Bike & Folklife!

My new job is in Bothell, which means I have a non-walking, non-tele- commute, for the first time in... almost five years? (Whoa.)

Anyway, I'm not excited about the prospect of a driving commute. Sure, I could get myself some audiobooks, or avoid rush hour by setting out at the crack of dawn, but when it comes right down to it I just don't want to be devoting over an hour to sitting in my car on a daily basis. The problem is similar with public transportation (which also takes three times as long, by Google Maps' estimate). I'll already need to be more focused about making time for daily physical therapy exercises when I'm working 9-5, so the idea of my transit time cutting further into my available time to move around was bugging me a bit.

I've been mulling this over and finally thought to check out the possibility of commuting to work by bike. A bit of backstory -- when I was in grade school, I outgrew my beloved bike Tornado (yes, I named my bike) and refused to ride a bike ever again. I haven't ridden since, though it was as much about fear of the intimidatingly-taller bike my parents tried to foist on me as a replacement as about dedication to Tornado's memory. So my bike-riding skills are a bit rusty, to say the least. The biking commute to Bothell is about a two-hour commute each way. It sounds daunting but I'm tempted to try and work up to it, especially since it's summer now and the weather tends to be nicer. My best defense against pain is to strengthen the muscles around my knee, and bike riding is great for that -- not only does it work the right muscles, but it does so in a low-impact way that's unlikely to lead to injury. Also, much of the path I'd be biking to work is along dedicated bike trails (rather than roads with car traffic) which makes me feel fairly safe -- with my exposure to cars minimized I'm unlikely to get run off the road or ambushed by someone opening a car door in my path unexpectedly. With four hours of built-in exercise a day, my knees could be so strong... I'm not sure whether it's a realistic plan, but I figure at least it won't hurt to look into it and try and work toward it.

So yesterday I took my bike (a hand-me-down from a friend) down to the bike shop for a check-up. While at the bike shop the mechanic asked whether Stephen & I had made it to the Folklife Festival, which I had completely forgotten about... it's a three-day event with tons of contra dancing. My knee has been hurting, so I was a little unsure about going, but I popped over for the last few hours of the festival, and contra danced for the first time since I'd been in the wheelchair. It was wonderful, and if anything my knee felt better afterwards -- with all the spinning involved in contra, it's probably good for working the muscles around the knee too. So maybe I'll start doing more contra as well.

Gonna pick up the bike later today and (if I can work up the courage) try to ride it. Wish me luck!

The Ministry of Silly Walks

This is me for the indeterminate future:

Trying to walk normally still feels highly abnormal, so yeah, that's part of it. More than that, though, I've gotten back into doing all my old silly PT walks -- the monster walk, the crab walk, the lunge walk. My knee has been hurting a lot lately and these walks are the best way I know how to combat that.

I've been remembering lots of old exercises lately. My foot was disconcertingly sore and stiff, so thinking back to my ballet classes from ages ago, I started doing daily foot flexes and ankle rotations. I'm also planning to do some daily foot hooping in the hope that it'll be a low-impact way to build up more strength in the side muscles around my knee.

I've backed out of the buskers program for this summer. On the one hand it makes me sad, but I also believe it's the smart thing to do -- I want to focus on building my strength and balance back up while avoiding re-injury. I'm also starting a new job next week, which means my daily routine will be changing significantly -- got a lot to figure out over the next month.

Kneeds

Been exploring more areas of Seattle... a couple weeks ago Stephen & I took a decently epic walk to Annapurna (for delicious Indian food) and then up to Blaine Steps/Streissguth Gardens.

Lately we've been having weekly date nights, which generally involve some amount of walking. This past week we walked to Pie Bar to try their savory dinner pies (almost as good as their wonderful dessert pies!), and then walked up Broadway Ave to see the movie Under The Skin (which was more artsy-creepy than I'd hoped) at Capitol Hill's historic Harvard Exit Theatre.

It was probably a bad sign
 that I felt I was walking like a robot.

Last week was my very last physical therapy session with Avant. I got some parting advice about ways to modify my walk, which I think I was a little too diligent in observing -- after a week of modified walking and a night of enthusiastic dancing I was feeling some troubling, near-constant pain in my right knee. I was very glad this past Sunday to be able to go in for a free dance injury screening with Seattle Dance Medicine. They helped me further tune my walking patterns -- I'd been over-correcting in response to my PT's advice -- and guided me away from certain knee-strengthening exercises and towards others, which have been helping a lot.


Again and again I'm finding that because I need to push myself in order to work back up to my old levels of strength, it's to be expected that sometimes I'll go a little too far and end up in pain. In those cases it seems that the best way out is through -- to double down on PT exercises, making sure I know which exercises will help rather than exacerbate the problem. Even though this ebb and flow of improvement and pain sometimes makes me feel like I'm just going in circles, my overall physical condition really is improving. It wasn't that long ago that, between foot pain and knee pain, I couldn't be up on my feet for the length of time it took me to take a shower. So I keep reminding myself -- even if I'm still experiencing occasional setbacks, I've come a long way!