It’s never fun being injured. Especially when that injury is profound enough to alter your whole fitness routine.

So it is with humility and determination that I will now walk my way to fitness. For a while.

Walking it off until you can get back on the horse

I’ve done this before. A couple times at least. Tore an ACL back in 2003 and it took months following surgery to rehabilitate the knee. Physical therapy was vital in that process. So was walking. Then I tore it again two years later. More walking. More rehab. But not another surgery on the ACL. I should have chose a patellar tendon extraction rather than the cadaver part (I called him Jake) that tore again.

Now I just walk, run and ride in straight lines. Except when they wobble. Like on a bike. 

First steps back

Those first steps back on the fitness trail after any sports injury are seldom much fun. After my ACL tears, the knee stung and hitched… and wobbled. It takes time to rebuild strength, and courage to continue through setbacks and pain.

I recall the puss yellow seepage coming out of my ACL surgery scars. It dripped down the compression bandages I wore to work to keep my legs from blowing up with swelling. And the stinging pain in my ankles for days. But as soon as that wore off the physical therapy kicked in and after that, the walking. It is a thrilling process in many respects. You can’t give up.

Regaining fitness

Then it takes time to regain your former fitness. A mile run tires you out. Then two miles. Finally three or four. Then when you’re finally triumphant upon your return to running or riding, a new injury crops up. You’ve overdone it. Naturally. What athlete has terminal patience? None of us do.

So you’re back to walking. Again.

What’s busted this time? 

This time it’s a busted clavicle. But actually, I’m rather proud that I busted it. I was riding 40 miles per hour on a killer hill when the bike went nuts with harmonic wobble and down I went. Chunked out a divot in the dirt with my shoulder. Wound up in a ditch with an aching body and a dirt-stained kit. But damn it, that’s living. And I was alive. Those aren’t always givens, you know.

Surgery is easy. You’re not awake for any of it. Waking up from surgery, you’re still kind of loopy and the world is confined to dim lights and a mechanical bed. Pee in a bottle. Wait until you fart. Then you eat a hospital Caesar Chicken Wrap and a Caffeine Free Pepsi and go home. To soreness. Typing with a sling (pretty good huh?).

But nothing ever stops me. Never has. Never will.

Here’s why. As I prepped for surgery with nurses and doctors hovering about, they asked literally dozens of questions about my health. Blood pressue 110/73. Pulse rate 56. Height and weight ratio: Excellent. No heart or lung problems, diabetes or other health problems. The nurse said: “You’re really fit and healthy. Even with a broken clavicle you have good posture.”

Damn right sister. I work for this. Don’t take fitness and health for granted. Top 2% in the country according to my MetLife health insurance exam. And I plan (with the grace of God) to keep it that way.

Bucking around with the proverbial “horse”

Getting back on the bike could be a little weird next spring. There will be fear of the wobble hitting again. But online advice from Cycling Enthusiasts on LinkedIn has provided strategies to deal with bike wobble. Ride low. Press your knees on the top bar. Pedal, don’t brake.

It’s funny in a way that you can’t ride a bike or run because you’ve hurt your shoulder. There’s something wrong with that algorithm. But it shows how everything in fitness is connected in some way.

They say you have to get back on the horse and ride after it bucks you. Well, sometimes you have to walk around the ranch a little bit first, shaking off the soreness before putting your feet back in the stirrups again.

That’s okay. That badass horse of fitness will always be waiting. Sure, it loves to buck around with you. Just have to walk it off and start all over ag’in.