Endgame (A Coda), Part V: The Finish Line

A quick note: "Endgame" has been re-posted from sequel blog Leg After Frame. It is divided into five parts, of which this is the fifth. Unless something changes in the future, this is the final post on Leg+Frame…an odd moment, even though I wrote what I thought would be the final post more than half a year ago. It's been an interesting ride, from not having a frame to having a frame to…

ENDGAME, PART V: THE FINISH LINE

I think the first thing you could say about the days leading up to my attempt at the 5K was that I was scared. I was practically petrified.

Wednesday, October 16. Two days to go. Two days to go until I tried to conclude my recovery from the frame with a strong note. Two days to go before I tried to complete a long-standing goal. And not just any long-standing goal—a goal which had been standing for four years, probably longer, a goal which was a basic pillar of my trying to get myself back in shape.

With two days to go, I swam for a bit. I'd gotten a new swimsuit a few days earlier which my family was encouraging me to try out. Since they didn't know about the 5K, they didn't know that swimming in the suit might interfere with my ability to get out and run.

As it turned out, the suit was a wonderful improvement over the deck shorts. Less resistance, sleeker, faster, better fitting.

But I didn't get myself out on a run.

Thursday, October 17. One day to go. To conserve my strength for the big day, I rested and tried not to think about the following day, 8:00 p.m., when I would take off with all the other runners (racers?), when I would find out what I could or couldn't do.

Friday, October 18. Race day.

I woke up at the normal time for a Friday, went to my normal Friday morning piano lesson, shuffled between my normal Friday classes (10:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m., each an hour long; the 11:00 a.m. break used for whatever homework the 10:00 class had assigned). For the most part, it was, to be honest, an entirely forgettable day. Nothing awful, nothing fantastic.

After the 1:00 class got out, I headed to the cafeteria and forced some pasta down my throat.

The afternoon was spent in my dorm. Maybe I did homework. I almost certainly hung out in the lounge, watching my hallmates stress out over Super Smash Bros. or MarioKart. At some point, I had dinner, most likely in the cafeteria.

It's odd, looking back. It was a fairly significant day for me. I know that plenty of people run 5Ks, that the 5K really isn't all that extreme a fitness feat, that it borders on being a somewhat pedestrian accomplishment. But it was a level I'd never before touched. And then there was the whole aspect of the frame. By then, the frame was well and truly departed. It still lingered in my mind. It was October and there were still some days where it was warm enough to wear shorts, which showed off the still-purple pattern of dot-shaped incisions where the pins used to be. It had been, by then, less than 10 months since the device was attached, a bit more than five since it had been removed. Yet, despite the significance of the day, I can really only remember about an hour towards the end.

I do recall being on edge the entire evening. I changed into my running outfit—a t-shirt and pair of sweatpants—fairly early, determined that I would leave well in advance of the race and made motions to jump out the dorm for at least half an hour before I actually left. I flitted between my room and the lounge, from chair to standing to chair again. This was big, this was significant and I was not actually certain that I'd be able to do it. At any rate, there was no going back. My race fee had been processed weeks ago. The t-shirt was lying next to my bed.

With just enough and a bit more time to spare, I left the dorm. My initial plan had been to walk to the starting point, towards the center of campus, on my own but when I found out the RA for the other side of the floor was also signed up for the race, I waited for him and we walked together.

It was a chill October evening. I hugged my arms close to my body for warmth and was thankful for the sweatpants (yes, I could've worn a jacket, but I figured it would be nothing but trouble once the race began). We talked a bit on the way down, though it wasn't all that far—fifteen minutes, at most. He knew his way around better than I did, so we were able to take some shortcuts.

We arrived with plenty of time before the race began. Writing this now, I'm tempted to talk about the experience at length, but only a few details are actually relevant. I think it's relevant that it felt like a party, that there was a solid crowd and music and dancing. I think it's relevant that they had a station full of glow-in-the-dark pens to apply to your shirt and I tried to write 12-26-12 on my sleeve in honor of the frame's birthday but didn't quite succeed (mercifully, the attempt washed out when I put the shirt through the laundry later). I think it's relevant that it was energized and I was still nervous, looking through the crowd to try to gauge how many other 5K first-timers there were, trying to gauge if I'd finish last or not (through a mix of analyzing my very unofficial, mostly unknown 1650 time from swimming and pulling numbers out of thin air, I was guesstimating that it would take me about 45 minutes to complete the race).

The starting line proper was an anonymous stretch of road next to one of the University of Virginia's 17 libraries. I believe 200 to 300 people signed up for that particular race. At any rate, the road was well full of people, layers and layers of people.

I made my way towards the back, though not all the way to the back. I didn't want to be rushed on my way out.

The start was announced (I think somebody shouted it) and everybody was off.

Some people took off at a mad sprint. Some people started slowly walking. I started jogging. I'd been told to always go a bit slower than I thought I had to go, but I ignored the advice. Besides, I was barely able to keep up my jog with all the people. The roads weren't blocked off for the race so, once the initial crush barreled through and things thinned out a little, everybody was on the sidewalks, which are only so wide. I dodged and I wove through the crowd.

We passed a library and the primary student life building. We passed the historic Lawn at the heart of the University and we passed the Environmental Science building where I have my Attic Greek lecture Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The path sloped downwards and we headed towards the Engineering School and the Chemistry Building and old dorms.

I'd gone about a kilometer (I'd checked all the distances and walked through the course beforehand using Google Maps, though the middle portion of the course changed the day of the race) and was holding up just fine so far. At any rate, it qualified as an accomplishment. Nowhere near my personal record for longest distance run, nowhere near the actual finish line, but not bad.

We turned onto Alderman Road and headed away from campus. Again, the sidewalk was sloping downhill. I was caught behind a group of two which alternated between jogging and walking, jogging and walking. I like to think I was going at a fairly constant clip—at any rate, I hadn't slowed down to walk quite yet—and kept passing them, though then they'd speed up and pass me.

