"It's ok dear, as long as you are ok" said the very nice (and more than mildly concerned) elderly woman whose unfortunate timing for crossing the street nearly (nearly) coincided directly with my first attempt at riding my new "grown up" road bike.
I don't like change.
If I had my way, I would do things exactly the same way forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.
Change is hard and uncomfortable and embarrassing....and sometimes painful (a lesson the very nice elderly woman watched me learn firsthand).
A few weeks ago I, in a rather ungraceful display, fell on my bum.
The pain was not immediate but over the next few days I started noticing things:
Walking was really, really painful - a minor inconvenience.
A jolt of pain shot through my body every time I stood up - could be worse.
Standing on my left leg was excruciating - as long as I could still stand on my right leg.
My morning run was unbearable - ok, now this is a serious problem.
After a few days of not getting better, I visited my favorite chiropractor who, having a great deal of experience with me and all of the other obsessive compulsive runners of Northern Virginia, looked up with (what I took as) an amused smile and said,
"No running. You have an injury and you need to let it heal."
"How long?"
"Until it stops hurting."
"A week?"
"Until it stops hurting."
"2 weeks?"
"Until it stops hurting."
"Can I work out on the elliptical?"
"Have you tried the elliptical?
"Yes."
"Did it hurt?"
"Yes."
"Then no."
"How long?"
The conversation went on like this for a while - I like to think he's the difficult one.
In the end, the two of us (my chiropractor/arch nemesis/shrink and I) came to the conclusion that swimming, spin class and body pump class all didn't hurt and were therefore ok.
He also suggested that I try biking.
And this is where change once again forced its way into my happy little life. Well, at least into my workout schedule.
Biking is one of those things that had always been out there hanging out on the horizon of my comfort zone along with all of those other things that I would kinda maybe sort of like to try someday - golf, guitar lessons, day trading.
I had come extremely close in the past, even buying a bike in March of this very year.
It was a very nice bike. Other people thought it was a very nice bike too. In fact somebody else liked it so much more than all other 100 bikes in the bike cage of my building that they cut the fence to which it was locked and took it for a ride....a very long ride...and have yet to bring it back.
The theft of this bike was tragic in that it was a significant loss financially and had a rather disheartening effect on my overall view of my fellow man (specifically, the cross section of "fellow man" who live in my building and know the combination to the bike cage on the G3 level of the parking garage).
The theft also, however, gave me an excuse to not start biking which was, in some ways, a relief because biking was change and was therefore scary.
After all, I still had running.
Except now, 3 months later, my ability to run, one of my truest comforts and passions, had been torn from me tragically (well, for a few weeks anyway..."until it stops hurting") and you can only do so much swimming before the chlorine turns your brain to mush and so much spinning before you want to kill your insanely peppy instructor with her insanely peppy music and her attempts to make a sprint sound "super-fun".
It was the perfect window to take the plunge and start biking.
So, over the 4th of July weekend, Dave and I went shopping and I bought a pretty pink bike, bike rack, bike helmet and roughly $100 more of the endless assortment of things that you need when you take up biking (not a cheap pastime as it turns out).
All week long the bike sat in our apartment (not in the bike cage, thank you very much) and Mo the cat stared at it with a look of awe/fear (she doesn't like change either) as I worked myself up for what would be my first ride on Saturday.
I watched youtube videos on general bike maintenance including how to take off a tire and how to patch a flat.
I learned the signals for riding in traffic.
The only thing for which I didn't fully prepare was, well, riding the bike.
I mean, we had rented bikes on vacation and I had ridden a ton of stationary bikes. Plus, I went to spin class and did all kinds of drills on bikes (even synchronized with music), so how hard could it be?
As it turns out, balance on narrow road bike wheels adds a very different element to biking and that, along with my tendency to panic easily and my general fear of traffic, all led to one undeniable conclusion - I am the most awkward biker quite possibly ever.
Over the course of the weekend, I want on two rides totaling around 55 miles and, in that rather short distance, managed to:
nearly run a biker (or two...or three) off the bike path ,
run over a fuzzy caterpillar,
terrify a pedestrian (and his dog) walking the opposite direction,
run into the side view mirror of a parked car (with some momentum - BIG bruise),
entertain a large number of drivers at stop lights with my valiant yet clumsy attempts to start and stop,
somehow get the bike pump (apparently not-so-securely attached to my bike) stuck between the back wheel and the bike frame...leading to an extremely sudden and dramatic stop and a brief moment of fear that I might have lost not one but two bikes in 4 months,
and, as you already heard, ran into a curb in an attempt to not run over a very nice and concerned elderly woman.
In the end I, the bike, and all others involved (with the exception of the caterpillar - RIP fuzzy caterpillar) survived the weekend.
I still don't like change (and in this particular case have actual bruises to prove why) but I know that succumbing to the pain and embarrassment of new things often leads to a positive outcome, as it has many times in my life.
