Target Practice

Well, it’s been nearly two weeks since my last update, packed full of goals as it was. What’s occurring?

1. Stairs

These are a lot easier now. I am firmly into the habit, despite having to occasionally leave a colleague or two looking mournfully out past the closing lift doors at me. It’s rare I don’t make it up the stairs in the same time as the lift takes, more or less, which is heartening. I wouldn’t say I’m entirely non-breathless, but (unless I take the stairs two at a time, which I sometimes like to do on the final flight, and even then) I’m a lot less breathless when I reach my desk.

So that’s nice.

2. Lunchtime Walks

This has been going pretty well. I’ve managed to do this (or roughly this) every workday lunchtime, and have even fitted in a couple on non-workdays (walking to Newmarket Road and back on Wednesday - 1.4 miles either way; walking to Milton Country Park on Sunday - 1.5 miles either way). In fact, I definitely seem to have hooked into the “feeling weird if I don’t do it” vibe pretty quickly. In terms of goals, I do seem to have upped my pace for the lunchtime walks, which is groovy, though measuring inconsistencies (the first few times I kept forgetting to switch off the recording device until I had been pottering around in the canteen for a few minutes) mean that it’s hard to say whether I would have recorded a lower completion time in the first few anyway... However, the mean pace is consistently better (though sometimes a little slower than my average if I’m walking with someone else - getting breath to speak and all that). That one feels like a solid win so far (though I’ve had few weather challenges to overcome), even though I do feel like a dapper gent taking a lunchtime constitutional (yes, I do wear my famous hat).

3. Isometrics

Bloody isometrics. Well, I’ve finally hit upon a way to do them at least once a day - tag them on the end of my morning physio. Fuck it. I can always to an end-of-working-day one as an extra, but I’ve had trouble working that in, so I’ll at least have that one. I’ve only done this twice now, though, so no stats yet.

Time for some other goals/ feedback

4. Hydration

I’ve been using the FitBit to monitor my water intake. It’s a bit rubbish, which I knew it was, so I’ve been using various methods to improve that, and (apart from this morning, because Monday morning, amirite?) I’ve been doing pretty well. Not, you know, excellently, but better. And my evidence on the benefits on days with proper hydration in them is fairly bloody empirical, but you don’t want those details.

Advantages: All of them? Good for digestion, skin, metabolism, oh yeah and staying alive.

Disadvantages: Obviously I need to wee more. That’s part of the point though, so hey.

Goal: Get up to drinking about two litres of water a day without having to poke myself in the head to do so.

5. Fitstar

As previously reported, I selected the “Get Strong” program from Fitstar, packed full of strength-building and cardio exercises in three-times-a-week, twenty-minute sets. So far it has not proved onerous to do the three sessions a week (so far Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays), though it’s significantly easier to not feel self-conscious when bobbing up and down to some perky fitness expert’s generic instructions when no-one’s in the house. (“Tighten those abs!” “Remember to keep a straight back!” “Keep it light - land on the balls of your feet!”) And the program does seem to keep track of which exercises I label “Too Easy!” and “Brutal!”, pushing me where I’ve indicated I’m up for that and not where I’ve said “Nope”.

Unfortunately, there are a fair number of exercises which require the adherent to put weight on one or both knees. After gingerly trying a couple of these and suffering both math and aftermath, I now instantly skip any with weight-bearing knee forms, label them “Brutal!” and indicate that I’ve done zero. Apart from the “press-ups from knee” which I do from the toes. So.

The exercises get my heart-rate up and many are moves I’d never have considered (read: in some cases didn’t even know they were A Thing). Some are nearly impossible to do properly in my living room, so require improvisation, improved immensely when I realised that I could pause the instructions while I rearranged things to roughly match.

Apart from some tightness and pain in and behind my knees which felt terrifyingly like a return to horrible old symptoms of 2011/12 until I ruthlessly did all the right things to loosen stuff, these exercises appear to be taxing me exactly the right amount.

Goal: Just keep going and ingrain the habit.


6. Weight

Argh. So, the side-effect of being more active? Yep - weight-loss. Which, in my case, is a bugger, and leads to friends advising me to eat more, and put on some weight.

I. Am. Trying. Believe me.

The balance of “types of food that won’t fuck with my now-shitty digestive system”, “quantities of food/ drink that won’t fuck with my now-shitty digestive system”, “time periods of ingestion that won’t fuck with my now-shitty digestive system”, and “oh, yeah, I’m still allergic to loads of stuff” with “go on, eat more and put on weight” is proving... problematic.

