Return to the Riverfront

The aftermath of the marathon involved about three days of total rest and another two weeks without intensive exercise.

I think it’s important to fully heal both mind and body after a taxing event such as a marathon. I’d rather not return to running until every joint feels fresh and limber. I’d rather err on the side of too much rest than not enough.

This week I returned to cycling on the Riverfront trail. It was my first time on a bicycle since I broke my collarbone last November, nearly two full seasons ago. There was some anxiety in getting back on the bicycle, as expected. My pace was much slower than it was last year, as expected. I made it though, and it was nice to trigger the endorphins through the act of pedaling.

Mid-ride along the Mississippi River I saw the same family of turkeys loitering about that I often encountered last year. Upon seeing me they dashed to the nearby underbrush to hide, as they always did before. The foliage around me was a lush green and I was hit a by harsh wind that pushed from the south. My bike crawled forward where it once zoomed.

I think it’d odd that in the time it took for nature to decay and be reborn, my collarbone broke and self-repaired.

Lately I’ve had recurring dreams of a return to competitive swimming. In each dream I’m my current age and attempting to swim with programs from my youth. In each dream, my return is something of an intrusion. The swimmers and coaches don’t want me. Worse yet, they’re confused as to why I’d want to return. Didn’t I do all of this already? Why repeat the past? In the dreams, I am oblivious to the signs around me that life moves on and I am no longer physiologically the same. Age brings new priorities. I shouldn’t be ignorant to what they are.

I think that I am well aware that a downward physical slope is inevitable, and probably near. I also have no interest in returning to swimming. Maybe the dream is a reminder not to get caught up in my own obsession with performance. Life is short, after all, and time devoted to competition is time wasted not enjoying oneself.

It’s also a reminder that I’m given the option to have fun. I can take the opportunity or make exercise something burdensome. Why not take advantage of that opportunity and smile?

Rehabbing a Collarbone Break - Part 1

Today I returned to an Orthopedic doctor to check on the progress of my collarbone break. It had been two weeks since my last visit. The break occurred four weeks ago and I’ve been in a sling ever since.

Obviously, I was hoping that the bone has healed enough to rid the sling and resume normal activity.

I had some initial x-rays done on the bone, and a long wait in a patient room followed. Finally, the doctor entered.

“You’ve healed really well. The bone has reattached successfully, and I see material bonding the break together,” the doctor said (I’m paraphrasing). I cannot recall if he used the word “froth” to describe the material that reattaches bone, but I’m fairly certain it was this word. “You can take off the sling for good.”

The sling is gone! He then had me stand while he inspected the collarbone.

“I don’t see a knob there anymore. That’s a good sign. It looks exactly the same as your left collarbone. That means it really healed well.”

The doctor led me through a series of mobility tests. It was my right collarbone that broke, and my right arm had a fraction of the mobility that my left arm did. I was unable to lift the arm over my head, for example. I felt pain in almost every movement.

“You’ve been wearing the sling well. That’s good,” the doctor said. “The bad news is you have frozen shoulder. All the pain you’re feeling now is from your shoulder, not your bone. It’s from wearing the sling for so long and not moving the arm.”

I agreed to six weeks of physical therapy to regain mobility in my right arm. After six weeks, I’ll have a follow-up appointment with x-rays to confirm that everything has healed perfectly.

“You can perform basic stretching and mobility work, but don’t lift weights. Don’t lift anything more than ten pounds. A can of soda is okay. A gallon of milk is not. The bone is still healing,” the doctor advised.

“How about light running?” I asked.

“Running is fine,” he said. “You’re good for that.” I was relieved to hear that.

“And cycling?” I asked.

“Just don’t fall,” the doctor said with a smile.

I won’t ride a bike for a few weeks regardless. A fall right now would be too catastrophic.

It feels great to be out of the sling. Six weeks of physical therapy hardly seems like the end of the world!

I had a Starbucks latte as a celebratory beverage. I am “active” again and will resume running tomorrow.

Obviously there is still a lot of rehabilitation ahead, but everything could have been worse. The glass is half-full. The bone could have displaced further. That would have required surgery. I could have also had a worse concussion. The mind is a terrible thing to waste. As it was, I regained my senses quickly.

Six weeks! That means my final date of rehabilitation is January 13th, 2023. This is the date that I will have my final appointment with the Orthopedic and final x-rays to confirm that I am healed. Oddly enough, I finished physical therapy in 2021 around the same date. I cannot recall whether the final day was January 13th, but it was very close.

Now here’s to hoping I don’t end 2023 in the same manner!

Unbound

I have high hopes that today is my last day bound to the sling. My collarbone is feeling better by the day and I find that most of my dreams involve getting back on a bicycle.

I find myself scouring the Internet for new trails to run and bike, and for potential new trips in 2023. Though I am immobile now, it will not be for long. I am eager to be unbound.

I’ve been significantly slowed down for the past month. Though it’s nice having some extra sleep, I cannot stand being incapacitated.

I can’t help but wonder how the bone will ultimately heal. Will it ever feel “100%” again? I’m not sure. I will begin physical therapy soon. I might even do some swimming in order to regain mobility in the arm. I’m not even sure if my swimming technique will be the same. I have to accept that this is okay.

“Fun” is a concept that so many lose grasp of, but to each his or her own.

I find myself thinking of a project manager at work who likes to spend the first five minutes of each virtual meeting with a trivia game. The trivia question is random, never repeated, and can cover any topic.

I find the trivia to be one of the few moments of work that I enjoy. Let me guess at a random, wild, unpredictable question! Without trivia there is only the banality of tasks. However, I hear many employees grumble of “wasted time” when trivia begins.

“I want to get down to business,” they often say, and complain that they want trivia taken away. Any straying from the beaten path is a hindrance to these types. I wonder, how much humanity has been deprived of a soul that cannot enjoy five minutes of time playing a game?

