Back in the saddle

TL;DR - New regime seems interesting; cycling longer distances is a bugger against the wind, but my app has great safety features for cycling/ running alone in isolated places; those of us at the whim of menstrual cycles have some interesting things to learn about what progesterone seems to (spoiler: metabolic and heart rate changes)…

So I’m back in the exercise mindset and have started using the Fitstar by Fitbit app. So far I’m impressed - the first session in the “Get Strong” program I’ve selected (muscle-building and cardio - exactly what I’m after) was 20 minutes long, with three short breaks programmed in, and it didn’t seem ridiculously taxing and yet I am exactly the right amount of sore today. I need some new stretches for calf muscles - anyone got any good ones that won’t fry a bendy?

I’d already committed to either going dancing last night or, if no-one was going to come with me, a longish bike ride today. Bike ride it was, despite having woken up with fun menstrual cramps. I dithered a little, but eventually set off wearing too many layers and with a brisk tailwind. Obviously that was less fun on the way back (although I’d stripped down one layer, which helped), but, oddly, having given myself permission to stop whenever I needed to, I persisted all the way back.

I also tried out the “Beacon” element of the Strava app, and sent the associated link to a couple of people who were able to watch the little dot of me trail out then home, even being told how much battery life my phone still had! Someone’s put a lot of thought into that…

Way out

Way back

Back home, I showed one of the beacon-watchers (a similarly nerdy scientist) graphs of my heart-rate on the way out and back (distinctly different!), and discovered a weird pattern in my resting heart rate (RHR) courtesy of the Fitbit I wear. Turns out my RHR shifts across the weeks in a distinctive pattern. I did some Googling and found out that heart-rate and baseline body temperature shift across the menstrual cycle, peaking briefly at ovulation, then climbing again through the luteal phase. This could explain why a lot of us are different amounts of hungry and for different types of food across the cycle - our metabolism is shifting in response to these hormonal changes.

I don’t know about you, but this is going to make a difference to how I train across the cycle. I need to put some thought into exactly how - does this mean more strength-building challenges in the first part of the cycle (taking advantage of lower joint laxness and lower injury risk) and more cardio in the second part (taking advantage of running hotter) or the opposite way around (i.e. more cardio when my system’s slower)?

I’d be interested in hearing what anyone has to say about this. (Also whether anyone’s started a pool for when I next injure myself and put myself out of the running for all this… running around.)

_________________________

Some links on RHR/ menstrual cycle research, if you’re interested:

Twelve month study by Clue with largeish subject pool

Personal study by one Redditter

Another study from 2000

I Want More...

TL;DR - a month running around a hilly city has done me a world of good, and now I’m back at my sedentary day job I want to do more, including trying Fitstar - any recommendations?

I have spent 3½ weeks in Edinburgh walking up and down hills (apart from that bit in the last week where some fucker sneezed on me and I came down with a roaring cold that saw me have to get a replacement host for the last few days of my shows), hauling a heavy suitcase full of publicity materials, and repeatedly going up and down the three (four?) flights of stairs to reach our overpriced flat.

I was surprised to find that I got my “Fringe legs” under me faster than anticipated, and was able to do things like walking 1.75 miles uphill, slaloming tourists and flyerers alike, in just over 35 minutes, ending up on site overheating but able to speak (i.e. only slightly breathless).

Spot the day when I left my Fitbit on charge and the days I took off sick latterly...

I got back on the bike this morning for work and was pleasantly surprised to find that the fitness extended to this too. All this striding about, laden and at speed, has done wonders for my cardiac and aerobic fitness.



In short: wahoo! :D

But now I want to push that a bit further and find ways to exercise around job and performance commitments, because being this much fitter is fun - I have honestly missed being able to rely on my body this much, and I am really keen to maintain/ develop that. Turns out it’s easier when it’s part of my life (and saving money) than when I have to make a special effort aside to do it. I’m going to start taking fast walks at lunchtimes for a start, and I’m thinking about expanding my use of Fitbit into their Fitstar programme. Have any of you tried the latter - is it just nonsense or is it genuinely helpful?

My day job is massively sedentary, but it is on the third floor, so I can, at least, use that as a way to get my heart rate going. Any other suggestions?

Back in the Saddle

Blimey. It’s been over a year since I last updated this. So what’s happened in the World of Fay Health & Fitness since then?

1. Injured myself at home on the actual day of that event. Foolishly. Luckily, it’s a neck injury I’d had before, so this time I didn’t piss around, got hold of a physiotherapist (my old one having semi-retired), and got into a bunch of new, neck-related exercises.
    
2. After recovering from foolishness, continued to do lots of cycling, but just back on a daily, get-everywhere-I-don’t-need-to-transport-gig-gear/people kind of way.
    
3. Got back into mat exercises - press-ups, crunches, planks - plus the fun addition of chin-ups, courtesy of a bar you can slot above the doorframe (and a stack of books to stand on, because I’m not that tall (despite being tall for a poet), and our house is old, so the ceilings - and therefore doorframes - are high).
    
4. Went to the Edinburgh Fringe in August to take part in the usual shenanigans, which, from a health perspective, involved:
   
   Positives: a bunch of weight-lifting (hauling my crap up six flights of stairs virtually single-handedly as my flatmate had a hernia); walking 2-3 miles/ day up and down a very steep hill (luckily, I lived at the bottom of the hill), sometimes more if I had to go home and change between shows; continuing with the daily physio exercises and the twice-a-week, more hench mat exercises.
   
   Negatives: bad/ little sleep; the usual dehydration and when-the-fuck-do-I-eat issues leading to a little weight loss; abundant and often unnecessary stress (necessary stress I can deal with).
    
5. On the final couple of days had a troubling cough and sore throat, which I powered through on sheer adrenalin and stubbornness, which transmuted into a cold as soon as I started the long drive home through the night.
    
6. Cold turned into a chest infection and laryngitis, and then… and then I couldn’t speak, sing, or anything vocal, couldn’t bend over to pick things up, couldn’t lie down flat, couldn’t eat much, was constantly coughing and had chest pains and stomach pains, and then the bit where my throat kept closing off, stopping my breathing, all of which made sleep difficult.
    
7. I lost a LOT of weight. And no-one seemed to know what was wrong. Everything hurt, everything made me cough, and the only thing I’d ever relied on my whole life - my voice - was gone. And no-one seemed to know beyond a shrug whether it would ever come back.
   
   I pushed on through work, though had a lot of sickness leave, including after a trip to A&E (waking up in the middle of the night entirely unable to breathe and retching mucus) when I was signed off for a couple more weeks after I’d only just got back to work.
   
   As you can imagine, my mental health took a steep and long fucking dive. And even the physio exercises were out for a long time because of the aforementioned not being able to lie down flat, so my joints started to suffer in a major way. I slept (hell: I lived) on the sofa for about three months for fear of waking everyone constantly with the coughing and the terrifying choking noise that happened every time I dropped into proper sleep, even when propped up perpendicularly. It was bad enough that I wasn’t sleeping…
   
   It was horrible. And then there was the (thankfully apparently a clerical error?!) cancer scare.
    
8. Slowly my voice returned to something that was at least audible (though it’s currently fucked again - yay) as I learned what I can eat and not eat (I’m even more limited now than I was before), and which drugs and supplements help and which are, at best, useless.
    
9. They still don’t know what’s wrong, but the latest notion is to put me on a very low dose of something that, at much higher doses (like: fifteen times higher), is used as an anti-depressant.
    
10. I’ve recently got back on the bike. I am still horribly unfit. But I was haemorrhaging money trying to get around town and this is worth it long-term.
     
11. I’m even more recently back on the mat exercises, after I managed to injure myself doing ill-advised free weight-lifting (yes, again) a couple of months ago, and put a crimp in the cycling and some of the physio for a while.
     