It was an unfortunate cycle.

We turned onto Thomson Road, a residential street. When I'd done my 1.8 mile run I'd headed down Thomson, checking it out before race day. It was reasonably well-lit, though it had no sidewalk (and, luckily enough, no traffic). My breath was starting to catch but I kept going. I passed the walk-jog-walkers. Still going.

One mile.

The path then turned from Thomson to Fauquier, a short little burst of sidewalk-free asphalt between Thomson and the next street, Lewis Mountain, which thankfully had a sidewalk.

The race organizers set people out on the course to cheer us on. They said we were almost halfway through. I took that as a good sign. I wasn't feeling optimal or, really, extremely close to optimal, but I was still going, I could still keep going.

I kept going.

After scarcely any time on Lewis Mountain, the course turned onto Cameron Lane. This was where the course grew less familiar—I'd never been down these streets physically, only traveled them a couple times digitally through ever-handy Google Maps. Not to mention, I was arriving at the part of the course which had changed earlier that day.

I remember the Cameron Lane portion of the race for one very simple reason: Cameron Lane was downhill. Not an incredibly steep downhill, but definitely downhill, as opposed to "slight downward slant" like other portions of the course. Charlottesville is a hilly city and Cameron Lane headed right down a hill.

It was a nice break, truth be told.

And according the group of race organizers at the bottom of the street, it was the halfway point. I'd been trying to suppress my hope throughout the day, keep my expectations reasonable. Now, it looked like I actually had a shot at finishing the race.

Cameron Lane turned into Bollingwood Road, the downhill transitioning to the inevitable uphill. I'm not going to say that the uphill felt like it lasted forever, because it didn't. I'd been conserving my energy decently well throughout the course and was able to keep chugging along. Besides, though the uphill was continuous, the distance wasn't all that long in comparison to the distance I'd already come. The finish line was still ahead. I was more than halfway through. Couldn't give up now.

Bollingwood to Minor. Minor to Kent. There was a water station at the corner of Minor and Kent, but I passed it. I didn't want to stop for anything. Just keep going. Almost there.

I'd gone about two miles.

Kent to Alderman. Once I was on Alderman, I was safe, pretty much. Once I was on Alderman, you see, all the landmarks I passed were familiar landmarks, the buildings and dorms and patches of sidewalk I passed every single day. Granted, I was running instead of walking and I was on the opposite side of the road compared to normal, but it was familiar.

Since the uphill portion of the race, I'd been alone, having left the walk-jog-walkers behind. My pace was my pace. My father had suggested I find somebody to run with; the people I asked invariably turned me down, not wanting to go to the effort to actually run a 5K. My father also asked me about the visibility. After all, it was a nighttime glow-in-the-dark 5K. And while the glow sticks which came with my race registration were dangling from my wrist and neck (they somehow stayed on the entire race and didn't cause any problems), really the only light was streetlights and the moon. The streetlights were orange-yellow, except for in a few sections where there were none. The moon was full and beautiful. I admired it as I went along, admired it as I had admired the musicality of my steps that first training run.

Alderman to the University of Virginia. The home stretch.

The old dorms came first. My breathing was growing harder and my energy was waning. I kept running, kept running. The finish line wasn't so close I could practically see it, but I knew it was about a kilometer away and I knew if I'd come this far I was going the rest of the way.

Physics Building. Still panting for breath. Slight relief when there was a brief uphill, though the relief evaporated once I was headed uphill again.

Newcomb Hall, Alderman Library. I'm not sure if I was miserable or not but I felt like I was at my limit. Kept powering through. The finish line was now almost so close I could practically see it.

The road headed into another downhill. I sped up as best I could, rushing the finish line (which was was the same as the starting line). A person with a stopwatch told me I'd ran the 5K in 34:42.

I slowed to a stand and let it soak in for a second.

I'd done it.

1) Don't be fat.

2) Run a mile in less than 10 minutes.

3) Finish a 5K, running from start to finish.

It was an old list. It had practically become a part of me.  And, more than four years after finishing the second item on the list, a month after making a solid dent on the first, I had finished it.

That list isn't a part of me anymore. I no longer define myself partially as a person who cannot finish a 5K, a person who can't do this or can't do that.

Later the evening of October 18, I emailed my father to let him know I had survived and finished the 5K. Thrilled at my time, a full ten minutes less than my guess, I included that too. Unable to keep a straight face, he told my mother for me. The only surprise I had to reveal the following morning was my time.

I can't say I mind that much. Maybe I wasn't able to spring the surprise on my mother, but I was able to finish the race. I finished the task which marked the end of my recovery from the frame.

I moved on from the device.

The frame is in Ecuador now, I believe. It is, at any rate, no longer with me. It has left its marks, but more significant than the five half-pin marks and the two piano wire pin marks, more significant than the 11˚ shift in the alignment of my leg is the transformation the frame has wrought within me. It has taken away my limp, it has reduced the possibility of future pain. It has freed my motion and it has allowed me to run a 5K.

That list (don't be fat/10 minute mile/5K) was a funny sort of list. It was a list which set my limits. Oh, look at you, you can't run a mile in less than 10 minutes. Oh, look at you, you can't finish a 5K. It was not a particularly nice list, though it was a significant list.

The frame took that away, too.

It's going to be a while before I know just how much the frame changed me. I'm still picking up the pieces and shoving them into place. But I can say this much: the frame transformed me.

And I'm glad for it.

December 19, 2013-December 31, 2013

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Endgame (A Coda), Part IV: Rushing Into Things

A quick note: "Endgame" has been re-posted from sequel blog Leg After Frame. It is divided into five parts, of which this is the fourth.

ENDGAME, PART IV: RUSHING INTO THINGS

I first heard about the glow-in-the-dark 5K through a post somebody made on the University of Virginia Class of 2017 Facebook page. I looked at it, thought it sounded fun and regretted that there was no chance I'd be in good enough shape by race day, October 18. I had roughly the same thought when I saw a poster for the 5K a few days later. Really, whenever I saw the poster. This looks fun. Too bad I won't be ready in time.

