In shape enough for such a thing?

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Well, yes and no.  As I said, I will need to hit the pool until it warms, then hit the bike this summer.  And yet I was able to work for my mother at quite a pace for three weeks.  While three weeks of washing windows, moving furniture, hauling this or that, and just the up and down of commands, might not seem like much, you would have to meet my mother to understand.  Three weeks!  That was almost boot camp.  Further, I was able to be up early quite some number of days, I drove to town on top of that and shopped while in town, some number of days each week, and there was more.  So, yes, even as is, I can probably handle a week of strenuous demand.  Though, I wasn't on medicines.  Then again, medicines have usually helped, once the shake-down cruise is complete.

My doctor suggested, from doing his own personal stress test, that I was extremely fit (he brought someone else to help with me, in case I failed, due to my... on-paper delicate condition... by the way).  I could easily have outpaced him if I had known the path.  He thought my heart must have improved beyond the need for the cardiology/heart transplant clinic.  While the heart did improve, it didn't improve enough to be moved from the clinic.  True, I can't do that on a daily basis for long periods.  But my mother showed what I can do and my doctor, after checking my heart and breathing afterward, was well pleased for his sake.  No, boys and girls, Doom is not on death's door.  I am not even gasping for air.  Why?  Don't look at me.  I've offered some various possibilities, some you might accept, some you think are downright foolish.  If you can come up with better reasons, I am all eyes.

Still, I really want to begin swimming this January.  Even twice a week, to kick things off, would be good.  I tried to ride the bicycle the year I got it, but... it was a bit much.  And this year it was far too hot while I had no cooling, initially.  The bike has two problems, for me.  One, there is the simple physical shape required.  The other problem is the oddness of sitting and balancing the thing after so many years of nary a pedal to foot.  Neither, alone, is a show stopper, I think.  Together they were a bit much.  Swimming, I am hoping, will alleviate one of those two problems.  Further, my guess is, once you attain a certain level of fitness and comfort in the saddle, as it were, you can probably nearly ride a bike for infinity.  I can walk like that, and at a reasonably quick pace, at this point (if not hike on an incline, that is different).  It hits 100 rather frequently here, in the summer, too.  So that shouldn't be too much of a change, either.  I handled the first few weeks, perhaps a month or two of that heat, here, before falling ill to it.  I had no break from it here, though.  The bike would merely add some serious speed potential.

I really am in it now.  Beyond just figuring one or two things out, I am now up to... four or five or six major projects, some with their own subunits of consideration, some of which are mandatory (through investment or need), some of which might very well end up contradictory by costs, all of which are being settled into a scheme that is as fuzzy as thick fog at this point, but coming together in starts and fits anyway.  Hmm, I've... had worse.  And the projects are helping me to focus on clearing the odd air the medicines put up around me.  I remember reading stories of Merlin.  Among the things that struck me then, and now, was one of the common notions that he somehow lived his life backwards through time.  He could remember the future, as well as any remembers their 'past', but the past was fuzzy, only partially accessible somehow.  I sometimes... feel more like that than anything.  Ah well, it adds to the curiosity of life, for me anyway.  Of course, if I could actually remember the future I would be day-trading into a bazillionaire!