You just can't use the same muscles over and over again and expect to be injury-free forever. Thus the emphasis on cross-training if you are a runner (oh, I love how that sounds, "a runner", although what I've done so far can barely be considered much more than a slow jog). There is no way I am going to find the time to swim (just looking at water makes me short of breath, and all I can do well is the side stroke) or do weights, and if you ride a bike around here you take your life in your hands. And, having hit the streets and felt the high of being outdoors, the idea of a stationary bike or an elliptical machine seems more like waterboarding.
But wait a minute. How about housewifery? This morning I folded dozens of chairs and stored them in a closet; the lifting alone must count for something. I went to the store with my shopping bags and, having carefully balanced my load, I hauled them down two flights of stairs while wearing sandals with tiny high heels. I defy any man to do that without permanently damaging his knees or buttocks! There was bending and stretching--making up two beds--and more bending and stretching when my dishwasher detergent malfunctioned and left all my dishes covered with a kind of mineral salt film. After loading and unloading the rebellious machine, I had to scrub every item hard to get the danged stuff off. Then, to top off this workout, I slipped on a wet spot on the floor (still in my sandals) and did the splits with only minor injury.
What the rest of the day holds is anyone's guess, but if the Karate Kid could train for tae kwon do by washing windows or cars and doing chores around his karate master's home, housewifery is surely enough cross-training for my modest running goals. Okay, okay, maybe some structured weight training instead of that trip to the supermarket. You never know when the coming-down-the-stairs-with-shopping-bags-while-wearing-sandals-with-tiny-heels might combine with a wet spot on the stairs, and we'd have a new Olympic sport combining the thrill of the gymnastic parallel bars, the heavyweight barbell toss, and inadvertent poll vaulting.
martes, 22 de marzo de 2011
domingo, 20 de marzo de 2011
Do Not Mix
Some things shouldn't be combined, ever. One of them is staying up late at a party, and fibromyalgia.
Yesterday there was a party at my house to celebrate the birthdays of my husband and my youngest son. The have the same birthday, in fact. Our marvelous weather was holding, and we sat outdoors singing, playing the guitar, listening to a couple who sing and play a computerized keyboard, eating too much, and watching the grandkids dash around the back yard. I had set up a big tent and was thinking about camping out with the four oldest grandkids, but for some obscure reason, I had the idea they would get tired about nine-thirty, maybe ten at the latest, and we could grab our pillows and slip into our sleeping bags for a night's rest. Where do I get this stuff?
At eleven-thirty, the grandkids were going full blower, even though a couple of them seemed to be on automatic. The party, too, was going full blower--everything, in fact, except me. We had ordered food, a waiter helped with everything from drinks to washing dishes, and a dash of excitement was added to the proceedings because earlier in the day my little grand-daughter, Sofía (4 years old), had swallowed a small disc-shaped battery and a tiny magnet. Let's face it, we will never know why. A trip to the hospital and some X-rays showed the two items safely stuck together and traveling through the intestinal tract, so a laxative was administered and orders for her only to ingest liquids. She was also ensconced in a diaper so nothing would get by unobserved.
Have you ever been to a get-together of over twenty people, each one periodically leaping up to the check the diaper of a small child? It began to seem like some kind of game show, as if the treasure-hunters who came up with the missing battery and magnet were going to win big. I told my son in no uncertain terms that once Sofía managed to poop, the subsequent mining for the missing items was his job, and his alone. His wife, an event planner who had a big wedding to honcho up last night, was out of range. That left only him. I've already done my time and now the torch passes to others.
The party forged on without me because I simply couldn't remain standing another minute. Not to be outdone, a different grandchild deciding to vomit. I declared the camping excursion cancelled and went to bed. Although I didn't have one single alcoholic drink, my body has also declared all events cancelled, but today my trainer Adrián told me only to walk briskly for 35 minutes. Ha! I think not.
On Wednesday I am going to Mexico City, and my main concern is how much conditioning I'm going to lose in the four days there. I can remember the addictive preocupation about the same theme in my former life as an aerobics fanatic. But running is worse--I feel so good after I go out, my state of mind is so upbeat, and I am so entertained while jogging, that a minor state of anticipatory mourning has set in. Yes, yes, it's ridiculous, but you out there who run will understand.
Yesterday there was a party at my house to celebrate the birthdays of my husband and my youngest son. The have the same birthday, in fact. Our marvelous weather was holding, and we sat outdoors singing, playing the guitar, listening to a couple who sing and play a computerized keyboard, eating too much, and watching the grandkids dash around the back yard. I had set up a big tent and was thinking about camping out with the four oldest grandkids, but for some obscure reason, I had the idea they would get tired about nine-thirty, maybe ten at the latest, and we could grab our pillows and slip into our sleeping bags for a night's rest. Where do I get this stuff?
