Growing Pains

The first major hurdle of the Big Fat Fitness Comeback is upon me. From the base of my skull to the sacro-iliac joint in my pelvis, my neck and back are cranky. Not in spasm, not blown out, but just grumpy, painful, stiff, and threatening to blow out at any moment. I can’t place a starting point for this phenomenon. The upper back has been stiff in the mornings for weeks now; the mid back and lower back got pretty tweaked when I was working as my brother’s assistant stage hand for my parents’ party a few weeks ago; and I have the neck of a typical computer slave, ready to seize up at any time. Last night as we drove home from our friends’ house, muscles cramped up in the front of my neck, creating a nifty combo of pain and choking, though the muscles in question were on the outside of the neck, not really my throat as such.

I did a modest workout on Saturday morning, in an unusual late-summer rain shower that hit the pavement in fat drops. I walked, and jogged a few steps and walked again. I did my semi-pushups on the metal gate, and a few sets of sideways shuffling along the path on the way home, just to move in the lateral plane for a change. Going forward (or backward) on a bike or on foot is movement in the sagittal plane. I had to look up how to spell that. Twisting the night away - that’s the transverse plane. Well-balanced athletes move easily in all those directions. I do not.

There weren’t any major strains though. I got home feeling peppy enough to deadhead a few roses and do battle with the ferns invading our front walkway. After all that, though, I was struck by fatigue and spent the rest of the day and evening watching sports on TV from the BPC. This is almost not an exaggeration. At some point in this great immobility, my hip/lower back sent out a communique that all was not well, so I stretched my glutes and piriformis as best I could without actually leaving the BPC’s warm embrace. Felt better, and virtuous for having stretched however perfunctorily.

Sunday - “eh.” This “eh” is pronounced with the short “e” of “pet” rather than the “ay” sound of the Canadian generic interrogative particle. A flat tone of voice and a wry twist of the mouth convey the appropriate emotion. Back felt bad in many places, energy was low. Eschewed exercise completely and visited friends instead, which involved much driving, which it was my turn to do. My neck joined the chorus of disapproval.

Monday - same “eh.”. The walk to the office from the train felt hard and uncomfortable, though my ankles felt worse than my back for some reason. Day at desk didn’t help much but didn’t exacerbate the situation. I weenied out and got a ride to the afternoon train from my co-worker.

Tuesday has the feeling of a critical day. If I let three days go by without real work-up-a-sweat movement, I feel like I might lose momentum in a serious way. But I don’t want to wreck my back. So maybe it’s just walking again. Sigh.

Flexible like Gumby

Some things just don't seem to come together. Of all the things that needed to happen for me to get back in the pool, the most unlikely one came the quickest and easiest: I got two swimsuits that fit. I found a reasonably accessible public pool with lap swim hours from 5-7 pm - also a little unlikely as Sacramento cuts back on just about every service it has - and I packed my bag with suit, cap, goggles, towel. But have I been in the pool yet? I have not, ladies and gentlemen.

Tuesday, I planned to head out after a conference call at 5 pm, but that call didn't start till 5:30 and by the time it ended at 6:20, it was too late to get across town to the pool and still get a swim in. But, being flexible like Gumby, I did jump on the bike and ride for about 40 minutes. Learning from previous mistakes, I just did a couple of intervals of harder work, and I made sure to do them on the way home.

Yesterday I forgot to put my bag in the car, which was particularly stupid as I would have been able to get out of work early and get to the pool by about 5:30. And I missed my bike commute too, since I was picked up from the early morning train and taken directly to a meeting with clients. Can't really stash the bike in the boss's car, or meet with clients in my usual bike-commute attire. So yesterday was pretty much a waste from the Big Fat Fitness Comeback perspective. Or it was a day off.

Today, a work at home day, seemed like a perfect day to make it to the pool, but then my internet went out in the late morning (curse you, Comcast!), which pushed back my work schedule well past 5 pm. But I took advantage of the opportunity to jump on the bike again and ride for 45 minutes. Average speed of 13.5 mph, which is pretty reasonable for me at this stage. I did a two mile mini time trial, but then I forgot my starting time, so it wasn't much of a data point. Still might make it to the pool later on, if I commit to Chapter 29 - Work Less (At Your Job). Kind of a tough one in this scary labor market.

Hey, It's the Fair, OK?

