Rock Bottom

So you know how I’ve been hiking …like, a lot?  I maybe overdid it just a little.  I can’t walk.  Well, more accurately, I’m walking like I’m elderly.  One more thing added to the list of things I can’t do:

• Ride a bike
• Drive a car
• Go above 8,000′ elevation
• Drink beer
• Beat a fish in a game of Concentration
• Walk

The consensus is that it’s probably plantar fascitis (combined with some mighty-sore medial collateral ligaments).  Unfortunately, riding the trainer makes it feel better.  Oh, the irony.

Safety first. Don't need any more head trauma.

On the plus-side, yoga and swimming also do it good.  Yoga was pretty touch-and-go, since my balance was so bad from the concussion that I couldn’t even stand on one foot.  But this week I’ve been on fire!

"Bird of Paradise." The sense of balance is coming back.

I also went swimming.  True to form, I overdid it, and swam 50 laps, 1.5 miles.  Thankfully I didn’t hurt myself, but I was nice and zonked.  My first swim since the river last summer.  Maybe my future is in triathlon.

I’m getting into a nice routine: an hour on the trainer first thing in the morning, then a core workout, then yoga.  It has been keeping me relatively upbeat.

Which brings me to my next point.  Everything is not, in fact, rainbows and freaking unicorns.  I try to keep the blog (and myself) upbeat, but it’s time to vent.  This sucks.  I miss riding. I’m sick of paying $2.25 (in exact change every time) each way to ride the bus anywhere.  And I’m sick of being trapped within a three block radius of my house otherwise.

I used to galavant around the mountains.  I’ve probably seen as much of the front range in the last three months from behind the handlebars as a lot of Boulder locals.  It feels like I used to be able to fly like a bird, and now I have broken wings.

And another thing.  I had been training my ass off.  I have the data from that last, fateful ride; it was a breakthrough ride (until I got the concussion…), some of my best performance of the year.  And now all that fitness is just going to fade away, wasted.

The leg vasculature still shows through the leg hair. Lots of hard training in those legs. It will all be gone soon.

At least today was free cone day.

Ben and Jerry's free cone day. Bonnaroo Buzz.

I’ll leave you all with a picture (From a doctor’s office, ironically.  I’ve been spending plenty of time in those):

Sounds familiar.

~ by awerbuch on April 13, 2011.