“Time is money,” the ghost of Benjamin Franklin barks into the ears of the industrious. There is no time for smiles: give the bees an agenda and let them forever serve the hive.

Why can we feel like a five minute trivia game is a colossal waste of life, while also perceiving metrics and emails as meaningful? It is this same mindset that cannot enjoy the outdoors or the sun simply for their existence (the outdoors is only a place for transport). The industrious move from one agenda to the next, transported by car to office, and then transported by feet to conference room. Or if the office isn’t necessary, the mind will sit and wait as Microsoft Teams transports this mind from one agenda to the next via screen. Communication sacrifices connection in favor of task.

It scares me how easily people can lose the ability to have fun.

Clive Barker has a quote that goes something along the lines of, “A maggot thinks only of food to eat and the space required to attain that food. It’s only dream is to become a fly. If that is its only dream, who’s to stop it?”

May every ride be unbound and wild.

The Waiting Game

Two weeks after my collarbone break, I find my health status and daily routine mostly the same.

I visited an orthopedic on Friday with hope of better-than-expected news: hope that the bone was healing faster than forecasted, that I would be running in a few days, and that the sling was no longer needed.

That was not the case. The break had not yet reattached and if anything it had displaced a little further. I was relieved that this is typical during the first two weeks, and the displacement was still not significant enough to require surgery. No surgery required yet, at least, but I have to keep resting. I still require the sling, at least for a few more weeks. I am “nowhere near running.”

So, I find myself playing a waiting game. Removed from most physical activity, I’m spending more time reading and writing. I’m trying to focus on the silver lining of the situation: I’m sleeping better, relaxing, and healing. I’m trying to do what I can do well without too much worry over what I can’t do. I’ve been down this road before. Last year ended in the exact same fashion for me.

Though I had initial thoughts that my cycling days might be over, I found myself spending the weekend watching videos of bikepacking trips through mountains and forests. The videos left me envious, motivated, and inspired. Of course I’ll be back on the bike. Falling is a natural part of the process. I’ve had some great adventures and don’t want those to end. There’s something I get by being out in the wild that I cannot find anywhere else. As most bikepackers will tell you, there’s often a search for some deeper meaning at the start of the journey. Whether or not it’s found is pretty irrelevant. Something is found regardless.

There is another silver lining: I am more immersed in my own thought. I’m more attuned to what I want and where I see myself going. I’ll have more vigor when I am finally moving around like my old self. I’ve gained some intentionalism.

As I wait for the bone to heal, I also remind myself that we tend to have short-term memories when it comes to pain. What can seem unbearable in the moment is quickly a distant memory. We can try to recapture the agony, but it’s as though our minds usher the feeling out of our neurons completely.

Eventually this collarbone injury will be a memory too. I’ll be back on a bicycle with recollection that breaking it hurt, but the extent of how badly it hurt will be lost. And maybe that’s for the best. We’d never take another risk again if our minds kept acute memories of every bump and bruise.

Genetic Disposition

I have a proclivity for dangerous activities. It’s probably somewhat genetic. My brother had a serious brain injury via a high-speed longboarding crash. My dad has broken the same bone that I just broke several times via waterskiing and high-speed falls.

I remember learning to snow ski when I was young. After my first lesson, I was supposed to attempt the beginner-level slopes.

“What’s the most dangerous hill here?” I kept asking. “I want to try that,” I insisted. And despite protests, I kept insisting. “Give me a slope that’s steep.”

So I dragged my dad to the top of an advanced slope. Give me one for the pros. Now this will get some speed, I thought. Then I proceeded to crash and roll down the entire course, top to bottom. And I enjoyed it. I finished covered in snow and bruises.

Even at amusement parks I cannot ignore the greatest thrills. I insist on the rollercoaster with the most flips in spite of my own severe motion sickness.

Each of my bikepacking trips ends with me asking, “Now how can we top that?”

A broken collarbone comes with the territory. If anything, maybe I’m lucky to have as few breaks as I do.

I had a difficult moment this morning in which I wanted to take a quick walk outside, but could not physically put my jacket on due to the collarbone break and sling that supports it. I stared, defeated, out my apartment window as a light snow flurry fell and powdered the streets with white.

I was in the same situation last year. I tell myself now that I have to be more vigilant, and I will be. I don’t want to spend every winter in rehabilitation from a crash. I’ll be more wary, I’ll gain more skill, and I’ll hope that this is the last bone break or muscle tear.

Ahead lies more cycling and bikepacking. Colorado is on the horizon. So is Utah. They are magnetic for me because of their sheer unpredictability. Trails that wind both vertically and horizontally, that cut through both mountains and wilderness.

At the end of the day, there is no fun without risk.

A proclivity for danger isn’t always a bad thing… in fact, it only sucks during rehab.

Full Circle

The Stephen King argument that life, like the universe, moves in a circular and repetitive motion seems to be holding true for me right now.

I boasted that unlike 2022, in which I spent the final part of the year struggling to walk around my apartment neighborhood, I would finish 2023 with the ability to run farther and faster than I ever had.

Then I broke my collarbone in a cycling crash. I now find myself in the same position I was in a year ago. Walking hurts. Standing up hurts. I cannot tie my own shoes. Walking around my apartment complex is a struggle, with every step triggering pain in my collarbone. I realize now that I may spend the remainder of 2023 rehabilitating.

I can, at least, type one-handed.

The aftermath of this crash feels different than the last one. I know my collarbone will heal, as will the hit that I took to my head and hip. Spiritually, though, I feel a little something lost. I look at my bicycle and thoughts of selling it come to mind. The idea is both heartbreaking and relieving. I doubt I will sell it, but it sucks that the mind can maneuver that direction.

Time heals all wounds, they say. It isn’t true though. Ask a motorcyclist with a broken back. The pain exacerbates with time until eventually it is insufferable and crippling. Some wounds are spider venom in the blood: once they enter, they only spread and disintegrate.

