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Pretty sure this is what he meant by "dork"

I know I said I wasn't sure when I'd get back on my bike. But on Friday I decided to go for a little ride anyway. And it was just fine. The worst part was that the metal stiffener in my splint kept shifting around, which is really annoying. And it's hard for me to shift into a bigger ring with my left hand, since I have lost most of the muscle that gives my pinky and ring finger their strength. My hand is visibly skinnier on the outside.

I rode 45 miles on Saturday, and felt great. Sunday I did my long run and then -- I could hardly believe this -- I swam a mile in the pool. 1600 yards! Freestyle, no fins! Three days after getting my cast off! After seven weeks without swimming! I felt really good, and I felt like I could have done twice the distance. But I also felt like I had already pushed it, so I called it a day.

On Monday I got back in the pool and swam 2000 yards. Again, I felt strong, and amazingly I don't feel totally unfit in the water. Don't get me wrong, I am slow, and my stroke really suffers from the lack of flexibility in my left wrist. The second half of my stroke on that arm is nearly powerless. I can't flex the wrist very far or rotate my hand inward toward my center axis.

I'll try to illustrate this: Imagine me standing up with my arms straight down, hands bent back at the wrist and pointing outward. (Like maybe I'm about to do a penguin imitation.) First of all, my left hand flexes back not quite half as far as the right hand. Then, if I point the fingertips of my left hand to 9 o'clock and rotate my wrist clockwise, I can only get to about 11 o'clock without bending my elbow to "cheat." That's maybe 70 degrees of rotation. My right hand easily goes 180 degrees. (Even cheating, I can only get the left hand to about 2 o'clock.) The bottom line is that once my left hand passes my shoulder mid-stroke, I'm not pushing much water.

Physical therapy will help that, although I expect it will be slow going. I was able to hold 1:45/100 yards for about 12 repeats, and then I got pretty tired, but I think that's fantastic for only my second real swim after seven weeks off. Before my injury I was doing 100s in 1:30-1:35.

You don't realize how complicated your joints are until you screw them up. Sometimes I feel the same way about bikes. We tried to make a minor shifting adjustment to my tri bike the other day and now I have had to schedule some shop time to undo what we did. Doh! Well, that's a slight exaggeration -- it's overdue for a tune-up anyway.

I took today off from swimming but I am looking forward to getting back in the pool tomorrow. Seriously, I can't wait.

February 12, 2008 5:35 PM