In a short while, it's out to the jogging path for me. Again, my knees do not hurt! But at the moment, I'm waiting for my Advil to kick in. Okay, this theory that jogging would flood me with endorphins doesn't seem to be happening, but my women's running book states that it takes a few weeks for one's body to adjust the these new demands. Until then, "...a few aches and pains are normal.."
Well, my fibromyalgia has decided to respond to that remark by indicating which body parts are, let us say, aching and paining as they adjust to new demands, and these random parts seem unrelated to jogging, folks. Following is a brief list of said aches and pains:
My back, between my shoulder blades.
The right side of my neck.
My lower back.
Both hips.
Temporarily, the balls of my feet (only for a few minutes) and the underside of a single toe which is not injured in any way--it just decided to join the party.
And last but not least, my teeth.
I'm used to this, and my legs do not hurt! It's the rest of me that seems to be about to fall apart, but that business about the teeth really has me stymied. Am I gritting my teeth with the effort of finishing my jogging program each day? No, that can't be, my mouth is wide open in order to get as much air as possible into my lungs. It's my jaws that should be aching as I stretch them beyond human endurance trying to get oxygen.
The only thing I can figure out is that they are the final resting place of the jolt as each foot hits the ground during my jog. This is absurd--are we going to need running shoes that claim to protect your teeth??? Well, whatever the reason, we are just going to put up a headstone on my molars because final resting place or not, my teeth had better get used to the ride. So there.
sábado, 19 de marzo de 2011
viernes, 18 de marzo de 2011
Oddities on the jogging path...
Since I had to wait until eleven o'clock to jog today, a whole new group of people infested the park. It was hotter, and my half hour seemed like most of the day. When will I ever improve?
In reality, my mind goes into overdrive while I jog, which is one reason most people don't need music or other entertainments while running. It's just too damned fun watching other people, also.
I passed a guy strolling along, cell phone pressed to his ear. I heard a snatch of conversation:
"No, man, I haven't been able to get off pot, I've got a terrible case of diarrhea and all I do is flush!"
My imagination ran rife:
"Watson, what do you make of the case?"
"Well, Holmes, we know one thing for a fact: the subject is not on the can because he is strolling down the jogging path."
"Exactly, Watson! There are, then, a number of possibilities, and our job is to discover which one is the truth behind this case."
Holmes begins to ennumerate on his fingers:
"One, the subject is lying to his boss because for some reason he didn't go to work today. Two, he is quoting someone else and the bit of conversation overheard refers not to the subject, but to a mysterious, unfortunate third party. Or three, and here I want you to screw your attention to the sticking point, the subject is wearing Depends."
My mind didn't go on with this fantasy because a couple, arm in arm, passed me going in the opposite direction. I know why they were arm in arm: the woman would have been hard pressed to hold herself upright otherwise. She had on her feet a pair of shoes advertised on television and apparently they are selling like hotcakes. They look sort of like a combination of tennis shoes and a tugboat. According to the ad, these marvels of modern science make your walking the equivalent of a workout in the gym: they will eliminate cellulite from your elephantine thighs, lift your buttocks, turn your abdomen into a washboard, and lift your boobs. They require almost as little effort as the amazing BioShaker, a small platform you sit, stand, or lean on and which shakes the living daylights out of you--producing, oddly enough, cellulite-free thighs, washboards abs, and lifted buttocks and boobs.
The shoes are so rocking chair-like as to defy gravity, and some of the people who model the shoes on television--except for one older woman who seems to be receiving no benefit whatsoever from the shoes except for a very strange stride--spend hours at a gym doing ab crunches. But hey, it doesn't matter. If they get a couple out of the house and into the park, walking along arm in arm, that may be worth the price of the shoes. It sure as heck makes my jog a lot more fun.
In reality, my mind goes into overdrive while I jog, which is one reason most people don't need music or other entertainments while running. It's just too damned fun watching other people, also.
I passed a guy strolling along, cell phone pressed to his ear. I heard a snatch of conversation:
"No, man, I haven't been able to get off pot, I've got a terrible case of diarrhea and all I do is flush!"
My imagination ran rife:
"Watson, what do you make of the case?"
"Well, Holmes, we know one thing for a fact: the subject is not on the can because he is strolling down the jogging path."
