Close To 100%
Running on the comeback trail has been a while coming. Four months into my recovery from my cycling accident in Girona, I feel close to 100%. I have been suffering from vertigo, but thankfully, it has decreased. A knee injury has troubled me, too. My hard impact may have triggered it, but a more likely explanation is loss of muscle mass, which allows the joint to be less than optimally supported.
One strength of mine is following the process, so whatever exercises my excellent physiotherapist Stephen gave me were done. My shoulder is 95% fully mobile, and strength and muscle mass are returning. Focusing on quadriceps and hamstring strength has paid dividends. My good friend Susie Woffenden has also thrown some excellent exercises into the pot, and they have accelerated my recovery.
Elsewhere in this blog, there is a lot of text on the importance of maintaining muscle mass as we age. Therefore, a significant focus for me, and that has felt great not just physically but mentally, the gym has been too. I can’t skip much exercise before the old black dog comes around, so it’s been crucial that I put the work in.
How Not To Do It
I will remind you here that I’m 67. Yet running on the comeback trail has challenged me simply because conquering my tendency to overcook things exhibited itself. It seems I never learn, and this week is a prime example.
Last week, a tentative 45 minutes on the treadmill showed that my knee was no longer an issue. All good. But this week, my 45-minute session became an hour. Then, two days later, another hour. By yesterday, my HRV was flashing red. It dropped from 84 and green to 67 and red in only two days. Plus, I was starting to sniff and sneeze a little. A good HRV tracking regime is brilliant at being an early warning system for illness.
Anyway, I’m helping some of my friends from the cycling club to start a running club too. Our healthy membership is focused on cycling, but there are a growing number of tri-sports in our ranks; therefore, a running club makes sense. It started to go wrong here, as I felt committed to showing up and running this morning. With a 67 HRV and sniffling. I got what I deserved, with a painful shuffle around 6k. It’s a source of quiet pride to me that people often guess my age wrongly by some years younger than my years. Today, I looked every one of my years and more by the time I finished.
So What Gives?
I mean, come on. Running on the comeback trail shouldn’t be ruining myself on the comeback trail. Rationally, I know I’m pushing myself too hard. If I lie on an imaginary therapist’s couch, I would suggest that I’m battling fiercely with this pivotal life stage. At the end of my full-time working life, but with many years in front of me. At a life stage where my athletic endeavours have to be modified, too. My stubborn streak is blinding me to the realities of where I am, and it’s underplaying my undoubted capabilities.
I was whining about myself being irrelevant professionally only this week—BS to that. My professional experience and skills are being heavily deployed but differently. Feedback is good, and I’m enjoying it. But because it’s not as all-consuming, I feel like I’m coasting. Work had not been an enjoyable pursuit for me for a period. My new career is rewarding and stimulating. But at the back of my skull, some lizard-brain survival chemical tells me that slowing down is dangerous.
The same is happening with exercise. It’s been a period of serious grieving for cycling, as I have rightly given up after two close-to-death experiences. My struggle to adapt to my new sport of running seems to trigger the same lizard brain. If I start to do less and less exercise, it won’t be long before I’m sitting on my ass for a living. My bicep on my right arm will be relatively overdeveloped from handling the Netflix remote control. That’s my fear.
Maintaining The Comeback Trail
I’m experiencing fear-led feelings. Fear of my world shrinking and my brain getting lazy. Fear of becoming relatively immobile and that shrinking my world even further. And the immobility is opening the side door for the all too prevalent diseases that stalked my parents and grandparents. Fear makes rational people irrational. It makes them myopic rather than letting them step back and look at the big picture.
Death in the family, moving house, and divorce are all major life events that cause stress that can go as far as inducing severe health problems. Retirement is also included in this list. I’m not retired – he offered a beat too quickly – but the move from 70-hour weeks to a lower load, less structured work pattern has triggered some of that stuff.
I could die tomorrow. You could die tomorrow. That’s life, and it was never offered as a fair deal. If I remove the death tomorrow card from the deck, there’s a higher probability that I will have 20 more years ahead with the proper medical care, lifestyle, diet, and exercise practices.
The answer – he said to himself – is to slow the hell down with the training. I want to be running in my late 70s and beyond. The vitality gods have not been impressed by my overtraining for a short period now; they’ve seen too much of that. I’m away now to burrow into training tests while resting and recovering to plan a more measured, long-term running plan. Running on the comeback trail must become running for the next ten years at the least, and the training needs to be fit for purpose.