12. I’m not living my best life right now, and I think the definition of that is going to have to change, but hey - who needed creative career plans anyway…?
     

I thought I’d go back to the blog because I actually wanted to ask some dietary advice, but I’ll leave that until the next entry, because it’s a bit much to cram into a catch-up post as well…

Thanks for reading (and, to some of you, waiting so patiently).

#SR16 #FinishingLine Part 1

Short version: I MADE IT! :D

Have stretched, and am drinking water and eating protein bars (I've developed a strange taste for them!).

More details to come later.

Big love to you all, and that's not just the endorphins talking!

:D

#SR16 #asithappens Part 2

So I'm over halfway. With no offence intended to St. Ives, I figured I'd enjoy a picnic by the lake far more than in the bus station, so doubled back until I saw somewhere likely.

Nice, eh?

The trip has also seen its first bit of genuine jeopardy - the lakes have overflowed and the path is massively flooded.

Cue over-optimistic splashing, followed by humorous pushing, and very muddy lower legs:

I'm currently composing a shory poem along the lines of "As I was going to St. Ives/ I met with quite the crowd of flies."

Overheating totally worth it for being able to ignore them due to goggles and balacavaish thing.

Thanks for all your messages of encouragement so far, you little diamonds. <3

Right! Lunch is done! Let's go! :D

#SR16 #asithappens Part 1

Longstanton Busway station is just over 50% of the way to St. Ives, and has toilets. A fact for which I'm profoundly grateful.

The wind is northerly, but relatively mild. This is good news for the way back, if it persists.

After weeks of freezing on the bike, I am overheating. Oh well!

Back and hips doing well, only mild complaints from wrists.

Onwards! :D

On Attitudes and “Progress”

I had a conversation with someone very recently that made me see them - and myself* - in a whole new light.

First, some background (skip if you like).

Strava, the app/ site I use to log my rides and measure my progress, has a couple of things that I really like in terms of motivation:

1. Social aspect - people can give you "Kudos" (basically a thumbs-up) for a ride/ run (I don't do running) and can leave comments. It's a whole thing. I like both giving and receiving kudos, and sometimes I comment on "I ran really badly"-labelled activities with "Maybe, but you did run."

2. Comparison on "segments" - people can set up either public or private segments so you can check to see how you do on certain sections of a road/ track/ whatever against the average person/ your gender/ your age group (well, those in that demographic who use Strava, anyway).  More importantly - to me - you can compare how you do against yourself, and each time you do a segment faster than before, you get a new personal record (PR), complete with tiny, virtual gold medal.

You can set up the app so that, while it's recording your current progress live, it will read out to you which segment you're on and - if you've done it before - what your current PR is for that segment.  It'll also tell you how you're doing when you're halfway.  (If you've never done it before, it'll tell you the overall best from other people - I generally ignore this.) I, personally, especially for commuter runs, would prefer it to announce what my average time is, so that I can tell how I'm doing for getting to work. But hey - if I tell them, maybe they'll make that available as a option.

Background done.

So yesterday, on the way to work, I had some tailwind.  The prevalent wind in (my part of) Cambridge is generally in the opposite direction, so it's nice not to be fighting my way into work. (On the other hand - more of a slog getting home; oh well.)  The Strava Lady announced that I was starting the 0.2 mile "Milton Road Buslane start to Milton Arms sprint" (I didn't name this) segment.  I was whizzing along by this point - good tailwind, no randoms crossing in front of me and slowing me up; it was all good; maybe today was the day...  I got to halfway, and she said "halfway: ahead by 7 seconds." Ooh! I'd somewhat resigned myself to not beating my 1:06 PR for at least the next few months, and I thought: it's today! Come on! And behold - I beat my previous PR by 8 seconds.  That's a 12% decrease, right? Considering the all-time recorded time on Strava for this segment is 31 seconds, I doubt the leaderboard are crapping themselves, but it means there's room for improvement (if I ever get a tailwind again/ do continue to get stronger and faster through the training).

So far so nice start to the day.

So then I get talking to a non-cyclist. I tell them the "it told me I was 7 seconds ahead so I pummelled it and beat my personal best! Yay!" story and... they didn't share my jubilation.

Their opinion was that I'd done it wrong: "So, instead of coasting for 7 seconds, you pummelled it? That was a mistake - you'll never beat that."

At the time, I just felt puzzled (and, okay, mildly deflated).

This morning, with a milder tailwind, and tired from a dodgy night's sleep, I heard the announcement of the start of the sprint on my earphones, and gave it a medium amount of welly, wondering how close I'd get to the previous day's PR, but not too bothered either way.  And I got to thinking about that conversation. It occurred to me that it spoke a lot about both my general attitudes to life (when the wind's behind you, really go for it!) and theirs (you don't want to push harder when things are going well...).  I've not entirely finished thinking about this (hence post), but it seems to me that this is something about ambition, goal-setting, and where effort is best placed.

I consider myself still "in development" - I likely will until I'm in my 90s, at least.  There's lots of things I don't know and can't do yet, but I've not given up on all of them (okay, still working my way up to swimming - shush). Generally, nowadays, while cycling, I push to at least 80% maximum effort - whether or not I'm  running on time/ late for/ early for my next appointment/ there is no appointment. I've not only changed my body, but I've changed my mind about how long it takes me to get from one place to another, and how long a distance I can actually do.

So I think that "let's just fucking do this, and do it hard" is a great way to get further faster. To progress. But that's only important if what you want to do is progress - which, to my mind, means: do it faster, better, stronger - and if you don't, if you want to maintain your current position, that's a different approach, and a different set of priorities.

At the moment, I'm not strong enough to overcome the underlying bullshit that is HMS/ EDS. So I need to progress on that front. And my (artistic) career isn't where I want it to be, so progress needs to be made. Maybe my friend is in exactly the place they want to be.  Or maybe something's scaring them about the notion of moving on, and I think - if that's the case - it's more likely to be fear of success than fear of failure. And I think I could learn a lot from my simple attitude to fitness, and apply this to other parts of my life. There's places I want to be, and I need to be taller to get there...

---

*Yes, that's a correct** use of the reflexive.

**one of the few

And then it all went a bit wrong...

What is it they say about having a crap dress rehearsal meaning that the real thing will be great?

I can only hope that it doesn't work for cycling like it does for singing, because I've been in some truly dire dress rehearsals that led to embarrassingly poor concerts.

So yesterday.  Yesterday I decided that I was going to finally have a play along the near-home map of the route I'd mapped out from Ely to home (north Cambridge). I'd even painstakingly devised a route on Strava that was Home to Ely.  Looks like this:



One small problem. If you "load route" on Strava, it in no way guides you. I didn't know that, so it went wrong quite quickly.  Basically this happened:



Firstly everyone and their dog were on Stourbridge Common, and the paths are not the smooth, well-maintained, recent, metalled surface of the busway. No. They are bumpy with uppity tree roots and switchback like no-one's business. And then I ended up in Barnwell.  I'm still not sure how.  As you can see, I went the wrong way in Fen Ditton for a while, then found my route which was, unlike as it looked on the Strava route planner, totally on-road.  On-fast-car-windy-hilly road.

I have in no way practised hills. The busway doesn't really do them. I haven't lived anywhere hilly for a while. I thought I missed hills. I still do, but my hips and knees were less sure, especially when being passed by fast cars.

And then I realised that I was trying to follow the "Ely to Home" route backwards, having smacked my thumb into the wrong one on my phone (the route for which I could barely see on the screen in bright sunshine as it was, as Strava denotes the route to come using orange against shades of yellow, and where you've been in bright blue), so I pulled over (again - I'd already lost a lot of momentum to this), stopped the recording, loaded the "right" route, and started the recording again.

Whereupon this happened:


As the youth say: I don't even. I just can't.

