Let's talk about streaking

Back in the spring I promised to run or walk every day until the end of August.  The idea was that it would be too hot and humid to get quality runs in, so rather than sitting around complaining that it's too hot/humid/whatever to get outside, I'd work on building a habit of getting exercise in regardless of the weather.  And by that measure, the streak was successful.  Funny thing is that in a streak of 94 days it only rained once or twice, and the rain was so severe I ended up using the treadmill.  I have no problem running in the rain, but when there's flooding and poor visibility it's a different matter entirely.

Sadly, the streak ended very early in September at the same time my father-in-law was in the final days of losing his battle with cancer.  It wasn't really an appropriate time to celebrate a great accomplishment, so I had an emotional meltdown instead.  But now a month removed from those events I can look back and say "mission accomplished".

I'm planning another streak for this winter and for much the same reasons.  It will be dark, cold, snowy, icy, and all kinds of brutal.  Getting in a token amount of daily exercise will be an accomplishment.  I can see myself clearing a blizzard out of the driveway, then strapping on some snowshoes and doing laps around the woods behind my house.  Given the speed I go in deep snow, it may make sense to make 20 minutes the minimal qualifying effort instead of 1 mile.  This isn't so I can register on any running streak website, so I get to make up my own rules.

I also want to start a streak of posting to my blog every week, starting with this post.  Writing is a very therapeutic thing for me.  It's an opportunity to take the thoughts that are constantly stirring around inside my head, put them down on paper (or LCD, as the case may be), and look at them from the outside.  I can re-arrange them, sculpt them, keep the good thoughts and backspace out the unhelpful ones.  Even if nobody ever reads the blog there's great value in the creation of it.  For those keeping track, this is about the third time I've written this particular post, and it's the first version I sorta like.

Also, it's time to get serious about running another marathon.  I don't have a specific event or date picked out yet, but do have a rough idea of the level I need to reach as a runner before committing to an event.  Intrigued?  Look for my next post!

Crap… in a few more words

My father in law is dying of cancer.  Dawne has left her job to take care of him with the help of a Hospice service.  I’m splitting my time between working, helping Dawne where I can, and clawing my way out of the dark emotional pits I occasionally fall into.

I struggle with uncertain situations and with the feelings of powerlessness that happen when you simply don’t know what to do.  My job can push those buttons enough when customer issues come piling in, but at least it’s reassuring to know that we have lots of customers and business is booming.

It’s tougher to think positively about death, but let’s try anyway.  We all have do die, so there should be nothing tragic about going through the process relatively comfortably at an advanced age, at home and with visits from friends and family.  Feelings of loss and sadness are inevitable, but to think this won’t happen someday is delusional.

But there are challenges too.  As a person loses the ability to walk or even stand, some bodily functions take on a peculiar combination of difficulty and messiness.  In a hospital or nursing home there’s trained staff to deal with this.  When doing hospice at home, it’s all learned on the fly and usually without warning in the wee hours of a Saturday night.  This is when you learn what “Primary Care Giver” really means.

In such a situation it’s surprisingly easy to rise to the occasion and do things you didn't think you were capable of.  For a brief moment the emotions shut down and you simply act.  But then at some later time the emotions turn back on and suddenly everybody at the Stop and Shop is an idiotic moron who’s just in the way.  I can’t handle the uncertainty of deciding which style of pasta to buy, and am flooded with feelings of helplessness.  And when I get back to the office and try to get back into the work routine I suddenly find myself in another of those dark pits.  Why can’t emotions function in a more logical manner?

Things will be okay.  We are living through an exceptional time in what had already been a challenging year.  It’s a time of change, of personal growth, of tears and dark humor.  We will come out the other side and return to normal.  We'll be slightly older, wiser, and have a different perspective on what’s really important in life.

