Loss Aversion

We hate what we lose more than we love what we win.

This generalization of the human mind has been proven on a neurological level. Through evolution, our neurotransmitters have become wired so that the hatred of losing outweighs the love of winning. This was pivotal thousands of years ago in preserving our species. If dwelling in a cave, you must protect your very finite resources, which is far more important than risking limbs for another banana.

I find myself spending upwards of one hour each day rehabilitating my broken collarbone. I have physical therapy twice each week. Whatever exercises are assigned to me to complete at home are completed both in the morning and at night. I find myself obsessed with getting something back that I once had. The thought of losing complete mobility is unacceptable.

I do not think it’s the thought of winning anything that motivates me. I think it’s the fear of losing the complete mobility I once had in my right arm. I do feel confident that at some point, the mobility will return.

On my first day of physical therapy, my arm could not rise to a 90 degree angle. Currently it is comfortably rising to 145 degrees. So, it’s getting better. The difference isn’t tangible in days, but it is in weeks.

In truth, “100%” is a constantly changing target, which makes it difficult to gauge in the first place. Regardless of how well things heal, my 100% at age 37 will be different from my 100% at age 16. Biologically, I am different. My 100% at age 60 will likewise be different. It may not be better or worse: it will just yield different results.

A blizzard is creeping towards Saint Louis. With it, the temperature will be 0 F (-17 C). Winds will lash city concrete, brick, mortar, and metal at upwards of 30 mph (48 mph). With the windchill, it will be as cold as -25 F (-32 C).

My logical brain tells me to stay inside and avoid frostbite. My risk appetite makes me want to brave the streets and to take the risk, in order to prevent a loss of running fitness. The solution, maybe, is somewhere in the middle of two extremes.

Losing hurts, and I’ve lost many times in 37 years. I think of those losses still, though I don’t obsess over them. The past is already written after all, whereas the future is a blank page. For example, I almost won the NCAAs in 2008 in the 200 yard freestyle, but I was passed in the final yards. For many it was my defining race, something to cherish; after all, I was faster than American-record pace at the halfway mark. When my mind replays this race, though, it doesn’t think back on it as fondly: it searches for ways that I could have won. Loss aversion even affects memories. The blessing here is that I have always had a motivating memory to keep me moving.

I will continue to lose: it is a part of life. Losing is not dying though, as my continued existence has proven. Maybe it’s just a lesson to value what we still have and enjoy it. Maybe it’s a motivational tool to just keep going after a difficult loss. Losing often propels us forward.

If we don’t finish our first attempt at a marathon, for example, we’ll need something to get back up and reattempt the run. The hatred of having failed must be enough to make us want to try again.

And it’s always worthwhile to get back up.

Running through Pain

One should be keenly aware of the difference between fatigue and injury. Sometimes I walk the fine line between the two. I risked walking that line today.

A dense fog crawled through downtown and veiled the Mississippi River. It blanketed everything with gray, rendering the morning a shapeless purgatory.

Signs of life showed when a single gull glided through this fog, only to eventually have the mist engulf it somewhere over the Mississippi.

Later I saw the fog devour a flock of geese in similar fashion. Eventually the gray devours us all.

I trodded forward. My right foot initially ached and I could not tell whether the issue was bone or ligament. The cause was likely too much running over the weekend.

Again I found myself quickly fatiguing, though I did feel slightly faster and fresher than Sunday. As the miles passed, the pain in my right foot seemed to abate. That’s a sign that the issue is not related to bone.

I completed one hour and eighteen minutes of running, if you’d call it a run. My pace is currently an average of a full minute slower per mile than it was just two months ago at the same relative effort. However, it feels good to just finish.

My right arm ached less than it did on Sunday. That’s a good sign too. I was able to move the arm a little more (you need a little natural swing with your stride, I think). It’s getting there. I’m on the mend.

I have my first session of Physical Therapy today. Six weeks total, two sessions per week, and in theory I’ll be at 100%. That’s a very nice thought.

Declines in fitness can be precipitous. Then it’s a slow and grueling ascend back to where you were. That may initially seem unfair, but would it be worth it if it was easy?

Resuming Activity with Frozen Shoulder

I ran for the first time in over a month today. I’ve buried my sling somewhere in the dark recesses of my closet, hopefully never to be seen again. I’ve been cleared by an Orthopedic for running, but not weight lifting.

