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

Fitstar Schmitstar #1

I finished a 20 minute Fitstar Session and apparently you should care about how many calories I burned, but I don't, so forget that…! http://fit.ly/2wsABGA

And I am only slightly out of breath. I don't appear to have injured anything, and am only slightly overheating.

(Must remember to stretch.)

This is the first of these workouts (I've selected the Get Strong Program, unsurprisingly). Apparently they measured my response to the six minute fitness test and adjusted accordingly. I wonder…

More as I progress. I'm supposed to do this kind of session three times a week. Let's see.

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).

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

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

Today is the first day...

... of the rest of the working year.

(I appreciate that some of you may have worked between 24th December and today - sorry about that! I, however, have not. Benefits of working for an academic-related organisation, I guess...)

So! :) How’s it been going for you lot? Me, I’ve been powering through the day on rampant optimism and a renewed determination to prove to myself that I am a worthwhile human being (I have had too little broken sleep - more about this in another post, I suspect). In fact, that’s the core of my “resolution” for this year - basically: feel better about myself.

Obviously there are various different elements to this (i.e. pretty much every aspect of my life! :)), but for each one I do actually know what I need to do, I’ve just not always been doing it. So, in order to inspire myself, I reckon I just need to keep that clear “feel better about myself” goal in front of me every time I find myself wussing out and cutting corners. Because when I work at doing things right, I feel better about myself.
 
Ludicrously simple; diabolically difficult.
 
I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. I generally start on projects/ changes/ movements that look like them in December, when it’s dark, and miserable, and cold, partly to prove to myself that you don’t need a set date to kick off Doing Stuff Right, just a good mindset. Sometimes I start them in April, or February. Or on a Thursday or something. Because I know that if I keep waiting for some kind of perfect kick-off signal, I’ll keep on finding excuses.
 
I have a narrow line to walk here - let me introduce you to the brain weasels (I’m not going to dignify them with title case): they represent the snarly, snide, tricksy little bits of me that are always looking for reasons to put me down. They say tiny, mean things - their sharp, narrow teeth and sinuous forms are slippery and insistent. They are composed of fear and are like handy little pocket abusers - you may even have left the originals behind, but they’ve sowed tiny, portable, conveniently-sized memes to take with you everywhere. (I’m sure you know the kind of thing they like to say: you’re not good enough, you’re a failure, you’re a disappointment.) They snigger every time you trip or drop things or run late. And I do those things a lot... They represent the opposite of “you are a worthwhile human being”.

They’re wretched little bastards and they need to be stopped. Or, okay, well, transmuted somehow.
 
The ways to beat brain weasels need to be as multitudinous and flexible and cunning and (nearly as) small as they are. Because the more you give in to their assertions about your worth, the more you’ll give up putting effort into doing stuff right, and the more fodder there’ll be for their grindy little teeth. I’ve seen this negative spiral demonstrated very clearly in my physical health, and it’s all too evident in my mental health, if you know where to look.  I want to get a series of positive spirals going - feel better, do better, feel better, do better, feel better, do better, feel better, do better...
 
What’s the narrow line? Well, years of playing host to the weasels has left me with some difficult-to-repurpose mental constructs in which the furry little gits flourish. And one of them is where I find it really, really difficult to take compliments. Because I may know fine well that the weasel runs are ridiculous, and that they make me miserable, but I’m used to them, see? They’re home. They’re where I’m comfortably miserable.  So the more loudly people are nice to me, the less I can take it. I get so overwhelmed with this enthusiastic evidence that at least part of me looks dramatically different to the Worthless Map of Fay (© Weasel Enterprises) that I throw up as many big walls as I can to stave off the information overload. Go too far and I cry and shake and run away. Literally. It’s messy.

Slowly I’ve been working on my anti-weasel techniques. I’m being scientific about it, which means being better at spotting both negative and positive patterns, instead of taking either states for granted or treating them as neutral. I have learned that the following things are particularly good at helping silence/ squish weasels:

1. Walking. Anywhere, at any time. But it needs to be fast/ vigorously. At my own pace, anyway. 
    
2. Dancing. Stomp on their little heads! Drown them with music! Okay, maybe just stun them into submission and muffle their annoying squeaks to the occasional half-hearted “you’re too old to be doing this!” (Yeah, I’m manifestly not, so shut up! :D) 
    
3. Hosting performances. You’d think that the nerve-wrackingness of this and the massive potential for tripping up (Get the names wrong! Stutter! Offend someone accidentally!) along with opportunities for jealousy would be fodder for the invisible shit-stirrers, but somehow: no. I enjoy the performances too much to be jealous, and frankly, when you’re running an event, you have no time for weasels. 
    
