A Candid Look Into The Mind of the Walking Wounded

Injuries and other setbacks can cause us to modify our goals and explore options.   Due to the recent foot injury I have explored some options and even implemented some of them.  

I dusted the cobwebs off the rowing machine.  I made my bike ready for almost-daily use.  Crank hard for 1/2 hour to substitute in some way for the 1/2 hour run I would have done.  Perhaps daily pushups, squats, chin ups, even crawling.  I know crawling may look strange, but I don't care.  Perhaps crawling wouldn't hurt my foot.  Where can I get a good crawling workout?  Uh, I haven't started the crawling thing in earnest yet - but if don't have access to a bike or rowing machine for more than a day, well, I'll probably do a crawling workout.  Perhaps I can step up and down over and over again on...something...and without bending my foot in the way that hurts.  Hmmm.  I'll need a good podcast or music for that sort of drudgery, but I'll do it.  Jumping rope?  No.  That hurts...right away!  Exercise in the car...perhaps isometrics?  Tighten the muscles: Quads, abs, arms, then relax.  Wallsits.  Planks.  I wonder if using a pogo stick would be a good workout? Where can I get a good pogo stick?  How about Rollerblades?  Oh...I don't have several hundred dollars to spend.  Darn.  Too bad it can't be cheap like running.  There are many options I explore - all to keep some semblance of the athletic identity I've created for myself and which somewhat defines me.  

I'm a committed fitness person...and somewhat fanatic and obsessive.  I read once that famed Czechoslovakian runner Emil Zatopek would run, in place, in a large laundry bucket when he could not run in the normal fashion outside.  At least he could run - albeit in-place.  I can identify with Zatopek.  Great guy.  I wonder what he would do if he had a foot injury like mine.  I wonder if he liked Latin.

For now, the rowing machine and cycling will substitute for the running.  I really like rowing.  It's a great workout - though 30 minutes seems like 2 hours.  What if my foot never is 100% again?  I could remake myself as a rower - a stationary rower.  No REAL rowing (i.e. in the water).  I don't like the water and don't have that sort of time.   I'll try and be prudent and careful enough not to hurt my back while rowing - on my back porch.  If I hurt my back...well, I don't even want to contemplate it.  I'll be careful.   The cycling is going well.  I'd like a track bike.  Perhaps I could get into track cycling.  Track bikes are simple, less expensive, and easier to maintain that multi-speed road bikes.  I could be a competitive age-group (masters) track cyclist that limps when he gets off the bike.  I wouldn't care about the limp then.  I'll be a competitive age-group track cyclist stationary rower pull-up push up and wall-sit champion who also reads Latin, is a homeschooler, and knows a bit of theology...and who owns the only saluki in Los Banos.  Yeah, that's it.