It was a frigid morning and a blustery wind amplified the chill. I rode a bike through previous winters and from the outdoor activity was better adapted to the cold than I am now.

I ran one hour, and it was a long hour. There was pain involved, but most of the pain was in my shoulder, not my collarbone. I have a condition called “frozen shoulder” from the month spent in a sling. It will take physical therapy to reverse this over the course of the next six week. My targeted completion date is January 13th.

On top of the frozen shoulder I felt on the run, I fatigued quickly. A month of inertia will do that. I lost much of the conditioning that I spent the better part of the year building. An hour run at a slow pace was my recovery run through the fall season. Today it was a challenge to finish. My hoarse breathing was more audible and my pace was especially slow.

Still, I made an hour run. It was a steady run at a slower pace than any run I’ve done in some time. The positive is that my collarbone remains mostly pain-free and my shoulder didn’t worsen.

Today was, in summary, “day 1” of my start to marathon training. It wasn’t the “day 1” I hoped for or visualized prior to my injury, but I see a silver lining.

The month of rest gave me fresh legs. Aside from the collarbone and attached shoulder, I feel no pain.

Much of endurance running is a balancing act between minimizing risk for injury and maximizing volume.

So, I am starting everything on a clean slate. I have a fresh bone and a fresh mind. I have my first physical therapy appointment on Tuesday and I’m feeling optimistic again.

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.

Winter Run

I embarked on a Saturday outdoor run just before noon as a snowstorm was subsiding. It wasn’t the storm that the forecasts expected and there was only an occasional thin patch of snow sticking to the ground. Interspersed with these thin and dusty white blankets were rain puddles and slush.

I turned left onto Chestnut Street toward the Arch. The first three minutes I felt a dull ache in the right foot but as the blood flowed to the feet the ache seemed to fade. “Just keep going,” I told myself. The heart beat fast at first, not used to the relatively more intense cardio. After a few minutes the heart, like the foot, adjusted, and I settled into a comfortable rhythm.

I planned to jog for about twenty minutes, which would be five minutes longer than my longest of the week. That’s not bad considering this is the first week I’ve been able to run since last August.

I crossed the Old Courthouse on the side of the Hyatt Hotel and kept going, determined to let my foot feel some natural turns and inclines. With the lugged soles of my Xero Aqua X shoes I had a pretty decent traction through the soft snow patches and puddles.

My foot is tender but I considered what my physical therapist told me: it’s time to push through some pain. I turned left at the arch and ran through the downtown park, then kept running down an outdoor stairwell that led to the Mississippi River and the Riverfront Trail.

I went north on the trail and crossed a homeless camp where a bonfire was blazing and a cluster of figures in soiled coats stood hovering over it for warmth. I kept jogging until a concrete wall blocked my path. Then I turned back.

The run totaled well over 20 minutes (I don’t time myself, but I have a good sense of time) and it was by far my longest run since my foot injury in August.

The foot is definitely aching now, but it doesn’t seem to be an injury setback. It’s the kind of pain you get from using a muscle for the first time after it has been trapped in a cast for a very long time. The foot is just learning to run again.

Next week is my final week of physical therapy, assuming I have no further setbacks. It was quite a journey to get to this point and now I have every intention of finding out how far my feet can actually take me.

A Return to Running

I was cleared by my physical therapist to attempt a short (five minute) jog during our Wednesday session. It was successful. The pain in my right foot remained relatively minor. I was told that the injured foot was healed enough to continue running so long as the pain remains below a “4/10”. The pain remained around a “2/10”, never more than a dull ache. I was also told that now it has enough strength to “push through some pain” (again so long as the pain remains below a “4/10” without much fear of a significant setback.

That was my first successful run since August, a gap of almost 5 months. The foot, though not 100% healed, is quickly approaching that mark. For all intents and purposes, the foot is “healed”.

The following day I jogged for a total of 7 minutes (on a treadmill to avoid slopes, slants, holes, and sidewalk crevices). The day after, I jogged for minutes. This morning I jogged for 14 minutes. The pain has never elevated above a “2/10”, though there is a damaged tendon that is easily inflamed.

What a journey! I was beginning to think that the foot would never heal. Five months is a long time to walk with pain and a very long time to feel that running is outside of your grasp. It takes a toll on one’s emotions.

