[LJ Idol 10: Week 10] The Goal
Many years ago in Rochester, the pastor of the UU church I belonged to gave a series of sermons on "Lessons Learned from Mountain Climbing."
I'll be honest - I don't remember most of that series. But there is one that I've never forgotten, one statement that changed my outlook in the long term:
The goal is not the peak - it is the parking lot.
That one spoke to me, especially as I've coped with limitations on my physical mobility. If I'm going somewhere, especially somewhere that involves a lot of walking or climbing stairs or both, I have to remember that I don't need to just get to the place and do the thing, I need to be able to get myself safely home afterwards. I need to plan when and where I will be able to sit and rest before I hurt something with overuse, and I need to be able to distinguish "just a little sore, need a little rest" from "this is going to hurt even worse later on if I don't stop."
It's better than it used to be, but it got worse before it got better. A little bit over a year ago, I fell down my porch steps, and walking and sitting both hurt a lot. I called my doctor and told her that I had hurt my hip, and after a medical exam she said that the injury was actually to my spine, not my hip. She sent me to physical therapy, and twice a week for the next six weeks I had a heat/electric treatment on my lower back, followed by working my way through a series of exercises meant to help me regain function. Then there was the final test of each session, a stint on the treadmill. She told me to go as slow as I needed to and to stop when it started hurting.
I think the first time I lasted about six minutes at something like 1.5 miles per hour. By the last week, I was actually capable of walking the treadmill on the easiest setting for 20 minutes at 3.0 miles per hour - something I hadn't been able to do in years. After discharge from physical therapy, I discovered an ultra-slowed-down version of a Couch to 5K that was really a Couch to Mini-Triathlon, incorporating bicycling and swimming.
Swimming has always been my exercise of choice, and I can do even the more-advanced versions of the swim workouts without too much difficulty. The bicycling part is mostly okay. And I've gotten to the point where I can walk 30 minutes on a treadmill at about a 3.3 MPH pace, although I'm still struggling with adding running into the mix - I got to a 6 minutes running/24 minutes walking point and then had to put it aside for a while because of a nasty "everyone in the house is sick" episode that has taken longer to shake off than I'd like. And yet, I think that with time and effort, I'll figure it out. I wouldn't have thought this was possible before the fall and before physical therapy - I'd adjusted to the realitiy of a leg that just doesn't work right - but I've managed to get it closer to right than it's been in the last 15 years or so, and that's something I can build on.
There may yet be a 5K or even a sprint triathlon in my future. And even if there isn't, I'm glad that my parking garage assignment being about three tenths of a mile from my office doesn't seem as overwhelming as it used to at this time last year, that an evening at a hockey game doesn't leave me in fear of the stairs, that I can stand for a whole hour with my kids at a fundraiser for their dance team without being a useless sobbing wreck afterwards. I'm grateful that I can climb higher peaks in my life and still make it to the parking lot.
I'll be honest - I don't remember most of that series. But there is one that I've never forgotten, one statement that changed my outlook in the long term:
The goal is not the peak - it is the parking lot.
That one spoke to me, especially as I've coped with limitations on my physical mobility. If I'm going somewhere, especially somewhere that involves a lot of walking or climbing stairs or both, I have to remember that I don't need to just get to the place and do the thing, I need to be able to get myself safely home afterwards. I need to plan when and where I will be able to sit and rest before I hurt something with overuse, and I need to be able to distinguish "just a little sore, need a little rest" from "this is going to hurt even worse later on if I don't stop."
It's better than it used to be, but it got worse before it got better. A little bit over a year ago, I fell down my porch steps, and walking and sitting both hurt a lot. I called my doctor and told her that I had hurt my hip, and after a medical exam she said that the injury was actually to my spine, not my hip. She sent me to physical therapy, and twice a week for the next six weeks I had a heat/electric treatment on my lower back, followed by working my way through a series of exercises meant to help me regain function. Then there was the final test of each session, a stint on the treadmill. She told me to go as slow as I needed to and to stop when it started hurting.
I think the first time I lasted about six minutes at something like 1.5 miles per hour. By the last week, I was actually capable of walking the treadmill on the easiest setting for 20 minutes at 3.0 miles per hour - something I hadn't been able to do in years. After discharge from physical therapy, I discovered an ultra-slowed-down version of a Couch to 5K that was really a Couch to Mini-Triathlon, incorporating bicycling and swimming.
Swimming has always been my exercise of choice, and I can do even the more-advanced versions of the swim workouts without too much difficulty. The bicycling part is mostly okay. And I've gotten to the point where I can walk 30 minutes on a treadmill at about a 3.3 MPH pace, although I'm still struggling with adding running into the mix - I got to a 6 minutes running/24 minutes walking point and then had to put it aside for a while because of a nasty "everyone in the house is sick" episode that has taken longer to shake off than I'd like. And yet, I think that with time and effort, I'll figure it out. I wouldn't have thought this was possible before the fall and before physical therapy - I'd adjusted to the realitiy of a leg that just doesn't work right - but I've managed to get it closer to right than it's been in the last 15 years or so, and that's something I can build on.
There may yet be a 5K or even a sprint triathlon in my future. And even if there isn't, I'm glad that my parking garage assignment being about three tenths of a mile from my office doesn't seem as overwhelming as it used to at this time last year, that an evening at a hockey game doesn't leave me in fear of the stairs, that I can stand for a whole hour with my kids at a fundraiser for their dance team without being a useless sobbing wreck afterwards. I'm grateful that I can climb higher peaks in my life and still make it to the parking lot.