The Streak Goes On

Today will be day 27 of my walk/run streak.  To recap quickly, I’m committed to walking and/or running a mile or more every day through at least the end of August.  It’s like a running streak, but allows walking in the hopes of avoiding burnout and injury.

And it turns out that walking can be harder than running, particularly on the day after a hard workout.  Running produces a biochemical stew including adrenaline and endorphins that dull pain and tap into energy reserves.  Walking isn’t intense enough to do that, so there’s nothing to stop the sensations of dragging a tired, achy body around.

But walking is enough to loosen up the body and get things circulating, which flushes out waste and gets nutrients into areas that aren’t well served by blood vessels.  It’s restorative without doing further damage.  Other activities such as Yoga are also helpful, but since I can’t track mileage when doing Yoga, I go for a walk.

With a few walk days during the week, there’s now more contrast between my hard and easy workouts.  This seems to be working very well, but since I’m still coming back from injury and bronchitis it’s too soon to tell if it’s the walking or simply my body remembering some of its former level of fitness.  Either way, my pace has improved from glacial to slow at an astounding rate and my resting pulse is back under 60.

By doing something every day, the weekly mileage adds up very quickly.  I’m eager to get back to doing a long run over 10 miles once a week, but right now that would ramp up my weekly mileage too much too quickly.  It’s a completely different experience to be holding back on pace and distance compared to trying to go further and faster than the body is really ready for.  Exercise is fun again.

The streak is almost a month long and becoming established as habit.  Now it’s time to start focusing on adding in some strength training and maybe even some yoga, in addition to maintaining the streak.  Adding variety instead of increasing mileage feels radical.  It’s not something a runner does naturally.

Bought a Prius

Yesterday we picked up our brand new Prius!  Of the cars I have owned, this one by far has generated the largest number of questions, odd comments, and quizzical looks, which is saying something considering I once owned and autocrossed an orange Chevette.  As a convenience for my family, friends, coworkers, and other acquaintances, I present this convenient FAQ:

Q: When did you develop a man crush on Al Gore?

A: I didn’t.  This car is not a political statement.  It’s not going to save the planet.  It’s still consuming resources.  Only rather than burning a lot of oil from unstable countries with despotic governments, it’s made from many rare elements which are mostly concentrated in other unstable countries with despotic governments.  The motto of hybrids and electrics should be “Killing the planet a little more slowly and in different ways”.  If I really wanted to save the planet, I’d move closer to the office and walk/run/bike to work.

Q: So why did you buy it?

A: Two reasons.  First, I have a long commute and typically spend a couple hours each week crawling along slowly in bumper to bumper traffic.  The Prius is ideal for this kind of driving.  It can crawl slowly on electric power alone, which is exceedingly quiet and it doesn’t have a transmission that’s constantly changing gears like a modern 6+ speed automatic.

Second, I’m an engineer, and the technology of the Prius is fascinating.  I tend to avoid complicated cars, but will make an exception in this case.  While it’s complicated, they’ve also eliminated a lot of the failure points and maintenance items in other cars.  There is no accessory belt.  All the accessories (including A/C and water pump) are electric.  This means they can run independently of engine speed, and since they don’t need to function from 600 RPM to 6,000+ RPM are in theory less failure prone.  So how many readers have I lost by now?  Okay, I’ll skip the bit about the lack of a normal transmission.

Q: Why do you need 5 cars?

A: I don’t have 5 cars.  We have 4.  Two are new-ish daily drivers which are reliable and in good condition, and the others are both 17 years old and driven infrequently.  They old ones are a luxury and a means of coping with the long commute.  When I get bored driving the Prius, I’ll hop in a gas guzzler for a couple days, have fun, then at the first traffic jam quickly remember the reasons for getting the Prius.

Q: How much did you pay?

A: About $500 too much, like any other car, so so it feels.  With the internet, there isn’t much negotiation left.  I end up paying at or near invoice price, plus taxes, registration, and dealer fees, minus rebate and trade-in.  I suspect the invoice is slightly inflated by advertising fees and such.  With the holdback, the dealer ends up selling the car “at cost” and pocketing about $800-$1000 dollars, plus whatever other incentives go directly to the dealer.

