Extreme...Bruise

The other day, for the first time several years, I went roller blading. In an effort to diversify my training regimen and reduce the chance of an overuse injury on key running muscles, I invested in a pair of inline skates and hit the hard cement of my community sidewalk.

As a backdrop to this episode, I should tell you that I told my plans to a good friend and roller blading fanatic. She tried to appear non-plussed by the idea of my picking up the new sport, but I could tell she was excited. I did not know, however, the cause of her excitement, and would not discover it until I laced on my blades and tried for the first time in years to stand up.

For the blissfully unenlightened among the faithful FCN few, a rollerblade is essentially a ski boot with wheels on the bottom. The wheels are small and well oiled, such that they shift quickly and without warning. Almost any pressure is enough to motivate rotation and the first time I contracted my quadriceps and tried to get off the ground, my feet flew out from under my body and landed me firmly on my rump. And when I say firmly, I mean that with all the inherent force of the word; the landing was not pleasant.

My friend laughed and explained that when the shoes are parallel, there is nothing contradicting the force of forward movement and such an awkward display of ill planned physics is a predictable outcome of my mistake. Only she didn't say it quite like that. Outwardly, I laughed with my friend, but inside determination beat out embarrassment and I decided to try again. And again. And again.

The difficulty for me in handling a new sport is balancing my need for speed with a limited skill set. I'm the kind of guy who races full throttle into every new project and the results are generally injurious. For instance, I broke my thumb on my first ever ski trip, I got shin splints in my first two weeks of competitive running and stress fractures in my first month on the track team. That's not to say that the effort hasn't paid off or been worth the pain, but it hasn't been smooth sailing either.

In my first block, I managed to stay on my feet through a series of tap dance like maneuvers. I looked like an inebriated barnyard animal, but I was very proud of myself. My second lap wasn't as fortunate.

Four falls later, my ego was bruised more than my body. Somehow, I'd been able to navigate to soft landing areas or slow down significantly before connecting appendage with ground. Every time I lost traction and fell, images of painful road rash, a common biker and Xtreme sport injury, crossed through my psyche. The pictures were so disturbing and profound that at a couple of moments, I just had to get to stable position and catch my breath. Then the position would become unstable, the images would return and the fun would start again.

I look forward to dominating this sport and becoming master of the wheels. Until then, I'll just be riding along aimlessly on eight small round disks, with little control over my direction. If you see me, wave hi. I'll try to waive back, but if you see me gyrating, I may not actually be waving.

In other news, an old friend contacted me a while back asking if I wanted to go wall climbing. I accepted and will be conquering a fear of heights sometime next week. At least with a wall, you don't get road rash.

4:30 AM: Swim

If you are among the fortunate who are privileged enough to sleep till 5:30 each morning, consider yourself singularly blessed by the Divine. I am among the poor, punished souls who must wake before the sparrow, blue bird, or newspaper boy. Every morning, under the pain of death (10 sets of 200 yard laps of the so-called butterfly stroke for anyone who is sleepy enough to be late), I go and practice liquid flotation. Sadly, I have had to endure this abuse since I joined the swim team a little over two years ago.

Waking up before the crack of dawn to stare at a black line at the bottom of a dimly lit pool is among the most demeaning experiences one can possibly endure. Not only are you half-naked (the speedo suit is more immodest than most of the costumes Christina Aguilera puts together), but a fully clothed coach is on the side of the pool shouting abasing epithets that would make the strongest mental giant cringe.

Every morning I awake to the sounds of Hans Zimmer on my Ipod docked in his Ihome alarm clock. After recovering from my abrupt waking by following along through the opening bars of the third movement of Gladiator, I proceed to don my immodest swim gear. After completion of my swimming preparation, my wonderful mother drives me to the pool.

