Numb (nuts?)

Today was one of those glorious Sunday mornings where you wake up, warm sun with the promise of Spring shining brightly in your eyes and you think ... "Holy crap. Either I've been hit by a truck, or I've suddenly aged 50 years".

The new weight machine at the gym on Friday has rendered all upper body movement excruciatingly painful, the one pathetic tumble on the powdery slopes is begging to be remembered in the form of a painful butt bruise.

The rest of the day's snowboarding has led to the new-found lower back muscles and quads, and some kind of awkward sleeping position has made it next to impossible to make any quick turns of the head, let alone turn to face anything happening over there yonder on the left side of the world.

Add to that newly found obliques carved out after more than two full weeks of whooping cough-like hacking and, well, I woke up feeling like a star.

And yet, that little (addict's?) voice in the back of my head just wouldn't shut up. You know, the one that says, "I don't care how the heck you feel, get your sorry little hiney out of bed and RUN."

And I did. I may be nuts, but I did... fully expecting to turn around after the first 15 minutes.

But somewhere between my door and the road, all the aches and pains disappeared; the coughing stopped, the lungs cleared out. Just me, rocking out to my own little world of music, with the sun in face and the wind in my hair. For 20-odd kilometers, nothing, not a care in the world, not a single hacking cough.

Two seconds back in the door, and the 'numbness' wore off, the hacking began, the snowboard muscles rebelled, the bruises throbbed and, once again, I feel like an arthritic woman who's been hit by a truck. I don't know where that little burst of numb nuts came from, but I'm spending the rest of the day curled up in bed where the only movement required is a calculated reach for the Vicks.