This was before I swam my 1650, my swimmer's mile.

I didn't swim the mile particularly quickly. Really, my pace could most favorably be described as "leisurely," a description which the fact that I wasn't out of breath at the end supports. It was sloppily swum for the most part—having anything coming close to qualifying as an acceptable stroke wasn't really a priority when I embarked on the journey. My flip turns were perhaps more messy than my stroke (when I swam the 1650 I was still taking 10 minutes out of every swim session to do nothing but practice flip turns, though a part of that custom was giving myself a break without admitting to the fact that I needed a break). I didn't know how long it actually took to swim the distance, though it was at least 45 minutes. My speed was inconsistent, though it definitely jumped after the 1200-or-so yard mark. But while it may have been messy and surrounded by uncertainties, the fact remains that I'd finished a 1650.

When I was headed to my 9:00 a.m. Media Studies discussion on October 2, I saw another poster for the glow-in-the-dark 5K. Instead of just writing the mid-October race day off as an impossibility, I had some brief second thoughts before continuing in my mad rush to the classroom. Yes, it was just a bit more than two weeks away and, true, I wasn't planning on even attempting the feat for another three months and, no, I hadn't started training, but…

Two classes later that morning, I was resting on the grass in front of the Chemistry building, staring at the sky, reveling in the completion of my Greek homework and unwinding before my 12:00 Chemistry lecture, alternately keeping my eyes open and pretending to sleep. It was a beautiful fall day and I thought about the weather and I thought about my classes and I probably thought about housing and food and how much time I'd have that afternoon for swimming and I thought about maybe trying to run a 5K considerably earlier than I'd thought I would run a 5K

Why shouldn't I try to run it? You know, aside from the fact that the last time I'd run over a mile was in eighth grade, aside from the fact that the farthest I'd ever tried to run up to that point was 1.5 miles, aside from the fact that just five months ago I had a large metal frame drilled into my leg and ten months ago both bones in my lower right leg surgically broken, aside from the fact that if I swam too hard there was a decent chance my leg would hurt, aside from the fact that October 18 was so, so soon, aside from the fact that my shoes weren't properly broken in and my feet hadn't fully recovered from the round of blisters they acquired with the start of the school year, aside from it all…

To make a not particularly long story shorter, I ignored all those issues, swept up in the grand image of calling my parents the day after the 5K and surprising them with the news that I had completed a full five kilometer race.

I signed up for the race that afternoon.

At this point I was in a difficult situation. A quick spat of online research told me that you really needed four, maybe eight weeks to train for a 5K (also, you needed to be willing to run). I had two weeks. Those two weeks contained two full days flying from Charlottesville to Minneapolis, as well as three days with my family for fall break, who were supposed to be kept in the dark about the whole 5K attempt so as to increase the surprise.

Badly running out of time, I headed to the gym to begin training. At the very least, the thought of training was somewhat on my mind. What I really did was decide to continue my normal swim routine while spending some time on running-esque machines in addition to the swimming.

On my first day of training, I swam, then threw on fifteen minutes with the elliptical. I was breathing hard and sweating much more than I was comfortable with and could barely keep moving by the ten-minute mark. The machine told me I'd gone the equivalent of a mile. I returned to my dorm, fairly dejected. The picture of my 5K readiness was even bleaker than I'd anticipated.

My first day of training wasn't exactly a success. The second was a fully fledged disaster.

On the second day, I decided to do my running work prior to swimming, figuring I may as well start with that classic gym staple: the treadmill. I was forgetting, of course, my complete and utter lack of experience with a treadmill, which resulted in a slight learning curve as I figured out which buttons to push to make the machine work, then clicked the settings up high enough to force myself to run.

Once I got the treadmill at running speed, there was another issue. Namely, there was nothing for me to do but fixate on just how hard the running was, how uncomfortable the impact my foot made with the ground every single step, how hard I needed to breathe, how slick my skin was becoming with sweat, how much I wanted a drink of water.

I ran for a few minutes, got off the treadmill, took a drink of water, got back on.

My return to the treadmill was even worse. I think it was maybe a minute of misery before I gave up, panting and wheezing and more dubious than ever of my decision to try the 5K. Clearly the earlier decision had been overly influenced by pleasant cool of the fall, the greenness of the grass and the blue of the sun which had surrounded me as I made my choice. In the grey clanging reality of the Aquatic and Fitness Center it seemed flat-out moronic.

I dragged myself to the indoor track. Maybe if I ran under my own power…

My experience on the track was better than my experience on the treadmill, I'll give it that. It certainly didn't qualify as fun, but the impact was less jarring and since there were more things to look at, I wasn't as fixated on the misery which is indoor running. But I was uncomfortably slow for somebody stationed in the "jog" lane and breathing hard. I made it around the track perhaps three times before slinking down to the pool, my 5K dream more or less in tatters.

The next day I started to reorganize myself, coming up with a new plan: take some time off (never mind that the race was now just two weeks away), then start in on running outside, going to actual places by running alongside actual streets.

That Sunday, after a Chemistry quiz and before a meeting with my Chemistry lab group, I decided to run a mile. I didn't have the time earlier in the day to go to the pool and I figured a mile shouldn't take that long. I'd plotted out the course beforehand using Google Maps, adjusting as needed to get in the needed distance. As it turned out, according to the visualizing powers of Google Maps, a mile wasn't actually all that far. My course wouldn't take me all the way to central grounds, where most of my classes are and would run entirely along ultra-familiar streets (and sidewalks).

I got into a pair of athletic shorts and left my dorm through the back door, as per the course I'd drawn up. The back door of my dorm empties out onto a hill which slants down towards the cafeteria. I backed up the hill a little bit to give myself a comfortable downhill start, pausing to watch a raccoon clamber up a slim little tree tree which somehow managed to stand upright while bearing the slightly spherical bulk of the creature. But as fascinating as this spectacle was and as adorable as raccoons are, I had a schedule to keep.