Next week I’ll start some agility exercises to regain the ability to quickly shift direction with speed. I only have two weeks of physical therapy to go.

I imagine myself as the protagonist of the Stephen King novel Duma Key. Injured from a car accident and forsaken by his family, he rents a small house on an island in the Florida Keys, and lives there alone. Each day his task his simple: take one step more than the day before. It is both therapeutic and gainful for the character, who finds his lost self in the process of walking.

Now we’ll see where the ability to run and bike can take me.

On Foot Rehab

Summary of foot issues following a car hit in August (long story short, a car hit me while I was cycling, knocking me off my bike and onto the tarmac; the ankle turned the wrong direction upon hitting the road, causing sprains on both sides of the foot and severe internal inflammation and bruising).

• Had the first and second physical therapy sessions for the right foot this week.

• The foot unfortunately had a setback last week after a one-minute running attempt (felt pain the next few days, telling me that running is a bad idea). This spurred me into signing up for therapy.

• Physical therapist confirmed running won’t happen in 2021 (bummer, but I figured).

• Muscles causing issues were identified in the session and a path to healing was set in action.

• Most severe damage noted in muscle tissue along the left part of the lower leg, which stretches into the foot and ends in the bottom-left part of foot. This is the primary source of pain when attempting a run or aggressive walk.

• Severe inflammation on upper part of the foot caused issues with healing and issues with connectivity with bones; this is why there isn’t much bend, especially in squat-type movements.

• Both ankles were sprained; ligaments in each need to strengthen and heal.

Plan: 3x physical therapy sessions per week. Foot rehabilitation exercises to be performed 2x per day.

In summary, the car crash messed up my foot pretty badly. However, I’m stoked to have a path to healing, and even more stoked that the foot can heal, timeline be damned.

Also thankful that I can still ride a bike without much worry.

Here’s to closing out 2021 on a positive note. It’s gonna feel great to exercise without pain again and I’m getting closer.

Healing with Water

It is believed that we came from the ocean. After an ancient molten earth cooled and solidified, oxygen was born. Our newly physical planet then withstood the battering of meteor showers, which pocked the earth but did not destroy it, the original acne scars. From the chaos of meteor crashes, surface solidification, and a newly emergent sun, more chemical compounds emerged, and eventually seas were born. And within the seas, single-cell organisms eventually became multicellular.

Millions of years later, some fish emerged from the seas, the original mermaids, and they dared to crawl on land.

Perhaps it can be argued that this first fish to venture to land was the original Eve, the first organism to yearn for a new world, the first pilgrim to eat the forbidden apple. Look at a fish closely the next time you see one. It is your ancestor.

We came from water. Though we departed from it, we still need it. It comprises most of our body, including our mind. It transports our blood to the necessary extremities that interact with the world around us. It transports our wastes out of us. It sustains our life, which is at its core a constant cycle of renewal and depletion. Physically, there is no element more powerful than water.

Water cleanses metaphorically too. Baptisms require water to expel our sinful nature from our souls. Hot baths relax the mind and body. They say that as water crystallizes, its formation can vary depending on external stimuli. Play heavy metal music as the water crystallizes, and the shape of the crystal will appear different than it would had one played classical music.

Despite all of our cleaning products infused with chemicals, the simple fact is that warm water kills more than 99% of harmful bacteria. What remains is the bacteria that our body can accept, or could before the Western obsession with sanitization. Yet we shower with a million products.

Water is the line in the middle of the yin/yang symbol. It is a unique chemical compound in its natural state, literally existing between two worlds, between solid and gas. Too cold or too hot and it transforms to one or the other.

It seems fitting that for now, while walking is a bit of a struggle, I should turn back to swimming. I enjoy running; we learn to run before we learn to read. However, it will be awhile before I can run again.

Swimming was our original activity, if you trace our evolution to our most ancient ancestors.

I’ve heard that it’s useful to pray to water, that water is malleable enough and amorphous enough to absorb the prayer and manifest it into something tangible. If water can transmute itself, perhaps it can similarly shape intention. If so, the next time I take a swim, I’ll pray to be absolved of not only my foot pain, but my own drive to consume more. We were not born with a thirst for more; we learned it. I hope that the next time I swim, I will realize that I already have enough.