I was very pleased with myself, having gone wrong already a couple of times (long way around Stow-cum-Quy instead of through it? Okay!), to find the right road, and be ganging on through Lode (very pretty - nice, smooth roads, too).  I stopped when I figured I'd gone far enough to turn around and still get my miles - as I recalled, the "correct" way back was longer.

There was a pretty bridge with sunsetty shades all over the landscape. I stopped there:

Road Behind

View Ahead

And then I ate, drank some water, and set off on the "proper route".  By this point, I wasn't startled by going on the road with the whizzy cars, and I knew there was a hill coming up.  I was warmed-up and fed, and it was all good. Right?

Turns out the other thing Strava route-planner doesn't make clear is when something is so off-route it's a dirt track, and that the only other options are private farm roads or turn back.

I stopped, swore, turned back, stopped again, and programmed in a cycling route on Google Maps, which soothing voice navigated me all the way home (via some confusion in Fen Ditton, but a lot less confusion than anything that had gone before).

So, what's the conclusion?  The conclusion is that I have to make a conclusion - do I:

a) Stick to the boring-but-safe busway route, and just head on up to St. Ives (~12.5 miles away), then head home; or

b) Programme in a clever route on Google Maps and just do the crazy version anyway?

Both are tempting, for different reasons.  a) is safer, and will achieve my 25 mile goal without too much stress.  I will also get to see a different part of my training route that I haven't encountered yet. That's interesting, right?  And I'd already said that I would do that route if the weather is rubbish on Sunday. b) is the original challenge, and a heck of a lot more interesting. There are also pubs on the way that will afford wee stops if necessary.

On the other hand, I've now done a trek that was 74.8% of my eventual goal, and didn't break myself (though I'm really feeling it today). I call that a near-win.  I have also concluded that I'm not doing another big training ride on Wednesday - I'm resting these little legs (daily commute aside).

Progress and Technology

Hello!

Well, it's been a while, but I thought I'd give you an update.  Preferably one nothing to do with slightly scary mental health stuff.

So today I'll be talking about:

1. Training for the Sport Relief 2016 Challenge (sponsor me here)
2. Technology
3. General Health stuff

1. Training for the Sport Relief 2016 Challenge

This has been less fun that it could be - partly because I got ill between Christmas and New Year, and could (fairly) directly attribute that to going out on a training ride late in the day, getting cold with an exercise-induced lowered immune system, and then, instead of going straight home, went to the shop for food (a move that seemed logical at the time) where clearly some infectious bastard breathed on me. Garh

So what with having funtimes with breathing, then injuring myself (minor standard neck/ shoulder stuff), then the winds being insanely strong, I somehow let training drift into a puddle of excuses. I was still cycling pretty much everywhere (work, social engagements in Cambridge, choir rehearsals, anything where I didn't need to tote much gear) else, but no particularly challenging distance.

And then I checked my magical spreadsheet, which showed me that I only had a few weeks to go, and that I'd spent nigh-on two months not training. Eeeep! Instead of a steady increase of ≤½ mile every session, I was going to have to jump up more emphatically each time, especially if I stepped back to a shorter distance to kick back off again (because, despite being foolish, I do learn - slowly - from my past mistakes with exercise).

Mon 28-Dec-15: 16.4 miles, 1:39:32 hours (64% of end goal)



Wed 24-Feb-16: 10.1 miles, 0:57:14 hours (39% of end goal)



Sun 28-Feb-16: 12.6 miles, 1:11:38 hours (49% of end goal)



Sun 6-Mar-16: 15.5 miles, 1:29:16 hours (60% of end goal)



Wed 9-Mar-16: 17.7 miles, 1:41:25 hours (69% of end goal)



I am still aching after this last one (cold, damp, mizzly, long; an exercise in self-discipline/ persuasive self-talk), and currently wondering two things:

a) How much of a percentage of the end goal should I aim for?

b) Should I do a training cycle on the Wednesday before the Sunday 20th ride, or am I better off having a rest (apart from work cycling) that week?

2. Technology

After agonising over gadgets, I found the one that was the best fit: a FitBit Charge HR. Of all the things that I wanted an activity tracker to do/ be, it only doesn't do one of them: GPS tracking. On the other hand, it (along with its concomitant app) does everything else, and things I didn't even know I wanted it to do (and some other things - like calorie counting - that I'm resolutely ignoring).  It's good at working out when I've been cycling for short stretches, but the longer ones confuse it, so I have to manually record them, which isn't exactly taxing.

It's proving useful for helping me keep track of (and manage by increasing) my water intake, gamifying my fitness efforts, and it looks slinky on my wrist (it functions as an actual watch as well).

It's also proving useful during anxiety - it turns out that the thumping heart sensations are often misleading: my heart-rate will rise slightly, but not anything like as much as it feels. This is proving remarkably helpful in swift calming and fending off potential full-blown attacks.

And I've bought a fancy water bottle that's easy to carry around work (I saw someone else with one and desired it greatly), means I don't use up lots of plastic cups (yay environment), and measures much more precisely how much I've drunk during the day at work/ during cycle rides.

3. General Health stuff

I am generally well. However, my hip joints (especially my right one) are not. I have been mostly ignoring this and trying to find comfortable positions, but the "it's reliably achey by 10pm" rule has shifted to "it's reliably achey all the damned time and difficult to bear by 10pm".  And now the right one keeps going out of alignment when I get up from a chair and start walking. Unfun. So I need to go and see someone about this.  Sadly, my former physiotherapist has now retired, so I will need to begin the Quest for a Local Physiotherapist Who Actually Understands HMS/ EDS all over again, though armed with more knowledge than last time I started.

My lower left-hand back aches reliably after about 6-7 miles of continuous cycling; less if hills are involved.  I've been advised that I need to get my posture on the bike checked and the bike's setup amended by experts.  As in all things requiring experts, this is not cheap.  If it prevents some further physiotherapy sessions, mind, it'll be worth it.

I forgot to renew my gut medication prescription last week.  This will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.  I have come to rely on not being in constant abdominal agony - turns out I'm on PPIs for life. A small price to pay unless, of course, the NHS is dismantled. O_o

I'm beginning to see why people with my condition (especially those with more severe versions) get into a cycle of morphine use.  I'm still avoiding even paracetamol unless my neck's particularly bad and I want to sleep (and nothing I've got touches migraines, so there's no point there either), so we'll see how long I can keep this straight-edge attitude to pain management up...


Thanks for reading so far! :D More updates to come, more frequently and smaller, especially in the run-up to the Sunday 20th challenge. Did I mention that you can sponsor me...?! :D

Activity Tracker (or: retail therapy)

This is an appeal to the Sporty/ Gadgety Hivemind. Hello! :D

I am going to be in the market - in the New Year - for a new activity tracker (my current cheap one - Sony SmartBand was great for a few months, but has stopped recognising cycling (which is my main form of exercise!) and tracking my position over the course of a day (or ever), and doesn't measure my heart rate...).

There are some very fancy (read: expensive) activity and exercise trackers out there, and I'm doing my research, but I'm seeking out personal recommendations to trawl the sales with in January.  (Yes, yes, I know - a gadget doesn't substitute for just getting out and doing exercise, but I've found that a simple tracker with plenty of opportunity for graphs and comparisons has made a big difference to my motivation and therefore me actually doing anything.)

My requirements (not all of which are easily gleaned from t'interweb):

1. Not ridiculously expensive (my last one was <£20, end of line, to see if I wanted that kind of tech; £50-60 for a good one feels sensible, but less than that will be handy).

2. Has a heart rate monitor that doesn't require a chest strap.

3. Will track my movement (I'm a sucker for a good map).

4. Will integrate with my Android smartphone (send movement data to it, receive vibrating heads-up of phone notifications, can be used to e.g. snooze alarms).

