Just Trying To Survive

As I’m leaving the Park Run on my bicycle, an older lady stops me and says “Were you trying to beat me?” As if, I think, I could beat anyone! “No,” I say, “I’m mostly just trying to survive.” “You did well, you also ran on the grass which is harder.” It’s true, I do run on the grass and avoid the pavement. People, particularly older people for whom proprioception is diminishing and who must, as they age, avoid falling down and breaking hips, should take all the little easy steps possible to protect balance and proprioceptive ability. This means walking on the ground beside the pavement, standing on one leg when waiting in line, standing on one leg to put on shoes, and on and on with small life “hacks” that, with consistency, add to a decent outcome. Full credit to Katy Bowman for these ideas.

I don’t know what it is, but, past 35 kilometres and certainly beyond 40 kilometres paddling in a day and I again feel like I’m just trying to survive. It’s not the same “trying to survive” as spending 20 minutes at Zone 5, it’s a slow motion kind of fatigue and discomfort from being jammed in a small space in an unnatural position doing a repetitive and cyclical movement for far too long. An occasional rest out of the boat during the session would probably help but typically neither Doug nor I stop much, if at all, during these long days.

Anything over 35 kilometres and I have started to think of the paddle as an “all day affair.” Why make an all day affair longer by stopping multiple times? Strictly speaking these are not all day affairs but it’s long enough and my body feels so stiff and contorted after finishing a 40 plus kilometre paddle that it may as take the whole day. Instead of coming home and thinking “I’ll get this, this and this done, and do my regular exercises,” I now think a more reasonable position is “I’ll eat and drink and then stretch to try and underdo the worst of the damage.” Every action has consequences.

I finished yesterdays 45 kilometre paddle (10% increase on last week) about three hours earlier than Doug who started about three hours after me. Doug’s very old and very frail Mum is in hospital and, we fear, well down the “intervention cascade.” The original term “intervention cascade” was used with regard to interventions during the labour and delivery process which have both beneficial and deleterious outcomes. Each intervention is in danger of triggering a second and third intervention which triggers a fourth intervention in an iterative pattern. This is modern medicine in a nutshell. A treatment/drug/procedure requires a further treatment/drug/procedure to deal with the side effect of the first treatment/drug/procedure; however the second treatment/drug/procedure requires a third treatment/drug/procedure to counteract the first and second treatments/drugs/procedures and, well, you get the picture, an intervention cascade has been initiated.

The point is, Doug was late leaving and three hours behind me, so we paddled together some and solo some. Paddling 45 kilometres in a day triggers it’s own intervention cascade because my butt is sore, my hamstrings are tight, my hips are stiff and my hip flexors have shortened. All these unintended consequences require intervention to correct. Mark Twight was correct when he wrote “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”