I believe this wound will heal, but I do not know what my risk tolerance will be going forward. I know that I’m anxious to run again already. You can only fall so hard on a run.

Maybe I need to revert my thoughts back to the present. Of course the future holds some dread.

For now, it’s sunny and cool in Saint Louis. One day at a time.

Slow Healing

It’s a bit challenging to sleep well with a broken collarbone. That probably goes without saying. Every little twitch and turn during the night wakes you up.

I somehow managed about 7 hours of sleep last night, which is pretty good with all things considered. I can’t say the bone feels any better or worse than it did on Sunday. It might be that way for awhile.

I am still hopeful to be running again within a few weeks time. But, we’ll see how it goes. I missed the mark by months on my foot injury last year. To an extent, a recovery timeline is out of your control, especially with something such as a bone break.

My bikes remain on their racks in my living room. Because I’m housebound right now, I see them almost every waking moment. I want to visualize myself cycling again and enjoying it. I think that I will eventually, but the experience will be different. I’ll probably be intentionally slower and more vigilant.

That’s sort of how it goes with age in general. We try to repeat the thrills of the past, the adventures that exhilarated us when we were young, and to an extent we can. Yet we don’t have the same cells in our bodies, nor do we have the same minds, to experience those adventures. So we go through the motions, and it’s mostly the same… but it’s a little different. Maybe the once-vibrant colors our eyes saw long ago are now dulled or our emotions are a little more subdued. Maybe we miss the element of surprise or the delusion of feeling invincible.

Healing is also a lonely process. Your pain is uniquely your own. The entire right side of my body remains bruised and bloodied. It has been two days of ripping bloody bandages off of my right side.

To the outside ears, it was a “bike crash.” That has little meaning without feeling. To my own nerves feeling the pain, it is constant misery. Your physical pain cannot be shared; it is monogamous, and clings to you for life. It also sucks. Still, I believe that pain is a necessity. Life and death are painful, so you might as well get used to feeling pain.

In time I will be back. How many times have I said that?

Eating Scones and Breaking Bones

I’ve read that it’s healthy to eat foods while they’re in season. This fall I interpreted that to mean that I should consume extra pumpkin flavored beverages and foods at Starbucks. Pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin scones became regulars on Saturday morning through the months of October and November. Apparently this isn’t how you’re supposed to interpret “eat foods while they’re in season.” Oh well. I have no regrets.

On a more serious note, I had what may end up being the bike crash to end my bike crashes.

I was pedaling my road bicycle down the Riverfront Trail yesterday and turned into the Riverfront Park. Maybe because I’ve made this turn a hundred times in the last year, my eyes were focused forward for a moment, rather than on the path beneath the wheels. It turned out to be a critical moment to avert my gaze from the path.

Though the sun shone and the winds were calm that morning, a storm had hit the day before with severe winds. I didn’t take that into account. Some intense debris littered the road, included a large tree branch.

My front tire hit the tree branch and I flipped forward, sideways, and upside-down. I felt my head slam against the road first. I was wearing a helmet, but the force was enough to whip my head and nearly knock me out.

Then my shoulder hit and I immediately felt my collarbone break. I also heard something that you never want to hear come from your own body: “snap!”

Finally my hip landed with a loud thud. The pain was intense, and I knew that I was in very bad shape.

I was wearing a helmet, luckily, but I was still dazed. I was not sure what city I was living in or where I was going, and suddenly the trail seemed foreign to me. I was not sure what I did the past few days either. I just felt that I had to turn around and get home, wherever that was.

Due to the adrenaline and lack of logical thought, I hopped back on the bicycle and rode back. It was not for twenty minutes that I knew where I was or where I was riding, but somehow I still rode the correct direction.

It was an hour later, after X-Rays and a CT scan, that I learned that I somehow managed to ride the bike home with a broken collarbone and a mild concussion.

The adrenaline wore off the moment I stepped back in my apartment, and it was then that my right arm lost mobility. It was my right collarbone that broke. The pain surged quickly thereafter.

Later, at a nearby Total Access Urgent Care, I learned the full impact of the injuries quickly.

“Yep, that’s broken,” the X-ray technician said as he glanced at the first photo of my shoulder and collarbones. “It’ll be for the doctor to say, but the good news is, it looks like it’s the good kind of break.”

“There’s a good kind of break?” I said. I assumed all breaks were bad kinds.

“Yeah,” he said, “The kind that doesn’t need surgery.”

It turned out he was correct. The bone was broken but not displaced, meaning the bone would heal after two months in a sling and some physical therapy.

I regained my mental senses quickly and all of my memories returned. For that I’m also thankful.

I’ve had some nasty crashes over the past year. This was the worst one; it was enough, I think, to break me mentally. It raised a conundrum: how do I keep doing something I enjoy, when I seem to have a penchant for serious injuries while doing it? I’ve never been injured while running, after all.

Are my cycling days over? It’s difficult to say. I should be honest here though: they might be over. I have no interest in breaking the clavicle again. Certainly my cycling days are over for the remainder of the year. With bone breaks, the best thing you can do is nothing.

I guess it’s inevitable that these sorts of doubts flood my mind after such a crash. Maybe I’m just not meant to be a cyclist. Maybe I just have to commit to slow and leisurely rides from now on. What will I do?

I may feel young, but I know this bone will not heal as quickly as it would have twenty years ago.

Hopefully I am back on a bicycle eventually. To what capacity I’ll ride again, I’m not sure. Some cyclists bounce back quickly after bone breaks. They heal, and then they pedal with extra fervor. They love the activity. All pain is worth it. Suffering is hardly a reason to quit. Neither is a broken collarbone.

But I am not those cyclists. A part of me feels I’ve had enough bone breaks and ligament sprains to last a lifetime.

Every injury I’ve ever had has arrive via bicycle. You can only fall so hard when you’re on a run. You can only break so badly. On a bicycle, though, it doesn’t seem to be a matter of if your collarbone breaks in a crash, but how badly it breaks.