"Exactly, Watson! There are, then, a number of possibilities, and our job is to discover which one is the truth behind this case."
Holmes begins to ennumerate on his fingers:
"One, the subject is lying to his boss because for some reason he didn't go to work today. Two, he is quoting someone else and the bit of conversation overheard refers not to the subject, but to a mysterious, unfortunate third party. Or three, and here I want you to screw your attention to the sticking point, the subject is wearing Depends."
My mind didn't go on with this fantasy because a couple, arm in arm, passed me going in the opposite direction. I know why they were arm in arm: the woman would have been hard pressed to hold herself upright otherwise. She had on her feet a pair of shoes advertised on television and apparently they are selling like hotcakes. They look sort of like a combination of tennis shoes and a tugboat. According to the ad, these marvels of modern science make your walking the equivalent of a workout in the gym: they will eliminate cellulite from your elephantine thighs, lift your buttocks, turn your abdomen into a washboard, and lift your boobs. They require almost as little effort as the amazing BioShaker, a small platform you sit, stand, or lean on and which shakes the living daylights out of you--producing, oddly enough, cellulite-free thighs, washboards abs, and lifted buttocks and boobs.
The shoes are so rocking chair-like as to defy gravity, and some of the people who model the shoes on television--except for one older woman who seems to be receiving no benefit whatsoever from the shoes except for a very strange stride--spend hours at a gym doing ab crunches. But hey, it doesn't matter. If they get a couple out of the house and into the park, walking along arm in arm, that may be worth the price of the shoes. It sure as heck makes my jog a lot more fun.
jueves, 17 de marzo de 2011
Days 5 and 6
Having upgraded my browser, several places ceased and desisted, one of them being this one, but we are now back on track.
Apparently Adrián is training several people who are planning on entering a triathalon--running, swimming, and bicycling in a single event. One of the people is Hernán, my informal son who used to come to the house when he was a mere teenager of 14 or 15 and eat all the hotdogs I had in the fridge, making me wonder if he was being fed at home. He also went with us to Austin and entered the half marathon with Rodrigo, back in February.
These things are killers. I'm not sure in what order the torture occurs, but I think first is some kind of ghastly footrace, followed by a long swim, and topped with a bike race. T had several special bike stands lined up on our corner of the park, and the future sufferers placed their bikes on the stand (making them stationary bikes) and then rode hell for leather to, well, nowhere. Hernán got to ride on the street, but he later commented that his heart was in his throat the whole time.
And he has a point. Drivers here come in two versions: predatory or lobotomized. Either one can kill you, one type on purpose and the other because it can barely grasp the concept of lanes and turn signals. Monterrey has absolutely no pedestrian culture whatsoever--there are no bike lanes that are safe, there are huge expanses of pavement where no pedestrian facilities exist. I refer to things as basic as sidewalks. There are elevated crosswalks over major traffic arteries, but they are few and far between. I'm not saying the pedestrians aren't bordering on idiocy as well, since I've seen women carrying small children cross six lanes of whizzing traffic, climbing over the cement divider on the median, with an elevated pedestrian crossing within 20 yards of where they are.
Our mayor has decided to establish bike lanes on a permanent basis, some of which will be exclusively for bikes and not shared with traffic; others will be painted in alongside ordinary traffic, and good luck on that one. There the problem is not the bike lanes but the drivers--you can't share anything with the kinds of drivers we have here and expect to live.
I'm not worried about Hernán, however; every time he's gone out, his bike has had a flat tire. Oh, yeah, he knows how to fix that little problem now, but it gives him a few moments of safety as he gets up onto a sidewalk to work on it. Apparently he and my son Rodrigo, also plagued with flat bike tires, are going to drive way the heck over to the other side of town to ride in a huge park that has traffic-less bike lanes. It warms my heart to know that all those thumb tacks I scattered around the boys' bike lanes have done their job!
Apparently Adrián is training several people who are planning on entering a triathalon--running, swimming, and bicycling in a single event. One of the people is Hernán, my informal son who used to come to the house when he was a mere teenager of 14 or 15 and eat all the hotdogs I had in the fridge, making me wonder if he was being fed at home. He also went with us to Austin and entered the half marathon with Rodrigo, back in February.