I am going to try protein shakes next. Because fuck it. There’s been very little advice online about this, and most of it is: “Hey, ladies, you don’t want to put on loads of fat (urrgh, fat), you probably mean you want to pile on lean muscle; here, have an avocado.” And while a) avocados are nice (especially mashed up with bacon and garlic-infused olive oil on brown toast), and b) more lean muscle would also be nice, c) I am finding it hard to keep warm when stationary and my less-padded arse has difficulty sitting for extended periods of time, especially on hard surfaces, dammit. A significant number of “weight gain diets for women” searches have led to the above advice, or even straight to weight-loss advice because apparently I don’t know what I’m talking about plus Western culture’s obsession with thinness = healthiness which gjjh&*HJ*$%&Jkj, basically.

Any advice on this would be super-gratefully received. In the meantime, I’m due to see the gastroenterologist in October, and I’m going to ask for a referral to a dietician/ nutritionist for this very reason, because at least they won’t advise me to eat more eggs, unlike even the actually vaguely helpful websites do. (I am super-allergic to eggs.)

And how is this all making you feeeeel?

Ah, that one. (How about super fucking hungry all the time?) Well, I’m feeling a bit more confident about my body and its ability to cope with physical challenges. I’m also enjoying the fact that I appear to be (slowly) gaining a measure of discipline over a lot of these things, which in turn makes me feel better about myself, which in turn makes me more likely to Do Things Right, so...

I’m also noticing a (unexpected at this stage) small but significant set of changes to my body shape and, well, the best word I can think of is texture. Specifically:

• there appears to be more intense wall of muscle around my abdomen, especially evident when standing.


• My thighs and calves are definitely more heavily muscled. Again, this is more evident when standing, but the calves, in particular, seem to be changing shape even at rest. Their texture at rest is different. Sorry - I can’t explain it better than that they’re denser? less wobbly? Maybe...


• My forearms also have this change of texture. Not that they were ever particularly wobbly, but... yeah, they feel denser.


• My biceps appear no different, but my triceps appear more defined, especially when my arm’s extended.

I am stiff a lot of the time - sitting still really does cramp me up, but I seem to be recovering quite well each time. And maybe some of that recovery is more psychological - I’m expecting my body to be more in command, so just act as though it’s going to be fine, and it is.

My digestive health is... mixed. I am trying to eat larger meals and that’s causing me pain and bad reflux issues, including impacting on voice and breathing. On the other hand, I know better how to deal with that, so that’s passing faster and I’m panicking less. Mostly.

Spent two weeks saying how great it is to have my voice back. Woke up today with it as scratchy and painful as before. Send hope, please.

— Fay Roberts (@fayroberts) September 17, 2017

Oh well. It still cleared up within a few hours, so that was nice.

I’d like to say I’m sleeping better, but that’s a Whole Other Thing that we’ll have to address in a separate blog post, possibly a couple of months down the line when all this has bedded in properly.

Haha. Bedded in? Bedded... Bed. Coz sleep, coz. Yeah. Ahem. Anyway. See you soon!

Preprandial Perambulation

So, as I said before, I’m keen to expand on my fitness activities now that I’m back at work (sedentary as hell) and no longer charging up and down hills and up and down several flights of stairs every day.

So new strategies for worktime fitness include:

1. Stairs

I currently work on the third floor, and am no longer choking horribly like I was this time last year (for AGES), so if I can go up and down the stairs to/ from the Edinburgh flat, I can do that at work. (Last year I was so ill that even going down stairs made me cough and choke. I got really reliant on the lift; I’m trying to kick that habit.)

Sometimes I go up two stairs at a time, then stand and gasp at my desk while I wait for my heart-rate and blood pressure to return to something approaching not-having-a-stroke. Two of my geographically close colleagues are so much fitter than me it’s not even funny, but they’re polite about me doing my landed-fish impression.

Useful for: leg strength, heart strength.

Disadvantage: makes me look a little antisocial at times when others are using the lift...

Goal: not to be out-of-breath after doing the full three flights.
 
 
2. Lunchtime walks

I work very near a patch of land in Cambridge that is approximately 0.65 miles in circumference - Parker’s Piece. It seems ridiculous to only step outside my building before home time when I have an errand in town that can’t wait until after 6pm. So, instead of sitting looking at t’internet the whole time, I figure I’ll step out and do a brisk turn around the Piece before eating lunch. Except that that’s a bit boring and not exactly very long. So I’ve worked out this more complex criss-crossing route that takes the walk up to about 1.7 miles and 36 minutes (including getting to and from the office building), making maximum use of the greenness and relative-lack-of-cars-ness.

