Day 14 After the Fall
15/07/25 21:36 Filed in: Book - OG Parkour
From Peak Fitness to Painful Lessons in Holistic Healing
After months of pain-free, peak physicality—hiking 15k daily in Puerto Rico and boasting he felt better at 61 than in his 20s—the author’s world shifted with a single fall. "Day 14 After the Fall" is a raw, hopeful account of confronting injury, rejecting quick fixes, and embracing the body’s stubborn wisdom.
—
After months of pain-free, peak physicality—hiking 15k daily in Puerto Rico and boasting he felt better at 61 than in his 20s—the author’s world shifted with a single fall. "Day 14 After the Fall" is a raw, hopeful account of confronting injury, rejecting quick fixes, and embracing the body’s stubborn wisdom.
—
Kiesza’s music has been my workout fuel since I discovered her during the pandemic. To sustain 200 watts on my stationary bike, I needed her ‘Hideaway’ video, two high-speed fans, a table crowded with 11 oz coconut waters, and towels to catch the sweat showering off my chest as I pedaled, hovering above the seat. Right now, I’m listening to "Stays in Bed." Like her best tracks, it’s not background music. It demands movement. So I dance – sort of. Core engaged, seated upright on my sofa, buttocks clenching to the beat – despite the pain.
The pain isn’t sharp or overwhelming, but it’s a constant presence. For months before this, I’d felt no pain. Zero. Nada. My routine in Puerto Rico was intense: a 3k hike before breakfast, then 4-12k hikes after work, earning my visits to Old San Juan’s rum bars. I even upped the ante, incorporating "Old Guy parkour" into my walks. Still, no pain. I bragged to my brother on calls: "I’m sixty-one, and I feel better than I can remember. I can do anything with my body and wake up the next day pain-free. Honestly, I didn’t feel this good in my twenties."
But that changed two weeks ago. I fell. Now, the cells in my right leg are performing slow, quiet surgery, reconstructing what was damaged. At first, I hoped it was just a bad bruise – something that would fade in days. Days four, five, and six showed promise, with minimal discomfort. Then, around day seven, my body declared a major rebuild necessary. The chest area wounds cleared, but the right thigh was another matter. What had been faint bruising erupted into dark, dead islands beneath the skin – a stark, topographic map of Japan, but with a hairy brown sea instead of white.
Sometimes the body heals cleanly. Sometimes it needs to dismantle its first, flawed attempt before rebuilding properly. That's what happened after week one. Like an active construction zone, parts of my leg were shut down and cleared. My mobility, previously just awkward, plummeted. Putting on a shoe meant sitting down. Sitting became a painful negotiation; my leg refused to bend comfortably at both hip and knee simultaneously. Stairs became jarring torture, forcing me to use the elevator to my fifth-floor apartment.
When the body undertakes serious reconstruction, the schedule is unclear and yet non-negotiable. Recovery means waiting for each phase to complete correctly. If it doesn't, the body tears it down and starts again. I know this drill. Pre-pandemic, a sports doctor jabbed my injured shoulder with a "fix-it-in-a-jiffy" needle. It didn't fix it. Instead, after a deceptive few good days, the tissue seemed to dissolve. I had visions of bare shoulder bones rattling loose. It took nearly two years to recover fully.
That experience made me skeptical of quick fixes. When studies showed similar outcomes for rotator cuff surgery vs. rigorous physical therapy, protein, and patience, I chose the latter. The pandemic sealed the deal – surgery wasn't an option anyway. Locked down with my future-pro-athlete son and a significantly upgraded home gym, I got serious, especially after my insurance-covered PT sessions ended. Long story short: one year later, my right shoulder, though still slightly weaker than the left, was far stronger than either shoulder before the injury. I could knock out 11 pull-ups or "walk" vertically up an air wall using just arms, shoulders, and core.
Since then, my injuries have been more minor and relatively quick to heal. This leg injury? I suspect it’s closer to the others than the two-year ordeal. But only time will tell. What I know on Day 14 is this: I’m back in the trenches. It’s a skillet full of protein (grilled chicken) and hourly physical therapy – a regimen I haven’t needed in five years. The rebuild is underway.
