Health Failures

Serious health failures. Dizzy Dean broke his toe and it destroyed his arm, ruining the career of one of the greatest pitchers to ever play the game. The broken toe altered his pitching motion ever so slightly and he ended up with a serious injury to his pitching arm.

This morning I find that something somewhat analogous is happening to me. Three unrelated events over the past year have resulted in a very unhealthy turn for me. In December I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. It only really bothered me when playing music or lifting anything that required me to grip tightly. As a result I made a conscious effort to refrain from lifting anything heavy. My normal life allowed me to lift a great deal of heavy things without having to resort to the gym for working out. Just as grabbing anything heavy and tossing it where it need be had once been something that required no thought or planning, avoiding doing so fell into the same pattern. The bottom line is that for the last seven months I have lifted noting heavier than a city person would.

The other catch was that I spent several hours several days a week sitting still in my office listening to recorded conversations in a murder case. I was not up and moving around the office as was my norm. Instead I vegetated and listened to recordings to glean evidence from them.

The last one really crept up on me. I picked up some new riders and also had a few intermediate riders who were overcoming fear problems. The result is that what was normally several hours of trotting each week was replaced with walking rides. My main companion for night rides moved away and without even realizing it I had ceased riding at night all together.

Few people realize either the calorie expenditure or the core muscle strength building capacity of long trotting rides and cantering. (My heart rate when trotting on a horse 6 miles an hour is the same as it is if I jog 6 miles an hour).

As my body has been degenerating my mind has been on other things and I did not really realize the shape that I had gotten into. I came to realize that it is time to give up on the chance that my hands will heal with out surgery. That will be coming up in the next month or two. I began riding hard on mornings this week. I plan to start regular night rides in August. I radically improved my diet and have already dropped a notch on my belt. In short I was on track for what I guessed would be a fairly short journey back into good health. I figured that by mid October I would be pretty solid.

Things were going so good this morning that I stepped up on the scales to weigh. I have put on 18 pounds since I last weighed. That is what living like a city person will do to a man.

So now I will buckle down harder and get myself back in shape. Need a solid goal to go for if that is going to happen.

For the past two years I have failed when trying to ride 100 miles in a day. It has been strongly suggested that that is an unrealistic goal and that a person my age should be more reasonable in setting goals.

Reluctantly, I agree.

This March I plan to ride 98.6 miles in one day.

 One hundred miles is just too much.