Steroids Shmeroids

As I sit here writing this, with an ice pack tied onto my left shoulder with a dish towel, I realize that if I had easy access to drugs that might help stave off age and rebuild muscle & tissue, I'd be scarfing them down like delicious little doughnuts. Chocolate-covered miracle doughnuts...

I read an article a while ago in Elle Magazine about steroids in track & field, how easy it is to get on them and stay on them.

They profiled a sprinter, Kelli White, who resisted for many years until she learned that all the agents treat their sprinters like horses, deciding amongst each other who's strong/fast enough to compete in which races. Some runners won't get the chance to compete, based on an agent's decision.

A talented, successful athlete, she was desperate to make a living and compete in races she knew she could do well in. She agreed to try "supplements" from Balco. She talked about running faster and harder than she'd ever run before, and how quickly she could recover after grueling workouts.

After reading that, I better understood how someone could go down that path. If I could feel that good when training and recover twice as fast, I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing.

Especially now. I've been a distance runner most of my life (off and on) and as I get older, it takes twice as long to get back into shape and twice as long (at least) to recover from harder runs or strenuous workouts.

And during this past weekend I injured my shoulder and aggravated a very old neck/back injury. I feel about 80 years old.

The shoulder will be fine and my neck/back will be fine once I see my chiropractor, but feeling like my active days are numbered is terrifying. I feel old and like it's all downhill from here. I don't really believe that's how it'll be, but it feels like it for the moment.

If I could head down to Shopper's Drug Mart and pick up some growth hormone and whatever else might help, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But I don't want to grow testicles or end up with bacne, so that stops me from going that route. I'm having enough trouble with the Portuguese Lady's Mustache.

But you have to wonder - is a small amount of HGH safe? Would just a pinch in my morning coffee stave off problems like this for many years and not cause any harm? Why don't we know the answer to that question?

Why isn't the quest for healthy longevity getting more mainstream research & attention?

What's interesting is yesterday, when the pain was pretty bad, I tried OTC muscle relaxants and Advil. Neither provided relief. Later I tried vitamin C and glucosamine and it seemed like it helped.

Vitamin C is a building block of all our connective tissue - skin, tendons, ligaments - everything. Glucosamine supposedly helps the body to rebuild cartilage. Couldn't hurt to try a truckload of that & see what happens. Lord knows the potato chips in my knees could benefit.

Maybe with the right, natural materials the body can successfully repair itself, it might just take longer than we want to wait. For now, the ice is helping my shoulder so much I don't want to take it off but I'm losing all feeling in my left arm.