4. Spending time with particular friends. You know the type - diverting yet supportive as appropriate. Also: the wider I allow my network to be, the better my chances of spending time with people whose personal styles will fit the mode I need to be in. And the less chance of the weasel who says “you’re just a burden to your friends!”  
    
5. Properly singing something I know well. There’s a pattern emerging. 
    
6. Spreadsheeting. Doing something both systematically and creatively. It’s something I have developed good... wait... excellent, expert skills in, and it’s something I can sit quietly and nerd out over.

The answer appears to be: do things irrefutably well with good people. Keep pushing at (sometimes tiny) increments of What Could Be Even Better so that the evidence for being worthwhile mounts manageably. Get the adrenalin flowing. Allow meaningful connections with other humans. Demonstrably build up the ability to be more awesome.

It’s not about comfort blankets (because the more moping/ eating crappy food/ taking a taxi rather than cycling/ playing dumb computer games I do, the worse I feel) but about strapping in tightly before heading off towards the horizon, laughing uproariously and whooping at the steep bends.

So I will be giving myself tiny compliments. Every day. Not ignoring the bad stuff (because weasels loooove it when you’ve got stuff you’re procrastinating over - oh my yes!), but aiming for the kind of objective approach I’d use with someone who isn’t me. And also coming up with ways to improve things.  In other words, I’ll be running a Lessons Learned on my life. Every day, if I can, no matter how vestigially, sometimes.

And, in the meantime: getting fitter, having more fun, and being more awesome, a bunch of which I’ll be posting on here. :)

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!

*

Terpsichor - The Reckoning

So I made a resolution way back at the beginning of this blog to aim for a proper night out dancing. And managed to avoid it. You know the kind of chatter: oh, I need to be ready, there needs to be preparation and planning and a whole big thing before I could possibly...

Tedious.

Yesterday I took part in a really great gig and left early, having performed already and supported my friends, in order to enjoy more energy and a reasonably early finish to the day after a fair amount of low sleep levels.

And yet. I found myself full of a certain confidence and up-ness renowned among performers and people who hang around performers. Basically: I wanted this party in my bloodstream to keep going, so texted a couple of people to ask if they wanted to go out dancing. One said yes, and so we found ourselves on the sweaty, sticky, unsprung floor of the Q Club in Cambridge (and later watching exquisite performance art at The Junction, but that's a different story) a little after midnight.

When other people say "I dance like me dad" they probably mean something different to what I mean. My parents used to talk about how they were renowned for tearing up dancefloors in their youth. Even allowing for nostalgia's magnifying glass, I've seen my dad dancing at weddings, and he and my mother must have ben terrifying in their prime.

"No wonder you buggered your knees," said my dancing partner, "you dance like a maniac."

This was the first time since putting down the stick that I'd danced properly and at length, and it was to a string of 90s hits, so my body was remembering when it didn't hurt, and when strangers used to come up to me in clubs and call me a legend. Only one person last night, a total stranger trading compliments, knew what was really happening: I was actually holding back, if anything...

I managed to dance for about 90% of our time there, so a good 90 minutes, at least (we set out late, what can I say?). I overheated, did my equivalent of sweating profusely, and nearly elbowed several people in the face, apparently. My hair became a fuzzball of unstoppable magnitude. And I felt fantastic.

Yes, my Particularly Borked Knee buckled and stabbed me towards the end. Yes, there is not a single muscle group in my body that doesn't ache vengefully right now. Yes, my neck and knees are making nasty noises, both literal and mental, but I regret NOTHING except, perhaps, waiting until now. I've had the best (if the latest) night's sleep in a long time.

So it turns out that I can still dance (I don't know if it's any good, but I know I enjoy it), have more aerobic stamina than I thought I did, and can hold my own at a club (they don't stink of smoke anymore - isn't that brilliant?!).

Oh, and I still know all the words to Parklife.

Sums it up...

I love this comic sooo much. This time they nailed starting a new exercise regime. :D

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?