5. Is a passive, through-the-day activity monitor, not just a "turn this on to say you're working out" type of thing.

6. Recognises the difference between different types of activity/ allows me to edit afterwards.

7. Fits my ludicrously slender wrist.

Preferable but not wholly essential:

1. Charges up from a normal micro USB cable.

2. Activity app integrates with other things like MapMyFitness/ Nudge/ whatever.

3. Fits under fitted cuffs without too much difficulty.

4. Shows me the time.


So there you are. Go recommendations... :)

Phase 1.2

In classic fashion, after crafting myself a clever and sensible bicycle training regime, I got busy, and then I got ill.

So, until yesterday, I hadn't done any further longer-distance rides.  After - yet again! - more procrastinating, I set off on another training ride along the Busway:



Several significant differences in preparation this time:

1. Lighter, smaller shoes.

2. Checked my tires.

3. Wore fewer layers.


What Went Well?

+ didn't overheat
+ really enjoyed it
+ didn't injure myself
+ went at a surprisingly fast clip
+ went further than anticipated (see above)
+ remembered to stretch at all
+ remembered to eat a protein bar and drink a ton of water when I got in
+ took a picture to mark the turning-point

What Could Have Gone Better?

- the soles on The Boots are ludicrously thick, and I nearly crippled myself climbing onto the now-far-too-high seat with my smaller shoes
- I was clearly dehydrated before I went out
- I hadn't eaten enough before I went out (seriously: very little all day)
- procrasturbating
- went further than anticipated
- didn't stretch as soon as I got in (again)


What will I do (differently) next time?

> adjust the seat before getting on the bike!
> drink a little more throughout the day (not directly beforehand!)
> get a mount for the phone on the handlebars so I can see how far I've gone rather than rely on a random notion of average speed to tell me when to turn around
> eat more sugary snackage beforehand and take something small with me for the turnaround break


Another thing not to do would be to look at other people's rides on Strava while I'm still feeling chuffed about my distance of 7.7 miles or whatever because one of my friends does 23 mile partially-off-road trips kind of as a matter of course.  If I do do that, I need to remind myself more swiftly that this is a guy who used to go mountain-biking on a Sunday, every Sunday, as a student, even when hungover to all hell. He's had over half his life to get really, REALLY good at this. Nice one, dude.

Remember: Do your own time...

Phase 1 Begins

After my bike challenge proposal, I decided on a vague training regimen of increasingly long trips, building up a mile or so a week, until I was near enough to my goal of the full distance between my house and Ely Cathedral.  I would do this on Sundays, and maybe Wednesdays, and I would neither wuss out nor break myself.

I spoke to colleagues who've trained for and completed cycling challenges such as London to Cambridge, or 100 mile round trips.  One of them came up with the excellent suggestion of using the busway's cycle path (since I live so close to one of them) for training, and another suggested a stepping programme of: increase, increase, step back, increase, increase, step back, etc. so that my baseline is always moving inexorably upwards. She also said that I should work out whether I'm stepping up time or distance. Both of them told me to listen to my body.

I discussed with R on Saturday how much I would do for the first step. I said: my longest usual non-stop journey is 20-25 minutes (my house to Cambridge Junction), so my first one should be slightly longer than that - 15 minutes one way and 15 minutes back. I discussed the ramifications of different options to an intricate level detail, and was reminded explicitly that I shouldn't "munt [my]self" on the first step - stick to 30 minutes. Oookaaaay...

Sunday came, and I watched myself procrastinate in the worst ways until I realised that I was basically waiting for it to be too late/ too rainy to go out. It hadn't rained, and I was disappointed.

Ah.

So I got off my arse, put what turned out to be too many layers on, set a count-down timer for 17 minutes, and got on my bike.  Here is the route I took:

It started off extremely boring, once I'd got onto the busway cycle path. Soooo dull.  I was pleased I'd opted for music, though I was sorely wishing for company. Quite how that would work, I've little idea yet - hands-free walkie talkies...?!

Anyway, after a while we left the science park behind and the landscape started getting interesting. More fields, more trees, am unexpected body of water, less noise. The little wiggle towards the left-hand side is where the cycle path abruptly jumps over three roads, including the busway, and I confidently crossed only two of them and ended up heading for a disused siding (the busway used to be a railway).

What went well?

+ I managed the distance
+ I didn't injure myself
+ I maintained a decent speed (av. 9.6, max. 13.6)
+ I felt fine (no significant aches & pains) during and after
+ I remembered not to take my usual heavy load of more urban gear with me

What could have gone better?

- I didn't stretch afterwards (probably the main reason I'm feeling it a bit more now)
- I didn't check bike's health (turns out you should inflate the tyres when heading off on a journey)
- As C predicted, watching me leave with all my layers, I massive overheated, especially on the way back.
- The procrastination!

What will I do (differently) next time?

> Start the journey colder (fewer layers, with options in saddlebags)
> Wear smaller shoes (my Big Black Boots weigh about 0.5kg)
> Check the tyres (and other things) first!
> Set a time for setting off and stick to it.

I'm definitely going to stick with the busway route for the next few iterations as a way of building up stamina and hours spent in the saddle while I level up.  As training ground it is excellently safe, and it forces me to keep going for longer, as there are only a few traffic lights, unlike any in-Cambridge cycling I do, which is packed with traffic lights and roundabouts, etc.  In fact, I'm almost tempted to switch the challenge to be "from home to St. Ives and back" because the busway to St. Ives is about 12.3 miles. There would be less dicking about with trains to get to the main leg of the trip, and it would be - for the most part - very protected from car traffic.

However, it would be extraordinarily dull.  I've had a look at the (mostly) off-traffic route from Ely, and it's via Wicken Fen and Anglesey Abbey - interesting local places I still haven't been to yet. I could make a proper (mini-)adventure out of this! :)

There's also an amount more hill (for this part of the world) going on. I haven't decided yet whether that's a good or bad thing.  I'm not convinced I want to end the journey uphill...

As the training progresses I'll get a better idea of how well my body is coping.  As each segment necessarily gets longer, it'll also be a test of my commitment to the goal - I'm not someone who's currently coming down with loads of spare time as it is...

More updates to come over the next few weeks...

A proposal

So, about 21 months ago, I started this blog and the drive for better fitness that defined it.  I had a single, simple goal to aim for, which encompassed a whole bunch of smaller, possibly more complex goals along the way:

Walk six miles in one go for Sport Relief 2014, the goals along the way being: increase cardiovascular fitness, increase striated muscle strength, improve stamina, get out of the habit of getting taxis and buses when I could be walking or cycling instead, improve joint stability.

The big one I did, and managed to raise a shit-ton of money (over £1000) in the process. I also lost weight, gained what feels like better lung capacity, and a better attitude to being mobile.

My joint stability, upper-body strength, and general fitness are probably more questionable at this stage, but at the time, and for a good while afterwards, there were some definite improvements to be felt and seen.

So I'm fitter than I was this time two years ago, and I'm keen to get back into that sense of achievement and incidental physical health improvement.  So what's the word?  Six miles again doesn't seem particularly worthwhile, and I'm enjoying the bike, so I'm thinking: a cycling challenge this year.  And since I seem to cycle approximately three times faster than I walk, the challenge needs to be more than 18 miles.  And Ely is 20-odd miles away from Cambridge, so...

Again: it's nothing set against those people who cycle all the way from London to Cambridge (50-odd miles), but most of them, I'm guessing, don't have the kind of physical health problems I have.  So I'm going to do my challenge, building up bike hours and distances in the intervening 22 weeks, and see how I go.

Might be worthwhile learning some cycle maintenance skills while I'm at it...

Watch this space (and Strava, and anywhere else I can get stuck into) for progress reports. :)

Steps Forward and Back

So, I'm back on the bike again. What do you mean, you didn't know I was off it...?!

