Love Hate Pain

Running can be a love-hate thing, but after 40 there’s a third ingredient nobody warns you about: pain. I’m trying to run more so I can show up for a Tough Mudder in decent shape, finish strong, and not feel like I’m letting every other over-40 runner down. That pressure is funny when you say it out loud, but it also exposes what training really is at this age: consistency, humility, and finding a reason to keep moving when your body starts negotiating. 

The weather does not help. I admit I wanted to be a fair weather runner, but it’s always too hot, too cold, too windy, or raining. I even tried to “outrun the sun” and ended up running straight into a rainstorm that decided to go sideways. Add wind, soaked clothes, and the moment an AirPod falls out, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for quitting. Instead, I get a strange boost from the one thing I think I see on the ground: a bright red Kool-Aid packet, or maybe just a wrapper that looks like it. Either way, it sparks a full-on nostalgia spiral. 

That little memory turns into a lesson about motivation, mental toughness, and why nostalgia can be a real tool for runners and anyone training after 40. I talk about the classic Kool-Aid era, the unmeasured sugar rules, Tang, and the childhood fridge battles where parents marked the pitcher with a Sharpie and kids tried to outsmart the system. If you’ve ever needed something small and weird to get you through the last two miles, you’ll get it. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s training right now, and leave a review so more over-40 runners can find it.

Family, friends, frenemies, pull up. This is your invitation to laugh, reflect, and speak your truth. No edits. No filters. Just grown-folk conversation. New episodes every week. Your comments shape the show. #unscriptedafter40 

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Transcript

Love Hate Pain After 40

SPEAKER_00 0:13

They need to add a third stand to um this running stand. I I know most of y'all were heard it before. Like they say running is like a love-hate relationship. Either you love it or you hate it or you love the hate it, or what whatever the phrase is they come up with these days. Um I'm gonna go ahead and add a third one for all us over 40. Pain. Love, hate, and pain. Because right now, I'm I think I'm going through the hate-pain era. Because, like I told you, I'm trying to run more and get myself in shape for this tough mother that I taught myself into. But I need to run more and get myself in shape so I can I can survive and don't die out there and embarrass all the old 40s in the world. Because that's what I feel like right now. If I if I don't achieve my goal, I would just embarrass the whole, everybody's over 40 that ever came over 40, they're gonna be embarrassed. And I'm not gonna have that embarrassment on my back. So I'm gonna make sure I'm doing good. But yeah, it's a love, hate, pain relationship. But

Fair Weather Running Meets Reality

SPEAKER_00 1:15

that's not what I came to talk about. Um as I realized that there's no good time to run because I'm trying to see, I'm trying to be a fair weather runner. And which I realized that it's either too hot, too cold, too windy, or it's freaking raining. So either one of those fours, I'm gonna get. And I realize now that I try to outrun the sun. I I I know how it sounds. Okay, don't, don't, don't, don't judge me. I in my head, when I was tired thinking about it, I was thinking that I could like, you know, outrun the sun. Um, as we all know, I failed that task. So you know how the sun is just when it's up, is up, as bright as everywhere. Like it's at nighttime, you're not outrunning the goddamn sun. But as I was trying to outrun the sun, I ran to a rainstorm. I don't even know how that happened. Um it was like it was bright and sunny, the next thing you know, bam, the rain came. But as I was running through that rainstorm and I was contemplating my life, I did have one good thought going through my mind in that time frame. Um and I don't know if that was before or after I lost my airpod. Because you know, when you're running these days, you're gonna need music. You know, I remember back when I was first growing up, you know, you didn't have music when you ran. You just ran. And you sing a tune in your head, and hopefully it could get you motivated to go through. You just run in silence. Now I realize I can't run without music, because running silence, I don't even know how I ever did that. That that sounds horrible these days. Um, but when I was young, I I can run in silence. But like I say, that was around the rainstorm, and I don't know if it was four. I'm gonna say during. Because when I was fusily, I know I'm probably saying the word round, fuciously sweating my ass off, um, the air pods stayed in. Um and it didn't come out. But as soon as, you know, the water came to wash me clean, that's what I'm gonna say. It came to wash me clean. I'm gonna turn that a positive thing. Um, one of my air pods fell out. I because it started raining. You know, normally rain goes up and down today or the day out with running, it decided to go sideways. So um, so it's probably like I say, rain and wind. They team up the day, team up that day to get me. So I realized that these weather phenomena are teaming up, you know, to get me off my game. But I'm not gonna be deterred, okay? Because I'm over 40, you're not gonna take me out, okay? We're gonna keep going. And then that's my story, I'm sticking to