—
Day 14 felt like a turning point. After the setbacks of Days 12 and 13 – and the alarming downward spiral that began on Day 8 – I’d clung stubbornly to my minimum exercise targets: 10,000 steps (a fraction of my Puerto Rico routine), 30 minutes in the fat-burning zone, and 12 hours with significant standing movement. But Day 11 broke me. A long flight to Baltimore left me hobbling through weekend commitments—forcing smiles at the farmers market, a pub meetup, a friend’s catch-up—each step a grim reminder of my limits. By Sunday brunch with the kids, dark thoughts crept in: Was the swelling in my thigh a sprain? Could the bone be broken?
The swelling wasn’t a fracture; it was my body demanding deeper repair. I’d truly done a number on myself. Around Day 9, I’d limped back to that concrete bench to understand what went wrong. Slowly lifting my leg to rest my foot—a defiant gesture, whispering, "I'll be jumping over you again soon enough"—it caught on the bench face. That’s when I realized my mistake: clearing the bench height wasn’t the issue. I’d been too close to its front face after clearing the first section. The friction of my running shoe snagged on the rough concrete, violently converting my upward momentum into a brutal radial spin. One moment I was a runner thinking, "Thread the crowd, jump!"... the next, I was a human pendulum crashing into an immovable force.
This morning brought another revelation: my punishing walks without icing had likely slowed my healing. Today, after my afternoon hike (still no ice in the apartment), I improvised: a cold shower and a hand sprayer targeted at my thigh for several minutes.
But Day 14 was a good day. After the morning walk, the landscape of my leg felt familiar again: not like shattered bone, but muscle and tendon crying out for disciplined therapy. This was rebuild territory.
So I doubled down. Hourly sessions with makeshift bands tied to the balcony door handle—stretching, bending, twisting, engaging core and arms. I completed both the 3km sunrise beach walk and a 4.5km after-work trek, barefoot in sand and shallows. The unstable terrain and water pressure worked my muscles differently, carefully. I walked slowly, letting my leg buckle without falling, hydrating constantly, stretching even now between sentences. Pain? Yes. But beneath it, hope. This was progress, not a reset.
The daily activity, pain or rain, is non-negotiable. At sixty-one, muscles rust overnight. Skip one day’s 3km wake-up call, and I become... just an old man. But move—enough to exhaust temporary sugar stores and force the body to fire up its deep metabolic furnace—and the vital systems reignite. It’s like telling my old self, "Yes, we deserve to rest... but not today."
The pain isn’t sharp or overwhelming, but it’s a constant presence. For months before this, I’d felt no pain. Zero. Nada. My routine in Puerto Rico was intense: a 3k hike before breakfast, then 4-12k hikes after work, earning my visits to Old San Juan’s rum bars. I even upped the ante, incorporating "Old Guy parkour" into my walks. Still, no pain. I bragged to my brother on calls: "I’m sixty-one, and I feel better than I can remember. I can do anything with my body and wake up the next day pain-free. Honestly, I didn’t feel this good in my twenties."
But that changed two weeks ago. I fell. Now, the cells in my right leg are performing slow, quiet surgery, reconstructing what was damaged. At first, I hoped it was just a bad bruise – something that would fade in days. Days four, five, and six showed promise, with minimal discomfort. Then, around day seven, my body declared a major rebuild necessary. The chest area wounds cleared, but the right thigh was another matter. What had been faint bruising erupted into dark, dead islands beneath the skin – a stark, topographic map of Japan, but with a hairy brown sea instead of white.
Sometimes the body heals cleanly. Sometimes it needs to dismantle its first, flawed attempt before rebuilding properly. That's what happened after week one. Like an active construction zone, parts of my leg were shut down and cleared. My mobility, previously just awkward, plummeted. Putting on a shoe meant sitting down. Sitting became a painful negotiation; my leg refused to bend comfortably at both hip and knee simultaneously. Stairs became jarring torture, forcing me to use the elevator to my fifth-floor apartment.