I guess time will tell what’s in store for me next. Though I feel down, I don’t feel “out.” I’ll focus on eating well, sleeping, and healing. There’s still life to enjoy.

I guess time will tell whether I hope on the bike again.

The Origins of Wind

I woke up just before dawn, stretched, and went for a brief jog that cut straight through downtown and then looped back to my apartment. I haven’t done much jogging the past few weeks; after a few half-marathons, I decided to spend November doing other exercises and activities. You can overdo anything, after all.

The weather forecast never indicated rain, though the skies were gaunt and the air had the metallic scent of an impending storm. Puddles blotched the streets from rainfall the night before.

A torrential downpour of rain slammed down on me shortly after I crossed the St Louis Arch. Gusts of wind gained intensity and lashed rain against my face. The wind, in my imagination, seemed capable of leveling each building and tree, and finally rendering downtown a pile of rubble.

Finally, I arrived back at my apartment, totally drenched.

I thought about when I was young and I always wondered if wind had an origin. In my mind, there was some faraway land, owned by wind’s creator, initiating these gusts and storms. Or did wind just appear out of thin air?

Obviously there is a scientific explanation for wind, but some things in life are best left a mystery. The unknown opens the imagination, whereas explanations kill it.

The rain stopped about as abruptly as it arrived. There was something other-worldly about it.

The escapist in me looks for these “other-worldly” signs. The day before, I crossed a rest station on the Riverfront Trail, and it reminded me of a train station. Suddenly I imagined the train station from Spirited Away that Chahiro took to visit the witch’s twin sister. It was the same train station occupied by various spirits, navigating a strange purgatorial world.

Would I take this haunted train, and would it take me on some fantastic adventure, away from the consumerism and hustle culture that seem to prevail in the city?

Spirited Away is an amazing movie. Who were these spirits, and where were they going? Brilliantly, the movie doesn’t tell us much. Like the origins of wind, it’s best left a mystery.

Dopamine Chasers

What is dopamine? According to Health Direct, dopamine is “a chemical released in the brain that makes you feel good.” It is created naturally and can be enhanced by external forces.

Dopamine is available in abundance. It’s provided on every screen and therefore requires only a click or a tap for quick infusion.

However, a limitless supply of dopamine is a Faustian deal. By constantly chasing the highs it provides, the body stops producing the previously normal amount of dopamine. Therefore the natural state of the dopamine chaser gradually falls lower. A world without screens becomes utterly depressing and for some, unbearable. Everything is trivial compared to the social media rush.

Riding a bike also provides a dopamine high, so admittedly I chase dopamine to an extent. And fall is my favorite season to ride the bicycle.

This morning two deers crossed my path on the Riverfront trail. The dawn sunlight gilded the trees and filtered through them, creating stripes of light and dark on the path ahead of me. It was about as ethereal as the Midwest can get.

Near the end of my ride I crossed paths with some construction workers and felt a deep sense of envy for them. Unlike modern “knowledge workers,” they were actually creating something. Not a fake thing such as a spreadsheet or a report, but something material, something useful. There is craft involved, in spite of the physical labor. I believe humans were meant to create.

Chasing the Personal Best

I had a pretty nasty bike crash last week. I was zipping through downtown and encountered a construction zone near the Convention Center Plaza. I made a left turn for a detour, thinking the detour road would be mostly smooth pavement, only to have my front tire hit a jagged crevice in the tarmac. My bike went over sideways and I crashed on my right side.

Lesson learned: never assume the road ahead will provide a smooth ride.

I slid over the pavement and felt the road peel away the skin on my right leg. My elbow and hip collided against the street with a thud. I knew immediately it wasn’t a light crash. I wished that I had been watching the road more carefully.

I looked around and realized that I was alone on that street. It was the cusp of dawn and the sun’s climb toward the horizon had rendered the streets in shades of lavender and indigo. I levered myself up and attempted to limp back home while carrying my bike. My apartment was only three blocks away. The bike derailleur broke, as did the hanger and chain. The handlebar tape tore up. The bike and I broke together.

I limped home and showered off the blood, then bandaged myself up. I had no anger or regret: the crash already happened and there’s no rewind button on time.

As the hours ticked by, my right elbow went numb and I realized that it was sprained. The sprain was not as severe as the foot injury I suffered a year ago, but I also knew that it would take several weeks to heal. By nightfall, there was almost no mobility in the elbow.

I joked that because the higher powers couldn’t injure my feet while I ran, they decided to hand me the occasional bike crash. We all need setbacks, after all.

Because of the elbow injury, I was unable to bike the rest of the week. So, I ran while maintaining my right arm in a position that was awkward yet comfortable. Each day, a little mobility returned to the arm.

This week was supposed to be my “season ending” running week. I had scheduled a 1600 meter timed run and a 10k run. I wanted to see what progress I had made over the last year, since healing my ankle injury from 2021. It was not ideal to be nursing a bunch of scrapes and bruises, as well as a sprained elbow, this week.

I believe that the body and mind treat all stresses the same: as a gravitational push downward on performance. Whether these stresses are from injury, emotions, or heavy exercise, stresses are essentially quicksand. Stresses are what age us.

My 1600 meter run was Wednesday night and when I showed up at the track to warm up, I felt surprisingly light. I still felt elbow pain but also accepted it as a part of life. Shit happens. Things break and sprain. Sometimes you fully heal, sometimes you mostly heal, and unfortunately, sometimes you just don’t heal at all.

I decided to look for someone in the race that seemed fast and just try to hang with them. I noted a young college-aged male in my group and overheard him saying that he was aiming for some fast times. So, I decided to try and run behind him for as long as I could.

I crossed the first 1600 meters (about a mile) and saw that I ran it in 5 minutes and 20 seconds. That was faster than the fastest 1600 meter run of my life, and I still had another half of the run to go! By my own standards I was flying. I felt fresh and limber. The college guy was just one stride ahead of me. I was keeping up. Everyone else was far behind us.

