A Crunchy Pain

The morning after a particularly long day with the kids, a lot of walking, maybe a tough workout you wake up, stretch, and feel pain.

Mmm, that delicious ache.  Yesterday I was at a family party and I tossed many of the kids in the air.  E kept coming back to me and asking "Can we do up and down?!"  She is very close to her fourth birthday, but I couldn't resist.  Time and again today I winced when I reached for the juice, when I picked up some trash, just now when I pushed myself up off the floor.  It's pain, but it's a kind of crunchy pain.         

"Crunchy pain" or the "delicious ache" is the kind of discomfort that is temporarily relieved by a good, long, targeted stretch.  Mild to moderate muscle pain.  I rarely put in the kind of physical effort needed to create that ache for the next day, but when I do, I remember how lovely it is to find the perfect stretch that targets the exact muscle group that is clamoring for a massage.  (Which actually creates some of that crunchy pain by accessing those muscles and working them.)

I have tried three different yoga sets and each stretch that really pulled and tugged at that delicious ache created pain, but it also created a kind of...relief.  Right now I'm yearning to go back and repeat those stretches, even though they made me hurt.  So, exercise pain?  I think I like it.