Downhill both ways

I have been working on improving my ability to ride my bike. Yesterday I went for a ride of about 3 miles, with an average speed of around 6 mi./h, and this means that now I can ride my bike approximately the same speed that Jeff runs when he is running slow. It is still tiring but is getting easier.

On one of my first longer rides (about 2 1/2 miles) I had the sense that on the way out to my turnaround point I was going slightly downhill most of the way. Then I turned around, and to my surprise, I still had the sense that I was going slightly downhill. That is how flat it is here–I am so used to being in places where even apparently "flat" areas slope ever so slightly uphill or downhill, that when confronted with true flatness my brain doesn't know quite how to categorize it. It's like I'm having to experientially learn a new concept, even though cognitively I've always known that such places exist.

On the flip side to that, in physical therapy I am trying to work on recovering abilities that my brain has an experiential program for, but which cognitively seem impossible right now. I mentioned in my last post that I am hoping I may be able eventually to run again. Running is an ability that from an early age I felt like I was built for. I remember in second grade being given a stopwatch by my parents, and using it to time myself and my friends racing across the playground. I remember soccer practices in junior high where the coach would say "we're going to run until Bridget gets tired," and the groans from my teammates who knew that we would be running for a long time. That program is deep. But right now, pre-requisite abilities to run the program are corrupted – mainly balance and coordination.

So when my physical therapist suggested that we get a baseline for where I am now, so that we might be able to see progress on this goal, I didn't expect it would go very well– if I'm not even comfortable walking, then running (which essentially involves leaping from one foot to the other very quickly, seriously relying on both balance and coordination) is a long way off .

Last Tuesday I was hooked into a harness (that kept me from falling and held some of my body weight using a contraption mounted to the ceiling), and put on the treadmill. My expectation was that I wouldn't be able to react fast enough, and would end up getting dragged backwards by the treadmill, but I was okay with that, because then anything better than that would be a mark of measurable progress. I tried hard to just let my body do what it could do, and not interfere by thinking about it too much. This was the result:

Not exactly elegant, but way better than either I or my physical therapist thought I would do. So with the harness I was not forced to balance, but the quick motion involved in switching from left to right and back again was still required. The less I thought about it, the better I was able to do it. This means that the old program for running is probably still there. What that means in terms of function is unclear – I still will not be able to run again if I can't deal with those balance issues– but I can say that it was fun and I look forward to trying it more in the future!