At eleven-thirty, the grandkids were going full blower, even though a couple of them seemed to be on automatic. The party, too, was going full blower--everything, in fact, except me. We had ordered food, a waiter helped with everything from drinks to washing dishes, and a dash of excitement was added to the proceedings because earlier in the day my little grand-daughter, Sofía (4 years old), had swallowed a small disc-shaped battery and a tiny magnet. Let's face it, we will never know why. A trip to the hospital and some X-rays showed the two items safely stuck together and traveling through the intestinal tract, so a laxative was administered and orders for her only to ingest liquids. She was also ensconced in a diaper so nothing would get by unobserved.
Have you ever been to a get-together of over twenty people, each one periodically leaping up to the check the diaper of a small child? It began to seem like some kind of game show, as if the treasure-hunters who came up with the missing battery and magnet were going to win big. I told my son in no uncertain terms that once Sofía managed to poop, the subsequent mining for the missing items was his job, and his alone. His wife, an event planner who had a big wedding to honcho up last night, was out of range. That left only him. I've already done my time and now the torch passes to others.
The party forged on without me because I simply couldn't remain standing another minute. Not to be outdone, a different grandchild deciding to vomit. I declared the camping excursion cancelled and went to bed. Although I didn't have one single alcoholic drink, my body has also declared all events cancelled, but today my trainer Adrián told me only to walk briskly for 35 minutes. Ha! I think not.
On Wednesday I am going to Mexico City, and my main concern is how much conditioning I'm going to lose in the four days there. I can remember the addictive preocupation about the same theme in my former life as an aerobics fanatic. But running is worse--I feel so good after I go out, my state of mind is so upbeat, and I am so entertained while jogging, that a minor state of anticipatory mourning has set in. Yes, yes, it's ridiculous, but you out there who run will understand.
sábado, 19 de marzo de 2011
Push, push, push...
This morning's jog held little in the way of overheard conversation, except for a man who passed me (everyone passes me) who was saying that maybe the reason he felt so bad yesterday was because he hadn't had anything to eat all morning.
"Watson, quick, man, the game's afoot and it's weak from lack of food!"
"Good God, Holmes, surely you don't mean...?"
"Yes, and the disguise is fiendish. He's managed to add inches to his height, dye his hair, change his voice, but we know why he ate nothing yesterday morning! With that, he's given himself away...that, and the fact that he's still wearing that adult diaper..."
Giving birth to an improved cardiopulmonary conditioning is like having a baby; you keep telling yourself to push, but unlike childbirth, you aren't sure what the outcome is going to be. After plugging along and seeing my heart monitor barely register a vital sign, I wondered if I would ever, ever manage to get beyond my jog-this-block, walk-the-next-one mode. Would I ever be able to do it without struggling? Would I eventually breeze through without watching the clock or speeding up just to reach the end of the block so I could rest?
Then, after all that musing as I plodded along, it dawned on me that something had changed: I wasn't going as slow as I was yesterday. I even had the energy to try different ways of jogging--short, fast steps, or slower, longer strides. In a fit of frustration, I picked my feet up and actually ran the last third of a block--shooting my heart rate up to 153 but feeling absolutely wonderful. It was then I noticed that I had lost track of the time and had gone ten minutes past my 30 minute session. Hope springs eternal!! And when this birthing process is over with, I won't have to stay up nights for weeks on end feeding a colicky baby!
"Watson, quick, man, the game's afoot and it's weak from lack of food!"
"Good God, Holmes, surely you don't mean...?"
"Yes, and the disguise is fiendish. He's managed to add inches to his height, dye his hair, change his voice, but we know why he ate nothing yesterday morning! With that, he's given himself away...that, and the fact that he's still wearing that adult diaper..."
Giving birth to an improved cardiopulmonary conditioning is like having a baby; you keep telling yourself to push, but unlike childbirth, you aren't sure what the outcome is going to be. After plugging along and seeing my heart monitor barely register a vital sign, I wondered if I would ever, ever manage to get beyond my jog-this-block, walk-the-next-one mode. Would I ever be able to do it without struggling? Would I eventually breeze through without watching the clock or speeding up just to reach the end of the block so I could rest?
Then, after all that musing as I plodded along, it dawned on me that something had changed: I wasn't going as slow as I was yesterday. I even had the energy to try different ways of jogging--short, fast steps, or slower, longer strides. In a fit of frustration, I picked my feet up and actually ran the last third of a block--shooting my heart rate up to 153 but feeling absolutely wonderful. It was then I noticed that I had lost track of the time and had gone ten minutes past my 30 minute session. Hope springs eternal!! And when this birthing process is over with, I won't have to stay up nights for weeks on end feeding a colicky baby!
Advil days
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.
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.
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!!!!!!"
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