Day 26: Don't You Know I'm Still Standing Better Than I Ever Did

I was held hostage this past weekend. I swear it! My knees held me at rope point and threatened to do something nasty to me and my loved ones if I didn't stop forcing them to jump! What could I do? When one is staring down the business end of a jump rope you tend to do crazy things! I had no choice but to acquiesce to their demands.

So there was no jumping on Saturday. Or Sunday. Or Monday. There was plenty of walking—or in my case, waddling. I usually can walk with a long stride at a pretty good clip often to the beat of one of my dance mixes. That wasn't exactly happening either. I was forced to take many more shorter steps than normal due to the foot and the knees not wanting to fully cooperate.

Of course, if my legs thought they were getting the easy way out, they had another thing coming. You see, all around my house is hills. There is no such thing as a flat piece of land around here. Some hills have slight grades and others are very steep slopes. Granted, I wasn't jumping, but the legs still got a pretty good work out—which even included the "1000 Steps". That's this really long stone staircase that goes at a 45 degree angle up the side of a hill.

The amazing thing that occurred as a result of this break was that when Tuesday morning rolled around, the pain in my knees had lessened quite a bit. I could actually do the floor jumps! And I even did them with my arms behind my back! (I was a little nervous about that because ever since the knees gave up, I hadn't been able to kneel on the floor let alone get up from it.)

When I got home from work Tuesday evening, I decided to put everything to the test. Using some new found stretches, I spent five minutes warming up. Then I strapped on the knee braces, grabbed the jump rope and went to the back yard. The most wonderful thing happened! I did all the jumps with nary a break between the hundreds. Although I was breathing hard and sweating profusely, I wasn't the quivering wheezing mass I had been just a week prior. (I'm not even going to try to compare myself to what my condition was during the first week with only 250 jumps!) Yes, I was constantly tripping and tangling and whacking myself in the head, but they were just momentary pauses. I just kept jumping, breaking my goal into littler numbers—just ten numbers at a time. Before I knew it, I hit 100, quickly grabbed a stone, tossed it, and immediately went back to jumping. Before I knew it, all the stones were gone.

I did my cool down stretches for about five or so minutes, then went back into the house. The knee braces came off and the ice pack went on, alternating every 15-20 minutes between each knee. About an hour later I was up and walking about. A little stiff, a little sore, but nothing like I had been experiencing.

This morning's leg torture was the "Creep". My legs had stiffened a bit overnight so I really couldn't get down as close to the floor as Patrick is in the picture. I ended up doing as best as I could and did Thriller. Knees bent as far down as I could go, hands on knees, and start walking. Let me tell you, my legs were tired at the end of the third set!

As for the jump rope this evening—it was as good as yesterday. The time just flew by the time I reached the last stone. Some RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) and dinner later, I was able to walk again with just a little pain. I think my legs are starting to strengthen. They're definitely getting that rock solid feel.