A Flash Of Red In The Rain

SPEAKER_00 4:06

it. But like I say, as I was running, I did have a good thought. So as I'm running through the rain, and within that weather of a rain, I thought I saw a Kool-Aid package. And I'm pretty sure I didn't, but I thought I did. You know, like the red triangle Kool-Aid pack that had Kool-Aid on the front, and it was bright red, so it probably just a red piece of candy wrapper or something like that. But in my mind, as I'm running to struggle to stay in the game, um, it looked like a Kool-Aid packet to me. Or I was just, you know, living in the past of the nostalgia of, you know, drinking Kool-Aid. And I remember as a young kid, Kool-Aid was the best thing ever. Um to me, it still is the best thing ever.

How We Made Kool-Aid Back Then

SPEAKER_00 5:01

All these little fancy drinks they got out today and stuff like that, that they, you know, the meal, okay, I can't, I can't bash the meal. I actually like meal. Um, but I like the pot of Kool-Aid. And the reason why I like the pot of Kool-Aid, because when you make the pot of Kool-Aid, you didn't, it was like a rule, you had to put half a bag of sugar there. Your Kool-Aid had to be so sweet that it, when you taste it, it gave you instant diabetes. And I know I I got it. All you health freaks out there, I know y'all are killing me right now. But back when we were growing up, and I and I know we all did it too, don't I like that? We we made Kool-Aid. We we got a uh like a two-gallon pitcher, one big extra large pitcher, you know. That's all they, to my mind, that's all they summon is two gallons, two gallons of a pitcher, okay? Um you put two packs of Kool-Aid in there, because you gotta make it extra, you know, red, okay, because I don't need to know what the red, I know red probably got a color, probably cherry or something, but but you know, we we call it red. Um you put if you eat the little small five-pound bags of sugar, you gotta at least put two pounds of sugar in there, okay? You gotta measure it out, you know. Y'all these fancy measuring cups and stuff like that, going measuring stuff out. You don't need to measure sugar out. You know, when you put a thing, it's a line at the bottom. You just fill the, you line the whole bottom and bring it up about an inch. And that's enough sugar for now. Okay. And then you pour your your half a gallon of water in it, because you don't got enough space for, I mean, no, not half a gallon, but you got enough space for a gallon and a half now, but with the sugar and the Kool-Aid. And when you stir it up, you got doing a clockwise motion until you see the sugar goes and start rising to the top until it dissolves out, and then you're left with the goodness of the diabetes Kool-Aid that you can drink for one hour. That's how long the

Why Nothing Tastes Like Original

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Kool-Aid lasts. And and and like I say, nostalgia, because I remember when um I first taste Kool-Aid. I don't remember the age, but I know I was young. And when I tasted, I thought that I have died and went to heaven because that was the best thing in at that point in my life that was going on. And like I say, I still look Kool-Aid to the day. I don't know if y'all, they don't really sell Kool-Aid packets no more in the store. They do sell like the little small individual packets of like um propel, um, some other kind of drinks like tea and stuff. So they still do the little small skinny packets of powder that you could just pour in the water and shake it up so that. But it's not like the original, you know, because you you can't, you know, make the original Kool-Aid and then go to something else, or have taste the original Kool-Aid, and then go to something else and think that it's the same. So you got you got to be there to know what I'm talking about. And I would say, so for all you old 40s that, you know, had Kool-Aid in your life, go out there and get some Kool-Aid for one of your kids. Because I got some for my kids. And when I made the Kool-Aid for them, they loved it. And also, I I hooked them up on Tang. Now, they do still sell Tang and the stuff. I saw it in Walmart and I picked up some about two weeks ago. It's gone. It lasts about three days in the house. And and I think I'm pretty sure it was just me. I know I didn't drink that whole thing of tang by myself. That is uh I probably did. Man, I need to get my life together. But as I realized, like I say, when I ran through this hurricane, like I saw, I saw the red thing of Kool-Aid. That reminded me of the nostalgia of the Kool-Aid thing and how delicious Kool-Aid

