slowly recovering

Its tinjury+26 days, and I'm still hobbling around. Generally I'm hobbling better than the day before, but not always. I'm not working from home any more, instead braving my Caltrain commute with its close to 1 mile of walking each way (assuming I take the MUNI 10 bus and the VTA light rail in Mountain View). I can do this but it's tiring. I have more functional strength in my adductors on the right, injured leg. I can do push-ups.

Getting on and off a bicycle would still be an issue. I've not thought much about riding since last Thursday: I was in Martha's Vineyard and was able to straddle a small hybrid bike, but pushing off with the injured leg just seemed too hard. I'm overdue to try again, but since I live on a 17% slope, the barrier to entry is higher. No "quick spins around the block". Virtually every road in Potrero Hill of San Francisco is steep.

It's frustrating. I've gone to acupuncture 4 times, and while it's amazing at loosening up tight muscles, the muscles appear tight for a good reason: after acupuncture walking becomes painful. It seems the tight muscles are protecting the injured bits, whatever those are, from stress. Loose muscles and force to resist gravity extends to where I don't like it to be.

I mentioned this to a coworker from China, that I felt worse after acupuncture. "That's normal", he said, but he encouraged me to stick to it, that it was good for healing. I then expressed frustration over my rate of progress. "In China, we say 100 days... you're well less than that so no need to worry." 100 days is 13 weeks, so that's a generous allocation for wound healing. 6-8 weeks is what I've seen for muscle tears. Hopefully it's not much worse than that. Of course it could also be a hairline fracture which the early X-ray missed. But it doesn't really matter, does it? My body will heal when it heals, and all I can do is treat is as well as I know how to do, consistent with the requirements of employment.

I'm going to the doctor on Monday. Maybe then I can get a physical therapy referral. For now, I'm just doing exercises on my own. That was going fairly well until I started going back to work yesterday. Just going to and from work is tiring.

At least I don't need to nap any more. Indeed the one positive of this is this is the longest I've been without caffeine since I became interested in caffeine, which was in college. I don't think caffeine and healing go together. I don't want to run my adrenal system into the dirt with exogeneous stimulation. I want all the rest I can get.

The worst of it is the general fatigue. Part of that may be due to sleep disruption. I'm sleeping better, but not as well as when healthy. Mentally, I'm not sharp. At work, I can get by with experience, but work alone isn't enough.

A favorite pastime, analyzing cycling data, has been trending up as during the Tour there has been a lot said about Chris Froome's incredible domination. I have my feelings about that: look to Tenerife, not France, to explain how he's ridng. His watts aren't particular exciting, it's that he's so incresibly skinny. That's why he flies up hills, that's why he gets his wind resistance so low. How is he able to train hard and yet be so lean? Sky embracing nutrition science in a way which hasn't been done before at that level? Or supplements? Strangely, I find myself not caring much, not because I don't think the doping fight is important to cycling, but because professional cycling itself doesn't seem important.

Same deal with my fitness. A month off the bike just when my climbing was going really well. Basically my season is shot. Where to go next? Running? Cycling? A bit of both, perhaps, to start? Maybe that's the best approach right now. Mix it up. That's good for overall body fitness. I need to rebuild the foundation before I do anything else. Frustrating. Set my sites on next year, when I'll be another year slower. At least I got Devil Mountain Double in. This year wasn't a total loss.

Anyway, I'm off to the gym for the first time since the crash. Take it easy, focus on range of motion, light resistance. I'll see how it goes. I want to prepare for physical therapy, assuming the doctor gives me a referral for that.

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