Fear Of Heights

"Nic is finding it increasingly difficult to tell whether the aches and pains felt the day after a decent workout are caused by good old-fashioned muscle soreness, or the more insidious approach of decrepitude!!"

I can't tell. I'm at that age where I think I could still be invincible, but aren't entirely, one hundred per cent sure any more. For as much as I know I'm not in my girlhood any longer, I'm certainly a long way away from being in my dotage. Or am I?

Is that sore knee a continuing symptom of teenage joint woes, or the first indication that cartilage is wearing away? Are those muscles and tendons that complain and collapse when attempting a lunge just chronically underused and merely needing time and effort to bring them back to strength and stability, or have the supports (for want of a more technical word) just become too weak and will only get more fragile as time progresses? Has losing weight enabled me to feel those bones for the first time, or have I done something strange and suffered a bizarre painless dislocation? Surely I'm too young to contemplate joint-replacement surgery for an increasingly belligerent hip? And has my shoulder always clicked like that? 

Is this Top Of The Hill syndrome. (A syndrome I've just made up, no less.)  That heady mixture of knowledge of what's gone before and awareness of the potential wonders which the fates may still throw at us, mixed in with the unshakeable feeling that our tiny little spark of life will soon be on the decline metaphorically and physically. I'm thinking the symptoms of this fictitious syndrome should somehow be more euphoric, but instead of I HAVE REACHED THE TOP OF THE HILL AND SEE ALL! HEAR MY ROAR OF CONQUEST AND LOVE OF LIFE, it feels more like I HAVE REACHED MIDDLE-AGE WITHOUT DYING FROM MY STUPIDITY! HEAR ME complain about how kids have it easy these days, and surely there should be more fibre options in the cereal aisle.

But right now I still think I could be invincible. Maybe. Although I might just buy another box of All-Bran seeing as they're on special offer.