Woke up the day after my Capitola walk-swim-walk adventure feeling tired, headachy, a little queasy. It might have been a hangover except that I only had a single Dr. Funk at Hula's Tiki place, and it wasn't that strong. This was a feeling I knew well from Boo-Boo Kitty Syndrome, when it was my norm for months on end. I started to freak out. Did I overdo it? Mostly modest activity on 5 out of 6 days - was that too much? Or was it just the rigors of a little travel, a strange bed, a few hours in the car, not getting my usual oatmeal/fruit/walnut/yogurt brekkie? Or were those rigors part of the overdoing it? This sort of hypochondriacal second-guessing was also typical of BBKS, and believe me, it's more tedious to experience than it is to read about.

So I ditched the bike ride or vigorous walk in favor of the Big Poofy Chair and a morning of tennis and golf on the tube. I sound like a serious country club queen, but in reality I'm just a sports nut, and it all looks awesome in high-def. Morning stretched into afternoon and the Giants game (won handily, fortunately for my equilibrium), and I found myself feeling better, even a little restless.

Couldn't persuade Tim, but I lit out for the last day of the State Fair - couldn't pass up the calling of stinky livestock and fried foods. I perused the livestock show, admiring the enormous Dorset and Hampshire sheep, the pigs, the llamas (llama!), the horses, and the competent, low-key folks who cared for them and kept them clean and fluffy. I ate a corn dog of pornographic proportions. I saw portraits made of Jelly Bellys and exhibits of every California county's splendors. I saw fire artists, kaleidoscopes, chinchillas, lovebirds, cookware and mattresses. I watched a 13-year-old girl ride the mechanical bull with grace, rhythm, and determination, and a guy built like a defensive tackle almost win the basketball shooting game. I walked all over the massive fairgrounds, tired and footsore, but intoxicated with the silly fun.

Plus I was looking for the perfect deep-fried dessert. I had heard there were deep-fried Snickers bars, Twinkies, and Oreos. I never found the Snickers, but in the middle of the thousands of food stands, I did find one that offered both Twinkie and Oreo delights. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, Oreos. They arrived completely unrecognizable, covered in a half-inch of batter, sprinkles, and a little chocolate sauce. Wow. They looked very, very decadent, but they weren't that great. The cookie part got soggy and didn't contrast enough with the batter. They were just ok. I didn't even eat them all, but I ate enough to feel a little ill afterwards. But hey, it's the fair, ok?

Slogging back to the car, I calculated that I had been on my feet for about 2 hours and 45 minutes, and walking for at least 2 of those hours, albeit slowly. I was really beat when I got home, but not in a BBKS way, and although I doubt I burned anywhere near the calories I consumed in deep-fried Oreos alone, I did succeed in moving around outside. It wasn't my plan, and it was slow, but that's cool.

Making a Splash

There was no doubt in my mind what the Shape Up with the Slow Fat Triathlete chapter reference was going to be for this post: Swim at Any Opportunity (Chapter 14). Being in the water fills me with childlike happiness. If the water is open, unconstrained by concrete and untreated by chlorine, and the weather is crazy glorious, that's pretty much like crack.

This is Labor Day weekend, and Tim and I were visiting our friend Steve in one of the charming hamlets of the Santa Cruz mountains. My two key objectives for Sunday were to take in the floating begonia floats at the Capitola Begonia Festival and to swim in the ocean. Technically it's Monterey Bay, but since the bay is not particularly enclosed or protected, I think of it as the ocean.

Only nine floats came down Soquel Creek, but they were covered with real begonias and showed a lot of flair. My favorite was the giant pelican, complete with fish-costumed kids in its enormous bill. (Photo to come!) The crowds were disproportionate to the number of floats. We could hardly move along the creek path, but once we turned into the village, it turned into normal Labor Day madness. I arranged a rendezvous with Tim and Steve, ducked into the decently-appointed public restroom, and wiggled into one of my new suits. I picked my way through beach blankets and umbrellas and walked boldly into the water.

My internal wetsuit served me well . The temperature for the Monterey Bay this time of year usually hovers in the high 50s to low 60s. The calm water and hours of sunshine, though, had probably gotten the temperature up a couple of degrees from normal. It felt great to me, washing off the sweat and fatigue of parade-viewing in the heat, not to mention the hike from the car down to town. (Note to Steve: Hey, bud, the "great parking spot" that works for you on Thursday afternoons may not be such a great option for Labor Day freakin' Weekend!)

