UP FRONT/COMMENTARY: Why stay active? Mainly, to stave off rigor mortis

I stopped running 10 years ago. It was after I’d finished two marathons and a half dozen half marathons and my tank was on empty. Feeling low. So I went to the library and checked out a Mr. Monk detective book in large print by Lee Goldberg. It was hilarious — this eccentric, OCD sleuth cracking crimes with the most obscure clues. After I finished the first book I checked out a second and a third and by that time I was over my doldrums and feeling restored to my old happy self. I guess you’re not really as bad off as you think if you can be cured by a good book.

Actually, I never was a very good runner. I just did it because other runners I knew shamed me into giving it a try. I was in my late 50s and realized that I wasn’t going to get any younger. So if I ever wanted to attempt a marathon, now was the time.

The thing is, you have to push yourself a bit as you get older to stay in shape. We may still feel like we’re 18 but when you roll out of bed one morning and wrench your back trying to slip into your shoes you know the old bod’s not what it used to be. As one old geezer put it, he went to the doctor to complain that he was getting arthritis and the doctor replied: “It’s not arthritis; you’ve got early-onset rigor mortis.”

As a runner I was usually at the back of the pack. Once during a 26.2-mile marathon, an 80-year-old woman who was running her 80th marathon caught up and passed me, crossing the finish line nearly half an hour before I stumbled in. That was one of the best parts about running. You might think that anybody who would attempt such a feat would be a buff, zippity-do-dah athlete, but you’d be wrong.

So many of the people I ran with — and there were thousands — were older than me. Some had survived cancer or some other life-threatening disease and just wanted to prove to themselves they were still alive.

One running partner had been in a severe car wreck about a year earlier and she determined she was going to get better and run a marathon, which she’d never done before.

I remember one guy (passing me, of course) who wore a T-shirt with a before-and-after picture of himself on the back. He’d lost more than 300 pounds and was still shedding weight.

That made me feel like I was among champions and even though I was usually one of the last runners to finish I felt honored to be among people of such courage.

But that’s in the past. Recently I noticed a few more aching muscles, problems with balance and some other oddities. So, for the first time in my life I joined a yoga class. I’m about the only person in my orbit who’d never done yoga before but I can see why people come out of those sessions glowing and feeling refreshed.

I felt proud of myself the first time I did a downward dog and didn’t topple over. A person needs to keep moving before rigor mortis sets in.

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.