These things are killers. I'm not sure in what order the torture occurs, but I think first is some kind of ghastly footrace, followed by a long swim, and topped with a bike race. T had several special bike stands lined up on our corner of the park, and the future sufferers placed their bikes on the stand (making them stationary bikes) and then rode hell for leather to, well, nowhere. Hernán got to ride on the street, but he later commented that his heart was in his throat the whole time.
And he has a point. Drivers here come in two versions: predatory or lobotomized. Either one can kill you, one type on purpose and the other because it can barely grasp the concept of lanes and turn signals. Monterrey has absolutely no pedestrian culture whatsoever--there are no bike lanes that are safe, there are huge expanses of pavement where no pedestrian facilities exist. I refer to things as basic as sidewalks. There are elevated crosswalks over major traffic arteries, but they are few and far between. I'm not saying the pedestrians aren't bordering on idiocy as well, since I've seen women carrying small children cross six lanes of whizzing traffic, climbing over the cement divider on the median, with an elevated pedestrian crossing within 20 yards of where they are.
Our mayor has decided to establish bike lanes on a permanent basis, some of which will be exclusively for bikes and not shared with traffic; others will be painted in alongside ordinary traffic, and good luck on that one. There the problem is not the bike lanes but the drivers--you can't share anything with the kinds of drivers we have here and expect to live.
I'm not worried about Hernán, however; every time he's gone out, his bike has had a flat tire. Oh, yeah, he knows how to fix that little problem now, but it gives him a few moments of safety as he gets up onto a sidewalk to work on it. Apparently he and my son Rodrigo, also plagued with flat bike tires, are going to drive way the heck over to the other side of town to ride in a huge park that has traffic-less bike lanes. It warms my heart to know that all those thumb tacks I scattered around the boys' bike lanes have done their job!
domingo, 13 de marzo de 2011
Day 3
It isn't really day 3; a 5K was held in the park, so the rest of us had to find something else to do in order to avoid being trampled. The field was so numerous that my daughter-in-law couldn't even enter the race because she waited too long to register. My husband and I drove back from the countryside late this afternoon, hours and hours after the event, and I swear I saw a couple of stragglers still trying to get to the finish line--which of course had been packed up and put back in the closet until the next event. Maybe that's why these competitors are still out there, and if this is so, then they will be gasping along until some time in May, poor devils.
So today was cross-training day: horseback riding. That is about as "cross" as you can get, since you just sit there trying to hang on while the horse does the work, but hey, it's still isometric work for your muscles.
You may have noticed that English writers are extremely coy about any kind of emotion-related statement. This was brought home to me as I managed to force myself into my riding pants this morning. Yes, it all sounds disjointed, but it just so happens that the last time I was in Barnes&Noble, I was thrilled to find a new mystery by P.D. James, a veritable master of the King's English, so I snapped up the book, dashed back to the house, and started to read. Right off the bat, something seemed dreadfully wrong. Had P.D. James suffered a stroke? Was the book ghost-written? Had she become a U.S. citizen?
Several more pages and it was now obvious the woman had either dumbed down or was trying to write like, well, an American. As I turned the book over and read the remarks on the back cover, all was made clear: the author was English, all right, but he was Peter James, not P.D. James. Out of pique I finished the book, and let me tell you, you don't want to read it. If I wanted typos, bad grammar, and really silly idiomatic expressions, heck, I could get that in my own backyard and cheaper to boot.
Again I digress. It's becoming a habit. As I was saying, an English author, contemplating her shape in riding pants, would carefully--nay, even phobically--creep up on her observations as if she were going to have to provide government certification justifying her conclusions and the resulting positive feelings:
"I cannot say that it was not without a certain subtle sense of satisfaction that I garnered visual, albeit wholly subjective, evidence as to a reduction in adipose tissue, contradictory though the terms 'evidence' and 'subjective' may seem at first glance."
The American translation, and the point of today's diary entry, is:
"Hot damn!!!!! My butt's smaller!!!!!!"
So today was cross-training day: horseback riding. That is about as "cross" as you can get, since you just sit there trying to hang on while the horse does the work, but hey, it's still isometric work for your muscles.