The Sharpie Line Refrigerator Game

SPEAKER_00 9:07

was. And my parents back then thought they were slick, you know, um, well, I thought I was slick. They they will make the Kool-Aid, right? And they'll give all us Kool-Aid and then tell us not to go back in the refrigerator and drink Kool-Aid. And like, like, how are you gonna tell a child, you know, or or to deprive a child of that sweet nectar that they call Kool-Aid during that time frame in the 90s, you know? And um my father used to come out with his little Sharpie and, you know, draw a line at where the Kool-Aid was last at before he can go to bed. So as the smart kids that we were, me and my sister, we will sit down and do two things. Either we erase the line with some alcohol and a piece of paper with some the nap and stuff like that, and then draw a new line after we done got our Kool-Aid, or we'll put water inside of the Kool-Aid. Now, the erasing of the line was better because he didn't mess with the integrity of the Kool-Aid. All you did is, you know, we drunk some, now it was just a little less left than was before. But when you add water to the Kool-Aid package, you mess with the integrity of the package. You mess with the integrity of the Kool-Aid. So now the Kool-Aid is water down. And then people are gonna know what you did because now you messed up the precious balance of the Kool-Aid package, powder, versus the sugar and the water. So the balance is off. You can't add more water without adding more sugar and Kool-Aid. All three got to go together. And as a kid, we didn't realize that until like maybe a weekend, two weeks. Maybe it's maybe a Monday end. Okay, we I say we're smart, but I think some ways we were dumb shit too. Um, but we we we figured it out and we try to, you know, first add just sugar. But, you know, the problem is those things uh accounted for. I think my father was measuring the sugar at the end of the night, the weight, the sugar weight and scale thing, to make sure the right weight of sugar was still in there when he woke up the morning because he knew what we was doing. So we thought we were smart, but we found out later in life that he he knew exactly what we were doing. And he thought it was hilarious to let us think that he we didn't know what we were doing. But that that was nostalgic to me about, you know, the Kool-Aid pack.

Using Nostalgia To Finish Strong

SPEAKER_00 11:50

So during a weak moment running in a goddamn from blazing heat trying to escape the sun to now I'm running to a goddamn rainstorm. When rain's supposed to just go up and down, it was going sideways. I saw the light, the hope of a Kool-Aid package in there. And I think that was a bigger sign to me actually seeing that Kool-Aid pack. Because like I say, I haven't seen Kool-Aid actual the square packet in the store in forever. Unless I'm just not looking. I do see like little packets, little skinny little tabs. And y'all know what I'm talking about, little skinny thing. You pull the Meo, the Meos, the little squishy, the squishy thing, but that's a form of Kool-Aid, but it's still not like regular Kool-Aid. We can make it diabetes. Um, but they like little long, like a pixie stick. I know that y'all know what pixie sticks is. Some of y'all might know what pixie sticks is. Some of y'all, if y'all under 30, y'all have y'all have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about. But um that stuff is great. So that, and then like I said, going back to my story, like I said, I was running, saw the light or the Kool-Aid, Red Kool-Aid package, and it gave me the energy to run through the storm. Because when I was at that time, I was like two miles from the house. And we both know when you run far from somewhere and you gotta go back, going back is the hard part. You know, if I could run in a circle and make sure my circle brings back to the where I need to go at, which I normally do, it it works out. But sometimes you got to run, you know, a couple miles out and turn around, take it back home. Um, it was turn around, take it back home day. And the Kool-Aid saved me. So um, whatever you have in your mind over 40s, that when you're running with this love, hate, and pain or hurt, whatever you want to call it, relationship, keep in mind that it's something from your past that is glorious and gonna keep you move forward as you go on through your struggles after 40. So revert back to the past and remember the good things. To me, that day as I run in and try not to die, it was red Kool-Aid. And it may put a smile on my face when I remember that if you add the right sugar, water, Kool-Aid package content into one two-gallon jug, it's gonna be glorious.

Kool-Aid Challenge And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 14:31

So this week, go out there and drink some Kool-Aid for old time's sakes. Until next time, thank you for rocking me. Keep up the suggestions. I love it. I love the topic suggestions, and I'm gonna keep going.