Jump ropes make me feel old.

Of all the jump rope photos available online, this is by far the strangest.

I am not a person who feels old very often. I am solidly in my 30's, but I still can't believe that most days. Probably because I haven't had kids yet, I still have plenty of energy, and good skin, and no gray hairs (yet). Last spring, I went to a party in my actual high school prom dress, which means I'm still close to high school-size. I can only think of two circumstances which make me feel really old:

(1) When I go somewhere full of college students and find myself thinking "they are so loud!"
(2) When I try to jump rope.

When I was a kid, I loved jumping rope. I used to do it all the time in my parents' basement TV room while watching cartoons. I could go forever, and do a couple of tricks. I think I even placed in an elementary school contest. But I've learned recently that jumping rope is not at all like riding a bike. We use jump ropes in my Boot Camp class from time to time (this week, for example) and I just can't hack it anymore. If I skip, I can do okay. If I actually try to jump, I'm slow as molasses and I can't make it more than a handful of jumps without tripping.

Truth be told, the actual jump-roping isn't even the worst part. The worst part is waking up the next day with major muscle aches in both calves, and then having those aches last all day. That's when the "old" feeling really kicks in. When I was a kid, I don't think I ever said "Man, that jump rope totally kicked my a**!" This Friday, I said that out loud at least a couple of times and thought it a good dozen more.

The one good thing about the jump rope struggle is that it pushed me to do something I've been meaning to do for a long time: go to a whole yoga class. I tried yoga a few years ago and found it incredibly tough because my lower body is not flexible at all and, at the time, I wasn't very strong. I knew the classes were good for me, but I found them so humiliating that I stopped going. Since I started really running, I've been thinking that some extra stretching would be helpful, but its been hard to convince myself to try again. Yesterday, the jump-rope-induced calf pain coincided with a half-day at work, meaning that I got home in time for a class on a day when I really needed to stretch. So, I finally gave it a shot, and it went well! The stretching is still hard for me, but a solid 18 months of weight training made everything else much more manageable. At the end of the class, I actually signed up for a 6-week "yoga for runners" session.

In semi-related news, I did my 3rd Saturday long run with the Annapolis Striders 2011 half-marathon training group this morning. 8 miles. It was definitely tougher than the two 6-mile weeks, but still very manageable. Now, I'm having one of those days where I can't eat enough. I ate a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel at 10am, and since then, I have been counting the seconds until lunch... which happens to be now.

Have a good weekend, everyone!