It wasn’t until the final lap of the 3200 meter run that the college guy pulled ahead by a few seconds. However, I finished the run in 10 minutes and 50 seconds. It was by far the fastest run of my life. A “personal best.”

I shook the college guy’s hand (he went for a fist bump and I awkwardly went for a handshake, being the old fart that I am). I was thankful because it is competition that brings out the best in us. I never would have broken 11 minutes had he not set a good pace for me.

I’m nearing age 37 and appreciate now, more than ever, any sort of personal best time in an athletic event.

The elbow is healing. Maybe when I was 21 I’d feel anger and resentment about my crash. That is the advantage of the late 30’s. Whereas earlier in life there might be a certain paranoia over outcome and control, I’ve finally gotten to a point where I can say, “to hell with it, let’s just roll with the punches.”

My 10k is tomorrow and I think it’ll be fun. I did a 10k in college and my time was 56 minutes. I know I’ll be significantly faster than that. I’ll hit a personal best time, smile, and celebrate with some coffee.

And that’s life. You hit some crashes, you do your best to recover, and you gear up for the next race.

Let’s hope there’s a next race tomorrow.

Willingness to Experiment

I ran this morning with minimalist shoes. Running with minimalist shoes is something that I’ve been slowly and steadily reintegrating into my routine. Most of my “runs without cushion on my feet” are slow-paced and shorter in distance.

Upon returning to minimalist shoes and the occasional barefoot walks, I quickly rediscovered the value of minimalist running. Minimalist shoes do quickly bring me closer to what I would describe as a “natural stride.” Cushion tends to blunt the mind’s ability to register bad form. We have a gazillion nerve endings in our feet and their duty is to detect danger; numbing them with foam doesn’t necessarily help our form.

Minimalist shoes also seem to work the calf muscles more than “maximal shoes.” I certainly felt more of a “calf burn” on the last mile.

There is value in trying new things. I’ve gained something from running in both maximal and minimal shoes. I don’t necessarily prefer one over the other. I can say that when running at a high intensity for a large number of miles, I find cushioned shoes to be pretty useful. I also find minimal shoes useful for correcting my form and general casual activities.

It’s important for me to not peg my identity on a brand, a style, or even a category. I’m not a “minimalist runner” any more than I’m a “maximalist runner.” I simply run by using whatever manner works, and I’m willing to try a different method if it reads as interesting. At the end of the day it’s an activity that we were born to do, and it should be fun. So, I’m willing to use whatever methods make running fun.

On another front, I’ve also been experimenting with diet. For example, upon returning to the US from China I dedicated myself to intermittent fasting. I stuck with it for the better part of three years and had a degree of success with it. How much of my improved health was actually a result of fasting, though, versus a multitude of other factors (caloric restriction and increased exercise, to name two factors) is difficult to say.

I abandoned intermittent fasting because I found it difficult to maintain running and cycling performance while adhering to a feeding window. I’ve tried a few long fasted runs over the past few months and even completed a fasted half marathon. However, I found my power to be limited and my abilities in a fasted state to be confined to a “low heart rate range”.

Also, there is no extra medal given for completing a run without food. If you lose to a guy who ate pancakes for breakfast, you still lost.

Moving away from intermittent fasting was simple because my feeding window was simple: I skipped breakfast.

Are there advantages to fasting? Sure. When deprived of carbohydrates, the body uses fat as its primary fuel source. The advantage of this is that fats are an extremely efficient form of energy. If my aim was simply to walk around the world on minimal fuel, a diet high in fat and low in carbohydrates might be a wise option. Fasting can also be an effective means of weight loss for this reason, especially if your body is not adept at fat oxidation due to carb overload.

For me, fat is not the best fuel source when seeking running and cycling performance. Glycogen provides me more power and arguably requires less oxygen to burn. The downside is that glycogen depletes quickly, so you need a lot of fuel. That said, for what I’m seeking (my best possible marathon time), I prefer relying primarily on glycogen.

This means I’ve largely abandoned my fasted runs and fasting routines. Maybe I’ll do some fasting during the occasional break from running, but I don’t view it as a priority. I haven’t noticed any diminishing returns from eating breakfast yet and it’s been about a month since I quit fasting.

Like I regard running shoes, I don’t want diet to define me. It’s easy to label oneself based on current diet. One can be “keto,” “vegan,” “carnivore,” “paleo,” or “low carb,” among a multitude of other things. I don’t want to permanently peg myself in any one category because it prohibits the opportunity of trying another. There’s a valid argument to be made in a lot of them; otherwise, they wouldn’t have popularized.

I can say that these days I’ve limited my meat intake and increased my carbohydrates. I generally feel better and I’ve noticed a very sizable performance increase. I’ve been eating some meat for the occasional dinner, but that’s about it. Starchy foods and vegetables have largely replaced what was once plates rife with beef.

The point is not that one diet is better than another, though: the point is that there is value in self-experimentation. We only have one life so we might as well learn what we can!

The Need for a “What If”

I find myself needing a hypothetical “what if” in order to look forward to the future. That “what if” scenario is simple:

“What if my important accomplishment or action, which I was placed on this planet to fulfill, has not yet occurred?”

I find the need to posit this scenario because as a former elite athlete, it was easy to assume for the better part of a decade that my greatest accomplishment already transpired. This is a debilitating state of mind that ensnares many athletes because their athletic careers typically end well before the halfway marker of life.

I freed myself of this mental prison with a hypothetical question, and whether or not it’s true is inconsequential: “What if there is still a greater adventure ahead?”

I think of Bilbo Baggins and his reluctance to leave the safety of the Shire. After all, Gandalf reminds him, there is no guarantee of a safe return, or a return at all.

Yet something catalyzes Bilbo to embark on his greatest adventure and to eventually slay a dragon. He is about 50 years old when he leaves the Shire, which in theory would mark him well past his physical prime.

