Too Much, Too Soon

5 am. A steady rain pattered the concrete around me as I embarked on a morning run. A haze crawled through the downtown area and only the street lamps provided halos of illumination.

I was supposed to perform a 12 minute all-out effort after a 15-30 minute warmup. The day before I felt decent, but had a slight ache in my left knee and felt what could be a nascent shin splint in my right leg.

After a mile of warm-up I realized the pain was only worsening. The shin splint stabbed inside my leg. My left knee was visibly swollen and barely bending. I attempted a few 80 yard accelerations, but was unable to gain full-speed on any of them.

As I attempted one final burst of speed in my 12 minute run, I felt an additional twinge of pain in my collarbone (the one that broke). I knew that I was toast for the day. The body had enough.

In short, I reaped the consequences of attempting too much, too soon. I walked about a mile back to my apartment in the rain, completely unable to run.

How did this happen? Well, I was essentially bedridden for a month, and had attempted runs of one hour or more for 5 days a week immediately upon being cleared by an Orthopedic to run again. Obviously, this was not feasible at all.

It was a difficult experience for me; before the collarbone break I ran almost daily for 8 months with almost no issues. Suddenly it felt like my body was crumbling.

In a sense my body was crumbling. A collarbone break affects a wide range of upper body movements; I’m still severely limited in what I can do with my upper body. The lower body, unable to perform strength exercises, lost a lot of whatever adaptation to running I had accumulated.

By attempting too much running too soon, I invited a host of issues into my lower body. I have no choice but to take a step back.

I’d say that this is a lesson learned, but in truth I’m not sure. Time well tell. It has historically been my nature to overdo things. The blog title is “Maximal Matt,” not “Precautionary Matt.”

Sometimes I wonder if the end of me will come from an attempt to overdo an activity. Maybe it will be a 90-year-old attempt at an ultramarathon or a 100-year-old attempt to bike across the United States. This would be one of the more virtuous ways to go out in my opinion. The way I’ve always seen it is that you don’t truly know your limit until you’ve crossed it.

I crossed my limit the last two weeks; it hurts because as much as I want to attain the distances I feel that I’m capable of running, I know that this phase of running will have to be a slow build from a much smaller starting point.

When gloomy, I look for inspiration in runners who know how to always find joy in the experience. Camille Herron, the 100-mile world record holder for women, always seems to be smiling, even 80 miles into a treacherous trail run. Joy is possible, even in the suffering of it all.

Maybe I can’t run one hundred miles tomorrow, but I can still potentially enjoy the one that I can manage.

Secret River

I had a dream in which I knew about a secret river.

It was somewhere near my old house in North Carolina. In the dream I was still living in that house. The forest surrounding it was denser in my dream than in reality. It was practically a jungle and the underbrush left no obvious path.

I walked through this forest, walled by greenery, and a canopy of leaves blocked the sky. Some strands of sunlight filtered through the canopy and dappled the forest floor.

I noted that the river had excellent rapids for rafting. In the dream I pulled a kayak from my house, deep into the forest, to an embankment on the river where the rapids started. I then kayaked down the river alone, screaming with joy as the river pushed me through the rapids, rising and falling, occasionally spinning, white foam washing over me.

No one else had ever discovered this river; when I told people about it they didn’t believe me. People were curious why I dragged a kayak through a forest alone, but they let me continue my routine each day, totally undisturbed. I’d return from the rapids and detail the thrill of my ride, but my stories would fall on deaf ears.

Still, I had the river to myself, and I had the stories… and that was all that I needed.

I wish I knew what the dream meant, if it meant anything at all. I woke up trying to figure out what river it was. Was it the Neuse river? That was near my house and also had rapids, but it had been discovered and was regularly occupied by kayakers.

It took a few minutes for me to realize that this river was imagined. Still, I want to believe that it’s out there somewhere. If it is, though, will I keep it a secret?

Getting Back Up: Returning to Running

I just completed a full week of running. I broke my collarbone on November 6th and completely avoided exercise for the rest of the month; I believe that healing something like a bone break requires as much rest as possible. In that timespan I lost a considerable amount of conditioning and mobility, especially in the arm attached to the broken bone.

I still have a lot of physical therapy to go before I’m “fully active”, but it does feel great to resume running. I notice my collarbone more often than not, but the pain is never more than a dull ache.

I’m beginning a buildup towards a marathon. I was asked by a friend if, considering the collarbone break, I intended to cancel my marathon event. The answer is, “Definitely not.” My marathon isn’t until the beginning of April. I tell myself that people have bounced back from worse. This is true. Hell, Bane broke Batman’s back and he still managed to heal and return for another fight.

