As my loyal followers know, I am currently on injured
reserve. While it is one thing not to
ride, it is quite another to not be able
to ride. When on vacation or travel if I
can’t ride I can always console myself that when I get back I will go at it
with gusto and make up for lost time. When
you can’t ride you feel like you are a passenger in a car, not in control,
helplessly watching at your fitness erodes.
My cyclical cycling training train isn’t totally off the
tracks. Impressive wordplay eh? I had planned a post-Cyclocross rest period,
but my season wasn’t supposed to be over just yet. McWoodie suggested I treat my physical therapy
(that will be coming one way or another) as off season strength training. There
is some validity to this idea as I am skilled at both denial and
make-believe.
Physical therapy (PT) is one of the most misunderstood
aspects of the medical world. We visualize
a patient reclined on a padded table getting a localized massage. In fact you are sweating and grimacing as you
work sore joints. This weight workout
from hell is typically punctuated by the therapist flexing your body beyond
where you think it is supposed to go. It
is essentially torture preceded by a prescription from a doctor.
While I don’t know if surgery is in my future or not, I
am pretty darn sure there will be PT and PT equals pain. I have the best PT guy in the world. He is a great guy as well and I am already
dreading seeing him. If only the
principle of commutation worked for PT.
I am still a week away from my appointment with the knee specialist. Then add a week to get a MRI, another week
for follow up when my screwedness is confirmed by reviewing the MRI followed by
a week or two to schedule the surgery (I’m planning on the worst). I figure I’m a month away from being on the
path back.
In the meantime I feel like my body is already going down
the crapper. As I lose muscle I also
gain fat so while my weight hasn’t made any dramatic changes yet, bad things
are happening already. I estimate I burn
20 calories per kilometer and I have been averaging 200k per week which means I
burn 4,000 calories per week riding.
Figure another thousand calories burned recovering from those efforts
and that means I’m burning 5,000 less calories per week than I normally
do.
My future awaits..
I’m already pinching fat and feeling disgusted with
myself. Everything that goes in my mouth
is accompanied by the bitter taste of guilt. This is the week after Halloween
and there are dishes with leftover candy everywhere I turn at home and
work. Lucky for me I’m not a big candy
fan, but those little mini bars shouldn’t be called “fun size” they should be
called, “easy to justify size.”
Check out Alexander's mouth
The copy of a copy
I have not lost sight of the fact I have people who love
me and my income isn’t dependent on the speed at which I can ride my bike.
While I could debate the fine points of carbon, exotic metals and grams, I was
most intrigued by seven and three quarter pounds of grandchild this past
weekend. To be honest, I forgot about my
knee.
No comments:
Post a Comment