I took off.

The treadmill from a few days earlier had been torture and the indoor track had been little better. My last outdoor running experience (a mile and a half, more than four years previous) was mostly characterized by summer heat and a rapidly emerging shortness of breath. In other words, I wasn't exactly looking forward to my mile run. It was a test of my endurance (could I complete a mile?), but mostly it was a means to the end of the glow-in-the-dark 5K, by then less than two weeks away.

And…the experience was stunning. It wasn't stunning in that I died halfway through, collapsing into a pile of exhaustion outside the Chemistry building. It wasn't stunning in excruciation or difficulty or anything of the sort.

It was stunning in that it was actually remarkably pleasant. The air was cool and not too dry and felt surprisingly nice on my throat. The sidewalk felt more comfortable than the surface of the indoor track, though that could just be the fact that I was enjoying the spectacle of the University at night, all lit up. I passed by pedestrians, some of them people I knew. More than anything else, I was struck with the musicality of running, the rhythm inherent in my stride, in my progress. It was easy, it was doable, I was actually, surprisingly, enjoying myself.

I was one of those motivated people I saw running on the sidewalks every day.

It's an interesting transformation, from hopelessly out-of-shape (though mercifully never quite to the level of resembling a blob) to being able to run a mile and feel pretty good about the whole endeavor. A mile's not that long, I know, but ever since second grade it's occupied a sort of vaunted position in my mind (if you've had enough miserable experiences running the mile…). Over the course of the semester, as I stripped before stepping into the shower, I could see my stomach shrinking and muscles emerging on my arms. I was still nowhere near being fully athletic, but…progress.

Two days later, I ventured out on another run, 1.8 miles. The mile had been a test, an experiment to see what I could do. 1.8 miles was something completely different. If I finished that run, I'd set a new personal record, overtaking a mark which was by then more than four years old.

Like I had two days prior, I gave myself a downhill start. This time, my course had me venturing further into my school's campus and jogging some residential (as opposed to collegiate) streets, streets which were included in the 5K's course.

Again, there was a musicality in my stride and a pleasant coolness in the air. Again, I made it through the run without much trouble.

When I stopped, I caught my breath and reflected for a moment. Yes, I'd done it. Yes, I'd finally surpassed the mile and a half. I was making progress. After those first two miserable attempts at training, my confidence in my ability to run a 5K was restored.

That was, of course, the end of my training. A full two runs, neither a negligible distance but neither really approaching 3.1 miles, and I was done. I continued making other preparations for the race, namely telling lots of people outside my immediate family that I was running the race, which seemed like a good way to ensure that I gave completing the race my all in an attempt to live up to my words. But as far as running…

I have had better plans.

To be fair, I had more runs planned, three or four spread over the next week and a half which would have ranged from 2.1 to 3.0 miles. This was before I was overwhelmed at school by a paper which quickly grew out of control and was ensnared by issues with printers ranging from the death of my printer to my school computing account not being adequately set up to allow me to use school printers. Once I turned the paper in, it was time to fly to Minneapolis for break, and at home I never found the energy to actually get out and complete my runs.

Perhaps I didn't finish my training because I didn't think I could complete the planned three mile training runs. While I could picture myself making the phone call home, telling my mother (this motivating scene mostly revolved around my mother) I'd done it, I also couldn't quite believe that I could run a full three miles. 1.8 miles was one thing. 3.1 miles, something entirely else.

I flew back to Charlottesville from break with about three days to go before the race. At home, the only progress I'd made towards the 5K was telling my father that I planned to run it (and telling him not to tell my mother), giving myself yet more incentive to reach the finish line or collapse trying. Every time I thought about the race, scheduled for 8:00 p.m. that Friday, I was filled with nervousness. I can remember feeling physically a bit sick. I knew I'd never quite forgive myself if I didn't try, if I didn't make some attempt at putting a ribbon and bow on the whole frame experience, on showing myself how far I'd come after five months of having metal-transfixed legs. But, from hours (and days) (and weeks) (and years) (and a Taylor Spatial Frame) behind the starting line, five kilometers starts to look like an impossibly long distance.

Endgame (A Coda), Part III: First Splashes

A quick note: "Endgame" has been re-posted from sequel blog Leg After Frame. It is divided into five parts, of which this is the third.

ENDGAME, PART III: FIRST SPLASHES

One of the things the University of Virginia enjoys telling potential students about, along with its time-tested honor system, our historic Lawn, our refusal to use conventional terms such as "campus" and "freshman" to describe our school and related subjects and all things Thomas Jefferson is that the University is home to the largest hot tub around. I can't quite recall if it's the largest hot tub in the mid-Atlantic, the largest hot tub in the South or the largest hot tub on the east coast. It's the largest hot tub of some geographic region. Let's just leave it at that.

After four months at the school, I still haven't actually been inside the hot tub.

The hot tub can actually best be described as a hot pool. It has a basketball court. It's at least three feet deep. If you aren't very picky about how long the laps you swim are, you could swim laps in it. It has its own lifeguard station. In short, it actually looks fairly impressive.

For those wondering, the hot tub isn't a particularly arduous journey from my dorm room. Actually, it's about a two or three minute walk down the hill (this is after I lazily take the elevator from the fifth floor to the ground floor because stairs are overrated), followed by a mad dash across the street. In theory, I could be out of my room, changed and in the hot tub in less than fifteen minutes without coming anywhere close to hurrying.

But I just can't quite motivate myself to soak up the hot tub.

The hot tub is located in the Aquatic and Fitness Center, a large, fairly new gymnasium (at the very least, it's better than the across-the-street-without-having-to-walk-down-the-hill Slaughter Recreation Center, which is dim and fluorescent and distinctly lacking in pools and a good deal closer than the basically-not-in-Charlottesville North Grounds Recreation Center). I spent copious amounts of time in the AFC this semester. I just never made it into the hot tub.