{Checks back catalogue; curses}

Okay, so, it looks like a) I've been somewhat quiet on this front, and b) history repeated itself a bit.  Here's what happened over the intervening months since my last post:

1. Cycling every day (pretty much; certainly work days when I didn't have gig gear to carry, and Wednesdays when I had real life people meetings in places).

2. Physio every day (EVERY day; like a BOSS).

3. Mat exercises twice a week (come on!).

4. Eating a balanced diet.

And then August happened.  And August has Edinburgh Fringe in it. So no cycling from 19th August onwards, but lots of walking, and a handy new wearable gadget that maps how much and where I walked (because my passive movement tracking app stopped working).

So I scaled Arthur's Seat (yay!) and even coached someone else up it (come on!). Didn't even injure myself, unless you count sunburn.  I even kept up my physio and the strength-building mat exercises (despite some logistical difficulties - you try doing crunches on a mat on a polished wooden floor... without sliding across it and into a table).

And then I fell over on my face on a simple walk back down an urban hill, a couple of days later, and lots of health things cascaded, including my one filling jarring free and me getting a lot of pain and then a rubbish temporary filling which didn't let me chew so my nutrition was difficult to maintain and yeah - living off liquid food makes you lose more weight than you're comfortable with, if you're me.

Arse.

And then the trip back from Edinburgh with Too Much Luggage and bad lifting form and behold - buggered wrist.

So I was sensible - cycling hurt my wrist, so I paused on cycling and did some stretching and strengthening exercises for the wrist, and stayed off the press-ups, etc.  Then I got back on the bike. Yay! Then I got back into the mat exercises. Now, bear in mind that I hadn't done any since August, because I didn't - I just charged on ahead regardless like someone who was intent on injuring myself. Which I did.

This was 30th September. 1st October I got on the bike, unaware of how much I'd buggered myself. By the time I was heading home, it was clear that what I needed to do was immobilise that joint as much as possible.

It's nice to find that I've learned something.  I didn't prevent the injury this time, but I prevented it getting worse.  I immobilised as much as possible, asking for help, reducing movement, adjusting everything I could to ensure that as little strain was put upon the joint as possible. (Except on Thursday 8th when I joined in a yoga conversation in work and decided to demonstrate that I shouldn't do a certain move by doing it. 24 hours of migraine-like pain later and I'd learned another lesson about hypermobile injuries.)

So apart from yoga foolishness, I am pretty much recovered (read: it still hurts a bit but I can use it and I was more stressed by not being active) and back on the bike,  I cycled to Milton Country Park on Sunday with a friend to do some walking and wittering, then to and from work yesterday and today.

It was somewhat sobering to look back at the previous two blog entries and think: oh, so exactly like 3-4 months ago, huh? I left behind some good advice for myself, though, so that's a blessing.

In preparation for 20th March - Sport Relief again, baby - I'm going to be setting up a plan for increasing activity, strength, endurance, and general fitness. I'll keep you all posted as to what's next...

So, what's the current state of play (physical health-wise), all told? I am still a little hurty in the shoulder-neck joint and in my right wrist, and I'm finding it hard to put the weight back on. (And yes, I've tried eating all the biscuits - all that happened was I felt like crap. Presumably I need to eat a bunch of steaks and cheese.  Who knows?  All I know is that there are very, very few people out there who want to talk about the problems of losing too much weight and discussing how to put it back on.) So there it is.

Grindstone, meet Shoulder

So, as I’ve just posted, it looks rather like I’m back in the old exercise saddle.

I have bust through the notorious two week point (don’t know about anyone else, but if I can make it through two weeks of good exercise habit, the pattern is generally set until injury) and so far appear to be injury-free (you know, above my usual baseline of "various bits of me are a bit wrong").

So, what have I been up to?

1. Cycling
2. Large Muscle Physio Exercises
3. Small Muscle Physio Exercises
4. Butch Core Mat Exercises
5. Dancing

1. Cycling

I’ve been doing my best to cycle everywhere I can.  This is by no means every day (sometimes I’ve got massive stuff to carry; sometimes I’m not even leaving the house; today I couldn’t find my cycling helmet until after I’d given up and ordered a taxi), but most days, and I’m generally clocking (when the app bloody works) between 3-7 miles every day that I do cycle.

Advantages include cheapness and smugness alongside muscle strength; non-weight-bearing cardiovascular challenge; and the sensation of my lungs "opening up" again; forces me not to carry too much stuff with me.

Disadvantages include smelling bad (or feeling like I smell bad); dangerously ignorant cars; annoying cyclists; headwind; forces me not to carry too much stuff with me ({pout}).

Improvements to be made include being more systematic about where I put my gear, and getting better into a regime for the mornings in order to get to work more on time.

2. Large Muscle Physio Exercises

I’ve only missed one morning physio session in about 8 months, and that was when I was too ill from The Cough to go into work, so I sat on my arse and watched Netflix.  Other than that, I’ve been doing my usual:

leg-lifts (supine, sideways, on my belly)

crunches (normal, side, and slightly twisted)

kicks and crosses

All of these from the floor, and apparently - according to various friends - quite similar to a lot of Pilates moves. Most of them are designed for either 20/ 10 reps. As advised by physio.

Advantages include simplicity; portability; being part of a good morning habit; excellent for core strength; great for a range of leg muscle strength and stability; really good, demonstrably effective way of ameliorating and preventing pain, damage, injury etc. from long-term standing.

Disadvantages include finding enough room to lay flat, arms and legs full stretch in all directions, on a surface that won’t hurt to exercise on; needing to do it before breakfast otherwise indigestion; them doing pretty much nothing for upper body strength/ stability, which I badly need, considering the frequency with which my shoulders/ neck get injured/ go out of alignment/ both; they’re really only any good for maintenance rather than development.

Improvements to be made include getting them done earlier in the morning; finding something maintenancey to add to them for arms, shoulders, etc.

3. Small Muscle Physio Exercises

Instead of waving whole limbs around, these focus on tiny, tight-to-the-bone muscle groups, ostensibly to improve stability. Instead of lifting against gravity, you’re squeezing or pulling against yourself - these are for arms (and therefore shoulders and wrists), and can be done either sitting down or standing up:

pushing palms/ fists against each other

hooking fingers and pulling hands/ arms against each other

palm-against-back, one hand pushes towards the body, the other pushes away (then swap)

All of these forms are done in front of the torso, above the head, and behind the torso, holding the push/ pull for at least ten seconds before moving onto the next form. As advised by physio.

Advantages include them being for shoulder stability, which I badly need; massively portable (I can - and usually do - do them at my desk at work); hard to see how you can injure yourself only pushing against your own strength.

Disadvantages include that they’re super-boring, so it’s difficult to remember to do them unless I’m already injured and thinking about that kind of thing; it’s difficult to discern any difference even after doing them for a while.

Improvements to be made include setting up a thrice-daily reminder to do them, like I have the once-daily to do physio, twice daily for nasty medication, etc.; do some research into how they function and how to spot the difference between doing and not doing them; add more neck ones (which I’m currently not doing because they’re more fiddly and look "weirder" than the arm ones in work!).

4. Butch Core Mat Exercises

A long time ago I went out with someone who was a Navy officer and who taught me how to do a press-up. In fact, taught me that I could do press-ups. He taught me a routine of three types of press-up ("normal", wide-arm, and wacky ones with hands close together to challenge the triceps), and three types of sit-up ("normal", twisted, and crunch). I vaguely remember that I was supposed to switch up between these and do lunges or squats or some other damned thing that I can’t do these days because knees. He also showed me free weights.

A more recent partner taught me about planks and tricep dips, rest days, and doing crazy things like press-ups or planks with your feet elevated (I don’t think I’ve yet done these). Another showed me Russian twists, deadlifts, and how to improve my full-leg-lifts (i.e. both at the same time) in order to make them more challenging. The internet (and Wii-fit) showed me flying press-ups and some crazy versions of crunches.