Not much to say about the swim itself. I had forgotten my goggles and swim cap, so I wasn't set up for a serious open water workout. A few strokes of freestyle, a few backstrokes, a bit of breaststroke, some of my patented Esther Williams (no relation) sidestroke, a lot of floating about, kicking, stretching, and generally feeling aquatic. I looked on it as preparation for my upcoming regime of lap swimming and a reminder of what I love about triathlons. I managed to work hard enough to feel it in my arms and legs, and the walk back uphill to the car seemed inordinately difficult afterwards. I mean, it was over a mile uphill in 82 degree weather, and I was carrying my beach bag and heavy wet towel, and I hadn't eaten anything since a bagel in the late morning... but still. I didn't feel too much like a trained-up athlete as Steve and my semi-sedentary hubby strode away from me.

But that's not important. I swam in the ocean. It was good.

Postscript: The sweet potato fries at Hula's Island Grill and Tiki Room in Santa Cruz are serious, and the drinks are tasty. But don't order anything "Jamaican Jerk" style - ludicrously unauthentic.

Seems Better Already

A potpourri of positive signs after just a week or so.

I woke up this morning around 7:30 and decided to go for a walk. This is positive for a few reasons. For years, the idea of me waking up voluntarily and without an alarm at 7:30 on a Saturday was pretty much inconceivable. I was always pretty ready to sleep 9 1/2 to 10 hours any night, and weekends were an invitation to sleep more. I never, ever woke up feeling alert and well rested, no matter how long I slept, and I usually felt tired and often headachy, in no mood to move or talk, let along exercise. Yeah, I became a pretty dedicated triathlete and even marathoner, but early morning workouts were few and far between during that time.

The alert reader will probably recognize that I had sleep apnea, a fact that went undiagnosed for at least four years and probably more like 20. But I got my APAP machine last year about this time, and very gradually some of the symptoms that had gotten so much worse during the Boo-Boo Kitty Experience began to subside (they had already started subsiding prior to APAP therapy, so I'm not willing to ascribe the whole BBKE to sleep apnea). First the headaches diminished, then I started feeling a bit more alert in the mornings, then it actually started to feel easier to get up, and recently I've had a few mornings where I woke up before my alarm and just felt like getting out of bed. This is really, deeply weird for me. I haven't had that happen since I was about 11 years old.

Anyhow, after feeling pleased with myself for a few minutes, I got dressed and went out. To my amazement, I felt much stronger and more energetic than I had just two days previously. I know from long experience that a great session of exercise can easily be followed by a sucky one, but I was still extremely gratified. I went up and over the levee and down along the dock by the Virgin Sturgeon, walking cautiously along the narrow, tippy floating it. It wa cool and breezy by the river, like the first day of fall, though I know that we could get quite a few more days of 97-100 degree heat before fall really kicks in.

I jogged a few steps as I reached the giant oaks by the Ghost Offices, and did a few step-ups onto the lowest-lying concrete bench. I even jogged part of the way back up the path onto the levee. My back didn't hurt, my calves and ankles weren't tired. I got home and found I had only been out for 32 minutes, but I'd done some semi-vigorous things during that time.

The final piece of excitement - and all this before breakfast - was that my Junonia swimsuits had arrived while I was at work yesterday. Like most women, I had a sort of sinking feeling about trying them on, but to my amazement, they both fit perfectly! I don't know how Junonia knows how to keep my boobs covered and in place, but they do and I thank them. Just in time for a Labor Day weekend venture down to the beach. Swimming in the ocean is one of my great joys, even in the frigid NorCal Pacific.

Today's chapter: Take Two Steps Back, One Step Forward (18). The one step forward days feel so good.

Making the Best of Walking

I'll let you in on one of my many guilty little secrets. I don't really like to walk that much. Ooooh, bad Jayne! Fitness and health writers are supposed to LOVE walking. The Mayo Clinic, for example, blathers on about how walking is so good for you, so safe, so cheap, etc. (And excuse me, Mayo Clinic, but do you really think that walking is going to "trim your waistline"? Y'all must be walking in some different shoes than I am.)

Well, sure, walking's all those things. It's a low-impact way to move the bod, and if the bod is sporting many pounds of excess flab, you're a lot less likely to damage yourself by walking than by playing badminton or basketball. Plus walking takes place outside, which is a positive.