Wacky Saltire/ Wobbly Kite - movement map courtesy of Strava

No doubt I’ll get bored with it after a while, but there’s a great deal less pollution and dodging people than if I walked in any other direction from my office. And I’m not going to just walk up and down the stairs. No-one wants that. I’ve invited other people along generally; let’s see...

Did it for the first time today, and here are the results:

I overheated so much... - stats courtesy of Fitbit

Short of actually jogging, I think I’m unlikely to get any better than that. And I’m not jogging for anyone - my knees are shot enough as it is.

Useful for: general fitness maintenance, leg strength, heart strength, getting away from screens and chairs, encouraging a good appetite for lunch.

Disadvantage: I’m struggling here, because anything I think of is tiny. Okay, let’s say that it’s dependent on weather, and in splashier months the choice of bike-ridden paths/ car-ridden Regent’s Terrace and muddy ground may prove tricksy.

Goals: Maintain a pattern of doing it every work lunchtime that it’s not horrendous weather for six weeks; bring it down to a 30 minute time by the Solstice.
 
 
3. Isometrics

About 50,000,000 years ago I was shown some isometric exercises (though she didn’t call it that) for my shoulders by my old physio. They were supposed to work on the small, stabilising muscles closer to the bone, to help prevent injury. Like everyone in the history of rehabilitation ever, I stopped doing the boring exercises when I felt like I was feeling better.

{sigh}

I have rigorously trained myself to do the big-muscle daily physio exercises every day, between waking up and breakfast. I’ve only missed one in the last few months or so, and that’s because I was full of snot and coughing like a pit pony. I need to get into a similar pattern with the isometrics, and frankly it’s ridiculous that I’m not because I don’t even need to get out of my chair to do them! So the notion is to have at least one time in the working day where I do them.  I’ve decided that it’s towards the end, when my colleague who sits next to the big window has gone home so I can walk over, rest my eyes on the distant view of the far side of Parker’s Piece and just bloody do my exercises already. It takes 2:45 minutes, so I’m not entirely sure why I don’t do ’em! :)

Useful for: much-needed shoulder stability, better posture.

Disadvantage: honestly, mate, there really isn’t one; you could even do it in the loo if you’re worried about people thinking you look weird doing it!

Goals: Maintain a pattern of doing it at least once a day every day (work or otherwise) for six weeks.
 
 
Thoughts? What fitness habits do you incorporate into your workday?

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?

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. :)

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...

Oh! #SR14 done!

I'm a bit dazed, to tell you the truth, but it's done, I'm still able to walk, but I can't stop because the rest of life continues.

Just under 2 hours, just over 6 miles. Very happy with that and had good company.

Now onto everything else.

F.x

Less than 12 hours to go

Until my #SR14 challenge.

We'll find out if I've trained, rested, eaten, drunk, and psyched myself up properly and enough.

I'm trying to ignore the whinging of the gimpy Particularly Borked Knee (left), and the daft post-performance part of my brain that wants to stay up late and jump around.

All will be well, and all manner of things will be well. We may even hit £900 raised, which would make me very happy. There's still time if you want to donate: 

http://my.sportrelief.com/sponsor/fayroberts

I plan to be blogging and Tweeting as I go (partly because people who would have walked with me are ill or in different parts of the world, partly because why not?!), so you'll be able to follow my progress, if you like! :D

Right. Sleep. And cold remedy...

Wish me (and all the other runner, walkers, swimmers, climbers, and cyclists) luck.

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... :)

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.

Reach for the Stars

I think it's fair to say that the sponsorship effort is going pretty well for The Walk.  As you know, I beat my original target and raised it.  And then I beat that and raised it again.

And now I'm close to beating that.  Blimey. People are lovely.

Raising attention for this has meant stepping outside yet another comfort zone, one that came up in conversation last night as my mate and I stumbled home for 2½ hours from a gig in a London location so outer that it didn't even have a London postcode. She was being quite... insistent... on helping me with my (large, but not as large as usual, and on wheels, okay?) case.  She was lovely and patient and helpful and non-patronising, but letting her carry my case was a bit of a mental struggle for me.

