This one's for my dad.

-->
I was thinking a lot about my dad yesterday. This is because yesterday was the three year anniversary of his death. He died at age 64, from cancer, at Southlake Hospital in Newmarket. This year was the first year I was able to think about that time without being overcome with abstracted grief.  The kind of sadness and grief that made me, on the first year anniversary of his death, reverse my wee VW – at reasonable speed – into the back of a sturdy (and enormous) pickup truck. I was certain that I had checked and double-checked to make sure there was nothing behind me, but I was, more or less, blinded by sadness. One smashed taillight (mine) and dented rear-hatch (also mine) later, I realized it was probably not safe for me to be driving on that day. (There was no damage to the pickup truck that I could see. He or she never responded to my apologetic note, either, so I assumed my assessment was accurate.)

My dad was so proud of me, and he told me often. He was proud of me for getting my university degree, for finding a career that gave me both creative and monetary satisfaction, and for my general independence. But he was also so proud of me for being athletic. I was born quite premature, and the doctors (so my dad told me) said that even if I survived brain-intact, I would never be able to achieve physically.  Something about my lungs and their less-than-optimal functioning.  So he was always so thrilled to hear about how much I loved running and cycling, and would make a point of telling me that that I was never supposed to be good at either of those things.

I miss you Dad. Just so you know, I am working hard to get back on my bike. I’m keeping busy with working out, just to make sure these lungs of mine stay in shape for the moment my leg is ready to bike again.

Deadlifts, resistance bands and BOSU balls.

Because reading about workouts is boring, but mountain
biking is always fun. Plus, it IS the point of this blog.

Okay, so the Functional Movement Screen showed me to be ‘hypermobile’ and ‘lacking in strength’ – to which I said ‘bah!’ – as I may be particularly bendy but I would never say that I am not strong. Anyway. After a bit of back and forth in which I challenged the above assessment, I warily signed up for a session with Steve Neal, along with my good buddy Jodi.

And I know it’s super boring to read about other people’s workouts, so I won’t get into too much detail about the ins and outs of this one. There were (yep) deadlifts, resistance bands and BOSU balls, and a nifty ankle strength exercise and some neat kettle bell stuff and overall about 25% new-to-me stuff which was great. The rest of the workout was stuff I’ve done before, which was also pretty great – primarily because Steve is a real stickler for proper form and, it seems, for drilling the idea into your head that just because you’re doing, say, a deadlift  - doesn’t mean you’re only using your legs for proper form, you’re also using your core AND your cardiovascular system. This applied to (honest to god) every exercise we did. We paid a lot of attention to breathing. Which sounds sorta dopey, but I really was made to feel very conscious of taking a deep breath at the start of the exercise, and releasing it as I progressed through, particularly in the deadlift, where apparently it’s going to come in real handy when the weights get heavier and heavier. Woot.

The good news is, apparently I don’t lack strength after all. Or at least it didn’t seem so to me. I’ll have to ask Steve when I see him again on Thursday. And woohoo, in the even more good news department, so far, my leg doesn’t hurt any more than it usually does (which is always a teensy tiny little bit). Which is, you know, nice.