When I get to the pool deck, I begin my morning ritual. No matter how many sticky notes I put on the side of the computer screen or how many sharpie notes I inscribe on my palm, I always make the same goofs. After realizing that I “accidentally” put my suit on inside out and backwards, I make a quick change in the restroom. I then spend a few minutes looking for my goggles, fins, and paddles, tools that should be left to toddlers but are often used by merciless coaches for training. After returning from the pool, I stand at the edge whimpering and praying for mercy until the official director of drowning (prevention) pushes me into the pool.

Once in the water, I continue my whimpering.

As if all that weren't enough, the water temperature is perpetually out of whack. Whether in the unbearably hot indoor pool in the winter or in a freezing pool in the cool mornings of the summer, the temperatures are always set to the severest hot and cold. Are 90 degrees and 40 degrees but the two settings on the pool heater controls? I know you aren't supposed to answer rhetorical questions, but I should think they aren't! Yet the managers of the pool facilities seek to add more pain to the swimmer’s already miserable state by setting the liquid temperatures to the extremes.

After a few short girly screams that put my manhood to the test, I begin my warm up. After about the first ten minutes of my swimming (twenty minutes after the start of practice), the intense temperatures and strain from the hard workout reduce my memory to 45 seconds and I probably couldn't tell an armed man any more about the practice. The next memory is my fellow swim mates and I recovering in the locker room, but that's a story for another time.

Warning: Locker Room Humor

The day after Thanksgiving, I made the mistake of looking in the mirror right after my shower. I did not like what I saw. In that moment, I realized something that almost every American realizes sooner or later: I was fat.

So I did what every American does sooner or later: I joined a gym. I got a trainer who made me feel like I was going to start looking like an action hero within a few weeks, and I hit the machines hard. Then, for the first time in my life, I went to the men's locker room to clean off.

The moment I stepped into the locker room, I turned around and went right back outside. Then I sat down on a bench and caught my breath. There's no delicate way to put this, but there were people in all various states of undress in that locker room, a fact which had caught me totally by surprise. They were mostly fat people, too! I thought this over for awhile. Finally, I decided that this was the way things were done, and that social norm didn't require clothing in the locker room. I took a deep breath and held it. Then I went back inside.

I kept my eyes pointed straight ahead and avoided eye contact. I made a beeline to the most obscure, sheltered locker I could find. I forced myself to remove every article of clothing, and I walked across the open space to the shower and cleaned up. I nearly passed out in shame. This was so wrong. I could feel everyone staring at my fat exposed self. Long before the shampoo was rinsed out, I dashed back to the locker, pulled my sweaty clothes over my soaked self, and sprinted to the car.

It was with total foreboding that I showed up at the gym the next day. The workout went fine, but my brain was working overtime trying to come up with a plan of action. Finally, I settled on one. I confidently strode into the locker room, eyes fixed on my corner locker. I made my way over and disrobed, but this time, I was careful to keep a white gym towel wrapped around my waist. This was working great, I thought. Still careful to avoid looking at people, I marched over to the shower. It was then that I realized the flaw with my plan. I would need to drop the towel in order to shower, and the shower had six spickets. There was no privacy here!

There was no turning back. I clenched my eyes shut, grit my teeth, and dropped the robe. Then I marched into the shower and collided with a naked fat man. I nearly died. I ran, screaming, to my locker, pulled my pants on, and raced back to the safety of my car.

This was not going to work, I realized. So, on the third day, I took the final step. I went into the locker room, opened my gym bag, and produced a full, large, white terry-cloth bathrobe. I removed my shirt, donned the robe, removed the rest of my clothing, tied the robe, and marched straight into the shower. I cleaned without removing the robe. Then I returned to the locker, dressed, squeezed out the robe, returned it to the gym bag, and marched out, with a dozen pairs of eyes belonging to fat naked men watching me go.

I know I stand out. But it's really the only way I can keep my sanity. When blending in means losing my modesty, well, that's where I draw the line. Maybe I am conspicuous. But I'm keeping the robe, thank you very much.