CROSS TRAINING CONFUSION

I’d like to say I have a system, a regimen to which one could adhere, like a Wisteria vine on an old brick farmhouse. But down here in Florida, approaching the dry season, there are too many variables that obstruct fitness consistency. Sure, the weather has been recently great, borderline spectacular, when you compare it to our back to back Hurricanes and the Northeast snow storms. There really has been no climate reason not to be out there every day, sun block and all. However, being now a senior jock, I have some physical obstacles with which to contend.
Lets start with the neurological, the ADD that makes it difficult to do anything on a regular basis, as in, “who took my bike helmet?” The answer is, nobody took my helmet. It’s just when you’re disorganized and NEVER put something down in the same place twice in a row, maybe you won’t go biking that morning. That doesn’t mean Monday’s a wash, it just means you will go in the pool today, as long as nobody has misplaced my aqua-jogger or face mask. I’m grateful the recumbent trike allows me to venture out as often as I do. My knee aches after, but I have a Velcro ice wrap that brings down the swelling in a hurry.
Where was I? Oh yes, cross training confusion, in November, in Southwest Florida, that conundrum. I mentioned swimming, needing to get there early, before the floaters show up to monopolize the space and the conversation. That shouldn’t be a problem because the sun doesn’t get over our building until close to ten A.M. But full-proof it ain’t, because the pool guy is also an early riser, arriving just in time to interrupt or abort my aquatic aspirations. When he adds the chemicals I am done. Because of the noodlers and their sun screen, he has to scrub the top tiles more than once a week. I know he has a job to do and he does it religiously, with a dedication and precision I would kill to replicate, but for that neurological condition I mentioned, the one that prevents me from setting an alarm to a time that would circumvent this frustration because I refuse to swim in soapsuds.
Moving on, there is the treadmill in the fitness room, the place I can walk an uncomplicated mile at 2.0 and 3.5 elevation. Because of my left-side weakness, and a left leg that is one half inch shorter than the right, I need the stability of the hand grips to sustain a cadence and stride that doesn’t appear as if Lurch is approaching Halloween. That’s thirty minutes, the limit we are supposed to monopolize a fitness-room machine. And the only time I can count on access and some privacy, is late in the afternoon when most residents are looking for their happy-hour, two-for-one coupons. It’s certainly doable, as long as my life partner isn’t hankering for an early supper because she nibbled at breakfast and skipped lunch.
Finally, there is tennis, the reason I began to work toward strength and mobility and started this blog, yea those many years ago. Twenty years, from rookie to racked, from quick to quixotic, time to shift gears and vary my routine to cover for an aging process that has made life more complicated. Right now, this season just beginning, I have yet to hit with the men. Last year, a helpful player, during the men’s round robin suggested kindly that I might enjoy pickle-ball more than flaying clumsily three mornings a week on the artificial clay. Currently, I’m staying with mixed-doubles, hoping to compete with some of the older ladies still going out there. Last week someone told me Belinda was ninety. There were a few balls she couldn’t reach, her speed constraints right up my alley. But I haven’t lost hope that the cross training could be my ticket back to respectable mediocrity. I have to remember that three months ago I was in the local hospital with double pneumonia. In the meantime, I’ll try to decide what routine is scheduled for tomorrow and who stole the keys to my bike lock.