That is all true. But I find walking to be tedious. I admit it. I'd much rather run or jog than walk. I like hiking, certainly, but that involves being really outside, somewhere with mountains or other nature-y benefits. And there are parts of the world that are just so magical that walking in them is pure joy. Much of Wales or Scotland, for example, or the Mendocino coast. But that's more like hiking, really. "Walking," to me, generally involves being a flat, paved environment, probably suburban or urban, and is either something I have to do, like getting from the train station to the office, or convince myself I should do, like this morning.

Now I know I am diametrically opposing many of my own dictums here. Chapter 5 - Embrace the Awesome Power of Fun, for example, states unequivocally that exercise should not be drudgery, and I have just confessed that walking is a bit on the drudgy side. I have also written about how every time you go out and move your body, you should feel grateful for the privilege of doing so (Chapter 40). How you should move like an animal (Chapter 13) - relaxed, graceful, efficient. Well, fine. Some days the reward for the exercise is not the awesome power of the fun; it's the awesome power of the smugness that you can radiate when you know you got up and exercised before work. Sometimes the animal that you're moving like is a tired old hippo, not a young gazelle bounding over the plains, and the hippo is grouchy from the parasites that live under her skin.

And until I feel like my core and my joints are strong enough to run, I will walk. I'll do a few "pushups" off the metal gate along the path, and a few "assisted pullups" on a low tree branch, just to break up the monotony and use a few more muscles. I'll enjoy the ground squirrels and the mountain plover (pictured) in the landscaping of the Ghost Office Complex. I'll try to make it fun. And I'll look forward to running again.

4 +1 +4 +1 Is Not Equal to 12 or even 10

It's a gorgeous late summer day in Sacramento. The temperature was only around 80 degrees at 1 pm, so I decided to take some of my own advice and Go Outside (Chapter 17) on my bike. I was finally starting to feel a bit of pep after a rough week recovering from putting on my parents' 50th wedding anniversary bash. Lots of people put in lots of effort - and your thank you notes are sitting on the hall table waiting for a mail run - but I really crashed after that weekend. Aches, involuntary naps, muscle cramps, mental fog, headache, all that crap.

But hey! Yesterday I felt all better and did my modest bike-train commute in fine style. It's about 4 miles from my house to the Sacramento train station, then another mile or so from the Berkeley station to the office. The ride along the Sacramento River, across the American River, and back over to the Sacramento was inspiring both ways. Big oaks and cottonwoods, geese on the beach, sunlight glinting on green water - excellent.

So today at lunchtime I saddled up and headed out along the levee, west and then north along the Garden Highway, where the Sacramento makes a huge bend. I was planning to go about 10 miles, warming up for the first 15 minutes or so (Chapter 3: Be Slow), and then doing a few intervals to get my heart rate up and feel like I was working out rather than commuting.

The warmup was delightful, and the modest intervals felt good. I felt my quads work and my heart rate go up without getting a huge anaerobic burn or sucking ghastly wind. I went out about 5 miles, but instead of making my usual U-turn, I turned onto Power Line Road, thinking to explore it and get a mild challenge climbing back up on to the levee. I bumped along the cruddy road surface, but enjoyed my proximity to the cornfields and apple orchards and the massive live oaks.

Coming back, though, I felt like complete and utter dog-doo. Getting back onto the levee, an elevation gain of about 30 feet, felt like climing Mont Ventoux, and the five or so miles back to the house seemed unimaginably long. My overall ride was going to be twelve miles, and I couldn't believe how tired I was. The Garden Highway stretched out before me for miles; I couldn't even see the big bend in the road.

So I switched my focus to Chapter 48 - Endure. I slowed down to a crawl, found a pace I could live with, and tried to block everything out of my mind, especially thoughts of time or distance remaining. I was looking for a Zen place of total mental non-focus. Without actually falling off the road, that is.

I drank my water in measured sips and contemplated a Gu, but I didn't feel like I was having a hunger knock. I just felt very, very slow. I worked on embracing my slowness, taking coasting breaks, taking breaks to get my butt off the saddle and air out the nether regions, and staying as comfortable as possible.

Finally the road started swinging east and I reached the Bridges restaurant - 1.3 miles to go. I gained a slight tailwind and a final spurt of energy to make it to the turn off the levee and down to my neighborhood. I coasted to the garage, feeling dull and weak. But I made it.

Note to self - an easy four miles to the train station, during which you try not to get too sweaty, is not really a workout. It's fun, and it's exercise, but it is in no way equal to an hour ride with some intervals thrown in. I need to start putting a little more extended saddle time in. And then think about intervals. And then, maybe next year, think about hills.