There are some issues that I’ll have to deal with over the next few weeks. One is that for the next month or so I’ll need to sacrifice strength training for physical therapy. That’s just how it is. We only have so much time in the day. Strength training can enhance endurance running performance, but the difference is negligible compared to time devoted to actual running. I’m just glad that I can run right now.

My marathon training plan focuses my first few weeks on a specific running duration, with runs held mostly to a “perceived effort” intensity of “5 out of 10” or lower. This is part of a phased approach to training. The purpose of the first phase is to focus the body on adapting to a higher volume. I’m lucky that the first phase of running is mostly at a low intensity: I wouldn’t want to do much sprinting right now anyways, nor do I think it would be a good idea.

On Saturday, I did participate in a Saint Louis running event—a 12k run—in order to work on my pacing. Having been immobile for a month, I tempered my speed expectations and made the goal of this event to pace my run well. I did manage to do this. I negative split the run (the second half of my run was faster than the first half), which is the first time I’ve managed to do this at an event. If there is a “lesson learned” from the event, it’s that I switched to a faster gear of speed a little too soon; the final half mile was absolutely hellish.

I followed that event with a slow-paced one hour and 45 minute run this morning. And wow was it slow. However, it wasn’t as slow as the same run I did the week before. That’s a good sign; it means that I’m progressing, not regressing, and my conditioning is improving.

I’m happy with where I’m at, all things considered. It could always be worse. The collarbone broke, but the bone could have struggled to reattach. It could have required surgery. I could have ruptured a tendon, or suffered long Covid. I still don’t recommend breaking your collarbone—attempting to sleep is absolute hell—but there are worse injuries (though admittedly not that many).

Though bone breaks are never fun, I have no choice but to remain an optimist. Life’s too short not to find a reason to smile. Each injury makes me appreciate health that much more.

Health is a finite thing, a resource far more scarce than oil or gold. Bodily attrition continues gradually and eventually loses to the onslaught of maladies trying to break in. There comes a day when no Trojan Horse is necessary to enter; the gates collapse with the final push of Father Time. Yes, our days are numbered, so I find it purposeful to spend them doing the things that I enjoy.

Steps Forward

My first week of physical therapy for a broken collarbone is complete. I have about five weeks to go if I heal well.

The first week consisted of various up, down, sideways, and diagonal movements with the arm and shoulder. In some exercises I stood and in others I sat. In some exercises I could barely move the arm without pain, while others I completed with relative ease. Some exercises had me hold a towel, others a stick, and others a stretch band.

I do feel that my mobility is already increasing. I also like my physical therapist. My favorite part of physical therapy is actually not the exercises themselves, but rather the connection shared with a therapist. I have better recollection of a long conversation about pizza than I do the specific exercise repetitions I did.

I managed to run four days this week. I am beginning a “building” phase of a marathon training plan. This week only included slow-paced running, most of it done at a perceived effort of “4 out of 10.” The idea is to comfortably accumulate volume and adapt to it. I did not expect to begin training under these circumstances, but that’s life. We play the cards we’re dealt.

The bone aches a bit less with each run and the “bad arm” swings with a little more ease. I felt the bone for every second of the first run, but that aching feeling is already diminishing.

My running performance has frankly been terrible and that’s okay—my conditioning worsened severely over the last month spent in a sling—but I’m also improving a little each day. It’s only natural that the fall occurs much more quickly than the climb. I can tell by my heart rate and pace metrics that I’m adapting well though. The heart rate is steadily lowering while the pace is quickening, and that is just in one week.

After the first run, intense inflammation struck my right foot, the same foot that I sprained a year ago. With each day, though, this seems to ease a little, and subsequent runs haven’t worsened it.

That’s one difficult part about recovering from an injury: you emerge from a cast or sling with a weakened body that is more susceptible to injury. One has to tread carefully to prevent another setback.

I think of a Megadeth song, “Soldier On,” about the innate need to just keep going. Despite a few setbacks, I find myself striving to stand back up again.

Here’s to health in 2023.

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?

The Expense of the Present

I had a dream last night in which I was on a party boat, somewhere near a far-off Pacific island, along with several coaches and teammates from my adolescence. The boat skidded over the gentle waves of a clear blue Pacific towards an ethereal sunset. The sun washed everything in gold.

One of the coaches on the boat was an assistant swimming coach from when I was eleven years old named Will. I found myself telling him about my current training.

“I’m 37,” I told him, “And I’m wondering if I’ve had enough. I’m broken down, but I can still do it. And yet, what more is there to prove? I’m still performing at a high level at this age, but how much longer should I go?”