To say that asking for help doesn't come easily to me is a bit of an understatement.  My first phrase, apparently, as a child was: "I do it myself".  (My mother used to say that my first word was "No".  Hard to say how accurate that is...)  So it's been a fairly overwhelming characteristic of mine since, basically, early cognition.  My ingrained dedication to self-reliance is not about to change with ease/ at all/ ever/ overnight, is what I'm trying to say.

I'm getting better at it.  For example, I'll accept help with much more alacrity these days.  Not quite the same as actively seeking assistance (and I've always been someone happy to go seek information, being more than willing to accept that there's always someone who knows more than you do about, e.g. where the condensed milk lives in this shop, how to open the car bonnet of the car I'm driving, ou est la gare, etc.) but, you know, a start.  A big part of the last three years has been accepting what I physically just can't do and persuading myself that I'm worth getting it done well and not hurting myself in the process.  At some level, Being Able To Do Stuff is enmeshed with my feeling of self-worth.  And yet, as with my complicated perception of the desirability of dieting, I don't judge others by what they can't do...

This is echoed in my sometimes desultory attitude to publicising my own events/ merchandise, etc.  The best way to persuade myself to request assistance is to remind myself who else suffers if I don't.  So having a goal where others will benefit if I do well is über-motivational, and this has got me pushing mention of my sponsorship drive around the shop. And now that everyone and their monkey know that I'm doing it, I can't bottle out. And if I'm definitely going to walk six miles in a go, I'll need to get the tools to be able to do it without breaking myself and returning to the place where I need to ask for help.

Ta-da! Fay-logic circumlocuted! I win out over the apathy!waaah, and Sport Relief get a bag of cash to help people in need.  Oh, and the people who give me the money get to feel good about themselves too... :)

Thanks! :D

Little Victories #3

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.

Part of what I’m doing with this project is giving myself gifts. I don’t remember that enough - sometimes exercise and salad just feel like a chore to feed the spreadsheet. Moments like earlier are a great reminder:

I realised that, running late, I had a wider choice of buses these days and, seeing one that was running a little behind schedule that stops quite far (but walkable distance now) from my house, I decided to try it.

It had overtaken me, so I started to run towards the stop. And I ran. And kept running. Holy crap, I wasn’t running out of breath or breaking my legs. I had to pause to let someone pushing a bike by in the opposite direction, and trotted the few yards after that at a fast walk, grinning all over my face.

Of course, the next bus heading to where I’m now trying to get to is stuck in traffic, but that’s a different story...

Back on the Wagon

In the end, I had five days with no other exercise but walking, and even then not much. I'm disappointed, if truth be told - while I chose wisely not to for the first three days, the other two were littered with excuses and bad planning.

Oh well; changing patterns of thought are unlikely to happen overnight. I shall look on this as a learning opportunity...

In other, more positive news: I got back into things while staying over at my family's at the weekend, and felt the better for it, though my abs kept saying really?! I missed the chance to get a long walk in, though, which was a shame, but visiting my mum's grave with my dad (the first time we've done that, it suddenly occurs to me, since her funeral in '99) took precedence.

Anyway, a week later than anticipated (planned, that is), I went for the "Walk all the way home after work" goal.  Some numbers for the stats heads, according to my Google Tracks app:

Distance: 2.6 miles

Putative Calories Burned: 273

Total Time: 41:40

Average Speed: 3.74 mph

(There's all sorts of stuff about moving time and average moving speed, which seems confusing to me, but hey...)

All of which is rather positive, I think.  Good speed, didn't stop for any significant amount of time except at a pedestrian crossing, during which I kept my legs wiggling, like a very slow, over-dressed jogger.  I didn't hurt too much during the walk itself, and I even stretched out when I got home.

Today my legs are so very far from fussed I'd almost forgotten I'd done it.  Well, I say that.  They weren't during the day, but now they're grumbling, especially in the knees, and I can't help but wonder if 2.6 miles at a fast trot followed by fairly intensive sessions on the stationary bicycles the next day was entirely wise.

Heigh-ho.  You'll be wanting a progress report then?

Diet (as opposed to dieting)

I'm eating well, enjoying food, and stubbornly substituting dried fruit and more water for biscuits and flapjack.  Tonight I sat there, in our currently freezing kitchen, after an extremely satisfying meal of home-made stew with potatoes and fresh bread, and wondered what was wrong.  I started externalising the conversation I was having sotto metis in my head to highlight to myself how ludicrous it was:

"But I want a biscuit."

"You've eaten more than enough, you're just tired."