I am turning 37 soon. I spent the first quarter of age 36 learning to walk, and then run, again. As I embark on longer runs and longer bike rides I have no delusions of winning any sort of championships, nor do I care to.

There is, though, a unique excitement in knowing that I just ran or biked farther than I ever had in my life.

About a week ago I managed a long Sunday run of 15 miles (24 km). That was the longest run of my life, and I finished it feeling fresh. Today I biked a little more than 50 miles (80 km) without stopping. My “injured” foot remains in good health and I find myself feeling physically “lighter” than I have in the past.

Why do I feel lighter? Maybe the burden of expectations has finally been lifted from my spirit. Without it I’m free to experiment and fail.

I suspect that I have a lot of miles to run, and plenty of engine to run them. That’s why I signed up for my first full marathon, which will take place in April 2023. There’s plenty of time to build to it. I have a dream of running several. I’m in it for the long haul.

I don’t obsess over any sort of victory anymore, but I do feel a compulsion in my soul to finish my first marathon without stopping. Maybe it’s yet another form of my battle with my own mortality. Maybe I finally found the metaphorical dragon to slay, as Bilbo did. Or maybe the marathon is simply my “Gandalf”, my catalyst to introduce me to even better adventures ahead.

After all, why run roads when mountains are an option?

What if the best is yet to come?

Pain Tolerance

I woke Thursday morning and had an epiphany that I wanted to test the limitations of my pain tolerance as it relates to exercise.

The evening before, I attended a weekly “speed run” session that I signed up for. At that session I ran a little more than 7 (11 km) total miles, 4.5 (7.25 km) of which were at high intensity. The intensity marker used was my approximate 5 km road race pace.

When I woke on Thursday my legs were not exactly fresh. Usually I let myself recover immediately after a high intensity session. I was curious, though, about my body’s ability to rebound. When we are younger, after all, it’s common for training programs to force athletes into back-to-back high intensity sessions. It had been a few years since I’d tried something similar. Is my body still capable of repeat speed sessions?

I decided not to ingest a single calorie before the workout in order to add to the challenge. I had a cup of coffee and some water only.

I started with a 24 mile (38 km) bike ride along the Riverfront Trail. The cycling legs felt fresh and I maintained a moderately intense pace with relative ease, probably because cycling uses different movement patterns than running.

I returned home, drank some salted water, and immediately embarked on a 9 mile (14.5 km) run. I usually don’t engage in cycling and running back-to-back, but I wanted to attempt the double.

In the middle of the long run were 8 repeats of the following: half a mile at fast pace (a little slower than 5k race pace) and a quarter mile recovery jog. My fast pace was my fastest average yet and I maintained a consistent time for all 8 repeats. I did feel fatigued from the night before, but it was nice to see that maintaining race pace was still very manageable.

The session as a whole was one of my better workouts. More affirming was that I don’t necessarily need any calories to have a quality endurance workout. Sometimes we become overly dependent on calories for workout sustenance. Carbohydrates tend to be the fuel of choice. I suspect that they may not be as necessary as consensus seems to believe, at least for endurance activities. It’s freeing to be able to just “go for it” on an empty stomach. Word of caution if attempting this though: I routinely fast in the morning and have been doing so for years, so an “empty stomach exercise” was nothing new. The only unique part of this workout’s zero calorie attempt was the longevity of the session.

I spent the day sore, but I also still wanted to see just how far my own mileage could take me. I still had a free evening; maybe I’d try another bike ride! So after work, I logged another 21 mile (34 km) bike ride, also with moderate intensity. The ride could have lasted longer, but my left foot and leg started cramping. I did the cycling equivalent of a “limp to the finish line.” It was time to call it a day.

I woke several times throughout the night with severe cramps in both legs. Obviously I stressed the muscles more than was necessary. I don’t regret the attempt though; I think it’s important to overdo it every once in awhile; physical barriers are meant to be crossed. It’s important to know one’s own limitations, and the only way to truly know a limit is to push past it. Further, I don’t think it was the mileage that overtaxed me so much as it was the constant high intensity (emphasizing speed for several straight sessions).

I bring this up because I worry about the tendency with age to want to “keep things manageable.” We cross from childhood to adulthood and with that crossover can come a desire to have life more or less “figured out.” Failure should be kept to a minimum, we often think. How often are adults willing to “burn out in a blaze of glory!” We are supposed to have “made it,” which in theory means that discomfort steadily dissipates. Heaven forbid we struggle with something like we did when we were kids. Comfortable walks replace dangerous desert adventures.

I want to keep the habit of burning out in a blaze of glory. That’s the “maximalist” in me. Rather than keeping exercise “moderate” I think there is some value in sometimes (obviously not always) attempting a feat that is utterly unmanageable.

I did a recovery bike ride today along the Riverfront Trail. The legs definitely needed to heal a little after the previous night’s struggles.

Taking the time to appreciate my environs brought one obvious thing to the forefront: the city’s rabbit population is multiplying rapidly. While the American robins and geese claim the trail as their domain in the winter months, it seems to belong to the rabbits in summer.

A rabbit darted across my path every few minutes, likely fearful of the strange large two-wheeled object hauling itself forward that may or may not be a predator.

I stopped my bike ride and turned back when a flock of geese blocked the trail. One of the geese hissed and chased me for a bit. I couldn’t help but smile and submit. Let the geese have the trail, I say. Life’s too short to compete or threaten them back. There’s some beauty in a goose’s aggression. They’re just protecting their own, after all. Larger animals such as humans must be utterly terrifying to them.

Plus, there are plenty of other trails.

The Bicycle and My Health

I sat in a plush chair that stood in the center of a sterile and immaculate patient room at my company’s wellness center. I faced a television but did not register what was playing on its screen. I waited for the results of my recent health examination.

