Turn this beast into the wind

That Steve Earle song, The Other Kind, really struck a note with me while I was working out this morning. "Here of late all this real estate don't seem all that real to me sometimes/ I'm back out on that road again/ gonna turn this beast into the wind..." Of course any song which pays homage to Jack Kerouac has to be a good song. I have been turning my beast into the wind all spring long. The relentless wind off Lake Michigan. Spring is winter fighting with summer, and this year winter is waging a relentless battle. The promise of warmer days is like the sun shining through my back door. Ah the bike, the road, the ride to work, the glass the gangstas and the traffic-- its all wonderful, its all out doors and its where I'd really rather be.

As I mounted the Concept 2 rowing machine this morning, the sun was shining in to the corner of the gym where the rowers live, and I felt this strange elation. The tunes on my music player were just right and I cranked out 5000 meters in 23:28. The bike, the rowing machine both let me go full out, 110% effort with NO PAIN. None of the bad kind of pain anyway, plenty of screaming quads and pounding heart, sweat stinging my eyes-- you know the good kind of pain. Not the case with running. Triumphant though I was, to finish a 5K in 33:33, running the whole way, and I really enjoyed just loping along, having long ago given up any time goals. But the pain was real and it was not the good kind. My damn knees are shot. Meniscus erosion causing bone on bone shooting pain down my outside lower legs. The pain is not in the knee, its in my anterior tibialis and peronius longorus. The race was on Sunday, I was pretty sore all day, but by Monday felt OK. But testing my legs doing squats the last two days revealed the extent of the pathology. Two legged squats are fine, I can go well below 90 degrees, but the one legged squats really exacerbate the pain. As I bend my knee I cross a certain point and the pain shoots down my leg. I can pass through this threshold several times with successive one legged squats, but then I begin to collapse, unable to hold my weight on one bent leg. Yikes. Not a good feeling.

What really freaked me out this year was discovering that same pain when skiing. No say it ain't so! My week in Vancouver, two days at Grouse and one day at Blackcomb in the heavy pacific northwest snow and I was trashed. I could survive as a slow and intermittant runner, but I refuse to ceed skiing to the unfair gods of aging. Despite the difficulty with my one-legged squats, as usual I did a handstand against the wall and then attacked the rowing machine. It was a bit challenging at first, the deep knee compression, but the tunes, the sunlight, the endorphins soon transported me into a 34 stroke per minute rythm, with a deep breath on each stroke. I could see my reflection in the sun lit window and watched my form, feeling the core muscles carve out each pull on the drive, the slight back bend and chest thrust on the finish, and the C-shape in my back as I reached through the recovery for the catch. Rowing is wonderful exercise. It is interesting that my 5K times for rowing are comparable to my 5K times running when I was at my peak, in my mid 40s. 21:30 PR but any 5K under 23 was fast for me. My average rowing times for 5K are 22:38 PR to sub 24 on a good day. Today's 23:28 felt great. The online rowing log at Concept2 allows me to compare my 5K times with other men in my age and weight group. The fastest times are in the 16's-- an admirable time if that were to be a 5K road race for sure. And I have about as much chance of hitting 16 rowing as I did running back in the day.