Oh Everest, My Everest

I think it's time for me to start setting aside some more dough so that I can start getting massages... maybe once monthly is in my budget? I have to find a good affordable place first.

Basically since I started this running business, I have suffered from the same ailments - achy joints and overheating much too quickly. I had a system for after the long runs: stretch and eat at the run, drive home, turn the shower on, stuff whatever food was immediately available into my mouth, and get into the shower to let the cold water run over my legs for a few minutes before warming it up a bit for a more humane shower. Then I'd prepare more food, turn on some cartoons or grab a book, and sit on the couch icing my knees with frozen fruit (peaches seem to stay frozen longer than ice) until numb, and then curl up for nap time on the sunny spot of my couch with the a/c blasting. You know what? This worked. I had me a good system.

This last week, though, I have found myself taking hotter and hotter showers, wanting to just curl up and lie down at the bottom of the tub and wanting badly to soak in the nice hot water. My whole body aches and even though it's still pretty hot outside, I just want to curl up in a nice hot bath. These peculiar urges are what make me think that maybe, just maybe, I need a massage. That hot water isn't going to do much good to my joints, so I have been refraining, but the all-over aches are NOT going away. I think I may succumb later today and take a nice hot bath before I get back to icing my knees and popping NSAIDS.

Yesterday, I thought maybe I just really missed being in the water so I decided to actually do an ice bath rather than a cold shower and it was fun to slosh around in the small body of water I created for the occasion. It was fun with the sloshing, but not with the cold. My legs cooled down pretty quickly, which is obviously the desired effect, but then my muscles just ached again and I really wanted to make the water hot. Then I realized that there are definitely two things going on here: (1) I want to go to the beach, and (2) I need to have a massage.

Apparently I have always been able to spend at least a few days every summer in the water somewhere. Last year brought many visits to Florida and its beaches; most summers before then were spent in California (sometimes with brief sojourns out of the country), and the beaches were always part of that. Somehow, I have ended up in a place with no beach to speak of and my body is actually telling me to go find one!

The regular massage thing has always been a dream, but I really don't have the money for that kind of lifestyle yet. Now my body is aching something fierce and I may just have to give up some other things to make sure I have that money. There's just so much research and planning involved, I don't think I'll be getting one anytime in the next week. For today, a hot bath will have to do. And I'll have to see about that beach thing sometime. There has to be some place closer than Virginia Beach with a decent place to build sand castles and splash around in the ocean. Maybe Ocean City? I don't really know much about either of those places, but I think they are the closest beaches. Hmph.

Labels: beach, knees, massage, nsaids