This, I suspect, is why I used to have a six-pack - I used to do a bunch of this EVERY DAMNED DAY, along with punchball exercises and free weights every other time.

Instead of doing the usual thing that I do which is flail wildly into DOING ALL THE EXERCISES ’TIL I BREAK then advanced pouting for six weeks, I’m moving slowly back into Butch Exercises by doing increased reps and increased sets of only four forms to start off with, including lying the hell down between sets:

a) "Normal" press-ups. Generally up to 20-25, except for at the end of the event, when the sets are more like 10.

b) Planks. I’m now up to minimum 1 minute, even at the end of the event (although a lot of swearing is currently involved when I come out of the form on the fourth go-round), and up to 1:40 max. I know this isn’t much, considering that the world record is in hours, but it’s my best, dagnabbit...

c) Double leg-lifts. I’ve injured myself with being over-enthusiastic with these, so - even if I’m feeling full of vim and strength, I tend to only go to 16 max, even at the beginning of the event.

d) Wide-arm press-ups. Only for the latter half of the event once I’ve warmed up, and - again because of former injury - I keep the set reps to ≤ 10

Advantages include fast speed of discernible differences; really feeling core tightening; butch satisfaction of "proper" aches the following day; done right the press-ups lead to good shoulder strength and - I think - stability; measurable progress (more reps before exhaustion, longer holds on planks); some cardiovascular challenge; have to do them from the feet.

Disadvantages include how easy it is to get carried away and bugger my shoulders, especially the Especially Borked One (left), leading to aforementioned six week pouting; not entirely convinced I’m doing the forms properly (could I be preventing injury with better form?); if I forget to stretch properly afterwards, I’m screwed; not very aerobic; have to do them from the feet.

Improvements to be made include setting limits on sets/ reps and - instead - adding new forms at lower reps; getting some advice about forms.

5. Dancing

Only just got back into this on Saturday just gone. I have no discipline beyond the beat, and making sure I wear vaguely suitable shoes (canvas trainers with ankle support) rather than The Boots. I stamp, pogo, flail, mosh, gurn, wiggle, grin, pirouette, and do fancy-ish footwork with lots of crossing-over of feet, kicking, and double-kicking.

I’m a bloody maniac.

Advantages include the weird fact that I can keep up sustained fast movement to music far longer (HOURS) than, e.g. running on a treadmill, which makes me want to die in a tiny ball of fail; excellent aerobic and cardiovascular exercise; needs no special equipment (except aforementioned change of footwear); by far the most social of my exercise activities; cheap (for me - I go to an indie club 3 miles from my house that costs £4 to get in, with free parking, and £1/ bottle of water); the way I dance means that it’s a full-body workout (sustained rhythmical flailing is surprisingly hard on the arms).

Disadvantages include the fact that the clubbing-dancing I’m doing leads to very-late-to-bed, and further sleep disturbance; not very portable (needs friends, and I’ve only found one club in Cambridge so far that plays my kind of music); it’s all too easy to forget to stretch out afterwards and e.g. have very tight calves hobbled by All The Pogoing (rather like I’m feeling today...); all the attendant issues of clubbing in dodgy little places (unsprung floor which stands fair to bugger joints with impact; no mop-up for perilously-spilled drinks on the dancefloor) and any vaguely mainstream venue (no, mate - just coz I smiled at you while jumping up-and-down to Song Two does not mean I want special cuddles with you); moshing is seriously bad for your neck, dear heavens; badly-coordinated people with interpersonal space issues leading to bruising, and/ or, in this instance, a blistered toe from a poorly-managed stiletto.

Improvements to be made include getting a regular night to go out on, co-ordinating friends; some research into other clubs that might play my kind of dancing music (indie, indie-rock, trance, techno (or whatever the youth call it these days), almost anything from 90s except hard or cock-rock); look at finding ceilidhs/ folk-dancing groups locally, because nothing gets you properly out of breath like a good twmpath.


And that’s your lot for the moment. :D I plan to be updating on the progress on these (including any injuries - my left shoulder’s been feeling a wee bit gimpy as I’ve been typing this...) over the next few weeks/ months

Catching Up…

Well, I appear to be back. Which is an interesting place to be.  Let's review where I went:

In December I'd already been cycling to and from work, and in January had started sessions with an exercise trainer who'd done lots of reading up on HMS/ EDS (and seemed to know more than me) and was feeling quite chipper about my physical health.  My lungs had started to "open up" again, and I was feeling a lot of the benefits of being more physically active.

Then in mid-late-February I injured my neck badly. (Please don't ask how: from experience, we'll both regret it.) Now, I'm used to injuring my neck - it's a bit par for the course with the way my hypermobility works. So I left it alone, doing all the usual right things (reduce burden, immobilise, sleep a certain way) that usually sorts it out within 48 hours.

Then I got back on the bike.  And it became clear really quickly that this wasn't going away, even though it waxed and waned, and I'd have to stop doing an exercise that relied on me being able to look over my shoulder as I no longer could.  I went to my usual physio, who assessed me (yes, I was right: I'd injured something in a different part of my neck from usual, and it was a generally unusual place to boot), gave me some exercises, and asked me to come back.  In the meantime, I was back in taxis and buses, spending a bunch of money on that and physio.  Which, it turned out, didn't work - my neck was busted badly.  She suggested I get X-rayed, and a desperately frustrating cycle of annoyance and admin kicked off.

Short version:

5 second X-ray from one angle - nothing to see, reported by SMS. Wow.
10 minute examination by rheumatoid specialist - you don't have EDS. Er, okay, but why...? Go to a physio. Yeah, er, thanks...
30 minute back-and-neck massage from 19-year-old at a spa in Cardiff - regained at least 50% range of mobility. WOW! {tears of joy}

By this point, it was mid-May. Once the range was back enough for me to at least vaguely look over my right shoulder, I got back on the bike, and back into the mat exercises.

One small problem - a persistent cough that started with a bad cold on 1st May. This is buggering my sleep, which means that I spent a while sleeping on the sofa to avoid disturbing everyone in the house, which means the kind of discomfort you'd imagine. Also: a ridiculous amount of nosebleeds. Joyous.

This, however, has not noticeably stopped me from becoming more active again.  For a start, it's not in my lungs, as far as I can tell, so my breathing itself is okay. And once I get past a certain point in any exercise event, all the nice neurochemicals kick in and open up my respiratory tract, reducing inflammation and phlegm, and I have this wonderful phase for a brief period afterwards where I just don't cough. :)

The next post will deal with what I've been doing, exercise-wise. :)

Mens sana in corpore sano

(Whut? Latin - from a poem by Juvenal - means “healthy mind in a healthy body”...)

While I’ve been more than willing to subject you all (“all” is such a big word for an average of 35 readers per post, back in this blog’s heyday) to various intimate considerations of my physical health, and while the term comes up as a tag in eight posts (nine including this one), I’ve been more reticent about my mental health.

It seems that, in some ways, I’ve suffered in the past from a dichotomous position on mental health care, similar to my approach to dieting: i.e. it’s a great thing for other people to invest time and effort in, but a mark of shame (specifically: failure) in my own self. {sigh}

Exploring why this might be seems to take us perilously quickly into stereotypical realms of family history. So let’s not. Let’s move onto the position I find myself in now, where I’ve come to view psychotherapy as being pretty much identical to physiotherapy: part of you is misaligned in a way that makes you uncomfortable and takes up energy that you could be spending on much more productive activities; discussing things with an expert in the field and following some of their advice to realign things, trusting your own judgement as well as theirs, seems pretty sensible.