Perhaps I should back up a little bit.

Headed into my first year of college, I decided that I really had just one goal: I wanted to run a 5K by the end of the year. In May, I thought that meant running a 5K in March 2014. In July, I still thought it meant running a 5K in March 2014. But in order to run a 5K, from the start line to the finish line, taking no breaks, never walking, I'd need to train.

I decided my goal was to swim about an hour a day four or five days a week, hopefully building up to being able to swim my hour straight through. In retrospect, I'm not sure is the most logical path to a 5K (from what I've gathered in the months since, swimming for an hour straight isn't exactly a low bar to set). Add the fact that I didn't have a real swimsuit, just a pair of what my actual swimmer brothers derogatorily referred to as "deck shorts." Also add the fact that I was years removed from anything resembling proper swim instruction and therefore completely lacking in a certain area called "technique." Oh, and add the fact that I couldn't actually complete a flip turn. Also, as it turned out, I couldn't swim the 25 yards across the pool without needing to take a 30-plus second breather. I'm sure the biking helped out, but in late August and early September, when I was starting out…let's just say it wasn't a pretty picture and leave it at that.

With all that said, I still started swimming. On the day I moved in my brothers helped pick out a pair of goggles and a swim cap for me. The goggles were an improvement over my then-current pair. The swim cap has helped prevent me from having my hair chlorinated, bleached and transformed into a mess with the rough texture and consistency of a Brillo pad.

And I headed down to the pool.

Technically speaking, you're supposed to pay and rent a towel at the AFC. I prefer to smuggle my own towel in a plastic bag (it's not particularly subtle, so I'm not sure "smuggle" is really the right term). Unfortunately, while not renting a towel saves money, it also means that you don't have a key for the locker room, which meant that for at least the first month I spent a solid few minutes testing locker after locker to see if it was unlocked and empty.

After slinging my stuff into the locker, I'd change as quickly as possible. I'm not going to pretend I was incredibly comfortable with the thought of showing my still-soft, still-slightly-repulsive body off to strangers. While the deck shorts aren't quite as revealing as, say, a legitimate swimsuit, it still involves not wearing a shirt, letting the old gut hang out, basking in the open air.

Before dropping me off, my mother told me to just get over it. Just don't feel too embarrassed, get in the water, swim. Get in shape.

I'd had enough with being grossly out of shape.

I swam.

The frequency of my swimming wavered from week to week. Some weeks I was excellent at getting down to the pool, other weeks I felt overwhelmed with my homework, tired, irritable, sore, whatever. I did my best to avoid making up excuses to not swim. Me and my bright green deck shorts became a common sight at the AFC. I learned which lanes I liked (the deeper ones) and started to get some grasp on what time of day was best for me to swim.

In the beginning, I'd thought about waking up early—6:00 a.m. early—to get some morning laps in. I actually did a couple of days, but increasingly found that I preferred swimming in roughly the pool's final operating hour of the day (it closed at 10:00 p.m. on weekdays).

But as interesting as the time of day I chose to swam may be, that isn't the main narrative here. The main narrative, after all, started almost a year ago when a certain metal frame was affixed to my leg. Or maybe it started earlier with the long string of events and happenstances which led to my decision to take on the device.

So. Back on track (somewhat).

I swam. I tried to ignore the fact that I had perhaps the single most distinctive swimsuit of anybody in the AFC. Most people, after all, had something reasonably skintight, probably some shade of black. I had a pair of shorts made out of a tragically unmistakably green material which was okay in chlorinated water and salt water alike. I tried to ignore the fact that I was wearing far less fabric than I prefer wearing (preferred: long pants (shorts okay post-frame), t-shirt, sweatshirt and/or jacket, scarf, hat, gloves optional).

I just pulled on my swim cap (it wasn't as hard as my brothers tried to make it sound), yanked on my goggles, dropped into the water and started kicking.

The actual timeline of my swimming is hazy. Generally speaking, I don't think while I swim. At times, I count. I count the minutes left in my set or the distance I've swum or I just count to count. I feel the rhythm of my stroke and the movement of the water. I feel the liquid pulling on my suit and I try to avoid flooding my goggles. Sometimes I tell myself to think about this story or this class, but really I just focus on my surroundings. It's a much-needed break from the rest of college and quite possibly the only reason I managed to remain sane throughout the semester. But it also means that I don't have an exact timeline for this post.

Still…I know the general phases of swimming I went through, which is good enough.

Phase One: The Awkward Phase
In The Awkward Phase, I was only able to swim for 25 yards (the distance across the main AFC pool) at a time. This was partially because I couldn't do a flip turn and thereby keep going after my 25 yards, partially because 25 yards did me in. While I was able to get from one side of the pool to the other, it involved a lot of splashing and random motion and didn't happen particularly fast. I generally allowed about 60 seconds per 25, including rest. In case anybody was wondering, that's not particularly stellar, though as a starting-point…well, while not amazing, it's functional.

Phase Two: The Noticeably Less Awkward Phase
Eventually, the rest breaks between 25 yard trials started to decrease. I wasn't swimming non-stop (that involves learning how to do a flip turn), but my confidence was up. The days where 15 minutes of halting 25s started taking on the appearance of something from a distantly forgotten past even though (of course) they weren't, seeing as those days were a week or two prior.

Phase Three: The Almost Capable of Doing a Flip Turn Phase
By then, I figured I might as well learn how to do a flip turn. My dream of just being able to get in the pool and swim for an hour without stopping was appearing closer than ever. I just needed to learn how to avoid taking breaks. A few YouTube videos (and some serious trial and error later), I sort of got the hang of it one Sunday afternoon. Granted, it was a wildly inconsistent sort of flip turn. Sometimes my body would crash into the pool's hard tile wall. Sometimes my feet would manage to miss the wall and strike the bottom. I couldn't exactly share a lane and still manage to flip turn. But I could come at the wall from one way, flip and come out facing the opposite direction, the basic idea of the thing.

