Not chill.

The dangers associated with surfing are well-known. Shark attacks, drowning, slaps from furious locals, bashing off reefs etc. but, whenever I paddle out, I rarely, maybe never, consider it “dangerous.” Oh sure, I’m not paddling out to Jaws, and my heart has crawled right into my throat plenty of times, but something going wrong, really wrong, never enters my mind.

Well, an eighteen-year-old young Las Vegas mn, handsome and fit, had always dreamed of surfing and finally got his opportunity on a Thanksgiving family vacation to Hawaii. He ordered up a lesson but told Las Vegas’s NBC affiliate, “Within that first or second wave, I noticed my lower back was starting to feel tense. Soon as I touched the sand, my legs pretty much just gave out.”

He tried stretching it out but when no relief came his family took him to the hospital where it was revealed he had suffered Surfer’s myelopathy, a condition that leaves little to no sensation in the lower half of the body and is so rare that there have been less than 100 documented cases in the past 20 years.

“It wasn’t a traumatic injury. I didn’t fall, I didn’t hit a rock,” he said. “It really just happened on a surfboard, standing up arching my back, and somehow ended up with me being paralyzed.”

Doctors say the condition occurs when a surfer, lying on a board, hyperextends the back while getting up thereby causing non-traumatic injury to the T10 vertebrae.

The young man is home, now, trying to get as much sensation back as he can, pushing through and rehabbing. He said there have been ups and downs, so far, and a long road ahead. A GoFund me has been set up to help with crazy costs.

But, man, Surfer’s myelopathy? What a sneaky, sneaky little jerk.

Many tears.

In a lost opportunity that will reverberate through surfing for decades to come, the popular Mr. Big, Carrie Bradshaw’s love interest during Sex and the City’s six-year HBO run, has died riding a Peloton on episode one of the franchise reboot “And Just Like That.”

The shock heart attack grieved fans but also sent stock of the workout bicycle plummeting.

Per the news report:

Shares of Peloton, the fitness equipment company, fell 11.3% Thursday — tumbling to a 19-month low — after a key character in HBO Max’s “Sex and the City” revival, “And Just Like That,” was shown dying of a heart attack after a 45-minute workout on one of the company’s exercise bikes.

The stock continued its slide Friday, down more than 5% in midmorning trading.

According to Peloton, the company had approved the show’s use of the bike as well as the appearance of “Allegra,” a fictional instructor played by real-life Peloton cycling instructor Jess King. However, Peloton did not know that “And Just Like That,” which premiered Dec. 9, would show [SPOILER ALERT] Mr. Big, played by Chris Noth, collapsing and then dying after a Peloton workout.

Peloton blamed Mr. Big’s lifestyle choices, including smoking cigars, on his demise but surfers mourned the fact that he wasn’t an adult learner longboarder instead.

Imagine if the 40 – 50 year-old set, out being “healthy” on colorful 9 – 13 ft. foam short buses, witnessed the character keel over while going right on a left. An 11.3% reduction in numbers, plus a further 5%, would be immediately, and gloriously, felt.

Alas, what might have been.

Pride of accomplishment.

I have been living this WHOOP life, now, for exactly two months and can hardly believe the difference a personal digital health and fitness coach has made in my life. In October, I was but a shell of my former self. A man besotted with laziness, settled into a non-positive inertia.

Mired.

Today, I am reborn, striving to break a six-minute mile, dancing two vital roles in an upcoming performance of The Nutcracker, surfing with much flair, writing helpful, informative articles about a journey that guides this very community into being best, standing outside the gates of health and wellness Valhalla ruddy cheek’d and proud.

WHOOP.

I recently changed the sleek band on my device, from black to a steel grey, and realized that I must have been wearing it too tight thereby retarding my strain numbers. I was wow’d after that first run, watching it soar up past 16, very near John John Florence numbers. I was inspired after that first ballet rehearsal, reveling in it climbing past 10 even though I only practiced the “beer dance” and not even Mother Ginger.

And now, newly inspired, I have decided to prioritize my recovery, get the best sleep, hit the only whispered about maximum strain.

21.

WHOOP measures strain by, “summarizing metric of the cardiovascular load – the level of strain training takes on a cardiovascular system as based on heart rate achieved during an individual activity or over the course of a day.”

Genius and the scale reads thusly:

Light Strain (0-9) – This strain category indicates room for active recovery with minimal stress being put on the body.

Moderate Strain (10-13) – This category indicates moderate stress is being put on the body, which helps maintain fitness.

High Strain (14-17) – This category indicates increased stress and/or activity which helps build fitness gains in your training.

All Out (18-21) – This category indicates all-out training or a packed activity day that put significant stress on the body and may be difficult to recover from the day after.

I don’t know how often John John Florence goes “all out” but I’d imagine the day I surf, run, dance the beer dance, the full party scene, including scolding children on stage, and Mother Ginger on the same day, I will reach the gates of health and wellness Valhalla and clink horns filled with self-satisfaction with him there.

Aiming for Saturday.

Buy tickets here.