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).

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. :)

Unwelcome Guests (in the body)

This has not been a great week, physical (and therefore mental) health-wise.

Basically, despite being Little Miss Healthy, my joints decided that the thing they really, really wanted to do was suddenly stiffen and hurt. All of them. A lot.

Now, sometimes this happens, e.g. hurting like the Devil after dancing for the first time in years, and more often than not I can point at a cause and work away from/ ignore it accordingly:

1. Dancing like a maniac/ standing for ages - the concomitant muscles/ joints hurt as you'd expect.
   
   Solution: Rest, plenty of water, stretching beforehand, bracing properly throughout standing period to prevent if possible.



2. A long period without daily physio exercises - knees in particular suffer from this one
   
   Solution: Ease back into physio (i.e. lower reps until muscles restabilised).



3. Being dehydrated - general achiness (apparently, according to my browser's spellcheck, this isn't a real word - tough) and "tiredness" of joints.
   
   Solution: The Universal one. Sorry. Well, obviously, I drink more water, and wait for recovery (a day or two).



4. Eating too much sugar - as above dehydration.
   
   Solution: again, pretty obviously cutting the sugar down, working out why I'm eating badly (tired? bored? sad? leaving meals too late, so needing a quick fix, etc.?), drinking more water and eating more protein (don't ask me: it seems to work!)

Of course, sometimes I just get the 'flu or something, which again is known and can be accounted for.

Last Thursday I started hurting. And it didn't get better and in fact progressed. It was bits that normally don't hurt this extensively (wrist, knuckles, ankles, hips, jaw) as well as the usual suspects (neck/ shoulder, knees) and some old friends (lower back, upper back). And I've now been through a whole slew of emotions, including the classics of denial, anger, bargaining and depression (with a hearty dose of fear to boot), currently wobbling in and out of acceptance.

Wise people (with much worse versions of this condition than mine) have told me to not stress, and that it's just a flare-up, just a phase; I'll be back to normal in no time. I'm more optimistic in the mornings, when I'm reasonably mobile, but right now, with my hands seizing as I type, my optimism could do with some work.

Other people have told me I should eat this magic leaf, or cut out potatoes, peppers, and tomatoes. Others are counselling NSAIDs. I am honestly struggling to stay focused on anything other than putting one foot in front of the other, and I suspect that I am a massive grump monster in the evenings.

Being me is hard work right now, and with two weeks to go before I drive myself and a big pile of equipment to Edinburgh to start the gruelling marathon of the Fringe, I'm starting to get a little troubled...

Om nom nom

I spent a couple of hours baking last night - a lot of fun (and quite profitable from a “sweetening IT folk” perspective. ;)) The flapjack and the shortbread biscuits were made in celebration of one of my projects (finally) going right, and they seem to have gone down well.

As mentioned previously, I am an idiot for sweetmeats in biscuit/ flapjack/ pastry form. I am trying to stick to a low-refined-sugar approach to food at the moment, saving it for weekends/ dancing/ celebrations. My joints have been thanking me, which is polite of them... Today has been difficult, though, as I make a mean flapjack. It’s not your dry-as-arse, crumbly pre-packaged flapjack - it’s gooey and sticky and filled with fruit and seeds; you know straight away that it’s all about the sugar and fat - it glistens.

So I’m not going to tell you how to make it on this blog because, well - doesn’t really fit with the title, does it...? I’ve been giving the damned stuff away as fast as I can today, otherwise it’s going to sit next to my desk. Beckoning.

I’m currently trying something that helps me sleep better at night and doesn’t challenge my digestion quite so much: big meal for lunch, salady stuff for dinner. I don’t always manage the salad (sometimes it comes with pizza... or in pizza form... what...?), but my seven-a-day is still going pretty well.

Today I'm going to tell you how to make one of the healthiest things I cook. Variously known as “Fay's Ratatouille”, “That Tomato Sauce Thing” and - most enduringly - “Red Gunk”, my partner swears that Weight Watchers is missing a trick with this one. So here it is:

Dice one medium onion, put in a saucepan with a handful of shredded mushrooms and half a big courgette (or one small one), chopped into quarter-slices, reasonably finely.

Cover (just) with water, add a little salt (unless you don’t want to) and boil on a high heat until everything is soft and a good part of the water is evaporated (10-15 mins max, generally). (Yes I know: denatured vitamins. It’s a sauce, add some raw veggies later...)

Add a tin of chopped tomatoes, stir and heat further, adding herbs and spices to taste (I recommend: garlic (loads), English mustard, black pepper, paprika, ginger, Italian Herbs (basil and oregano especially) (loads).

Move to a lower heat and add at least half a standard tube of tomato purée, stir, and simmer. It’s pretty much ready to eat now, but the longer it simmers gently, the nicer it’ll be.