Q: What’s it like to drive?

A: Surprisingly like any other car, with a couple exceptions.  The first portion of the “gas pedal” travel uses electric power, so to get it to really accelerate you need to push past that, and past the “efficient” zone.  It’s set up for economy, not to feel like a fast car.  Need to get up to speed?  Lead foot it.  Also, the brakes are used to recharge the battery, but the regeneration works best at speed.  As you approach a stop, the regeneration quits working and you need to push down harder to engage the friction (normal) brakes.  It’s a bit disconcerting until you get used to it.

Q: How often does the engine shut off?

A: Any chance it gets.  At speeds below about 45, the engine will shut off every time you take your foot off the gas pedal.  Driving behind someone who is going at an unsteady speed, or in traffic where cars are frequently slowing down to turn, the engine can cycle off and back on many times per mile.  It’s very well done.  Many times, you can only tell if the engine is on or off by the “EV” light on the dashboard.

Q: Is it quiet?

A: Yes and no.  At low speeds, it’s either on electric power or the engine is turning slowly, so it’s very quiet.  At speed, there is a surprising amount of tire noise.  It seems sound deadening would add weight and reduce gas mileage.

Walk Streak

Walking is underrated, but I’ll get back to that in a moment.  First let me document my fall from running grace.

First there was the physical therapy, then the bronchitis, and in between lots of snow and cold.  I’ve had virtually no quality running this year, and now I’m ready to ramp things back up just in time for hot and humid weather.

There something else I must confess.  Even at my peak of fitness a year ago, it was very difficult for me to do an “easy” run.  A slow shuffle on a cool day would put my heart rate in the middle of the “vigorous physical activity” range.  (note: beware the age-based formula for determining maximum heart rate, it’s a statistical average of multiple people and doesn’t work for individuals).

Any attempt to run what feels like a natural pace gets my heart rate well above the vigorous range after a couple miles.  I got very good at running with a super high heart rate, but the reality is that if the heart rate is that high, it means the body is producing a lot of adrenaline and probably cortisol.  This might explain why I never became particularly fast and tend to break down when attempting to train for a marathon.

Thus, I’m starting a walk streak.  I intend to walk and/or run at least one mile every day until the end of August, and then decide if it’s worth continuing.  It’s like starting a running streak, only there’s no shame in walking if the body isn’t ready for a run on a particular day.  And of course, if there are running breaks in the middle of a walk, it still counts as a walk.

Doing this will require checking my ego at the door.  I really enjoy running.  I also enjoy being seen by others as a runner.  But my ego has a tendency to make me push too hard.  To try to keep up with other runners who are either more genetically gifted, or in the process of forming their own chronic injuries.

The real goal here is to establish a habit that can be maintained for decades, and not just for a few years.  Walking is much lower impact than running, but still serves the purpose of elevating the heart rate and getting the bodily fluids circulating (fun fact: there’s twice as much lymph as blood in the human body).

And so I am on day 5 of my walk streak.  Who wants to join me?

The Bronchitis Experiment

Purely in the interest of science, I decided to catch the nasty bronchitis bug that’s going around so the effects of exercising with bronchitis could be studied.  It’s a service I selflessly provide, because nobody else in the history of the internet has ever tried to run with a chest cold and posted about it online.

And the results are mixed.  Exercise can make symptoms better or worse, depending on how bad the symptoms are to start with and how intense the exercise.  As an extreme example, when my symptoms were at their worst, walking to the bathroom exceeded my exercise capacity.

On the bright side, some heavy breathing can be a great way to get congestion moving out of the system.  If it’s done gradually, it’s possible to increase the intensity of exercise as the lungs clear out.  If it’s done too abruptly or symptoms are simply too severe, it’s a recipe for out of control coughing.  Nothing makes me look more athletic than being bent over on the side of the road coughing up my lungs.