Back in the Habit (Slowly)

It's quite remarkable how many good habits I've dropped lately. From the aforementioned gym-slacking and taxi-taking to sleep patterns, fluid intake, and sugar consumption, it's all gone a bit to pot.

Annoying.

However, not insurmountable.  So this week I will be:

1. Resurrecting the Spreadsheet. Harder to say "Oh, I'm fine..." if the graphs say "Er, not really..."

2. Setting myself some short-, medium-, and long-term goals again.

3. Starting blogging about all this again (I suspect this lost out to the "writing a new poem a day for every day of April" thing I've been doing (with running-mates this year)...)

4. Starting thinking about teaming up with others who have similar goals.  (i.e. people who aren't super-fit but who like walking/ are happy to job gently beside my fast walking pace; want to cycle at all/ more/ further/ faster; want to use my gym at the same time as I do, etc.)

5. Celebrating the small victories again.

6. Starting to look out for a physio who likes talking about weights, press-ups, etc.

7. Having a look through this book what I bought, to see if that's any cop (got to sort this bloody neck/ shoulder thing out).


So yeah - see above; you'll be hearing more from me on this.

Right. As you were...

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... :)

The Aftermath

This needs to be made clear - I am very happy right now. Okay, it's my birthday and the sun has been shining its arse off in crisp, blowy weather - exactly how I like it. Okay, I now have an actual window seat in work that overlooks anything other than a grimy roof. Okay, I've helped Sport Relief to raise nearly £1000...

But I'm knackered, and constantly hungry - like persistently starving hungry today. And there is no musculoskeletal part of my lower body that does not ache, that doesn't stiffen into vicious immobility if I sit a bit wrong for longer than a few breaths.

And yet.

And yet I can't stop smiling. And yet I'm not being a total sap either - if people come to me with unnecessarily annoying bullshit, I politely, smilingly, do not take it. And yet everything feels like something either small, or fun, or a challenge I am looking forward to spanking. And, despite feeling pretty fuzzy in the head, at the same time it's like I'm seeing people very clearly.

If I stop, I'll fall over. I'm quite sure of that and am looking forward to it immensely. The six hours' sleep I had this morning were some of the best I've had in a long time.

How did I do? Well, I got all the way around (and around) Milton Country Park just fine, ta. The track turned out to be 1.45 miles long, which made calculating difficult. (It also adds a new perspective to the "struggled 1 mile two years ago" thing, now I come to think of it; it was nearly 50% longer!) I had some company along the way after all (possibly because I'd said before that I probably wouldn't), which was particularly heroic on their part as both of them had done the 5km swim the day before. Ellie ducked out after 3 goes round (fair enough with an undisclosed chipped ankle!) and Emma trudged on with me for another revolution, a swift sit-down, and a sneaky wriggle up the middle of the circuit, so that we ended up doing 6.25 miles (according to Google Tracks) in total. It took just under 2 hours, what with the pausing to take photos, the pausing to let actual runners past (and cheer them on), the toilet break, and the aforementioned swift sit-down (long enough to do me good, not long enough to get stuck).

(And then I had to drive home, via Emma's house, wrestle the car seats back up (buggering my neck/ shoulder again - a shame), tidy and clean the house, pack the car, drive to the venue, take part in a poetry workshop, watch other people insist on setting up the space (:D), run a show, pack up, take crew and features home, chat a lot of interesting stuff about poetry and accents and poets and language and training and poets and accents and women and poets and PhDs and poets and accents and dear God 1am, hi there...

Long day.)

How'm I doing physically? 

Well, my knees are surprisingly buoyant - certainly no worse than they've been in the past due to prolonged standing (which, if you remember, I did a fair amount of on Saturday), and do not appear to be swollen, which is nice. :)  Similarly, the soles of my feet are uncomplaining.  However, my ankles are surprisingly achey (this may well have been to do with the constantly-changing, bumpy, humpy, muddy, potholed terrain) and my lower back is disappointingly sore.  The most surprising set of aches is in my abdominal muscles - kind of interesting... And I want to eat everything. All of it.

What went well? 