Phase Four: Burgeoning Distance
After I figured out a few basic tricks to attempting the flip turn, I started going after various distances. The first day I went for a relatively humble 250 yards, which was pushed to 400, reaching 1,000 within a week. I kept track of the distances in dark green Sharpie on the calendar on my desk. Sometimes I'd get excited and tell my roommate about my progress. My roommate told me it wouldn't last. I ignored him and felt celebratory anyway.

One day towards the end of September, I got in the pool and, halfway through my first 25, decided to go for a 1650, the swimmer's mile. My bright green suit billowing out behind me, I started to swim. More accurately, I started to not stop swimming. Turn after turn, length after length. Sometimes I lost track of how far I'd swam and repeated the most recent 50 or so yards for good measure. Ten minutes went by, then twenty, then thirty.

Forty-five minutes later, I was done. I felt good, too—I'd been going at a fairly gradual pace and still had enough energy to splash around for more than twenty minutes, studiously avoiding the hot tub just a few feet over. I called my parents to let them know that I'd finished a 1650 (which was possibly an 1800, depending on how badly I counted).

My initial goal for the school year was to run a 5K in March. I was very certain that I'd get it done in March. But sometime in September, I decided that I might be ready by January or February.

One or two days after the 1650, my goal became much more ambitious.

Endgame (A Coda), Part II: Corrective Measures

A quick note: "Endgame" has been re-posted from Leg+Frame's sequel blog, Leg After Frame. It is divided into five parts, of which this is the second.

ENDGAME, PART II: CORRECTIVE MEASURES

It was my mother who first had the idea to do something about my frame-impacted physical condition. It was early June, maybe mid-June (the days and weeks all kind of blur together now, months later) and I was mostly focusing on the fact that the splint was gone, which was rather exciting. Granted, my midsection had devolved into flab and jiggled uncomfortably whenever impacted and had expanded to the point where when I looked down at my feet they were mostly obscured by stomach. But those weren't major concerns. The major concern was with my leg, where the imprints of the pins were still a vivid purple color and the x-rays showed bones which were almost but not quite continuous.

In other words, when my mother informed me I was going on a diet, I was a bit alarmed. But I traipsed upstairs to the bathroom scale (not using the backwards one-legged hopping motion from the days of not bearing weight) and checked. When plugged into a BMI calculator on her phone, the weight officially put me into the overweight zone for the first time ever, which was a problem. I mean, for what felt like eons I'd been dancing on the line between normal and overweight, never quite easing over into the Zone of It's Time To Get Worried.

And now, thanks to a 2.5 pound metal device, I was in that dread Zone and significantly farther than I wanted to admit from the goal of not being fat. According to my then-two-years-old learner's permit, I was 6'0" and ought to weigh about 165 pounds. I actually weighed in excess of 190.

Nor was I particularly humored at the idea of dieting. I agreed with it in principal (and with my mother's reassurances that it wouldn't be for very long, just long enough to cure the lingering proof of my surgery-produced months of inactivity) but at the same time…it was embarrassing. While I was getting my head around cutting food intake and mandatory exercise days, my brothers were diving into summer swim season, waking up early for sometimes multiple practices for days, lounging around the house sans shirt so as to best show off the physical benefits of the pool.

I think that's one of the key things at the crux of my frame experience. So many of the people around me, from my brothers to the track team, are very athletically inclined. Generally speaking, I'm not (or at least, I wasn't). The frame, on top of correcting my leg 11˚ and boasting the approximate monetary value of a small car, amplified this aspect of my life. Even now, months removed from the events in question, these blog entries are probably the most difficult I've written. On some level, I know that the reasons I slipped to what I slipped to were valid, but so much of me rebels at the thought of cashing in on mere excuses and… And what it really comes down to is I'm ashamed of my body. Less so now in December, but in June and July and August into September and October, I was ashamed. But more on that later.

My dieting experience could best be described as brief. The day before the experience was due to start, I accompanied my mother on a Whole Foods run to stock up on supplies. I'm rather fond of grocery stores, enjoying the colorful packaging and the dangling of free samples. The Whole Foods trip, while balanced with the realities behind it, was rather fun. After all, it was the first Whole Foods I'd been to in ages and it was bright and there were interesting scents. So I survived that just fine. I also made it through a meal, maybe two, a snack, and a walk around a small lake close to the pool the brothers were practicing in and was showing no signs of giving up. Yes, a full half-day of diet and I was going strong, before my mother decided I probably didn't really need to be on the diet.

Since it was much more fun to choose my own food for lunch, I concurred and concluded the experience.

The funny thing, writing about all this now in December, with the snow fluttering from clouds invisible against the gray of the Minnesota winter sky, the frost accumulating in snowflake patterns on the window, is that I hardly remember the experience. I remember talking to my mother and being less than absolutely helpful at Whole Foods. I remember the duration of the experience. And I remember the shock I'd felt when she suggested it to me, when the combination of the bathroom scale and the app on her phone proved the need of the experience (or at least highly suggested it).

I came up with a new strategy before too long.

One summer day, I decided to gather a brother with me and go for a bike riding expedition. We live close to one of Minnesota's more than 10,000 lakes and fortunately, our lake is surrounded by a bike path. On top of that, our house is in a fairly quiet neighborhood as far as vehicular traffic goes.

After wrestling with the bike's tires, the brother and I were off. Instead of heading around the lake, we turned onto the roads, relying on our instinctive survival skills (and the lack of cars) to avoid being run over. The ride was brief and to the point.