Just as with physiotherapy, finding a good psychotherapist whose approach suits you (and, maybe more specifically, has the ability to take the you that you are now and help you on the way to transforming to the you you want/ need to be) is pretty key. And finding ways to keep going with their advice and guidance between sessions will give you a lot more benefit (and save you a bunch more money) than putting all your dependence on them to “fix” you. Ideally, they will help you develop the tools you need to get to the place you want to be in.

We still, as a society, seem to have a prevalent view that physical and mental health are separate things (denoted by separate names!). I’m pretty sure that this is, long-term, an unhelpful notion. It would be great if we could get onto speaking in terms of “health” and leave it at that, moving onto the specifics (knee pain, asthma, eczema, depression, dissomnia, vertigo, migraine, agoraphobia, broken arm, etc.) if necessary.

The thing is, it’s all part of a system. Your mental health affects your physical health, and your physical health affects your mental health. Whether or not you subscribe to an idea of an incorporeal mind and a physical brain, the mind’s direction would still prompt the brain to make changes in the body based on electrical and chemical shifts. It’s an actual, physical thing that your mind does to your body. The same impulses that mean you can direct your hand to pick up a drink and tip, swallow, set down again, etc., can also make more insidious changes.

We still have Stone Age bodies connecting with rapidly-adapting brains, technology, environments, and social structures. The responses that were designed to get us out of life-threatening, physical danger quickly are being applied to much less urgent, but much longer-term stressors. Stress chemicals hang around in our bodies much longer than they were ever designed to do, to the detriment of our immune systems, hearts, lungs, blood pressure, digestion, adrenal glands, skin, hair, eyesight... pretty much you name it, actually...  In other words, our life-saving response to stress is now killing us (those of us who live in a mechanised society/ have non-physical jobs).

So it’s important to look after your mental health, because it’s you, isn’t it? And if you’re all over looking after your physical health, you need to be looking after your mental health, because it’s all the same thing. In order to get started on (and maintain!) a decent physical health regime, your motivation and discipline need to be right - and this includes not overdoing it and harming yourself with it too.

Look, I’m not one of those people who’s going to tell you that you can cure your own cancer by thinking right, and that colds are happening because you’re mentally lazy, but I am someone who’s read the research that indicates that recovery from any illness or injury is massively affected by mental attitude (for interest: you’re better off either being in strenuous denial or full-on determination to beat it than apathetic acceptance that there’s nothing you can do), and that, since cancer can be fought off by the immune system (we’re apparently all exposed to it multiple times during our lifetime - we only notice when we haven’t fought it off), and stress affects the immune system, good mental health can only help when it comes to preventing/ fighting off cancer.

And, let’s face it, your physical health affects your mental health - long-term pain is a git for wearing you down; illness makes you feel groggy and unlike your usual self; revelling in the fitness and strength of your body can help your sense of mental resilience, etc.

This is all a round-about way of saying that, for the last couple of months, I’ve been seeing a psychotherapist, and will continue to do so until I’m in a position where I feel like I’ve realigned what I’m capable of realigning for the moment. Unlike in previous goes over the years (the first one was great, but the second one was far too insecure, and the third one was an old-school Freudian overly-concerned about whether I was breastfed...), the current therapist appears to be a good fit for my world views, and visiting her appears to have given me the stable base from which I can ask difficult questions of myself in the meantime, and answer them too. There’s something curiously empowering about the thought that, as regularly/ frequently as I need it, there’s a safe space where I can go to express being as angry/ unhappy/ jubilant/ proud/ messed-up as I am without fearing social punishment, and from there move onto working out ways of realigning what’s causing me to be less than I could be, because misaligned stuff needs to be brought into the light before you can start tinkering with it.

Go metaphors.

See, this blog is about my quest to become closer to what I can be. (Remember Maslow and self-actualisation?) And that includes emotional and other mental function. I was born with certain physical issues that make fitness harder (hypermobility, asthma, etc.), and given others by the misguided actions of others (food allergies, generally crappy immune system), and wrought some of them myself (the gimpy RTA-shoulder, for example) and these are things that can be managed, overcome, worked around, etc., with some extra support and persistence, and with imagination and the right research and information. The same goes for my mental/ emotional issues - presumably some of it I was born with, some I achieved, and others I had thrust upon me. If they were different, or more profound, likely I’d need medication, like I do for other long-term conditions that no amount of exercise will change (asthma, for example), but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

My emotional resilience is already improved, and my assertiveness has increased. It’s like watching the way that persisting in physical exercise has seen my stamina, strength, and confidence improve, and for approximately the same reasons. Also in common: the mental/ emotional challenges outside of my comfort zone hurt like blazes the first time or two (see: dancing, cycling, weight machines), but that pain fades into strength if I keep going, especially if I give myself space either side of the early/ quantum-change challenges (and recognise which pain is useful and which potentially damaging... and then stop the latter).

This brand of psychotherapy isn’t forever, but it’s right for where I want to get to now, and that’s the best I can ask for! :) I'm going to continue to feel proud of the work I've done already, and the achievements yet to come - both physically and mentally.

Moving, Keep on Moving

(Why yes, I do intend to keep using song lyrics to give you earworms* with my posts...)

The last two weeks have been among the most continuously and vigorously mobile of my life since putting down the stick (yes, even including Edinburgh, and all the hills).

1. Cycling (nearly) every day
   
   This is going curiously well. Ever since I just said to myself "it’s the quickest way to get anywhere in Cambridge" I’ve been back on the old pedals with a vengeance. It’s now just how I get to work, go see friends, go to (Cambridge) gigs (that I’m not running), and I may just put some time aside a do a Proper Bike Ride out to somewhere like Grantchester or to wherever people do Proper Bike Rides round these parts. With a picnic. Or a pub at one or other end of the journey.
   
   Why it currently feels great:
   1. I’ve built up the leg strength/ lung capacity/ sheer stubbornness to the point where it’s not just a struggle in the name of fitness - I can move fast and (reasonably) confidently, and it’s closer to second nature now.
      
      (In other words: I don’t notice I’m cycling so much.)
   
   
   
   2. My legs feel stronger, and my lungs feel bigger - I’m enjoying that sensation of pulling great gulps of air into me and not choking on them.
   
   
   
   3. My asthma is curiously good for this time of year, considering that all the trees are currently mating like fury...
   
   
   
   4. I’m feeling more comfortable in my body, taking it increasingly for granted that I’ll be able to lift the bike, that my arms are competent, my sense of balance good, my timing efficient. I’m enjoying more time in the top gear...! :D
   
   
   Moving fast around Cambridge is a real boon, especially this time of year! :)
   
   Things I need to improve on:
   
   
   1. I’m still carrying too much stuff. This has long been a Problem of Fay - when I was four years old, I used to insist on taking my little canvas bag with my wellies in it, and my little umbrella, “just in case”. Growing up in Cardiff, you learn to take both sunglasses and umbrella/ waterproofs with you every day (or, presumably, get good at not caring about squinting/ personal dampness).
      
      So yeah: smaller amounts of/ lighter stuff in the saddlebags. I’m working on it, and it appears to be getting slowly better, as habits go... :)
   
   
   
   2. Confidence at speed - I’m improving, but I do still brake far more for corners/ downhill than other people around me. I lose too much momentum and then have to work harder to get back up to speed. Maybe that’s good for fitness/ strength, but it feels a bit rubbish.
   
   
   
   3. Standing up to it - I am really static on the seat. I currently lack the confidence to stand and push gravity to my advantage on kick-off/ annoying hills (yes, there are inclines in Cambridge (not many - let’s face it, I’m only using 3-4 gears in most journeys).
   
   
   
   4. Choosing to cycle - I’m not sure what I can do about this. I’m still fairly reliant on cars. I keep having to stop (mostly at the weekend) and say: no, you don’t need the car/ a taxi - you’re not carrying gig gear; behold the two-wheeled chariot...!
   
