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Northwest Living with Dean & Rachel: Biking proves perfect prescription
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Anonymous user Wed Nov 30, -0001 00:00:00 PST
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1 response 1 comment After 25 years, four times a week, and approximately 28,800 miles later, I’ve finally had a doctor tell me to stop running.

I’ve logged enough miles to circle the globe, and this man tells me to just stop. They say don’t shoot the messenger, but I could have killed him with my bare hands, right there as he stood in his office.

I’ve loved running since I was a little boy, and to have this lifelong passion taken away has proven to be tougher than I imagined.

I know you’re wondering who would actually miss the painful act of running, but for the obsessive personality, there really is something in it. I guess I’ve always known it would come to an end somehow ... runners get knee injuries, their hips go out, maybe an ankle.

In my case, it’s my back, and in as much as I can, I’ve accepted the fact that there will be no more. No more marathons, no more running bibs, no more goo packs, no more blisters and no more proving to my ego that I can finish a 10K faster now than I could half my age ago. Time, my body, and my doctor have told me that I cannot.
I’d been pretty depressed about this for the last few weeks, a lost soul really, until my sweet wife suggested I try bicycling. Not a bad idea.

It still gets me outside, gets the heart going and uses those same leg muscles I’ve been building up for the last two dozen years.

I went over to Action Sports and told them my tale of woe, and asked what a newbie like me needed to do to fit into the lycra-shorts lifestyle. I was told take a few rides on whatever bike I could get my hands on, and if I liked the feeling, come back and for about 500 bucks, they could get me on a “real” starter-quality road bike. The guy said once I started riding, I’d never miss my running.

Spoken like a salesman I thought, but it’s just what I needed to hear.
Fast forward a few days … remember how we got all that rain last week, and there was that one day that the thunderstorms rolled through, and then it started to hail? Me, too.

I was on a rusty Wal-Mart Huffy at Stockdale and Calloway. It’s odd, the reaction you get when the world looks on with pity at the dork on the bike who’s soaked to the bone, and obviously just trying to make it back to his cardboard box under the freeway.

I had a guy roll down his window and offer me a dollar at an intersection. It was easier just to take his money than to explain that I was out in the rain on a bicycle chasing my much-needed runner’s high. I doubt he would have understood.
This was not at all going as I had imagined, but I had to laugh; it really was kind of funny, right up to the point where the front tire started going flat.

In all of my years of running, I’ve never had to race a rapidly-deflating shoe just to get home.

You’d think that would be the end of this bicycle business, but it’s just the beginning.  I can honestly tell you I had fun — I really did!

I got outside, got the heart going and used those leg muscles like I haven’t in years. A guy thought I was a transient; I was reminded that hail stings like a thousand bees; and against all odds, I got home before that darn tire went flat.
I was cold, tired and alive. 

Bicycling seems to be just the sort of thing I need to focus on, and now I’m on a mission. I’m going back to that guy at the bicycle store and I’m gonna buy one of his starter bikes, and a goofy helmet to go with it.

Maybe I’ll make him throw in a pair of those tight shorts that bicyclists seem to be so fond of. Then, I’m gonna find out where and when these elite tight-shorts wearing people gather to race, and my ego and I are going to beat some kid half my age, even if it kills me.

And if my doctor tries take this away from me, there will be one less physician serving the greater Bakersfield area.
 
E-mail Dean at: dean@kgfm.com

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Comment From: sunnica

Funniest article yet! I can relate, unfortunately, but I couldn't find an activity I liked as much as running, so I'm back on the pavement. Bravo! Hilarious article!