Works hot on pasta, rice, or potatoes; works cold in sandwiches and on salad. It loves cheese. You can use it to bulk out bolognese and soup, and one of my favourites is to add it to bacon and freshly-wilted spinach in fresh garlic and butter and serve over pasta, but that’s just my taste.

You can also do variations to the basic recipe (I like adding finely-diced carrots, slices of leek, tiny broccoli florets, and celery at the last minute (so it stays crunchy) to the mix, along with an extra half-tin of tomatoes and more tomato purée - this variation is known as “Vegetable Splat”).

High in fibre (and taste – see herbs and spices above), low in fat and sugar, it’s vegan, and good for most allergies except tomatoes/ citric acid.

Bon appétit!

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...

Walk the Walk

One of my lovely sponsors (hello, Sue!) advised me that, after her experience of The Moon Walk, trying to walk a proportion of the distance of The Walk a couple of weeks beforehand would be wise.  She said "see if you can do four."  I agreed with her, and then managed to come up with a bunch of excuses.

To be fair, if I’d tried to do this last week, I’d have broken myself. My joints were all kinds of progesterone-overload floppy and hurt like the devil.  For various reasons, I wasn’t able to go to the gym on Wednesday, and compromised by walking home. 2.1 miles of limping, bitching, spasming and misaligning later (it took me 50 minutes, though this included shopping for food) and I was entertaining my first serious doubts that I’d be able to do The Walk at all.

Well, thank goodness for the bit where the progesterone runs out, eh?

I’d run out of decent excuses, and today I decided that I was tired of the crappy ones and, after running a surprisingly successful (if somewhat truncated) poetry workshop, I came home, ate and drank a little, and put on my walking hat (it’s the same as my poetry hat, and my going to work hat, but ssshh).  Okay, between the sandwich and the hat there was some gaming, but I did it.

Did what?

I set off to walk to Milton Country Park from my house, wander around it a little, then come home.  I hoped to make it to as much of four miles as possible, without stopping.

And did you do it?

It would appear so.  According to my Google tracking app, I walked 4.34 miles in 1:06 hours.  This included pauses for: waiting to cross busy roads, getting a bit lost in the Park, taking photos, and buying some flavoured water for the journey home.

So it wasn’t exactly non-stop, then?

Piffle - mere details. :)  I paused occasionally, but I stayed on my feet.

Speaking of which...?

Sore. The right foot is more sore than the left, possibly because it was taking more weight in order to deal with the Really Bad Knee (left one) complaining.  By the time I was down to half a mile to go, I was limping somewhat.  My right ankle is, similarly, not impressed with me.  We shall see what else washes up tomorrow...

What else?

Well, I did get thirsty, but not as much as I would have anticipated (mind, it was dusk by the time I got to the Park, and I’d drunk a little water beforehand, as well as staying reasonably well hydrated through the day).  I finished the 500ml fruity water bottle before I got home, though - so I was obviously some thirsty...!  I was overheating in my various outdoor layers by the time I was limping, but again less than anticipated (see: dusk into night-time travelling), and it gives me some clues for how to dress on the day.  It’ll be a 10:30am start.  Yeesh.

What worked well?

Eating a light meal with a little water an hour before setting out. Wearing layers that could be opened to let the air circulate. Allowing myself a drink after 45 minutes. Listening to music for the first part, then listening to birdsong for the rest of it. Taking photos.

Photos? Really?

Yup.

What was less awesome?

I’m still trying to make up my mind whether it was easier or harder doing this long walk by myself than with someone else.  I don’t think there’ll be anyone physically with me on the day, by the sound of it, and, let’s face it, an old and not entirely groovy part of me is just fine with that.  On the other hand, all you lovely valedictorian friends make this entire effort seem all that much more worthwhile with your kind and thoughtful words and praise.  I am officially confused.  Maybe I should eat more cheese.

I also forgot to stretch when I came back in, though I did sit my arse down in a comfy chair pretty much immediately, which was a good thing.  And got given cheerleading, which is always nice.  And then I did stretching later.

And how does this all make you feeel?

You’ve always got to ask, eh?

Well, far more confident, and less like I’ve tricked people into sponsoring me money.  Cautiously optimistic about recovery from The Walk (all dependent on tomorrow’s news).  Determined to do things right - basically, more of the good stuff I’ve been doing already, and less messing about and coming up with excuses.  Also: stretch.

The other advice I’ve received, but which I’d already determined on anyway was: rest before The Walk itself.  Do very little (though I will be doing physio) the week before the event.  This sounds sound, I just need to persuade myself that I’m Doing The Right Thing and not slacking.

So that’s it, really.  Hi, I’m back.  And the exercise bike won’t know what’s hit it, the next time I lay legs on it.

And yeah: thanks for all the encouraging Tweets and Facebook "likes" when I said I was going to do today’s dry run.  Y’all are lovely.