"Biscuits! I can see them!"

"Sorry - no biscuits for you..." etc.  It seemed to work.

(Although I'd quite like a biscuit right about now.  Maybe I'll go to sleep instead.)

Sleep

I've got to do something about this.  I'm more tired from physical exertion, so my sleep quality's better, I just need to work on the quantity. Dammit.

Physio

Apart from the blip (it was a blip!) that was last week, doing well on this score.  It's getting a tad easy, though, which means that, presumably, I run the risk of getting bored by it and not doing it.  Doing it first thing in the morning keeps it more difficult (laxer muscles to overcome), and I can do that time-wasting reading the news thing that I would usually do slumped on the sofa when I arguably should be getting ready for work...

Mat exercises

Going very well.  20 reps is almost easy now, and my planks (even the repeated ones in later sets) are more reliably 60 seconds (or close) at a time.  So I've started adding in some new ones (wide-arm press-ups!  Yay! Holy damn that's difficult!), and will continue to do so (I foresee flying press-ups - where you swing one arm up at a time after coming back up - scissor kicks, and - in a month or so's time I suppose - gym ball gubbins; that'll keep me occupied...)

Gym

I failed to consider that doing longer sets of the endurance stuff (bikes, rowing machine, etc.) would mean that I spend longer overall at the gym.  That tiny miscalculation (and missed bus) aside, this is going pretty well too.

Up to 16.5 minutes on the bikes (the magical 20 minutes is almost within sight!), with variations of difficulty to - again - keep me from getting bored and doing it wrong.  I'm also listening to music and reading the Kindle app on the phone during the "flat" stretches.  And watching the man who does Epic Lunges down the length of the cardio part of the gym.  Luckily, I am too breathless, generally, to shout "Why so serious?!"

Maximum reps on the free weights is starting to get easy.  I think next week I go up a whole 0.5kg!  Onto the Big Girl Weights, where they have textured chrome bars and black hexagonal ends!  Yay! :D

I'd forgotten how ace rowing machines are.  I'd also forgotten that people are as crap at putting the handles back to the right slot for the next person as they are re-stacking their weights.

Oh hell - I'm turning into a gym bore!

No, no, it's okay - I'm allowed/ supposed to on here.

I saw a lot more people that I know in the gym today.  Tuesday appears to be People Fay Knows Day at that particular grunt emporium.

And no, I still haven't got used to the guttural gasps emitted by men with weights, the higher-pitched, sobbing exhalations of women at the end of their sets.  This, I have decided, is why people wear earphones - not to distract themselves from the boredom of repetitive exercise, not to dedicate themselves to their fitness in aural isolation, but to prevent themselves from getting needlessly aroused by the sounds of the others around them.

There's a poem in that, I'll wager...

And that's it, I reckon.  This weekend I'll need to walk 3.5 miles to be up to the mark; I'll let you know how that goes!

Shank's Mare - the figures

So, yesterday, the challenge was to walk 2.5 miles continuously, as that's where I'm supposed to be on the graph of now until 6 miles on 23rd March.

As you know, rain paused play but didn't stop it, so what - I hear you putative stats-heads cry - were the final figures?

Glad you asked. I have a tracking app on my phone, courtesy of Google. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn it on until quite late, paused it at the chip shop, then neglected to turn it on  again. Courtesy of Google again, I've tracked our whirligig rain-walking adventures:

Home to Tommy Tucker - 1.2 miles

TT to Waterstones - 1 mile (the bridge was out - we went the long way round)

WS to The Eagle, via Kings and the crazy clock - 0.3 miles

Eagle to The Station - ~1.4 miles because we went a slightly odd way to start with.

That all-important first part was, with standing 10 minute pause, 2.2 miles, which overall took just over an hour. Minus the pause, you have a respectable time and speed, especially considering the rain and the massive standing puddles we had to negotiate at one point, plus shoppers at other points.

I'm pretty pleased with that, I have to say, and particularly grateful to my partner for accompanying me (and suggesting proper shelter, and not complaining about the weather).

My legs are definitely fatigued, and a bit achey, but not devastatingly so. We'll see how they do after tonight's gig, with all the stairs, box-carrying, and standing that needs to take place.

Next weekend I'm in Cardiff. I'll have to see if my dad's up for a 3+ mile walk... :)

Little Victories #2

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.

