Annals of Stupidity

I am not sure if you are all aware of this, but I used to be a gymnast. By about 10th grade, I was going to the gym 4 times a week; (2) 3-hour classes, an hour long private lesson, and open gym for 4 hours Saturday morning. Throughout that whole time, I never got hurt. I was really lucky.
The reason that I never got hurt was because my coach new a lot about safety and we spent the first 30-45 minutes of each class stretching.
I bought a fancy treadmill today. I love it, it is so high -tech looking. I had to assemble it myself and it was really heavy and took forever. As I was putting it together, I pulled my hamstring muscle. I didn't think much about it because my quads are sore anyway, so after I was done I hopped on it and ran about 2 miles. I never stopped to stretch or warm up. Now my hamstring is so sore, I can barely get up and down the stairs. It's not bad enough that I won't be able to run, but it's going to be a pain in my ass probably all the way through the race.
The reason I told the gymnastic story is because I knew better. I know that one should stretch and get properly warmed up before a workout, but I didn't and now I have to pay for it. So the moral of the story is - even if you are pinched on time, or don't really feel like it, STRETCH! It really is important. That isn't something that they made up to torture us in gym class.