Which brings up the downside.  Exertion can irritate the lungs, which makes the bronchitis worse.  So there’s a happy medium, where breathing is heavy enough to clear out the lungs but not so bad as to leave them hyper-sensitive and inflamed.

You may have noticed the use of the terms “exercise” and “exertion” instead of “running”.  After taking time off to rehab my knee, then further time off while bronchitis was at its worst, the best I can manage at the moment is a brisk walk up a slight grade, and maybe a mild jog downhill.  It’s not really enough to improve my fitness.

So why do it?  Because the weather is beautiful outside, and nothing feels so good as a brief burst of speed carefully stepping from rock to rock on a muddy section of trail, during that brief moment when you can breathe deeply and comfortably.  For a moment I am healthy, and perhaps it’s a bit naïve, but how can that moment possibly be bad for me?

Meditate with Mucus

After days of laying on the couch with a fever, a trip to the doctor, and several doses of antibiotics, I finally awoke this morning feeling rested and normal.  A perfect time to meditate for a few and focus my mind on fully returning to the land of the living.  And so…

Breath in deeply, feeling the lungs expand.  Exhale gently, feeling the flow of air through the nose and hearing the gurgling and bubbling sounds emanating from the chest.  Breath again and don’t just hear the sounds, but feel the congestion resisting the flow of air.  Note the reluctance to exhale fully, in an attempt to avoid the unfamiliar and creepy sensations.

Focus on the sensations of breathing, but try not to react to them.  Note that the ribs are tender and sore from days of intense coughing.  Note that the teeth are clenched with the tongue in between.  Calmly place the tip of the tongue to the roof of the mouth and return the focus to the breathing.

Write about the experience on your blog.  Pause to think about what to write next and notice that gurgling is still there, despite having left a sizable amount of mucus in the bathroom.  Wonder how the tongue found its way back between clenched teeth.

Realize that meditation is not automatically calming.  It is the practice of observing but not reacting to sensory input and thoughts.  Calm is the absence of instinctive reaction.  Focusing on the breath usually leads to calm because the brain does not think “OMG, I’m breathing normally!”

But when you mediate with mucus, new and novel sensations result from the act of breathing.  The brain tries to determine if this is a threat.  A sudden urge to drink water arises.  Fluids are good for thinning mucus.  Adrenals are activated.  Why focus on breath at a time like this?  Getting water is the single most import thing in the world.

The urge must be resisted.  Give in, and the brain will create a dozen new urges.  Realize the urgency is a result of adrenal involvement.  Make a mental note to get some water later, and look for the adrenal off switch.  Sadly, it’s located in the room marked “focus on the breath”.

Off to a Slow Start

I suppose this is my first official run after finishing up PT for my knee, and the good news is my knee is still in pretty good shape afterwards.  However this run involved a lot of walking and won’t be setting any speed records, but that’s oaky.

My main purpose in running is to aid my mental health.  Considering this and the fact I’m coming off an injury and a cold, and hucking up a loogie every mile or so, no pace is too slow today.  14 minute miles?  No problem.

Although I don’t really “run” a 14-minute mile.  I run a sub-10 pace for a bit, then walk a 17-minute pace for a while.  Rinse, lather, repeat.  This is actually what my long and/or easy runs should be at this point.  Unless I’m having a fantastic day, my recovery pace is walking up a slight hill.

I’m suspicious the my injury is the result of me trying to run a steady 12-minute pace, instead of doing the run/walk thing.  Running slower than what feels natural just seems to be an invitation to poor form and injury.  So I’m planning to do my own ad/hoc run/walk plan.  Jeff Galloway might be proud.