The leg didn't complain and I wasn't thoroughly winded. I biked behind my brother, allowing him to take the lead. Generally speaking, I was taking fewer pedals per arbitrary unit of distance than he, coasting fairly frequently. But, most astonishingly, during those pesky uphills, I was fine. Well, we didn't really tackle a challenging uphill. Still…

I started biking every night. Why biking? Well, mostly convenience. Walking's kind of slow-paced and I love the aspect of biking where you can explore (at least, explore along reasonably unused roads and designated bike trails, which is still an awful lot, at least in Minneapolis). Running, while it would obviously solve the pacing issues inherent in walking, carries its own set of risks, including the fact that I was unsure of my leg's stability…but beyond that, I wasn't sure if I was physically up to it. I've always linked running with some concept of massive difficulty and after months on my behind, well, it just didn't seem like a good idea, not least because I wasn't sure how the bone growths along my knee would take to it. As for swimming, the YMCA pool is a solid 20 minutes from our house by car and I can't drive (first it was a lack of interest, then when I became a bit more interested, I didn't have the time to learn with the frame looming over everything, then I wasn't interested again). From a transportation point of view, it just wasn't feasible.

Almost every evening in the summer, I straddled my bike and glided down the alley, steering my way past the myriad potholes lining out portal to the world at large. Some nights I flew along the sides of residential streets, keeping my eyes open for cars backing up or loose dogs. I'd go down block after block, relishing the ease I slid over all that asphalt. Those rides were, generally speaking, shorter than the bike path rides. Let me assure you, I did my utmost to explore every bike trail within about a 30 minute radius of the house. Some of the trails were once-and-done experiences, poorly maintained by our parks and recreation board with a zigzag bump running down the center. Some of the trails were expertly maintained, smooth and joyous to ride. Some trails crossed roads, some had devastating hills in the center. I grew more confident in gliding downhill, accumulating speed until I felt I could allow my momentum to carry me another mile, at least, not thinking about the uphill I'd be facing on the return home. Some trails ran alongside lakes, some alongside creeks, some were actually just parts of roads linking other bits of trails. I grew increasingly used to waiting for traffic lights to tell me I could go. Some nights I headed off with my brothers, some nights I ventured out alone.

But I was attacking the problem my mother and I found at the beginning of the summer. I was striking at the weight of the frame (or at least, the weight of the five months I spent with the device).

Before too long, I was setting distance goals for myself. Soon, I was edging up to (beyond, even) ten miles a night. In the beginning, I wasn't allowing myself to go much more than three.

I decided that my goal for the summer was to bike to the Mississippi River and back. The problem was that such a venture would require a companion, probably my father if I expected my mother to sign off on the venture.

It was at least a month after I started asking for the adventure to the Mississippi that my father agreed to join me. On August 10 (a date I've checked through the magic of Facebook), we set off.

It was at once a culmination to my final summer at home before college, a truly lovely summer day spent with my father, and a major physical accomplishment. Not so much in the distance covered, but in the general fact of the thing. I'd been talking about biking to the Mississippi for years and, at long last, I got the chance to try it. And I did it.

Most of my evening bike rides couldn't really be described as intense. I favored a gradual pace without any quick accelerations or decelerations. The main allowance I made towards their status as exercise rides (though they were also scenery rides and get fresh air rides and have a moment of quiet rides) was that I tended not to stop for breaks. I never felt particularly sweaty or gross when I returned home to my chosen armchair.

The bike ride to the Mississippi was less hard-core. Most of it was accomplished on bike trails at a fairly gentle pace. Then again, the pace had to be gentle—there was a lot of ground to cover. The first four, five miles (probably more) were familiar territory for me. Sometimes my father and I chatted, sometimes we didn't. When we came to the end of familiar territory, my eyes started to rove over all the greenery we passed, the glimmers of lake and creek, the vague road-covered swells and dips of hill, the arching trees and the summer flowers.

After about 6 miles, we stopped at a Dairy Queen, hearteningly close to the river itself. I stood guard over the bikes outside while he grabbed ice creams and clear little plastic glasses filled with water. We stood and chatted and enjoyed the soft-serve while he caught his breath. By then we'd gotten far enough from home that we were scarcely alone. There was a bike rental stand just nearby doing impressive business. And it was a truly stunning summer day. Unlike so many August days, it wasn't broiling, it wasn't humid. The sun was out and there were a few clouds in the sky.

There are a few other days that summer which gave August 10 some competition as far as being the best day of the summer (it's hard to argue with a day riding roller coasters with the family). Still, I have no qualms in labeling August 10 as one of the at least three best days that summer.

We had our ice cream and meandered through Minnehaha Park, doing our best to avoid four-person pedal cars. Sometimes we stuck to the actual paths. Sometimes in order to find our way we went through the grass. We stopped and listened to an old-time band from Northfield, Minnesota, about an hour southish of the Twin Cities, recording a video we sent to my mother. We took pictures in front of the Minnehaha Falls and continued on our way.

The primary weight of biking along the Mississippi River was, for me, the fact that I'd made it far enough to bike along the Mississippi River. The paths were fine—I can't remember them being particularly memorable, one way or the other. The views of the river itself, flowing wide so many feet below us, were lovely. We stopped for pictures (of course), perching atop a small wall to capture the river in the background before getting back on our bikes.

On the way home, we stopped at a Caribou. Really, there was an awful lot of stop-and-go on the way back. There's only so much bike time the untrained human rear is capable of taking and our trip to the Mississippi was pushing those boundaries.

My knees hurt the next day and for a few days after. Just a slight soreness, nothing earth-shattering. The frame hasn't entirely fixed my legs; there is still motion-aggravated pain from bone growths situated near the joint.

But at the very least, I'd made it to the Mississippi River. I wouldn't call the bike ride a major fitness goal, but while it was no completed 5K, it was definitely a priority and a step in the right direction. Even better—my weight had started to decrease. Sure, my waist still struggled to fit in my jeans and I filled out the t-shirts I'd purposely chosen as being too large, but I'd made progress.

I'd made progress.

