Seven minutes of cycling…

I got my alpine start this morning!  With a really sore neck.  The muscles in my neck are incredibly sore today from that bad fall I took bouldering yesterday morning.  My cervical spine doesn’t hurt, which is good!  The muscles feel like what I’ve heard people describe when they’ve gotten whiplash.  That’s probably from my head bouncing so hard off the mat yesterday.  My glasses did go flying, after all!  And I did see what looked like an explosion in pitch black darkness (the “stars” that I described in my earlier post), indicating that I had hit my head rather hard and sloshed my brain against my skull.  I can hardly turn my head today!  So, that being said, I decided against climbing this morning at the climbing gym and opted for seven minutes of cycling.  I promised Scott, one of the owners, that I would put in at least five minutes of cycling as a warm-up to climbing every time I came in to climb.  I’ve stuck with seven minutes, because I like the number seven…  My heart rate stays around 107-112 bpm at the end of a steadily-pedaled seven minutes of cycling, which is great!  My heart rate is under a lot better control since I’ve been walking almost every day with Squiggle Bug and my mom since March.  Endurance-type exercise combined with cardiovascular exercise pays off!  I didn’t feel so good when I got finished with my seven minutes’ worth of cycling, so I didn’t climb.  This injury is going to take several days to recover from, at least.  I’m going to take it a little bit easy for the next few days and see how things play out.  I’m on some pain meds right now for it and can actually turn my head, but feel a little goofy from them.  I’ll survive, though.  Calculated risk.  Something can always go wrong!!!