   
   
2. Dancing some

I appear to have found a bit of a spiritual home in Q Club. It may have been the final thing that was needed to make this place the home of my whole heart. While I was there Milton Keynes never had a Clwb Ifor Bach or Metro’s (at least not for long - I heard a lot of stories about how Bar Central was the business, but only got to go the twice, just before it closed - I breathed other people’s second-hand nostalgia, which wasn’t quite enough...). With Q Club, however, everyone I’ve gone to with it so far hasn’t been there in years (except to goth it up, occasionally) to pogo their socks off, and so we’ve strolled onto a relatively empty but very friendly dancefloor with camo netting, distorted mirrors, excellent tracklists and room to breathe (and flail, and jump, and shimmy).

We’ve all liked it so much so far that we’re talking about making it a Regular Thing.

Why it currently feels great:


1. I CAN FUCKING DANCE!



2. Okay, look - if you’ve never lost something, you don’t know just how brain-, heart-, and soul-breakingly amazing it is to get it back.



3. I can keep going for hours. Put me on a treadmill and I’m all "Oh God, is it only 6 minutes already, kill me now," play some bouncy music and dim the lights and KAZAMMM! for hours. Literally.



4. I’ve worked out how to do it without breaking myself like last time.



5. It’s social and exercise and creative, and there are only a few things you can say that about.



6. I have proved to myself that I am neither too old nor too unfit to go clubbing (given the right club and the right music and the right preparation.
Things I need to improve on:


1. Eating the right food the right amount of time beforehand. Too little/ too far beforehand - flagging. Too much/ too soon beforehand - indigestion.



2. Stretching afterwards and drinking all the water - it made such a difference this last time. Slightly achey calves and a slightly sore neck - compared with the previous time’s "dear deities, there is not one single muscle that doesn’t burn like the pit of hell", that’s nothing.



3. Resting sitting down, not standing up - purely a question of assertion or pushing through with the dancing...

And that’s it, really!

*

Surprise...?

I didn't really mean it to happen this way. There was a plan, and I was sticking to the plan, and then I got overtaken by events.

(This does happen…)

The original plan went something like:

1. Do lots of stationary bike cycling, building steadily until I'm comfortably doing the distance between my house and work on a relatively high resistance.

2. Repair old bike/ buy new bike and start taking it out for spins at the weekend to get back in the habit.

(These two things can overlap, chronologically...)

3. Cycle to work, aiming for a couple of times a week then building up to every day.

What actually happened went something like:

1. Do some stationary cycling as part of the build-up to The Walk.

2. Abandon the gym for 5-6 weeks.

3. Explode back into doing exactly the same amount of stationary bike work as I was doing pre-Walk, but not much walking outside of twice-a-week gymitry

4. Decide to "go look at bikes" (after only being back at the gym for a couple of weeks).

5. Fall in love with a ridiculously slinky bike, pay out a wad of money for it.

6. Discover it won't fit in the boot with my partner's bike, which has just been repaired.

7. Cycle home, trying not to freak out over not wearing a helmet, reflective gear, etc.

8. Fail to die/ collapse/ fall off the bike/ be in enormous amounts of pain.

9. Realise that, in order for the bike to pay for itself, I will need to cycle it pretty much every day for 11½ weeks.

10. Wash all as much of my old cycling gear that I have specialist tech-wash stuff for in the course of The Great Shed-Clearance of 2014.

11. Despair that my old cycling gear still smells of 2½ years in a shed.

12. Look at the slinky new bike to cheer myself up.

13. Vaguely prep the night before for cycling into work the following day.

14. Flail in the morning between sleep-deprivation, the entrenched grooves of bad morning habits, the sheer irritation of people digging up the road just outside the house first thing in the morning, the flabby determination not to backslide on the very first day of Cycling Into Work, the sheer lack of preparation, and massive fit of nerves.

15. Set off late for work.

16. Take approximately twice as long as I used to (probably) due to:

a) lack of fitness

b) terror

c) unfamiliarity of new gears

d) having the seat up really high to compensate for knees, which means that I can barely reach the ground with my toes, so can't scoot along in a pinch (finding myself shouting "Sorry - I'm a Wobbly Cyclist!" at traffic... entertaining for someone, hopefully...)

e) being very circumspect about:

i) traffic lights

ii) potholes

iii) vans

iv) other cyclists

v) the pavement

vi) dismounting


So that's the story of how I ended up sitting at my desk in work this morning late, panting, with swollen feet due to the mad notion that I should cycle in The Boots, convinced I smelled bad, shaking lightly, with interesting hair.

On an unrelated note: anyone want some slightly odoriferous but functional cycling gear?

Returns

So, I went back to to the gym last night.  After a gap of {checks} nearly 6 weeks. Hmm. The chronology (for those of you interested in the anatomy of excuses) goes something like this:

14th March - final gym session before week of rest before The Walk
23rd March - The Walk
24th March - Beginning of further week off gym to recover
31st March* - "My legs still hurt, a few more days off won't hurt"
2nd & 3rd April - Stomach bug, off work
4th April - "Still feel wobbly"
7th April* - "I think I'm getting a cold"
14th April* - "I keep getting nosebleeds"
16th April - "I feel really mentally/ emotionally feeble, AND I miss the gym... hmmm"
17th-21st April - Away on holiday
22nd April - "I'm just recovering from lack of sleep on holiday"
22nd April - "Actually, sod it, I'm going to the gym tomorrow"

(* dates approximate)

So I did.  No more excuses, no more bollocksing about, waiting for the stars to align for exercise.  I've spent weeks not even walking very far in the mornings or evenings, wasting money on taxis to get me into work.  While there are depressing, stressful, annoying things happening in my life, and I can't fix them with stationary bikes, I can:

1. damn well tire myself out in a good way so that I get the sleep necessary to help problem-solve in my poor brain;

2. feel a sense of achievement in clocking goals and doing a difficult thing well;

3. get back that sense of purpose and personal puissance that comes with feeling physically fit;

4. treat myself well - that's actually treat myself well, by giving myself the gift of fitness, rather than "treat" myself, which amounts to doing a series of passive things that are actually quite harmful (sitting around in unhealthy poses, eating crappy food, staying up late to watch films/ read books that will still be there tomorrow, getting cabs instead of the bus, mithering, "having a rest from physio", etc.).

5. be kind ("you had a few rubbish weeks, let's move on"), and not punish myself ("stupid cow! give me a gazillion press-ups so that you injure yourself, can't sleep right, and feel even more wretched! you deserve grief for feeling bad!")

6. get myself a new goal to aim for.


Yesterday morning I just grabbed my gym bag, ignoring the fact that the kit was not clean (yes, I got myself clean socks, I'm not a total barbarian!), and set off after work (after realising that I'd been killing time with extra bits of work that could wait, presumably trying unconsciously to make it "too late" to go) to the gym, walking fast, trying not to overthink things.

Luckily, my brain still seems to retain the well-worn groove that came from doing that very thing twice a week or so for eight weeks, so as soon as I'd flipped the "walking to the gym from work with my gym bag in my hand" switch, I was fine.  In fact, I'm worried that I did too much on the stationary bike because I was working to the old pattern from 6 weeks ago.

(I've just worked it out explicitly - I've now spent nearly as much time Not Doing Exercise and Being Inactive Again as I did the opposite. Darn it!)


I did 20 minutes or so of sliding resistance on the recumbent bike, then about 6 minutes on the rowing machine.  I figured that my neck/ shoulder problem was up to it.  I'll monitor over the next couple of days for pins-and-needles, etc.

Yes, I stretched out afterwards.  And yes, I'm a bit sore today.  And yes, my heart-rate was more elevated than it would have been back in March, but less than it was in January. So, you know, I haven't lost loads of fitness... :)