The Newtown Pentacle

Tuesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

After negotiating a path across the broken pavement of ‘Uptown’ and down to the pedestrian ramp of the Birmingham Bridge, which spans the Monongahela River here in Pittsburgh, your humble narrator leaned into it. This scuttle, other than satisfying my curiosity about a thing or two found behind me at the start, was all about working on retraining the musculature in my roadway interface in pursuit of speeding up my striding gait, in this post busted ankle period.

Long story short: Working on getting the spring back into the steps, me.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

After several months of picking pathways which would exercise other musculature in my roadway interface, which had atrophied during the recovery interval surrounding my shattered left ankle, it’s now the time to start working on the next phase of ‘getting back to normal’ – specifically endurance, and especially speed.

The endurance part is just about being able to keep myself moving, constantly, and not allowing any ‘sit downs’ or ‘quick breaks.’ The speed thing is returning, but I’m not talking about running here – rather I’m shooting for ‘walking with a purpose.’ Prior to the injury, I was moving at (according to my phone) between 2.6 and 3 miles per hour on average and up to 3.5/4 mph when needed. Post injury, my walking speed had dropped down to as low as 1.2 mph.

Over the last six months, I’ve gotten that number back up to 2.3 mph, which is ‘normal’ human walking speed for someone of my height. I’m hoping that by the Spring, I can get that back up to 3 mph, even if only for short bursts. It’ll likely be another year before I can even think about 4 mph.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I’ll conventionally ‘have a plan’ when going out for a walk, and particularly so in Pittsburgh with its steep hills and ‘cul de sac’ neighborhoods. In the last six months or so, these plans of mine have revolved around whichever physical tortures I can subject myself to in pursuit of getting back into whatever the hell ‘normal condition’ might mean for one such as myself.

The plan on this day was short and open – ‘check out Kirkpatrick Street on foot, and then walk across the bridge.’ ‘Whatever happens on the South Side will be up to serendipity.’ ‘I’d like to have a beer at the end of it and hopefully get a train shot or two.’ That was the entirety of my plan.

I knew where I’d be ending up, at least, at that brewery by the train tracks which has become a regular stop for me when in the area.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

This scuttle was perpetrated on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, so the city was pretty much depopulated. I’m probably the only person on Earth who misses the COVID lockdowns, as I enjoyed the loneliness, but there you are.

The river was crossed, and I took a moment to scan around and figure out my next set of moves.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

That distant ridge line in the shot above is where the South Side Slopes neighborhood is cantilevered out from the hillside and into space.

Those city steps posts which I’ve been showing y’all for a while largely play out up there. The area directly surrounding the Birmingham Bridge’s southern landing is either simply called the South Side or it’s the South Side Works if you want to get all technical and political.

I decided that I’d stick to the shoreline and walk along one of the riverfront trails. Might get to see a train, that way.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One last shot of Birmingham Bridge, and then off I scuttled. I stuck to the shadows, crawled along the edges of buildings, and generally moved along in the ‘spasmodic flying’ type of posture I’m known for.

Back tomorrow with more.

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