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October 12, 1999 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d “Hiking,” I mumbled under my breath.<\/p>\n
“Hiking?” my teammate responded incredulously. We were warming up before our noontime game of basketball at the First Baptist Church Family Life Center.<\/p>\n
“Well I’ll be,” he continued, shaking his head in disbelief, chuckling. “Of all things, hiking puts you on the disabled list for two months.”<\/p>\n
I, too, was somewhat stupefied by the irony of it all. I was also a little embarrassed.<\/p>\n
In the past year, I have ridden bulls, climbed walls of ice and rock, negotiated whitewater rapids \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and lived to write about it all.<\/p>\n
But it was a hike down the upper Chattahoochee River this past July that ended up sending me to the doctor’s office in the name of workers’ compensation.<\/p>\n
The hike in question was one of the River Adventures offered by the environmental advocacy group Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper. Our path was the shallow river itself. We fell repeatedly.<\/p>\n
One time, I slipped backward and used my right arm to catch my fall. The sound that my shoulder emitted on impact was not a pleasant one. Shoulders aren’t supposed to make sounds.<\/p>\n
The pain was instantaneous; my reaction wasn’t. In typical male fashion I waited nearly a month before seeking medical attention.<\/p>\n
The official diagnosis was biceps tendonitis. The unofficial one was that my shoulder hurt when I moved it.<\/p>\n
A couple injections, several weeks and countless pills later, I can now shoot hoops again with only occasional pain. For that I am grateful.<\/p>\n
That it took so long for such an injury to occur, and that when one finally did it wasn’t more severe, surprised many in The Times newsroom, myself included.<\/p>\n
This was my first foray into participatory journalism. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Neither was my editor.<\/p>\n
“I’ve never had a writer stupid enough to do the things you do,” he said to me bluntly.<\/p>\n
It was all my idea, too. When I began working for The Times last September, I figured the best way to write about Northeast Georgia’s culture of recreational sports was to experience it first hand.<\/p>\n
And when, last December, I found myself straddling the back of an 1,800-pound bull in Barrow County, I wondered if I hadn’t taken my stupid little idea too far.<\/p>\n
I “rode” two bulls that day \u00e2\u20ac\u201d for a combined five seconds. But, thanks to a bruised rib suffered when my back collided with the earth the first time I was thrown, the experience stayed with me for much longer than that.<\/p>\n
I also sprained my wrist, and it wasn’t until after reviewing the photographs of the event that I realized how. Evidently, my back wasn’t the first thing to break my fall. It all happened so quickly.<\/p>\n
The photographs also revealed some odd behavior on my part. During my final moments actually on the bull, my free hand was holding my cowboy hat tightly on top of my head, as if losing the hat was the worst thing that could possibly happen to me at that moment.<\/p>\n
Surely there was something better for me to be doing at that time.<\/p>\n
Bull riding remains the column topic that, when mentioned, draws the most double takes. It is also the only one I am quite sure I will never try again.<\/p>\n
Sporting Life began one year ago this week with the account of my experience rowing with the Lake Lanier Rowing Club. Forty-seven columns later, I am amazed that there is still so much I have not done!<\/p>\n
Adventure seekers can do much worse than Northeast Georgia.<\/p>\n
Where else could I try yoga, whitewater canoe, fly fishing and lawn mower racing? Rabbit hunting, wheelchair basketball, boxing and cowboy action shooting? Paintball, water skiing, cutting horses and kayak polo?<\/p>\n
Or how about rock climbing and ice climbing \u00e2\u20ac\u201d on consecutive weeks?<\/p>\n
I have been afforded the opportunity to become a true sports dilettante, dabbling in many activities and mastering none. I am a professional amateur.<\/p>\n
If there is a downside to all of this it is that my physical failings are delivered to thousands of doorsteps on a weekly basis … and that my shoulder still hurts when I throw a long pass down the basketball court.<\/p>\n
But I can’t wait to see what adventures await me in year No. 2 of this Sporting Life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
October 12, 1999 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d “Hiking,” I mumbled under my breath. “Hiking?” my teammate responded incredulously. We were warming up before our noontime game of basketball at the First Baptist Church Family Life Center. “Well I’ll be,” he continued, shaking his head in disbelief, chuckling. “Of all things, hiking puts you …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":362,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions\/362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}