In the dream, it seemed, I was still competing as an elite level swimmer.

Yet the coach’s eyes were transfixed on the ocean, and he was barely paying attention. He didn’t care. Competition was a long time ago for him. He had moved on and shifted his priorities. Here, it seemed, the priority was to enjoy the beauty that the world offered.

“Should I compete another year?” I asked. I gazed around at the other coaches and teammates, but none of them paid any mind. They were relaxing and having some alcoholic beverages.

“I think I have another 42 second 100 yard freestyle in me,” I added. Yet no one responded.

“I think I can keep competing, but I’m tired. What am I chasing for? Should I go another year?”

Finally, another coached turned toward me and shrugged.

I looked down and realized that I was wearing competition apparel, whereas everyone else in the boat wore trunks and beach shirts.

Obviously my days as a competitive swimmer ended a long time ago, but currently I find myself building towards a marathon.

Maybe the dream was a reminder that a focus on the future, a focus on plotting and competing, must come at some expense of the present.

As I rehab this collarbone break, I find my mind often thinking of “getting the arm back to where it was.”

And what if it doesn’t? The ocean remains unchanged. The sun maintains its beauty. The coaches of the past do not cast judgment.

An aging athlete should not lose sight of the present.

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.

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.

An Object in Motion…

An object in motion stays in motion. The opposite is also true.

An inert object struggles mightily to move. The longer the object remains still, the more difficult it becomes to get the object moving again. A rusty old train will cough and wheeze smoke before its slow and lurching movement forward.

I’m finding this to be relevant for myself as I rehab my collarbone. Exercise for me has always been reliant on momentum. Because I always exercised, I always found “maintaining motion” to be relatively easy.

After a few weeks of being sidelined while waiting for my collarbone to heal, I’m finding the thought of movement to seem increasingly tiring. Wouldn’t it be easier to just sleep in?

The body and mind hate changing what they’re accustomed to. I can now see how dangerously easy it would be to forfeit exercise altogether. There’s always an excuse, after all. Work, family, appointments, and life stresses are legitimate reasons to not exercise daily.

I feel a sense of urgency to resume exercise. One can revert the habit of daily exercise surprisingly fast. The human mind will always prefer the easier option. I had never told my mind that an easier option exists, but now it knows that comfort exists in the land of avoidance.

The most difficult part of rehabbing a bone break is waiting to be healed. There is little I hate more than waiting. Days spent waiting for something in the future feel like wasted days. I know I’m close to healing though. Basic chores that were excruciatingly difficult to perform during the first weeks are now becoming easy again.

Hopefully, when I visit the orthopedic on Friday, I’ll be given the “ok” to rid my sling. I’ve been tempted to rid it regardless of the doctor’s orders, but I’ll continue to wait.

I think of the movie Snowpiercer, and the train that continuously races across the world for all of eternity, never to stop, forever on sleek tracks that roar forward. If it stops, its inhabitants die. In some ways I want to be that train.

Where’s the Awe

I wake up intermittently through the night because every turn of the body ignites pain in my collarbone. At least by waking I’m able to prevent further damage to myself. Still, sleep is a chore.

I’m at least finding some mobility returning. I’m putting on button-up shirts more easily, flossing, and nearly tying shoelaces. They are all things that I couldn’t do last week.

I’m finishing a book that I decided to revisit: The Damnation Game by Clive Barker. It’s a favorite from college. I was curious whether the book would enrapture me like it did years ago.

Parts of the book were equally as page-turning, such as the wild and macabre introduction. However, I also struggled to find an off-switch for my inner critic.

This section has too much dialogue, and all of the dialogue is exposition, I’d think.

This section’s character motivation is questionable.

Needless to say, some of the magic was lost. Often in place of story immersion was skepticism. A mind searching for flaws replaced a mind that dared to wonder.

I recognized this inner critic and managed to barricade it for the book’s final section. For a few hours, I was again attuned to my inner dreamer.

What is it about age that causes us to increasingly kill the magic around us?

At times, the industrialization of the mind seems as inevitable as the industrialization of the environment.

It’s as though the process of adulting wrought enough grim realities to shock the inner dreamer into submission. Survival and magic are mutually exclusive. Life is work, politics, and a steady and horrifying debilitation of one’s own body. Where is there time for awe?

Sometimes finding that sense of awe can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s there though, if you allow it to be. Just open a book from your youth and make the choice to see it.

Bikepacking: the 2022 Adventure

Video of our 2022 bikepacking trip! Lots of lessons learned from my friend and I’s attempt to bike from Washington DC to Pittsburgh via the C&O and GAP trails (a series of setbacks forced us to turn back after arriving in Hancock, MD).

