Wheel Life

An able-bodied runner riding a hand bike will be misunderstood. Probably applauded. Possibly cursed at. But armed with pure intentions, he still can honor the athletes who deserve our praise.

August 17, 2006

Every runner's nightmare is that some day–maybe tomorrow–he'll wake up injured and never run another step. Scares the wits out of me. This is absurd, I tell myself. Millions of people–I've known some of them intimately–don't run. They haven't skipped a day because there seemed to be something floating around in the right knee. They haven't taken the week off because of a sore Achilles tendon. They've taken the decade off. They've skipped a life.

It's not possible to plumb the depths of another's psyche, but when I look into the eyes of these nonrunners, I don't always see misery. Many are not even immensely fat. Some are, but look at it this way–if living contentedly without running is an achievement, then doing so when your clothes don't fit and the world pities you, well that looks like conquering Everest to me.

Me, I'd rather run, and have been almost daily since 1977. Of course, I'm always looking for something that feels like running, but isn't running, and isn't crystal meth. I yearn to decrease the prospects of injury. Cross-training is the term, and I don't like it.

Just for instance, I hate a swimming pool. I don't float, so I don't swim. I flail. You can't easily listen to a book or music on an electronic device while swimming. Nor can you confide in a friend. Can't admire the countryside. In the pool, I get so bored that I lose track of the laps. So I give each lap a color. "One," I'll say to myself, and gasp for air. "One is blue. One is blue." Then I try to picture the Roman numeral one and make it blue. "One is blue," I repeat to myself. "Blue one." Bored yet? We haven't even finished half a lap.

I've ridden bicycles, stationary and otherwise. I've Nordic Track-ed until the ball bearings had to be replaced. I've burned out the pneumatics on a rowing machine. The most outlandish thing I've done yet, though, and probably the most gratifying, was to buy a hand bike.