Move. Just not too much.
“Move” is the first cut on the 1957 Miles Davis album “Birth of the Cool.” And that’s what I did yesterday. Move.
Not much, mind you. It’s still just over two weeks since I broke that ankle, though it seems more like two years. But I’ve been treating the fucking thing like it’s made of Waterford crystal and all of a sudden I was sick of its bullshit.
Yesterday’s playlist. I probably should’ve gone for “Kind of Blue,” but I needed to get my head out of that particular space for a while.
So I clomped out to the garage, pulled the rim-brake Soma Saga down from its hook, clamped it to the old Cateye Cyclosimulator CS-1000, and went for a short “ride.”
It wasn’t as stupid as it sounds, probably. I did a half hour in low gears. Three-point-five miles with Miles, for an average speed of 7 big big mph. I was wearing my Darth Gimp boot on the starboard side and a Vasque Clarion hiking boot on the port, which kept me more or less symmetrical. Also, I dropped the saddle a couple cm to allow for a certain lack of flexibility in the wonky bits.
Sure, it felt creepy at first. If you’ve ever broken a bone you know that feeling — “Should I or shouldn’t I?” — about taking the damaged goods off the shelf for a little look-see.
“OK, yeah, right, here we go, show me what you got you miserable motherf. …”
But it went OK. The swelling continues to diminish, I’m seeing more definition in the foot, and with any luck I won’t need that bespoke piñon-and-turquoise peg and a Norwegian blue (lovely plumage) for my 66th birthday.
Incidentally, “Birth of the Cool” is also the title of a documentary about Miles, the man and his music. You can catch it on PBS.
Tags: broken ankle, Cateye
Mad Blog Media 
March 8, 2020 at 10:54 am |
Aaah….how perspective can change. It’s a beautiful day outside and you’re happy to be on a resistance trainer inside. Smell the roses and count our blessings, amigos! 🙂
Happy to see your continued improvement, PO’G.
March 8, 2020 at 12:15 pm |
It was nice yesterday here too, JD. Today, not so much. Gray and drizzly. Ah, well, ’tis good for the lawn so, and happy we should be to stand on the right side of it, even if we need a crutch.
March 8, 2020 at 11:20 am |
Very good, mon ami! I see you are in the boot. Two Weeks? Try eight with four more to go. Yeah, ya wanna scream … but you know better. But. It is known that exercise is also good for the ankle, just take it easy. I send good vibes from this Oregon Psych Ward where, here in the Pacific NorthWet, we’ve measured 33 inches of rain since the first of the year. Don’t ya miss living in Oregon?
March 8, 2020 at 12:18 pm |
I don’t remember how long that 1983 injury took to resolve itself. Of course, I was a porky, sedentary drunkard and dope fiend in transit from Oregon to Colorado, one bad gig to another, and the days tend to blur one into the next under those circumstances.
Thirty-three inches? Great John God. See, this is why even Pueblo, Colorado, started looking good to me after a stint in Corvallis.
Are you able to drive in your state of recovery? I had to pull The Boot off to drive Turk to the vet and it was your basic harrowing experience. You wants functional bits to drive the mean streets of Albuquerque, you does.
March 8, 2020 at 1:57 pm |
Nope, no driving. I was non-weight bearing for 6 weeks. Now only partial weight bearing. Both of us being retired, my better half does the driving.
March 8, 2020 at 11:23 am |
We ain’t riding down here today. It has rained off an on since midnight; it has been raining steadily for the last 2 hours. I don’t dare complain or they will deport me to NM.
What’s with the blanket? Cold in the garage is it?
March 8, 2020 at 12:20 pm |
Naw, that’s a towel for all the sweating I wasn’t doing. My heart rate peaked at around 90 bpm. Baby steps, brother, baby steps. …
March 8, 2020 at 11:39 am |
Oh, man, that’s right. You won’t be riding the 66k or 66mi, whichever, this month. I guess O’Brien and I will have to do it for you.
Take care, my friend. Yes, that first ride after The Big Break is tough. I remember getting back on the real bike for the first time after I broke the collarbone in 1990. It still felt skittish and I had lost a lot of muscle mass in the upper chest from being in a slight. Scared the crap out of me for the first few rides. And then the rotator cuff aftermath was about the same.
http://labikes.blogspot.com/2016/12/137-days-and-finally-bike-ride.html
March 8, 2020 at 12:32 pm |
If I’m lucky I might be able to manage 66 minutes on the trainer by then. Sigh.
What a feeble auld fella I’ve become. The first collarbone I broke? I was on the trainer the very next day, arm slung and pounding along no-hands, my heart rate in three figures.
Second broken collarbone? Wasn’t on the trainer the next day, but it was pretty damn soon. Then I rode across town to a follow-up appointment where my doc looked at me as though I had just stepped out of a flying saucer.