Bikepacking: The Sequel

Swimming Dreams

I had a number of dreams this week in which I had returned to swimming competition at The University of Texas. The plot seems to be the same in each dream: though I’m 37, I somehow find a loophole in the NCAA rules that allows me to compete for a fifth year.

As exciting as that sounds, each of the dreams ends as a nightmare. Either I’ve lost something that I once had—speed, power, or technique—or I’ve returned to a sport that has become unrecognizable. The locker room is full of new faces who want nothing to do with me. The coach has a greater agenda: the young athletes. I have no reason to return.

In the most reason dream, I was trapped in a time loop that forced me to repeat a blown race over and over. It was some sort of purgatory. “I must be dreaming,” I kept telling people within this dream. “No,” they’d insist. “This is reality. There’s no waking up.”

“But I just botched this race,” I’d respond. “Why am I repeating the past?”

And they’d laugh and give me the same cold grin that the bartender ghost in The Shining gives Jack Torrance. “What are you talking about, Matt? This is your first time here.”

I wake and think that the dreams might be a mirror in which I glimpse my fear of aging: of debilitating slowly while the world mercilessly moves on without me.

I have no plans to return to the pool any time soon, but I find myself thinking that memory is an odd thing. NCAA competition was a lifetime ago and memories of the sport return in kaleidoscopic fashion, a mishmash of events and images. How did I dive into the pool for warmup all those years ago? What was I thinking immediately before the race? How did I warm down?

I feel that the everlasting fight with the metaphorical dragon that is time must go on. I can see the bone break in my collarbone when I look in the mirror and can’t help but think, “will it ever be the same?” The truth is that regardless of our bone health, we will never be the same as we were yesterday.

Rather than longingly look backwards, we might as well roll with the punches and prepare for the next adventure.

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.

Controlling Chance

There’s a desire in us to want control over a thing called chance. If you have mastery over chance, after all, you control your own fate.

How else can one explain the draw towards gambling, and the feeling of willing the cards into submission. “Luck is on my side,” we often tell ourselves, as though some deity named Fate is either an ally or a foe, and as though we can somehow bend the fabric of time and space in our personal favor.

It’s the desire to conquer chance that also leaves so many fearful of viruses, and so many obsessive with medicine. With the advertisements of a cure we see the means of preventing an arbitrary demise.

I also see signs of the human desire to conquer chance in the exercise industry. Athletes subscribe to every new fad and gadget possible in efforts to control their outcome. Dietary supplements, blood glucose monitors, ice baths, GPS watches, and VO2 Max machines are just some of the tools people use to control their outcome. I’m not criticizing these tools, as each of them can serve a useful purpose. I’ve used some of them personally. But with each of these “hacks” there is a desire to have control over one’s own outcome, to have finished the race before it begins, to watch the movie before the script is written.

It is this same burning desire to conquer fate that leads the modern Protestant-like athlete to overtrain. It is the overtrained athlete that sees success as a mathetmatical formula, as a means of “simply doing more at a faster pace.” The overtrained athlete wills his or her body towards a promised land, negligent of injury and pain perception. The watch shows a pace that must be maintained at any cost, on every day. Success is a matter of abiding by numbers.

It is this mentally that renders these types of athletes little more than the script in a computer program, rather than the programmer. The organic qualities of exercise are lost in an effort to gain power.

What is the solution? In my opinion, the solution is simple fun. It’s random, wild, and selfish fun. Exercise for the sake of joy.

Just watch kids exercise. They aren’t linear like adults. There is little planned because predeterminism is the enemy of a child, not the friend. Kids think little of athletic apparel, heart rate, or qualifying times. These are the dreads of the aged. And kids have something many adults don’t: smiles.

To relinquish control is a scary thing. However, as I’ve learned over the course of 37 years, we cannot control the future. We can make decisions that affect the future, but we never own rights to the final scene of the script.

We might as well enjoy what we have and save ourselves the existential dread.

Maybe luckily, I’ve never been good at gambling

Rehabilitation - Week 1

I started feeling significantly better approximately one week after the collarbone break. Though I cannot lift my bad arm over my shoulder, I am better able to extend the arm when it isn’t in a sling. Simple movements such as standing up and sitting down no longer hurt. Coughs and sneezes no longer send shockwaves of pain shooting through the shoulder and neck.

The key to recovery from injury is simple in summary and complex in execution: rest and sleep as much as humanly possible. I say that it’s complex in execution because adults have obligations. There’s a job to pay the bills, dishes to wash, clothes to launder, and errands to run. This is hustle culture, after all. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” is the declaration of the productive. And yet obligations are typically hinged to stress. The body treats stress like it would any physical trauma. Therefore each stressor is a detractor from recovery.

