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!

*

Meet my friend: Pain

Someone I know has the following advice for exercising, especially when you're getting started and don't know your limits: Stop comes before ow.

It's good advice, as it goes, but imprecise.  Ow comes at different points for different people and, in this case, "Ow" is not the beginning of pain, but a tenuously-defined point after the pain starts and before you're ripping yourself to shreds.

I have a high pain threshold, in general.  This is partly because I'm used to it as a constant (q.v. crappy joints), and partly because, when things are bad and I'm whingeing, I have some historical doozies to call back on to say: it's not as painful as [insert horrific incident], just put it away in the pain cupboard.

This management technique is good for pain when you know it'll end at some point, e.g. simple injury, recovering from surgery, headache when the source is known, migraine (although that's only minimally good when your headspace for putting pain is filled with orgulous, rolling, foggy banks of sickening pain).  However, it's a bit less useful for when the pain is scary because its source (and duration) is unknown. Then it becomes as tiring as someone constantly jumping out at random and shouting "Boo!" - you become hyper-vigilant to the point of paranoia, cringing before it even hits...

One of the things that's wrong with my poor knees is, apparently, some kind of hyperalgaesia.  Something went wrong with my ability to work out what's an ignorable amount of pain in that area and it all feels frightening and alien.  When I haven't done my exercises for a while (or eat the wrong food, or do too much standing without preparation), I go back to the place where I can't sleep for the discomfort, which sucks for two reasons, one of which being that sleep deprivation makes you more sensitive to pain.

One of the two useful things the NHS physio gave me (the other being insoles to correct pronation) was advice to touch my knees (and the areas around them) as much as possible with different kinds of pressures and textures, to basically bring up their sensation threshold.  Resting them and avoiding using them was only making them flabby and over-sensitive, basically.  Imagine that puffy rawness of paler skin out from under a plaster and breathing air for the first time in ages.  Like that.

Which brings us on to the key bit - the NHS physios told me to "do [these gentle exercises] and stop when it hurts."  The private physio told me to "do these more difficult exercises and push through the pain - your body has expectations and you need to shift them."  [This last is a contraction and paraphrase.]

Now, that's not to say that she was keen on me running around and breaking myself.  This is the woman who laughed heartily at me coming in with a busted neck, the pain of which had seemed to come on with a sneeze, but had actually been caused, she worked out, by me trying standing on my head the previous evening.  I am too heavy to stand on my head with the current parlous state of my muscles.  In this case, stop should have come way before ow.

Until very recently, I've been neglecting to stretch out properly after exercising.  I'm not entirely sure why this is.  Sometimes I'm rushing for a bus to get home, but... well... maybe I'm not taking it all seriously enough.  (Also, when the endorphins are rushing around, you think you're fine and don't need to stretch, just change, go home, and eat ALL THE PASTA.)  So I've been hurting like a bastard the following day, and that's been my measure of "congratulations: you did exercise". I used to call this "the smug fire of self-induced pain".

Yeah, not so clever.

Last night I achieved a mini-goal: front (as opposed to side-; I'm building up to that) plank held for 60 seconds.  I squeaked in victory and collapsed on the mat, all glowy.  Last night, after upping my sets to 4 instead of 3, I stretched properly, and today: yes, I feel achey, but to the degree that feels like "good workout last night" not the "holy crap, my left shoulder's so tight I've got pins and needles running down my arm" sensation I've been getting that makes me think I should see my physio.

Turns out Pain's one of those friends - you don't seek him out because he can be very draining company but, if he happens to come with the territory, you should neither avoid nor ignore him - he always speaks the truth, even though he sometimes exaggerates. Pain's part of healing, after all, and I need to break my muscles just enough to build them through healing, and pain's part of that.

Conversely, Injury's a wazzock and should be avoided if at all possible.

I guess what I'm saying is: test your limits constantly by artfully nudging beyond the ones you want to change. And have a map for what the steps are between the landmarks.  Pain is part of this - listen to him and he'll be a good friend in unfamiliar territory. And, for goodness' sake, save painkillers for emergencies!