The time spent on the walk was good - could have been shorter, but maybe it wouldn't have been if I'd pushed faster earlier...  I didn't start to feel the walk badly in my legs until about 4-5 miles in, and then pushed through the remaining distance. I did rest when I really, really needed to. I didn't run out of puff. The distraction of friends helped even more than I would have thought possible. I hydrated well (knowing that I would have somewhere to go if I'd hydrated too well!), and fuelled myself with morning porridge. I did my physio beforehand, but had rested generally, doing no weight-bearing exercise, the whole week before. And I was assertive about not standing throughout the concert the evening before, and tried my best to eat and drink well (lots of (particularly raw) vegetables, high fibre, as little refined sugar as possible, loads of water) during the week.

Oh, and I raised a bundle of cash. If you've not sponsored, you can do so at http://my.sportrelief.com/sponsor/fayroberts :)

What could have been better? 

Well, controversially, I think I could have done with some non-weight-bearing but vigorous exercise in the preceding week. If when I do this kind of thing again, I think I'll benefit from the rush of achievement of vigorous exercise in the run-up to something scary like this, as well as keeping up momentum on happy muscles and good bloodflow.  While I stood up less than I could have done the night before, I still did a lot of standing, and my sleep levels were rubbish that week (another case for more aerobic exercise?!). Also: while I rallied towards the end of the week, my diet wasn't exactly stellar during the preceding few days.

What next? Well, firstly I need to see how the recovery actually goes (update 25-Mar-14 - my knees are actually starting to hurt quite badly now; bugger), and I want to know more about this next-day euphoria and confidence. Have you run a (half-)marathon or 10k? Climbed a massive hill? Cycled to France or something? Is it like this? Or should I be looking at some other factors? Like the sleep deprivation, for example. Because yesterday was brilliant, and I feel like I could do with more of that, if my knees can survive it.  And I need another challenge - another milestone on this path of Being Fitter.  Any suggestions gratefully received, and I'm going to get some instruction from the gym in a few weeks' time, once I'm back in the mode, asking for some extra goals...

So thanks for the props, everyone, and yes: this blog will go on (though perhaps less frequently until I have a new Big Goal) as I continue to chart my relationship with my body, fitness, pain, and recovery...

Little Victories #4

I'm trying to make a lifestyle change here, and that means changing habits of thought as well as upgrading physical function. This tag will record those little moments of triumph that make me proud.

Turns out I can run. Not the panting, stammering, begging, leaden-legged, giving-up-before-I've-even-started stumble that I used to do, even recently, that was barely more than an effortful version of my current Very Fast Walk (~4mph). Properly run (briefly).

Today I was late. This does not distinguish it from many other days, but it makes it more difficult when it's a Sunday train to London you're after - they do tend to run both on time and infrequently. Six bits of fortune aided me: actually clear roads from my house to the station; an available and willing (and lovely!) partner to drive me there; the sheer number of times I've got the train to London hence knowing what to do very rapidly at the ticket machine; no queue for said machine; the train running 1 minute late; it leaving from the nearest platform to the entrance.

And then running. I'd done a lot of walking the day before (more on that later in another post), so wouldn't have expected this, but, on clearing the dawdlers, I saw the train and started sprinting, cleared the open doors in a neat leap just after the whistle blew, then sauntered to an empty seat.

I'm still confused - this was a flat-out sprint, carrying a medium-heavy bag of several kilos (I rarely underpack), wearing my Big Boots (0.45kg each, fact fans), and yet I feel no pain (above the baseline, come on now), was not out of breath, and my heartrate barely registered any rise (i.e. must have settled very quickly).

Could it be that all the cardio stuff on the stationary bike (up to 20 minutes continuously, by means of coaxing "go on, another 30 seconds at this resistance level, you might as well"), the faster walking everywhere, further and more frequently, the stairs rather than the lift, the better eating leading to losing a crucial few pounds of unnecessary fat, and the continuous working on my conviction that I can get better and fitter and stronger (from myself, my friends, my colleagues, and my physio) have tipped me into actually being fitter?

It's a tantalising notion, and one that I'm very willing to entertain. The trick now, I suspect, will be to maintain this as my baseline, and build.

And after next Sunday, I'm going to need a new goal... :)

The Shape of Desire

Part of yesterday's conversation with the physio was her questioning why I'm doing the (upper-body) exercises that I'm doing.  Why am I lifting weights, doing press-ups, etc.?

In particular, she was concerned that these exercises were a bit, well, male.  She covered, elucidating, saying there was nothing wrong with that per se, but that she was wondering: was I wanting to be a body-builder [cue hunched shoulders and loosely-raised fists]?