I'm sure, with time, the feeling of being out of control and off balance will disappear and I will learn to love biking almost as much as running (which I hope to be doing again very soon).
Now for day trading....
I don't like change.
If I had my way, I would do things exactly the same way forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.
Change is hard and uncomfortable and embarrassing....and sometimes painful (a lesson the very nice elderly woman watched me learn firsthand).
A few weeks ago I, in a rather ungraceful display, fell on my bum.
The pain was not immediate but over the next few days I started noticing things:
Walking was really, really painful - a minor inconvenience.
A jolt of pain shot through my body every time I stood up - could be worse.
Standing on my left leg was excruciating - as long as I could still stand on my right leg.
My morning run was unbearable - ok, now this is a serious problem.
After a few days of not getting better, I visited my favorite chiropractor who, having a great deal of experience with me and all of the other obsessive compulsive runners of Northern Virginia, looked up with (what I took as) an amused smile and said,
"No running. You have an injury and you need to let it heal."
"How long?"
"Until it stops hurting."
"A week?"
"Until it stops hurting."
"2 weeks?"
"Until it stops hurting."
"Can I work out on the elliptical?"
"Have you tried the elliptical?
"Yes."
"Did it hurt?"
"Yes."
"Then no."
"How long?"
The conversation went on like this for a while - I like to think he's the difficult one.
In the end, the two of us (my chiropractor/arch nemesis/shrink and I) came to the conclusion that swimming, spin class and body pump class all didn't hurt and were therefore ok.
He also suggested that I try biking.
And this is where change once again forced its way into my happy little life. Well, at least into my workout schedule.
Biking is one of those things that had always been out there hanging out on the horizon of my comfort zone along with all of those other things that I would kinda maybe sort of like to try someday - golf, guitar lessons, day trading.
I had come extremely close in the past, even buying a bike in March of this very year.
It was a very nice bike. Other people thought it was a very nice bike too. In fact somebody else liked it so much more than all other 100 bikes in the bike cage of my building that they cut the fence to which it was locked and took it for a ride....a very long ride...and have yet to bring it back.
The theft of this bike was tragic in that it was a significant loss financially and had a rather disheartening effect on my overall view of my fellow man (specifically, the cross section of "fellow man" who live in my building and know the combination to the bike cage on the G3 level of the parking garage).
The theft also, however, gave me an excuse to not start biking which was, in some ways, a relief because biking was change and was therefore scary.
After all, I still had running.
Except now, 3 months later, my ability to run, one of my truest comforts and passions, had been torn from me tragically (well, for a few weeks anyway..."until it stops hurting") and you can only do so much swimming before the chlorine turns your brain to mush and so much spinning before you want to kill your insanely peppy instructor with her insanely peppy music and her attempts to make a sprint sound "super-fun".
It was the perfect window to take the plunge and start biking.
So, over the 4th of July weekend, Dave and I went shopping and I bought a pretty pink bike, bike rack, bike helmet and roughly $100 more of the endless assortment of things that you need when you take up biking (not a cheap pastime as it turns out).
All week long the bike sat in our apartment (not in the bike cage, thank you very much) and Mo the cat stared at it with a look of awe/fear (she doesn't like change either) as I worked myself up for what would be my first ride on Saturday.
I watched youtube videos on general bike maintenance including how to take off a tire and how to patch a flat.
I learned the signals for riding in traffic.
The only thing for which I didn't fully prepare was, well, riding the bike.
I mean, we had rented bikes on vacation and I had ridden a ton of stationary bikes. Plus, I went to spin class and did all kinds of drills on bikes (even synchronized with music), so how hard could it be?
As it turns out, balance on narrow road bike wheels adds a very different element to biking and that, along with my tendency to panic easily and my general fear of traffic, all led to one undeniable conclusion - I am the most awkward biker quite possibly ever.
Over the course of the weekend, I want on two rides totaling around 55 miles and, in that rather short distance, managed to:
nearly run a biker (or two...or three) off the bike path ,
run over a fuzzy caterpillar,
terrify a pedestrian (and his dog) walking the opposite direction,
run into the side view mirror of a parked car (with some momentum - BIG bruise),
entertain a large number of drivers at stop lights with my valiant yet clumsy attempts to start and stop,
somehow get the bike pump (apparently not-so-securely attached to my bike) stuck between the back wheel and the bike frame...leading to an extremely sudden and dramatic stop and a brief moment of fear that I might have lost not one but two bikes in 4 months,
and, as you already heard, ran into a curb in an attempt to not run over a very nice and concerned elderly woman.
In the end I, the bike, and all others involved (with the exception of the caterpillar - RIP fuzzy caterpillar) survived the weekend.
I still don't like change (and in this particular case have actual bruises to prove why) but I know that succumbing to the pain and embarrassment of new things often leads to a positive outcome, as it has many times in my life.
I'm sure, with time, the feeling of being out of control and off balance will disappear and I will learn to love biking almost as much as running (which I hope to be doing again very soon).
Now for day trading....
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