It had been three years since my last health check at our wellness center. That last check was in 2019, just two months after I returned from China and less than one year before COVID became a thing. I thought about the peaks and valley’s I’d been through in that timespan. What did that journey mean for my health?

The practitioner walked in with a clipboard and greeted me.

“We hadn’t seen you in a long time,” she said. “And to make a long story short… your health is perfect, and it improved considerably. That’s pretty rare for someone over the past few years.”

She then listed off my metrics and how much they improved since 2019.

“Your LDL cholesterol, which is your bad cholesterol, improved from 110 mg/dL, which is not terrible but not great, to 52 mg/dL, which is outstanding.”

“Your blood pressure went from 130/87, a little higher than what we prefer, to 118/73, which is in perfect range.”

“You dropped 15 pounds, though you were not overweight by any standards.”

“I have to ask because I encounter so many patients going through struggles right now: what did you change?”

I told her that I basically only changed one thing: I bought a bicycle and found myself enjoying it. It was supposed to be a new hobby to “get me through the boredom of work from home.” I bought it because I was frustrated by my inertia, frustrated by the new normal of virtual meetings, and frustrated that I wasn’t enjoying life. I told her that I felt my stress increasing over those first few months of the pandemic, and I wondered if a new way of moving could be a cure. Hatred can accumulate with a snowball effect, and I didn’t want to die a hateful person. I knew almost nothing about bicycles or cycling at the time.

And as it turned out, the bicycle cured me. My metabolic age is now 13 years younger than my actual age. By each measure, I am the healthiest I’ve been in my life. My health problems vanquished. I smashed them with my bicycle tires, one by one.

That’s not to say that my health was poor when I returned from China, but that it wasn’t nearly as good as I had assumed at the time. It’s to say that it could have been so much better, and cycling helped me understand just how good health can be.

In a sense, the bicycle gave me a second life. It’s a meditation, an exercise, a hobby, and a thrill ride all in one. And in a sense I do feel reborn. I don’t feel as angry as I used. I feel content to just “have a good time,” which is all I really want. Cycling is my time to just be me and enjoy the day.

So for me, it seems, a lot of it was about the bike.

Workout Recovery and Thoughts on Fun

Amidst a 20 mile Friday morning bike ride, five miles from my destination I crossed paths with a little elementary school boy. He was walking on the neighboring sidewalk. The air was cool and crisp, the wind was bracing, and I was pedaling too furiously too appreciate the full bloom of spring. I’ve crossed paths with the boy before; he usually waves hello.

“Cool bike!” he yelled out to me that morning. “Yeah,” I said. The line was my homage to the movie Dredd. The film’s protagonist and ultimate badass has a moment when his panicked assistant warns him: “Sir, I think he’s going for your gun,” referring to a villain plotting to overtake Dredd. Dredd calmly replies, “Yeah.”

I’ve found my mileage from both cycling and running increasing. The mileage has been enough to tax the body more than usual. I rode most of Friday’s 40 total cycling miles with a high intensity and elevated heartrate. My legs felt like mush Friday night.

I’m nearing age 37. I can assume that I recover pretty fast for my age. I recover fast enough that I can comfortably bike around 200 miles in a week, run more than 30 miles each a week, and still feel pretty fresh (I had two of the best runs of my life on Saturday and Sunday). Then again, when approaching mileage this high, one has to take measures to maximize recovery. Sleep and diet play a more integral role in how I feel the next day.

I’ve stopped my “intermittent fasting.” After that 20-mile Friday morning ride, for example, I needed protein. Intermittent fasting is great for weight loss. While engaged in high endurance activities, however, I find it difficult to manage a time-restricted feeding window.

A final unrelated note: I find myself sitting here on a Monday afternoon and thinking about “fun.” I have fun riding a bicycle regardless of my speed or my effort. I enjoy it enough to find every daily excuse I can for a bike ride. That said, there is an element of danger to it that’s both disconcerting and adrenaline-inducing. I was hit by a car last year. That hit stripped away my naive sense of invincibility. I carry a sense of dread, however small, each time I bike commute on a road. I am a finite being and brutally exposed as mortal on the road. Cyclists die on the road every year. A lot of managing the hobby is therefore also a matter of mitigating risk. This is a tough balance. Going outside at all requires risk, and life’s too short to spend indoors.

I have fun running because it’s a physical activity that, despite my age, I’m constantly improving. Improvement makes anything fun. I’m also 37 and I’d be delusional to think that I’ll constantly improve my running speed forever. Following the inevitable peak, what will I do to remove the monotony of running long distances? I’d need new routes, new trails, and new challenges. I’d need to run in new places, under new elements, and in new terrain. And therefore a sense of fun is aided by, again, an increased sense danger. Running along a mountain is more fun than running on a treadmill (I don’t run on treadmills anyways).

There is a razor’s edge one walks when balancing fun and longevity. I don’t know if we ever walk it perfectly balanced.

The Post-Mountain Hangover

Since returning from my mountain trip in Bozeman, Montana, I’ve resumed my normal “adult” routine.

I try to run a little farther farther each week. This morning I completed nearly 12 miles (19 km) at a steady and moderate pace. I have specific running goals in mind, but they’re for only me to know. I want to test my limits. I was an elite swimmer, but never a competitive runner. Maybe I’m in a battle with my age and refuse to accept that a gradual decline looms nearer. It’s true that I refuse to believe that decay will eventually win. I’ll deny it to the end, fists clenched.

I have wondered when my running will stall. When will I hit a plateau? At what point will I have overtrained and need an extended rest? I’m having fun because I’m improving, but I won’t improve forever. What then?

I try to counterbalance my quest for a specific running speed with fun. Some days, I remind myself, it’s just better to skip “run day” and ride a skateboard, or ride a bike at a slow pace along a greenway. I don’t want my training to define my life; I want to define my training.