Today (see previous post) I did a bunch of walking. What you don't know yet is that, halfway to the first designated stop, the heavens opened - lightning flashed, thunder crashed, and everything got pelted with hailstones. At first we huddled under a bus-stop, then my partner said "do you fancy chips?" We sheltered in the chip shop (in my case, chipless) until it eased, then we headed out into the "oh, it's just rain now..."

Despite the fact that I was already soaked and opposite a bus stop, I chose to keep walking. :)

Shank's Mare

Today I met a friend in town. Having walked into town from my house. After a nice sit-down, we walked to the pub, and then to the station to see him off back to That London.

ALL OF THE WALKING.

Right now I am very happy about this . Join me tomorrow when we find out how my knees feel about it... (I have a tentative prediction of "not quite as chuffed".)

Still. Tomorrow, when I get my Google on, I'll know what my walking distance looks like now.

Little Victories #1

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.

Today, after missing my bus, instead of sitting in the cold for 20 minutes to get one to close to my house, I walked 10 minutes to get one to slightly further away from my house.

I am trying to retrain my brain from "sitting better" to "walking better", as the former belongs to The Time of The Stick.

Goals

So, you want to get fit and not die young of crappy cardio-vasular response/ be a slave to your joints/ lungs.  Those are pretty good drivers, but how are you going to steer this lifestyle change, this move to, er movement?

I was thinking about signposts - landmarks along the way.  I'm learning stuff from being a project manager, you see...! :)

Like what?

Well, there's the biggie: building up to walking six miles in one go for charity on 23rd March.

Yeah, look - I know it's not a half-marathon; I'm not even running it, ffs, but guess what? this is my Spartan Race. I get genuinely excited when I successfully run 100 yards to catch the bus. I was walking loads in Edinburgh in August, yes, but I checked - it was all 1-2 miles max (okay, up and down some pretty serious hills carrying loads of stuff, bit still). The longer ones necessitated wee breaks on benches.

So that's 9 weeks or so away? There must be some intermediate (and post-SR14) goals, yes?

Me and my trusty spreadsheet had a word.  If we're assuming I'm right, and that I can currently do about 2 miles without too much anguish, I'll have to up that amount by just under ½ a mile per week.  So if I go for a walk every Sunday, I'll have to go for a longer one each time.

Goal 1 - Go for a longer walk every Sunday (or Saturday or Monday if unavailable)

There are lots of lovely places I haven't visited in and near Cambridge yet - they don't all have to be within walking distance of home or work... they just need to have space to walk reasonably fast in.

It's about 2½ miles from my home to work, and I'm busy this coming Sunday, so maybe I should try walking back from work on Monday, when I've less of a panic about how long it takes.

Timeline: first one 27-Jan-14 (I know it's not a Sunday - see above!)

Goal 2 - Walk all the way into work from home (and be on time for work (and not wreck myself))

This is a challenge of both fitness and discipline (time leaving the house, not succumbing to the bus/ a taxi, making sure I've stretched/ physio'd beforehand.

This is going to cost me less money, long-term, if I can make it a habit, but - while it's great for maintaining fitness and building up to the Big Goal - it's not so good for improving fitness.

Timeline: 7-Feb-14

Goal 3 - Build gym-going up to three times a week

Not much to say here, except that the third time will probably be a weekend day, in general...

Timeline: 20-Feb-14

Goal 4 - Cycle into work

Less a one-off challenge, and more a lifestyle goal.  Tougher than it sounds, because something about the angle of my tcrusty old sit-up-and-beg makes cycling unpleasant for my poor li'l knees. So something I'll probably need to do is buy a new bike. Or at the very least get the old bugger seriously seen to. Once again I am entering into an argument with Cautious Fay, to whom I'm trying to sell the idea of "spending money to save money".  I'm also entering into an argument with Timorous Fay, who doesn't like the idea of pain, has convinced herself that cycling while injured before was part of what screwed my knees in the first place, and is having a hard time with evidence, dammit!

Timeline: first ride 17-Feb-14; at least twice a week by 31-Mar-14

I know - I'm being a bit lenient on myself here.  One to revisit, I think...

I have various other waypost goals, but they're all quite mathematical and dull (e.g. up to 20 minutes on each of the stationary bikes in a session; up to 3.5kg on free weights; find another weight machine I can use as well as the chest press thingy; work up to the treadmill/ stepping machine without screwing my knees, etc.) - some of them will require advice from fitness experts and a pass from my physio (I don't need one, as such, I just think that some of the weights stuff may make her make disapproving faces, and I want to be sure...).