You may have noticed that English writers are extremely coy about any kind of emotion-related statement. This was brought home to me as I managed to force myself into my riding pants this morning. Yes, it all sounds disjointed, but it just so happens that the last time I was in Barnes&Noble, I was thrilled to find a new mystery by P.D. James, a veritable master of the King's English, so I snapped up the book, dashed back to the house, and started to read. Right off the bat, something seemed dreadfully wrong. Had P.D. James suffered a stroke? Was the book ghost-written? Had she become a U.S. citizen?
Several more pages and it was now obvious the woman had either dumbed down or was trying to write like, well, an American. As I turned the book over and read the remarks on the back cover, all was made clear: the author was English, all right, but he was Peter James, not P.D. James. Out of pique I finished the book, and let me tell you, you don't want to read it. If I wanted typos, bad grammar, and really silly idiomatic expressions, heck, I could get that in my own backyard and cheaper to boot.
Again I digress. It's becoming a habit. As I was saying, an English author, contemplating her shape in riding pants, would carefully--nay, even phobically--creep up on her observations as if she were going to have to provide government certification justifying her conclusions and the resulting positive feelings:
"I cannot say that it was not without a certain subtle sense of satisfaction that I garnered visual, albeit wholly subjective, evidence as to a reduction in adipose tissue, contradictory though the terms 'evidence' and 'subjective' may seem at first glance."
The American translation, and the point of today's diary entry, is:
"Hot damn!!!!! My butt's smaller!!!!!!"
sábado, 12 de marzo de 2011
Day 2
Okay, today was a lot better than yesterday; managed to jog .9 K (please note the decimal indication there, I am NOT referring to nine kilometers) before having to walk. Finally got my feet to understand they had to propel me along the path on their own. A more relaxed jog, however, brought a few other things to my attention.
The reason hitting the streets is less boring than a treadmill is because there are other people to see, maybe even say "Good morning!" to, and you don't have to buy every season of Law and Order to make it through your training. But there are drawbacks: among other things, you find out you have to lift your feet high enough to clear the paint at the crosswalks. There is nothing worse than the sound of expensive running shoes scraping along pavement.
And the area I could have sworn was flat as the proverbial pancake turns out to have slight inclines here and there, maybe no big deal unless you are used to the really flat treadmill. Even if you increase the incline of the treadmill, it can't compare to the irregular ups and downs of a jogging path.
None of this is really important except that if you trip on that crosswalk paint, all those people you said "Good morning!" to are going to see you crash and burn. Many would immediately try to put out the blaze and haul you up, only to notice then how overweight you are. You would surely harbor the black suspicion that several of them are probably suffering internal injuries in an effort to stifle the laughter, because you know you damned well would be if you watched someone else trip over paint.
Running gear is highly informal, so that, at least, is one worry you can dispense with at the get-go. But there are other, more harrowing, worries. Let's just call these worries "issues related to digestive processes". Make sure you pronounce that last word as "process-eees" as is so fashionable today. It used to be you could go ahead and say the word in three simple syllables, but that didn't sound official enough to qualify you as some kind of intellectual guru, a member of the process-eees, brain-laden in-crowd.
But I digress. It becomes obvious on an early morning jog that last night's supper of molletes--a bolillo cut in half, spread with refried beans, Chihuahua cheese, melted under the broiler and topped with avocado and a head-exploding hot salsa--may not have been the wisest of selections. You know how all those people who are in a marathon keep turning their heads to look around? Know how you thought it was to find out who was gaining on them? No, that is not the reason. Let's just say they are concerned that the vapor trail they cannot avoid leaving may be noted by other runners and the blame placed exactly where it belongs. And there is absolutely no strategic advantage to the vapor trail, either, because it won't propel you forward any faster and rarely overcomes another runner to the degree that he or she slows down. To the contrary, other runners often show a burst of sprint-like behavior in order to get upwind of you.
There is this belief that marathoners should have a heavy supper of pasta in order to provide them with plenty of carbs for next's days efforts, but that is only part of the story. Pasta is a simple carb that provokes almost no digestive residue. I think the custom started just to protect all the runners who don't have times good enough to provide them with a place at the front of the pack at starting time, not to mention the hordes of people on the sidelines cheering them on. It reduces the line of fire, so to speak.