To be completely consumed by athletic pursuits is to submit oneself to something akin to a permanent state of war. Life’s too short to keep that mindset forever. Fun is a preferred alternative. I think one can “commit” without being “consumed.” There is a line between the two.

I continue to ride my bicycle to and from work. For each trip to the office, that’s 38 miles (61 km). There is no “winning” in this commute because I engage in a race against no one. My main reward is improved health. The car drivers make the commute faster than me and do so without breaking a sweat. However, every convenience brings a host of unintended consequences. Cars have the advantage of air conditioning, a favorite playlist, a gas or electric powered engine, and a cushioned seat. Then again, nothing destroys the body more quickly than sitting. In an ideal life, I never sit.

Instead of the car, I choose the summer heat, bugs smacking against my face as I pedal along quiet roads before the crack of dawn, a jersey soaked with sweat, the occasional thigh cramp, and the occasional storm to withstand. This gives me the pride of knowing I can do something that very few can or ever will.

Donations

I donated my single-speed State Bicycle yesterday. Ridding the bike was probably overdue; it was essentially my starter bike. At the time of purchase I figured it was a bike that could get me anywhere, and in a sense it did. I logged hundreds of miles on it, maybe thousands. That’s some serious pedaling on a single-speed bike.

It was a poorly fitting bike. The store employees warned me so when I purchased it. I bought it anyways out of desperation for a bicycle; bikes my size were rare in the pandemic era.

“This isn’t your ideal fit. If we give the fit a letter grade, it would be a B minus or C.”

As my mileage increased over the last year, a nascent lower back pain also spread and worsened. The pain increased to a point last week in which I was barely able to ride after a few minutes of pedaling. And that was in spite of rarely using it (my primary bike is my gravel bike). I found myself constantly having to “stand” on the bike and “stop for stretches.” The pain would linger after the ride. Last week it was severe enough that even sitting upright caused severe pain.

In a nutshell, the bike had to go. Cycling isn’t supposed to be about fighting a crippling back pain. I’ve had enough injuries this year already and spent my share of time in physical therapy!

I decided to donate the bike because it wasn’t that costly in the first place (it’s a State Bicycle 4130 that had already been through a crash, which caused some damage). Plus, someone might need it… who knows. And hopefully it fits that person better than it fit me. I figured I’d find more meaning from giving the bike to someone in need than than I would from selling the bike. So I dropped it off at a donation center and said goodbye.

I can’t say I’ll miss the bicycle, though I’ll remember it was the bike that “started my new journey.” The back pain was too severe for me to miss the bicycle. The crash was too traumatic.

It was the bicycle, after all, that I was riding when I was hit by a car last summer. I’d still get flashbacks when I rode it. I prefer not to think about that moment.

I have a new bicycle, and I had it professionally fitted at the bike shop this time. I do believe now that having a professional give a “thumbs up” on a bike fit and make some detailed adjustments is worth the time and cost. Having a quality bicycle is also worth the cost for someone who is becoming increasingly obsessed with cycling!

The new bike is a Giant Defy Advanced. It seems ready to handle thousands upon thousands of miles in the upcoming years. More details in the future…

Degreaser

I had a flat tire in the exact middle a long bike commute last Friday. There was a mix of sleet and freezing rain pattering down on me. I found myself especially fidgety due to being forced to change the tire in a dangerous location.

Changing the tire was a messy affair. My bibs were covered in bike grease by the end of it. Due to my shakiness I severely cut my left thumb and it continued bleeding for more than 24 hours afterwards. When I returned home, the inside of my left glove was wet and syrupy due to all the bleeding through the remainder of the ride.

I washed the bibs several times but it wasn’t enough to remove 100% of the grease. I have to live with the rest.

My thumb will scar; it’s quite a hot mess.

Still, there was a confidence boost from having managed to change the tire in what most would consider miserable conditions. I managed to bike to my destination. After arrival someone remarked, “In this weather? How in the hell!?” Maybe I just like pain too much.

I also have an unhealthy perfectionist in me that I need to eradicate. This side of me finds living with stained bibs, or stained anything for that matter, difficult. At the same time, that’s life, and my own journey at the moment requires that I learn to live with imperfection. I have enough scars that you’d think I’d be over this by now. Our clothes stain. Our skin scars. Everything new degrades with time. Life moves on. Fighting degradation is a losing battle, so you might as well embrace it.

We are perfectly imperfect, as the saying goes. A grease stain is a reminder of where I was, a memory of a unique struggle. Maybe a little grease and a little scar tissue deserve to follow me after the act.

Moderation

When I think of moderation I often think of conformity. I think of social acceptance, safety, and barriers.

I don’t particularly like moderation in a number of instances because moderation is often predictable. It is often an expectation. It is is supposed to be routine.

Driving a car is moderation. It is the expected form of daily transport. It is sitting and parking, obeying and paying. It is a blast of air conditioning that alleviates the natural elements. It is a sedentary act, and we often prefer sedentary acts to strenuous activities such as cycling.

Casual daily walks are moderation. They quickly become one’s expected number of daily steps. They are a counter, a means of getting blood flowing. I find this dull. I’d rather run or hike up a mountain. I’d rather injure myself on a longboard. I’d rather go unconscious from overdoing a bike ride.

Pop music is moderation. Pop music is lyrics deemed safe by a label and melodies deemed catchy by a producer. Pop music is numbness to counter the blandness of most routine activities. One doesn’t listen to pop music so much as one uses it to distract from one’s own boring act, whether it be a boring exercise or a boring job. Pop music is often edgy enough to be sensual but not so edgy as to be transgressive. It is “safe sensuality.” Why play it safe?

That said, there are certain habits that I must moderate, particularly as I get older. Sleep, for example, is becoming more important for my mental acuity and wellbeing. My body also does not process alcohol as well as it did ten years ago.

But an overabundance of anything can be detrimental. Our bodies are mostly water. We are literally walking oceans. And yet even too much water can kill.

Likewise, a life stuck in moderation can kill the soul.