Dislocated thumb? Rode to the ER. Dislocated bird finger? Rode home, caught a lift to the ER.
Now look at me. A mouse fart of a broken ankle and all I can do is walk home on it and drive meself to the ER. Two weeks it was before I got back on me bike.
March 8, 2020 at 2:02 pm |
When I broke the collarbone, I got on the wind trainer a few days later and it hurt like hell. I asked my doctor, who was an orthopaedic guy who did sports medicine and raced bikes, when to start wind training. He said “when you can take the pain”. Had to laugh.
When the glued my shoulder together, the PT folks said that by the time I was out of the sling the tendon was strong but the muscles holding stuff in the right place were weak. This was in December, so they just said “don’t crash”.
March 9, 2020 at 10:58 am |
66K? Yea, I can do that. Señor Mad Dog, considered yourself covered. No more bike computers around here, so I’ll just head out hwy 90 North to mile marker 300 and about face back home. That’ll do it.
March 8, 2020 at 1:54 pm |
Glad to see (read) that you’re on the trainer. Although we’re not young and heal quickly anymore, if we think we are maybe we will at least in a relative sense. I hope to as well. Not long after your incident I had a person exiting from a vehicle stopped in the bike lane jump out in front of me as I passed. I was able to avoid a direct hit but my right bar end was caught and the old sack of potatoes was firmly planted into the asphalt. After a few stoic days of pain tolerance I finally wandered into my doc’s office on Friday afternoon for some pics. I’ll get the results tomorrow and hope that I’m only cracked in a couple of places that are now healing enough to let me start my own physical therapy. I really don’t want to see the knife.
March 8, 2020 at 2:01 pm |
Ouch! Your basic velo-nightmare. This was a common occurrence in the Garden of the Gods, where despite ample signs and road stencils forbidding parking in the bike lane, motorists (wait for it) parked in the bike lane and flung doors open wide to take pix from the seated position.
The worst part may be waking up the day after the asphalt sample and taking inventory of all the places that hurt now but didn’t hurt then.
You gonna do PT? I’m sold on it after a PT salvaged most of the use of my dislocated left middle finger, a.k.a. The Communications Digit. I’m gonna get somebody after this ankle as soon as I get the green light.
March 8, 2020 at 2:41 pm |
One of our tandem riding buddies is a retired PT, which I have mentioned here before. Good friend to have when when various bit and pieces in this 7 decade old bod get wonky. I am also sold on the benefits of PT.
March 8, 2020 at 2:57 pm |
Definitely sold on PT. When they glued my shoulder back together, life was awful and I had a hard time believing it would ever work again. But the miracles of surgery and PT are real.
March 9, 2020 at 1:23 am |
Glad to read you’re getting some blood flowing again. As they say “use it or lose it” which seems to get more true the older you are. I’m having to admit to my old-fart-dom here as the authorities warn us old-farts to be extra careful with Covid-19. There’s a farewell thing today for the study-abroad kids before they head back to the land of Big Gulps and Macs, but yours truly is skipping it. The kids have been all over Europe this past week during their spring break so I’ll skip my last chance to catch something they picked up gawd-knows-where. Today looks like a nice day to get outside on a bicycle – staying a meter away from anyone and everyone!!
March 9, 2020 at 7:09 am |
I’ve been walking around the rancheroo with one crutch, and occasionally with no crutches, so I’m getting the littlest bit of exercise. Still using both crutches to collect the mail because our driveway is a category-2 climb.
Still not driving or taking extended walks outdoors, in part because it rained yesterday. I plan to hit the Cateye trainer again today, do a little light resistance training. If the coronavirus wants me, it’ll have to come get me.
March 9, 2020 at 8:59 am |
Damn good thing you’re not at our house – all stairs, all the time: 62 of ’em from the ground up to the terrace where the view of the sea is. ..which makes the climb worth the effort.
But at least there’s a toilet on the ground, 1st and 2nd floors, so when nature calls it’s no big deal. At my age that’s a very good thing…otherwise I would have never OK’d the purchase of the place!!!
March 9, 2020 at 9:26 am |
I was full of drugs throughout most of the Seventies, but I seem to recall having to crutch up the stairs to my dorm room at Adams State College sometime in 1972. Stairs are always fun. Especially when you’re on crutches and full of drugs.
But a man had to carry on. We had had an example set for us by one of the campus radio station’s deejays, who was blind and managed to navigate around and about just fine. Except for the time when he got caught in the sprinklers one evening with a head full of the old L-S-Dizzy.
March 9, 2020 at 10:06 am |
Our idea is when we’re too old to make it up the stairs we’ll be too old to play with bicycles anymore either so we’ll sell this house with it’s nice ground-floor shop space and move into an apartment with everything on one floor.. and an elevator to get up there.