I have to allow life to slow down a little. In order to heal the bone, I have to prioritize myself and my happiness.

Yesterday, meanwhile, I had a Zoom call with my upcoming marathon coach. I ultimately decided to team up with a coach because I have no running background and I’m attempting to cross personal uncharted territory. 26 miles is a long way to go for a swimmer who specialized in the 200 yard freestyle.

There was only one person I had in mind for coaching, and I’m happy with my choice.

Now is not a time for training. It’s a time for reposing, sleeping, and reflection. In the long run this is probably a good thing. I think we Americans overvalue work and undervalue rest. I had a long grind to the half marathons that I ran in October. The legs and feet needed a rest. With the extra rest, I also gain a few extra hours each day to appreciate the simple things.

I feel more comfortable resting at this stage in my life. My current training is a far cry from college athletics, where there’s a definitive ending to everything. Therefore, there is no rush to recovery. As a swimmer in college, I had four years to swim as fast as I could. The final times at the end of year four were final, and there would be no redos. Therefore, any significant injury could ruin everything. Worse, every vacation was equipped with the paranoia of losing a physical edge.

My timeline is stretched comfortably now. I look ahead in decades, not seasons. There is no specific time I have to hit and no deadline to hit it. I move for the sake of movement and joy. All times I strive for are arbitrary, and there is little pressure to hit them.

That in itself is reason to sleep comfortably.

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.

Ownership

I haven’t been sleeping well, but that was a foregone conclusion after the collarbone break. Every turn ignites a pain that wakes me. As a result, I wake up hourly through the night.

I heard a phrase that had me thinking today: “You’re only buried with your coffin.” I think it was something that “The Minimalists” said.

I look at the cracked screen of my phone, which hit the earth along with my hip on that bike crash. It was a 50 dollar smartphone. Had it been a new iPhone, it would have been a thousand dollar cracked smartphone. A better phone would be tantamount to a greater loss. More to gain means more to lose.

Things are fragile. They crack, they degrade, and they depreciate. Your loss will inevitably be tantamount to your acquisition: ultimately, it’s just you and a coffin. The rest is fodder for mites.

Last night I watched an episode of Cabinet of Curiosities: “The Outside.” It was about the human need to belong in a consumerist culture. A woman who wants to become part of a popular female social circle at work goes to horrifying lengths to beautify herself.

The episode, thematically, is a critique of consumerism. The social circle of women relish an anti-aging cream, and the main character smothers it over her skin as though addicted to it, despite clearly being allergic to it. “This cream will transform me,” she convinces herself, as so many of us do with our countless creams and lotions.

The results, to say the least, are stomach-churning.

Between the grotesque close-ups of cream being smothered to rotting skin, and the close-ups of people eating heavily processed foods, I found myself acknowledging a truth: yes, consumerism is horrifying.

The days grow colder and I realize that with a lack of movement, I will also have more time to reflect. This is a forced pause. Hopefully in this reflection and meditation, I can rid more of the sense of self that was manifested by materialism.

Inertia

Each significant injury I incur is a harsh reminder that the world not only moves unrelentingly fast, but that it is willing to leave behind those who can’t keep up. Deadlines have no care for broken bones. Project managers are too caught up in the maelstrom of bonuses and performance reviews to consider empathy.

Every one of my daily chores is taking longer to complete, but I find some solace in moving slow. I needed to slow down and catch my breath. If it takes five minutes to throw a shirt on, so be it. If it takes an extra ten minutes to prepare a coffee, there is no loss on my inner wellbeing. It is only external forces that weigh.

Today, according to the forecast, is likely the final warm day of the year. I hope to spend some of it outside.

I’m thinking about my initial inclination to change my cycling habits, and my thoughts of selling my bike. As much as my logical mind believes that to be a good idea, my emotional mind fights back. I think of Robert Marchand, the Frenchman who rode a bicycle beyond age 100. I just need to be vigilant and gain a little skill.

I also think about Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, particularly The Dark Knight Rises.

In an epic fight, Bane crushes Batman’s body and soul. Batman’s back breaks and he is left imprisoned, with little hope of ever escaping. It’s Batman’s memory of his past that gets him out of it. “Why do we fall?” He is asked as a child when he almost fatally falls into a bat cave. The answer is obvious. And over time, he heals his back and climbs out of a prison that is considered impossible to escape.

It was a bicycle crash, and a nasty one. But I don’t think that it will prevent me from getting back on the bike.

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.