5k to 10k
In December of last year I first hit my 5k milestone. Before I got a wheelchair I had begun a ‘couch to 5k’ journey hoping I’d be able to run 5k eventually
MS had other plans.
A relapse targeted my spine leaving me with something akin to an incomplete spinal injury, a section of the spinal cord that could no longer communicate consistently or effectively. My legs were weak and I couldn’t walk for more than 12 minutes, and running was only wise to attempt during the zombie apocalypse. I would almost certainly become one of the walking dead. Well, one of the crawling dead at least.
I started using my wheelchair and honestly had no idea where I’d get to. I had become intimately familiar with the profound lack of control I now had over my own life, and the wheelchair was no exception. I would wheel as much and as far as I could, knowing that at any moment a relapse could end my adventures, and we wouldn’t worry too much about the destination. We’d discover what was possible.
Today, I completed my first 10k workout in my wheelchair, the Rocinante.
We wheeled offroad, through fields and dirt paths, through tunnels of trees and past hills tall enough to see the whole of the city. I took the MkII flywheel with me, pushing on gravel paths and over tree roots jutting out of the ground. I have a little mobile phone holder on the front of the chair with my route glowing and music in my ears.
I even went through a kissing gate.
Kissing gates, it turns out, are the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced in the chair. More of a challenge than the entrance to that pub that tried to throw me from the chair. More difficult than the gap between the train and the platform edge on some tube stations, down which I imagine you can find Bilbo trading riddles with Golem. Harder even than the hill known only as the ‘widowmaker’ to overcome. Kissing gates are a true obstacle.
For the uninitiated kissing gates are designed to prohibit livestock and cyclists from passing through. They require opening the gate from one side, stepping inside, then sweeping it past your body to reveal the exit. For walkers this is straightforward. The space inside is easily large enough for a person to stand within, and steps, stones, unstable terrain, overgrowth, aren’t really problematic. For a wheelchair, this is very nearly impassable. In these kissing gates the space in which to ‘stand’ is only barely large enough even for the sleekness of the Roci. The terrain is usually not stable, it’s overgrown, and sometimes there is a large stone to step up to stand atop.
My approach has become thus. I wheel right up to the gate, remove the MkII. Without the flywheel I can no longer navigate on unstable ground but I cannot fit the Roci inside the gate with it attached. I place the flywheel unstably on my lap. I reach over and open the gate, push it open. It clatters against the other side to let me know it’s in place. The gate will not stay that way. I have moments before it closes independently.
I wheel myself into the opening and grab hold of the rails that hold everything together. I haul myself and the chair into position manually. This is the real challenge, I have to get everything into this small space without losing the MkII, without falling, and before the gate closes on me. Once in place, I pull the gate across, and then wheel the chair over unstable ground to get out of the gate. This means, without falling, I must wheelie the chair and roll on two wheels over obstacles to reach safer ground. Once there, I replace the MkII, cautiously greet the cows that have curiously approached, and push on.
There are four kissing gates on my 10k route, and I went through them all. I did get some help from some kindly passers by for some of them.
So now I am able to go 10k, what is the next adventure?
My ambition is to take the train to a destination, display my offroad route on my phone, and wind my way home fully independently. Oddly the biggest challenge here isn’t the distance, though consistently pushing 16k every day over multiple days is my long-term ambition (I have a secret project I’m working on), it’s my bladder. On a good day, when I can catheterise freely, I can buy myself a few hours before the alarms start ringing. But it’s not consistent. Frequently I’ll find those alarms ringing earlier than expected and rarely I’ve found myself unable to reach a toilet before riverbanks break. When I’m too hot, like when I’m exercising, I have virtually no control over the riverbanks and, when the alarms do sound, we’re in real danger. This is a problem I’ll need to creatively solve as my distances increase.
The other barrier, which I first discovered on the cliffside routes in Devon, is terrain. Fine, tightly packed gravel is totally wheelable. Larger stones are a huge problem. I can wheel over them, but my poor body was not built for being shaken like I’m in the middle of a mosh pit at Reading festival in the late 90s. Loose gravel is also something of a disaster. The wheels spin on the gravel, and with the force I apply through the wheels the sudden loss of resistance wrenches my shoulders suddenly. Honestly, I’d not be surprised if I dislocated a shoulder one of these days.
My ambition to go further on unfamiliar routes is for sure going to be a new series of challenges to face. But this is what we do, we tackle one at a time, try solutions, make mistakes, get injured, recover, try something new. Because tomorrow I could relapse and it could all be over. So today, we plug in headphones, we throw ourselves at kissing gates, we hurtle through gravel…