…