When the body undertakes serious reconstruction, the schedule is unclear and yet non-negotiable. Recovery means waiting for each phase to complete correctly. If it doesn't, the body tears it down and starts again. I know this drill. Pre-pandemic, a sports doctor jabbed my injured shoulder with a "fix-it-in-a-jiffy" needle. It didn't fix it. Instead, after a deceptive few good days, the tissue seemed to dissolve. I had visions of bare shoulder bones rattling loose. It took nearly two years to recover fully.
That experience made me skeptical of quick fixes. When studies showed similar outcomes for rotator cuff surgery vs. rigorous physical therapy, protein, and patience, I chose the latter. The pandemic sealed the deal – surgery wasn't an option anyway. Locked down with my future-pro-athlete son and a significantly upgraded home gym, I got serious, especially after my insurance-covered PT sessions ended. Long story short: one year later, my right shoulder, though still slightly weaker than the left, was far stronger than either shoulder before the injury. I could knock out 11 pull-ups or "walk" vertically up an air wall using just arms, shoulders, and core.
Since then, my injuries have been more minor and relatively quick to heal. This leg injury? I suspect it’s closer to the others than the two-year ordeal. But only time will tell. What I know on Day 14 is this: I’m back in the trenches. It’s a skillet full of protein (grilled chicken) and hourly physical therapy – a regimen I haven’t needed in five years. The rebuild is underway.
—
Day 14 felt like a turning point. After the setbacks of Days 12 and 13 – and the alarming downward spiral that began on Day 8 – I’d clung stubbornly to my minimum exercise targets: 10,000 steps (a fraction of my Puerto Rico routine), 30 minutes in the fat-burning zone, and 12 hours with significant standing movement. But Day 11 broke me. A long flight to Baltimore left me hobbling through weekend commitments—forcing smiles at the farmers market, a pub meetup, a friend’s catch-up—each step a grim reminder of my limits. By Sunday brunch with the kids, dark thoughts crept in: Was the swelling in my thigh a sprain? Could the bone be broken?
The swelling wasn’t a fracture; it was my body demanding deeper repair. I’d truly done a number on myself. Around Day 9, I’d limped back to that concrete bench to understand what went wrong. Slowly lifting my leg to rest my foot—a defiant gesture, whispering, "I'll be jumping over you again soon enough"—it caught on the bench face. That’s when I realized my mistake: clearing the bench height wasn’t the issue. I’d been too close to its front face after clearing the first section. The friction of my running shoe snagged on the rough concrete, violently converting my upward momentum into a brutal radial spin. One moment I was a runner thinking, "Thread the crowd, jump!"... the next, I was a human pendulum crashing into an immovable force.
This morning brought another revelation: my punishing walks without icing had likely slowed my healing. Today, after my afternoon hike (still no ice in the apartment), I improvised: a cold shower and a hand sprayer targeted at my thigh for several minutes.
But Day 14 was a good day. After the morning walk, the landscape of my leg felt familiar again: not like shattered bone, but muscle and tendon crying out for disciplined therapy. This was rebuild territory.
So I doubled down. Hourly sessions with makeshift bands tied to the balcony door handle—stretching, bending, twisting, engaging core and arms. I completed both the 3km sunrise beach walk and a 4.5km after-work trek, barefoot in sand and shallows. The unstable terrain and water pressure worked my muscles differently, carefully. I walked slowly, letting my leg buckle without falling, hydrating constantly, stretching even now between sentences. Pain? Yes. But beneath it, hope. This was progress, not a reset.
The daily activity, pain or rain, is non-negotiable. At sixty-one, muscles rust overnight. Skip one day’s 3km wake-up call, and I become... just an old man. But move—enough to exhaust temporary sugar stores and force the body to fire up its deep metabolic furnace—and the vital systems reignite. It’s like telling my old self, "Yes, we deserve to rest... but not today."