Well, there it is.  Why am I doing this?  Why am I pushing muscles in my upper body that were not designed by nature to be massive (due to HMS and, well, a lower testosterone level than the average bloke) to build?

Several answers, not all of which may be either wise, feasible, or even the whole story:

1. In October 2005 I had a six-pack and could lift sofas without much effort.  I also had the kind of lightly but defined muscular physique that made both women and men go "hmmm..." and "ooooh...!" with a little reaching-out gesture. (Yeah, baby...)

a) Being strong felt good physically - my wobbly joints were much more secure.

b) Being strong felt good mentally - being able to rely on myself and feel comfortable (even superior) in my body was rather nice.

c) My personal vanity is, perhaps, a little odd.  The resources needed to conform to many elements of acceptable Western femininity feel like way more trouble than they're worth, to me.  However, I revel in decking myself in a certain way as I move through the world.  I want people to see me, at a glance, as very much my own person, as attractive in an unconventional sense, and blending elements across genders.  I also like to look healthy.  So a little ripped (again)? Yes please! :)

(I felt right at home in Cambridge really quickly.  Wonder why...)


2. I gave up on that level and type of healthy after several things happened:

- motorbike (okay, fine: scooter) accident that made Borked Shoulder the way it is today (February 2006).

- massive (they took photos for a medical journal!) benign tumour;

- recovering from the surgery that removed it (vertical 5" abdominal incision - wasn't allowed to pick up anything heavier than 5kg for, well, a while - September 2007);

- the knee-based accident (and all the other, less easily pointed-at elements) that propelled me into the Year of The Stick (September 2011); and

- subsequent slow recovery from that.

I started feeling old.  I let myself become dispirited by the constant setbacks (I tried building in strength in 2006; scuppered myself lifting furniture; tried getting fit again 2010-11, not as hard as now, but cycling everywhere... then Stick Year... and then again in the summer of 2013...); I rationalised it as "I'm not meant to be fit", I think. And yet clearly this other model of me persisted underneath the whole time, because now I'm thinking: screw old, there are people who take up marathon running in their 70s.  I want to take this body as far as it can in terms of healthy, fit, and strong.


3. I don't want a male physique, I want a strong female physique, and I don't think I'll get that purely from physio exercises - I'll need to challenge myself, not just maintain myself.  I'm also pretty sure it would take more effort, time, and calories than I would consider worth spending getting perturbingly "bulky".


4. Up until now, not one single person (male or female) has told me that I shouldn't do press-ups, etc.

My dad (the very one who's struggled with my gender queerity in recent years) showed me how to do them; and a recent boyfriend showed me the variations on the theme.  We did them in school, and we were expected to do them in the few martial arts lessons I attended.  They're part of my model for "becoming fit and strong".


5. I enjoy doing weights, press-ups, planks, etc. Not only do I think they're fun (look, I'm a bit weird, just give up and go with this), but I enjoy being able to do them well (possibly in a tomboyish, showing-off-physically kind of way).


So here's the thing I'm going to try to find a way to say succinctly to the physio: this is the kind of body I want to aim for.  It's not unfeasible, and it's not toxic, so please help me get to a point where I can make that happen.  Ta!

So, unless anyone's got any better perspectives, that's The Plan.

Pome #1

I wrote a poem last night (not unusual, after all, but I've not been finishing them lately), which started on the way home from a gig when I realised I wasn't feeling the pain I'd been feeling all day:

Glimmer

And, to accompany this, a picture courtesy of a generally more physically-inclined friend, who's clearly been reading these (hello!), saw this and thought of me:

Extra

So, most of you probably know that I'm working up towards walking 6 miles in aid of Sport Relief on 23rd March.  What you might not be aware of is that we recently smashed the original £300 donation goal.  I'd frankly wondered if it was too ambitious at the time.  Now I'm seeing what happens when you set your goals high and keep pushing towards them...

Obviously, what I've done now is set a new target of £500.  And if we hit that in the next three weeks (we're less than £100 away from it now), I'll raise it to £750. And so on. (Well, sensibly enough so that I'm not setting myself up for failure...)

Yesterday's wall was (probably) as a result of a lot of emotionally-wearing stuff happening in quick succession to a body and brain that are already being deliberately challenged, pushed, changed, and demanded-of. Pretty sure I can't spreadsheet that, but I can keep track of, e.g., quality as well as quantity of sleep.