this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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[โ€“] j4k3 22 points 8 months ago

(disabled in a weird way from thoracic spinal damage) No matter how impossible it seems, every time I have something take me off my physical therapy routine of mostly riding a bike every day, I drag myself back out and force myself to hold a minimum fitness level at any cost.

I got sick and a week and a half of inactivity has me at 3 days on the bike in the last 6, and I'm back to 16 miles, 2 days ago. I'm about to leave for 26.

After over 10 years of spending almost all day, every day, in bed laying very reclined, riding a bike is my only real physical activity. This is a strange state to exist in long term. I atrophy extremely quickly, probably because I was in race shape when I was disabled. While I am no longer at that level, I never lost my legs, very low resting heart rate, or lung capacity.

It hurts so bad each time I struggle back to ~30 miles daily. I can't do anything else at the same time, and take Tylenol at max doses for little relief. I can't even manage to read much or cook right now. However, I think I'm already over the hump for this one. I slept 4.5 hours last night compared to ~3.5 the nights before.

Right now I'm procrastinating. It feels impossible, like there is no way I should be going out and riding a bike, but I'm going to put down this phone, kit up, and make myself coast down the hill; mentally picking one little target after another; lying to myself dozens of times about how far I must go before I can just turn around and go home.