As I’ve got no major races planned for 2014, I think I’ll take this opportunity to train by getting out on my feet and running or walking at whatever pace puts me at a good, easy training effort.  Perhaps I’ll be able to cover the entire midstate trail this way, or cover my commute from work to home in 5 mile segments.  There’s lots of opportunities to amuse myself why simply moving on my feet.

And finally, what seems to work for me right now is getting out for some quality time and distance no matter what the speed.  I’d rather walk 8 miles in two hours than run 6 miles in one hour, and I’ll probably feel fresher afterwards, have burnt more fat, and have less systemic inflammation.  It’s my experiment of one.  Stay tuned for the results.

How to Listen to your Body

I’m adding “listen to your body” to the list of marginally useful advice that gets doled out regularly, along with “don’t stress”, “think positively”, and so forth.  The problem with any advice that has been condensed down to five or fewer words is that it doesn't give any subtlety about what it actually means.

So let’s think about listening to our bodies.  I’m not sure about your body, but mine speaks a sort of foreign language that I’m not totally fluent in, and can sometimes be a bit reactionary and blow things out of proportion.  So even though I listen I don’t always get the message and that’s why my knee is in rehab now.

My advice is to not just listen to your body, but start a conversation with it.  Do some exercise, notice how you feel.  Intentionally do a little too much exercise, how does that feel?  Now do the same easy exercise routine 5 times and be a bit surprised that your body feels differently each time.

I highly recommend against intentionally injuring yourself, but sometimes the only way to know when you’re injuring yourself is to get an injury and remember what it felt like.  This is particularly true of overuse injuries, where it’s difficult to differentiate between your body saying “I’m tired” and “I’m hurt”.  Runners are used to interpreting pain as “I’m tired”, and 99% of the time we’re right.  The other 1% when we misread the message, then people look at us as if we are masochists and tell us to listen to our bodies.  Gee, thanks.

Try different exercises.  My current benchmark is the single leg press.  On my right leg I can put too much weight on the machine and my muscle simply isn't strong enough to lift it.  On my left leg, my knee starts to hurt before the muscle has reached its limit.  Ah-ha!  I've just found a way not only to expose my injury without making it worse, but I can also put a number of the state of my knee: how much weight I can lift without pain.  That number has been increasing, which is a good thing.

I can and have done short and slow runs recently without aggravating my knee.  However I now know not to push the pace because the knee will give out before the muscles complain.  When the limiting factor in the leg press is the muscle and not the knee , that’s when I’ll be ready for unrestricted running.

And this has truly been the benefit I've found in going through physical therapy.  It’s counseling for me and my body.  We’re getting back on speaking terms and fixing up our relationship.  I've learned how to politely ask how my knee is doing, and can get a useful response without it throwing a two week tantrum.

Knee Recovery and Mental Health

Good evening friends.  Tonight’s post is inspired by Anne’s Running Commentary, and her openness about her battle with depression.

Now I don’t want to go on and on about bad knees and feeling down and sound like a reject for a PBS documentary.  The big summer blockbuster features a hero caught in an epic struggle with impossible odds and frequent setbacks, and since Joss Whedon is directing you can’t even be sure it will have a happy ending.  Get your popcorn folks.

Our villain in this story is anxiety and depression.  He’s a coward who doesn’t make obvious frontal assaults.  Instead, he sneaks in the back door and uses his cognitive distortion ray to mess with the wiring, clouding our hero’s perceptions and making him doubt things he should be sure of.  Suddenly, easy tasks that normal people do without a care become problematic.

But first, imagine life without the villain.  Our hero is running down the Frisbee field on a warm spring day and makes a dramatic diving catch.  The kind that would make the sports highlights.  Unfortunately that last burst of speed caused a rather nasty popping sensation in his hamstring, and our hero limps off the field.  It’s a couple weeks before he can walk normally, and months before he’s back to playing Frisbee.  His brain associates “diving catch” with “severe pain, can’t run afterwards”.  The traumatic event has caused our hero to avoid making diving catches, thus preserving the health of his hamstrings.  This is all good.