Endgame (A Coda), Part I: The Weight of the Frame

A quick note: this entry, "Endgame," was originally written in five parts for Leg+Frame's sequel blog, Leg After Frame. I know I said I was finished with Leg+Frame, but…after some reflection I decided to post "Endgame" here as well. It's a continuation of the story. More than that, it's the ending, the ending it was always headed towards.

ENDGAME, PART I: THE WEIGHT OF THE FRAME

The one year anniversary of when I met the Taylor Spatial Frame is in eight days. That first encounter was in a hospital waiting room. It was the day after Christmas, 2012 and I had spent the past too many months in a state of panic regarding the fact that it was time to straighten my leg. Well, not so much panic at the thought of my leg being straightened (that I was fine with), but panic at the through of my leg being transfixed with metal pins.

On its own, the frame wasn't all that bad. Sure, it wasn't about to win any prizes for beauty, but then again, the external fixator was thought up as more of a functional device than an aesthetic wonder. The two ring structure held up by metal struts worked well enough. And at any rate, it was simple enough and plenty sturdy. It worked.

And I'd argue that it looked a whole lot better like this:

Frame (weight: approx. 2.5 pounds), begging an 11˚ correction and still without a leg to trap

Than like this:

The frame, gleefully claiming the leg. The main contributor to its decline in beauty would be the hardware store additions which attach it to the pins poking out of my skin

I spent six days in a hospital bed and another five months flitting from couch to chair to bed. Within a period of weeks, I was able to get around without my wheelchair, which was big, bulky awkward and not particularly well-loved. Within a period of months, I was able to totter around without my walker, though the walker remained nearby, just in case. Mercifully, I never slipped and fell with the device on my leg, an event which could have been disastrous.

The first bit was, not surprisingly, the worst. The first day or so in the hospital was spent dutifully raising a massive blister. The remaining time in the hospital was spent abandoning intravenous pain medications for oral medications (and keeping an eye on the blister).

I still remember leaving the hospital. After six days, all of which more or less spent lying in a bed, sometimes watching television, sometimes sleeping, sometimes eating hospital food, it was invigorating just to leave. Yeah, I wasn't 100% sold on the car ride home (less then two weeks previously I'd been in my father's car when it slipped on some ice and was totaled and besides, I was worried about the roads, toughing out another Minnesota winter, would jostle the leg uncomfortably), but the snow outside the window sparkled and I was free.

At home, I lived downstairs, mostly in the back room with Sunny the often-sleeping golden retriever and the television. Though I'd entertained dreams of, you know, being productive and reading while stuck with the device, mostly I watched movies. When it was time to get cleaned, I used a sort of sitting-hop motion to make my way up the stairs, backward, the frame held protectively in the air.

Before too long, I returned to school, which helped considerably. With actual coursework to get through, the boredom was greatly reduced, though not even close to eliminated.

And in the spring, after some negotiations with my parents and surgeon, I showed up to help out with track, which helped even more, giving me crucial time spent outside.

On May 3, 2013, the day of the final snow of the never-ending Minnesota winter of 2012-2013, the frame was removed.

Which is really where this particular story begins.

One of the things I haven't mentioned quite so much about the frame seems incredibly obvious. For more than half a year (once you take the post-frame full leg splint into account), my motion was incredibly limited. Stairs were, for the most part, beyond me. Certainly walking with any speed at all or for any distance at all was well beyond my capabilities (if I recall, there was a time or two where I learned that if I walked too far, the pin sites bled a bit). And during that time I was still cheerfully placing too-large quantities of food down my throat.

I wasn't in particularly good shape when I was wheeled into the operating room for the frame's placement. The situation had only worsened when it was time to take the frame off. When I was weight before the surgery to determine the proper dosage of anesthesia, I recall somebody mentioning that I'd put on ten pounds. Not a huge amount of weight, I suppose, but considering how distrustful I'd been of physical activity beforehand…

By the time the splint came off, my BMI was officially (albeit barely) out of the "normal" range and into the "overweight" range.

It was a startling moment. My three younger brothers are all varsity-level (high school) swimmers, one of whom goes to national meets. I've spent enormous amounts of time at track practice with some incredibly gifted athletes. Among my friends, the picture is similar.

And then there's me. Prior to the frame, as I've mentioned, I wasn't in particularly good shape. At all. I was much more likely to focus on the latest academic assignment or spend my time gliding from web page or web page or picking up a new book to read or a magazine or something or watching a movie or… There was a large part of me which wanted to use my orthopedic woes as reasonable enough excuses for my complete and utter inability to get my act together and take care of my body. To be fair, there were some things I did. My attendance at track was a point of personal pride and I consistently put as much effort as I possibly could.

But at the same time, there was so much more I wanted to do. For a while, I had a list of roughly three goals I wanted to accomplish. The list was never written down, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a major factor in my life. As follows,

1) Don't be fat (yes, I know it sounds callous, but that's the way the list worked)
2) Run a mile in less than 10 minutes
3) Run a 5K, start to finish

Looking at my list now, it seems at once callous and harsh and completely, utterly, devastatingly reasonable. I made a major dent in the list in eighth grade, when I finished a mile in 9 minutes, 19 seconds. But as far as goal number one (which alternately manifested itself as "don't be fat" and "be in reasonable shape") and goal number three, by the time the frame was attached, no progress.

By the time the frame came off, less progress. Well, less direct progress. I'd regressed in goal number one, but the frame also robbed me of many of my excuses by opening my horizons in regards to physical activity and provided a major motivator (let us be perfectly clear: I did not go through the five month experience for nothing), not to mention reducing the possibility of very early arthritis.

As far as the third goal…I spent a lot more time thinking about it than I'd like to readily admit. If you look through Leg Plus Frame, the blog I kept while the frame was on, the concept rears its head a couple of times. Once, while talking to a classmate about the blog, I mentioned that I'd like to stop the blog when I'd run a 5K. I'd taken goal number three to heart.

I had decided I would not consider myself properly, fully recovered from the frame until I had run a 5K from start to finish.