A more reasonable jogging pace also allows you notice what hurts and how much. When you are gasping for air, all other considerations fall by wayside, or by the running path. Is that crackling sound my housekeys swinging from my fist? My earrings crashing into the side of my head? Does it emanate from my joints??? What are these diverse pangs, that peculiar sensation in my back? Is it because my sports bra could hold up the Sidney Opera House or is powerful enough to strangle King Kong, or could be used to slingshot the space shuttle into orbit? Who knows. As long as it doesn't snap while I'm jogging and seriously injure another runner, I don't care. I'll pretend nothing hurts and forge ahead; my knees are still holding up.
The reason hitting the streets is less boring than a treadmill is because there are other people to see, maybe even say "Good morning!" to, and you don't have to buy every season of Law and Order to make it through your training. But there are drawbacks: among other things, you find out you have to lift your feet high enough to clear the paint at the crosswalks. There is nothing worse than the sound of expensive running shoes scraping along pavement.
And the area I could have sworn was flat as the proverbial pancake turns out to have slight inclines here and there, maybe no big deal unless you are used to the really flat treadmill. Even if you increase the incline of the treadmill, it can't compare to the irregular ups and downs of a jogging path.
None of this is really important except that if you trip on that crosswalk paint, all those people you said "Good morning!" to are going to see you crash and burn. Many would immediately try to put out the blaze and haul you up, only to notice then how overweight you are. You would surely harbor the black suspicion that several of them are probably suffering internal injuries in an effort to stifle the laughter, because you know you damned well would be if you watched someone else trip over paint.
Running gear is highly informal, so that, at least, is one worry you can dispense with at the get-go. But there are other, more harrowing, worries. Let's just call these worries "issues related to digestive processes". Make sure you pronounce that last word as "process-eees" as is so fashionable today. It used to be you could go ahead and say the word in three simple syllables, but that didn't sound official enough to qualify you as some kind of intellectual guru, a member of the process-eees, brain-laden in-crowd.
But I digress. It becomes obvious on an early morning jog that last night's supper of molletes--a bolillo cut in half, spread with refried beans, Chihuahua cheese, melted under the broiler and topped with avocado and a head-exploding hot salsa--may not have been the wisest of selections. You know how all those people who are in a marathon keep turning their heads to look around? Know how you thought it was to find out who was gaining on them? No, that is not the reason. Let's just say they are concerned that the vapor trail they cannot avoid leaving may be noted by other runners and the blame placed exactly where it belongs. And there is absolutely no strategic advantage to the vapor trail, either, because it won't propel you forward any faster and rarely overcomes another runner to the degree that he or she slows down. To the contrary, other runners often show a burst of sprint-like behavior in order to get upwind of you.
There is this belief that marathoners should have a heavy supper of pasta in order to provide them with plenty of carbs for next's days efforts, but that is only part of the story. Pasta is a simple carb that provokes almost no digestive residue. I think the custom started just to protect all the runners who don't have times good enough to provide them with a place at the front of the pack at starting time, not to mention the hordes of people on the sidelines cheering them on. It reduces the line of fire, so to speak.
A more reasonable jogging pace also allows you notice what hurts and how much. When you are gasping for air, all other considerations fall by wayside, or by the running path. Is that crackling sound my housekeys swinging from my fist? My earrings crashing into the side of my head? Does it emanate from my joints??? What are these diverse pangs, that peculiar sensation in my back? Is it because my sports bra could hold up the Sidney Opera House or is powerful enough to strangle King Kong, or could be used to slingshot the space shuttle into orbit? Who knows. As long as it doesn't snap while I'm jogging and seriously injure another runner, I don't care. I'll pretend nothing hurts and forge ahead; my knees are still holding up.
viernes, 11 de marzo de 2011
Diary of a Mad Housewife
11 March. After weeks and weeks of plodding along on a treadmill, as advised by my trainer, my new Polar heart-rate monitor showed that I wasn't even hitting an aerobic training rate without sprinting. Sprinting??? For God's sake.
So today I hit the streets with a plan: I would warm up with a brisk ten-minute walk, then jog for a block and walk for a block, alternating to complete a bit over two kilometers or 30 minutes, whichever came first. Ha! I hadn't counted on a time warp.
