CHALLENGE!

I walk daily. It’s an exercise that I can do that is relatively safe for me. It’s low-impact, causes only moderate pain and I enjoy that feeling of accomplishment at the end of a walk. Throughout the day, I often check my Health application and pore over my numbers like a sabermetrician. OMG! My OPS may be substandard, BUT WOULD YA LOOK AT MY WAR!

During a stroll on Sunday at the furthest point from home, I got an upset stomach which rapidly became an emergency. With most businesses closed due to the virus, my only option was to get home as fast as possible and, boy, oh boy, that was a struggle. My walking gait mechanics are just not there. I'm physically slow with foot drop holding me back the most. When the zombie apocalypse begins (which by my estimation will be any day now), I should be able to stay an arm’s length ahead of the horde, that is if they stick to the World War Z book description and not the Brad Pitt movie where the zombies are all coked up and running like the Flash and creating mountains of dead flesh to scale a fortress wall. Luckily, I made it home without an unfortunate accident. 

This episode got me thinking about how to improve my walking speed. Is that even possible? Could I move faster if I tried hard enough? Like, what if I practice at it? Anything is possible if you put your mind to it…right? I’m not a doctor, but I had a good feeling about it. Thinking about it [il]logically, I came to the conclusion that I should try running again. What’s it gonna hurt?

The next day, while on a walk with the family, we were in the home stretch of a two-mile walk and I was feeling good, so I challenged the kid to a foot race of about 10-yards. She accepted and I notched my first victory in years. I’m sure it looked goofy as I raised my right hip higher than the left with each stride so as to not trip over my dangling foot. It’s like running with a 15-pound weight strapped to your ankle. Gracious in defeat, my child said, in so many words, that I cheated with a head-start. Once that claim was debunked by my wife, the unbiased race official, the kid used the ‘I’m tired’ excuse. So I offered her a do-over and I DESTROYED bested her again. I started gloating and my bighead needed more of this intoxicating fix. As I’ve said before, I’m an addict and that includes an addiction to winning. (For God’s sake, my last name is Winner.) I sized up the wife and challenged her. She accepted and, guess what? That’s correct, I won again. However, before I could bask in my glory and heave an, “in your face!” while aggressively finger pointing in my life partner’s direction, my body reprimanded me with a terrible ache around my pelvis and hip. I was in pain, but I held my head high as I had finished in first place.

Every so often I get to a place where I think that I’m healed or almost back to pre-accident health and if I can just clear that last hurdle then I’ll be normal. Similar to the relief found from cracking your back. I have a hard time accepting reality. I want to have that Forrest Gump moment were he breaks free of the metal leg braces. Run, Forrest, run! Unfortunately, the metal that holds my pelvis together is inside my body. My metal doesn’t break apart and fall to my feet. It stays inside my body which causes my muscles and organs pain due to inflammation. I'd describe the feeling as a balloon being inflated in my waist area. No matter how much I wish this all away, this is it. This is the best it'll ever be. To add injury to injury, my mini competitive fun runs have activated some CRPS pain that had gone dormant and my leg has been restless for the past two nights. But at least I know, and the family knows, that I’m still the fastest. BOOM! IN YOUR FACE, FAMILY!