Now imagine our hero has a chronic knee injury.  There was no dramatic moment when something popped.  It just gradually appeared over the course of a few weeks.  The hero visits the doctor, and the villain subtly adds some anxiety to the situation.  Our hero fidgets and worries about the outcome.  Waiting has become a traumatic experience.  When the doctor says to stop running for a while, the villain fires the cognitive distortion ray.

And here’s what happens:  The same pathways in the brain that remember traumatic events with bad outcomes now associate “doctor visit” with “stressful, can’t run afterwards”.  The exact same mechanism that worked so well to preserve hamstrings is now an obstacle to getting better.  Our hero, at an emotional level, really believes that going to the doctor was the reason he can’t run.  The mere mention of the word “doctor” is enough to reduce him to a dysfunctional wreck.

This is the part of the story with an unexpected twist:  I am not the hero described above.  Yes, we have had similar experiences, but I’ve gained a level of self-awareness and have some knowledge of how anxiety and depression work.

Cut back to the scene in the exam room, except now it’s me instead of the hero.  The effects of anxiety are starting to be felt.  I take a breath and calmly look around taking note of the surroundings.  Unfortunately those surroundings include a poster of the inner workings of a knee, with descriptions of everything that can go wrong.  Yikes!  Okay, maybe I’ll just sit here and meditate with my eyes closed.  By the time the doctor arrives with his verdict, I am almost asleep in the chair.

I also frequently remind myself that the home remedies weren't working.  To continue limping through runs and expect to suddenly get better one day is the very definition of insanity.  On the other hand, going to a doctor and then onto physical therapy gives structure to the recovery process, and also raises my level of commitment to recovery.

Doctor visits and physical therapy are now viewed as the path to recovery.  The story ends with an inspiring message of embracing one’s limitations and thus learning to transcend them.

Except it wasn't quite that rosy.  Somehow, this story didn't include the parts where I pestered my friends with messages such as “Sigh, I feel so sad today and have no idea why”.  If you were the lucky recipient of such a message, my apologies and thank you for your support.

To be continued…

Battle of the Wounded Knee

For those who haven’t heard me whine lately, my knee has been bothering me off and on for the last 6 months.  I rest it for a few days, go easy for a week or two, and it gets better.  Thinking it’s better, I start to use it like a healthy knee, and it’s back to step one.  Rinse, lather, repeat.

It’s finally reached the point where I called an orthopedist I had used years ago, and got no answer because he’s closed on Tuesdays.  I’m guessing actually getting an appointment might take several weeks, so in the interim it’s more self-diagnosis based on hearsay and internet research.

Until I get a professional opinion, I’m following my home-made recovery strategy:

1) Try not to be stupid and overdo anything.  Obvious, but many times it’s clear that I have a 20-something brain controlling a 40-something body.  It’s also complicated because the threshold of stupidity changes from day to day.

2) Rest and ice when possible.  I’m horrible at this, but at least I’ve discovered a good way to ice a knee.  There’s this high-tech ice pack that consists of biodegradable pellets in a plastic bag.  Because it’s filled with small pellets, it will automatically conform to the shape of the knee.  Just plop it on while sitting in front of the TV.  The problem is that the pack slowly shrinks with time, because somebody in the house keeps eating the pellets.  (it’s a bag of frozen peas, if you haven’t guessed).

3) Mentally prepare myself for a long recovery.  This means no major races and lots of slow running and hiking for 2014.  On the bright side, I may actually learn to do an easy run properly.  At the indoor track tonight I ran/walked slower than a 13-minute pace.  Considering my one and only marathon was a 12:40 pace, and my heart rate tonight averaged out to zone 2, my easy runs should be this god-awful slow.  On healthy legs I’d run much faster, and cover up my lack of aerobic capacity with my ability to run up an oxygen debt that would make the government blush.

Admitting I have a knee problem is the first step to recovery.