The so-called blocks in the park near my house are very, very long because the running path curves again and again in order to prolong the agony. After my first jogged block, I realized I couldn't phone for an ambulance because I didn't have my cell phone, and I didn't have enough breath to call out to other joggers for help.
After the second jogged block, my leg muscles were trembling, and by then I had noticed the time warp: the blocks I walked lasted, oh, maybe ten seconds. But when I jogged, the block seemed to stretch on and on, to infinity and beyond. My running book says that in order to calibrate the effort needed to advance, without winding up in the hospital, you should jog until you are really noticing the work, then go for 30 more seconds. Ha, again!
Then something magical happened on block 4. Finally I managed to slow down, replicate my foot placement from the treadmill (you have no idea how comfy it is to have the machine move the surface along under your feet!), and suddenly I could breathe. I managed to finish the couple of kilometers, work up a sweat, stretch, and walk home. It is with great pride that I tell you my knees do not hurt. It is necessary to mention this because aching knees are the bane of every runner. On the other hand, every other body part is killing me, so bring on the Advil.
More tomorrow. Adrián, my trainer, will be in the park on Tuesday morning. We have one year to get me in shape for the Austin 5K.
So today I hit the streets with a plan: I would warm up with a brisk ten-minute walk, then jog for a block and walk for a block, alternating to complete a bit over two kilometers or 30 minutes, whichever came first. Ha! I hadn't counted on a time warp.
The so-called blocks in the park near my house are very, very long because the running path curves again and again in order to prolong the agony. After my first jogged block, I realized I couldn't phone for an ambulance because I didn't have my cell phone, and I didn't have enough breath to call out to other joggers for help.
After the second jogged block, my leg muscles were trembling, and by then I had noticed the time warp: the blocks I walked lasted, oh, maybe ten seconds. But when I jogged, the block seemed to stretch on and on, to infinity and beyond. My running book says that in order to calibrate the effort needed to advance, without winding up in the hospital, you should jog until you are really noticing the work, then go for 30 more seconds. Ha, again!
Then something magical happened on block 4. Finally I managed to slow down, replicate my foot placement from the treadmill (you have no idea how comfy it is to have the machine move the surface along under your feet!), and suddenly I could breathe. I managed to finish the couple of kilometers, work up a sweat, stretch, and walk home. It is with great pride that I tell you my knees do not hurt. It is necessary to mention this because aching knees are the bane of every runner. On the other hand, every other body part is killing me, so bring on the Advil.
More tomorrow. Adrián, my trainer, will be in the park on Tuesday morning. We have one year to get me in shape for the Austin 5K.
viernes, 28 de enero de 2011
Cansada...
Ya me cansé de la gente que me advierte que no debo emprender algo nuevo como un programa de trotar, sobre caminadora o en la calle, porque es totalmente seguro que me vaya a destruir las rodillas, las caderas, el corazón, y el cerebro! Ya que todos mis médicos me han aplaudido y apoyado, ¿quién más cuenta con autoridad para opinar? Es a todas luces evidente que los que me advierten de los desastres que se avecinan si pongo un pie en frente de otro son personas que no hacen ejercicio--excepto, claro está, ir del sofá al refrigerador por más hielo o una botana alta en calorías. Es como cuando una persona se pone a dieta. En vez de recibir porras, los demás se dedican a subvertir la fuerza de voluntad del pobre diablo que tuvo a bien anunciar que estaba a dieta. ¡Mala idea! Lo mejor es mantener todo en la más absoluta secrecía. Cada caloría renunciada, cada kilómetro recorrido, se convierte en un auto-reclamo para los que están pasados de peso y demasiado flojos para ejercitarse. Peor aún si el que emprende tal proyecto es de cierta edad, si lleva años pasado de peso, si toma la decisión en un momento que los demás creen "impropio". El concepto de la envidia kleiniano es muy útil en estos momentos: la envidia que desea destruir lo bueno del otro, que desea su fracaso, y se regocija en la derrota del otro. Así no tengo que verme a mí mismo, sumido en mi falta de movimiento y culpable de mi propia culpa. Así que, mutis, amigos, boca cerrada, proyecto secreto. Los que te apoyan son tus verdaderos amigos; los demás son otros pasajeros en el viaje de la vida, con quienes uno no desea compartir ni camarote ni barco.
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