Welcome back to The Hip Replacement Podcast.
All right. I don't know if you have noticed, but recently I took some time off. You'll notice there's some gaps in the weeks and I mentioned something a few episodes ago in that I took some of those weeks off because I've been working on something pretty big, personal for me.
I set a big goal, something that I've always wanted to try to do, but I never had the courage or the resolve or the commitment to go and try to do this. So, let me tell you what it is, okay?
I golf regularly and I used to be a somewhat competitive golfer in high school and in college and I used to play a lot of great golf and I have fallen off of my peak over the last I don't know 10, 12, 15 years since my hips started giving me a lot of pain and obviously went through the hip replacement surgeries and I wanted to get back to being a competitive golfer because it will help me just have more fun doing this activity that I love.
So, if I'm playing in competitions, I will in my everyday golf be more focused, more committed, and I think I'll have a better time doing that because I will reach more of my potential every time I go out there.
So, several weeks ago, well, longer than that. Anyway, maybe a month, I signed up to try to qualify for the US Open. And since I'm over 50, I also have the opportunity to try to qualify for the US Senior Open.
And if you're not familiar with these, these are the main golfing competitions put on by the United States Golf Association. Okay?
The players are made up of mostly professional golfers. I'm not a professional, but since they are open tournaments, the US Golf Association has what they call qualifiers to let everyday Joe's like me try to qualify to play in those prestigious tournaments.
Now, it's very hard to try to qualify. To give you an example or some type of scale, there are over 10,000 people that try to qualify for both the US Open and the US Senior Open. And out of those 10,000 people in each qualifying group, only about 60 to 70 to maybe 80 actually make it. All right? Very, very difficult to do.
So, I'm trying to do everything I can to try to put myself in a position to be playing some of the best golf. And I would actually have to play the best golf of my life, some of the best rounds of my life to make it to the next stage.
Each of these qualifiers or each of the paths to make it to the championship is to play two different stages. So, I have a stage coming up next week for the senior US Open and then three weeks later, I have a stage coming up for the US Open. And if I make either one of those, I will go on to the next stage several weeks later.
I set forth the goal, a big goal for me of putting forth my best effort to qualify. And I recommend everyone set goals. And I don't mean just little goals. I mean big scary goals at least once per year.
Something when I mean big and scary, I don't mean like skydiving scary. I mean the fear of failure is definitely there. Something that is really almost out of reach, but that will make you better off for even trying to accomplish it, for even trying to reach for it.
And we'll dedicate a whole episode to this. We'll talk about it in a different episode because goals are really important to improving your quality of life, of giving you a better opportunity to reach your full potential.
Anyway, as part of putting together my best effort of increasing my golfing ability, of focusing more, of getting more practice in, I'm also trying to walk a lot more.
Where I golf when I'm at home, the course that I usually golf at, I usually walk. All right? So, I have a base of fitness, a base of endurance in my legs and in my body.
But these qualifiers are 18 holes each. Okay? And those walks are much longer than the walks that I typically do. And they're much hillier because by the time I signed up for each of these tournaments or these qualifiers, by the time registration opened and I finally signed up, all of the qualifying tournaments near my city were full.
So, I need to travel to a different state to try to qualify. And the topography is different. There's hills. Okay, you're just standing on different angles all the time.
And to give you an idea of the number of qualifiers, there's over 100 qualifiers for each of these. So for the US Open, there's over 100 qualifiers or approximately 100 qualifiers. And also for the US Senior Open, there's also approximately 100 qualifiers around the country and several outside of the country.
Anyway, I'm trying to build up my endurance and walking a lot more because I don't want to get tired and not be able to perform at my best because I'm so tired.
So, I've been slowly increasing my distances over the last month. It's almost like I'm getting ready for another triathlon, another IRONMAN triathlon, but I'm not going to that extent. All right.
So, I've been doing, for example, three mile walks. I started with three mile walks and then I upped it to five mile walks and then a week later I upped it to seven mile walk. And I'm doing these about every three days.
So, I'm doing a long walk, a long walking session, and then giving myself three or four days of rest to recover. And my next effort, my next exercise session, I guess you'd say, will be 10 miles later this week because the first qualifier I have is next week.
Now, why is all this important to you? Why do you care about the golf? Why should you care about the walking? Why should you care about the endurance that I'm trying to build up?
And here's what I want you to know. I've been doing long sessions on both grass and concrete or pavement. All right? So, walking around my neighborhood in the street on pavement or walking in the park on grass or on the golf course on grass.
And there's a big difference between walking or running on grass as compared to hard surfaces like pavement or concrete or the sidewalk. It is so much easier to walk on grass. It is so much more comfortable to walk on grass as opposed to pavement or concrete or the sidewalk.
When I do similar distances on concrete or pavement, my legs ache, my hips get stiff, my muscles get stiff, and it takes me more days to recover after I've been walking on pavement. I basically feel like crap a lot sooner walking on pavement than I do on grass. And I feel like that for a lot longer after walking on pavement.
So, if you're out there trying to walk or run, if you're trying to get back to running and you're not feeling great during your walk or your run or in the days after, try getting your distance done on grass.
It's so much more gentle on your body. If you really want to or have to add distance, just be smart about it. I'm trying to get the distance in and I'm trying to do it as much as possible on grass because I can go for longer. It's going to help me perform at my best when I need it the most and I can recover faster.
Remember, there are ways to be more active and be in less pain or discomfort. And I think we can all agree that that is something that we all would like. Less pain and less discomfort.
So staying on grass or even gravel maybe or a dirt trail may be much better and comfortable than trying to get your distance done on pavement. It may not be your body that simply doesn't feel right. It may be the pounding from pavement that is causing your body to feel like that.
So, just change your environment. Get your distance on something softer. Even a treadmill maybe. But try to avoid pavement, concrete, sidewalks as much as you possibly can.
I hope this was helpful. Wish me luck next week and thanks so much for tuning into The Hip Replacement Podcast.
Until next time, I wish you the best recovery possible. Take care.
