exercise

His Imperial Highness

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I’ve been getting Jack outside most afternoons. We go out for his exercise in the mornings before naptime, walking at Jack-speed, which is something slower than an amble.  Think glacier.  The afternoons are for my exercise, so he goes in the stroller, and I get to choose the pace.  He’s been great – he gets to play with a toy and eat puffs or cheerios while seeing the sights, and I get to listen to an audiobook or podcast and actually feel like I’m working out.  I only occasionally have to play Bean Bag Rock instead of the Dresden Files.

For his entertainment, I usually give him his Scout phone, his snack container, and his water cup, but he can’t juggle all three (I need to order the snack tray that goes with the stroller).  I usually start him out with snack and the phone – he makes it very clear when he wants water.  We’ll be strolling along, and his right arm will rocket into the air, hand waving, and I’ll hear “dat-dat, dat-dat”.  I barely have to slow down to pass him his water, and when he’s done, the arm shoots into the air again, water in hand, and I take it back.  He resumes snacking or playing.

I am Mama, servant to the tiny emperor.

Blue skies, empty head

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I did it again.  While walking with Jack this morning, I started drafting a post in my head, and when I got back, I remembered that I’d thought of something, but that’s as far as I can get.  I had hoped it would come back to me when I went out for my “run”*, but no luck.  Gone forever.

*That’s right!  I’ve started exercising (other than walks with the baby in the stroller) again!  It’s a “run” because I can’t call it running yet, or even jogging, not really.  I’m starting from basically nothing, so I’m back to the walk/jog pattern.  Walk for 5 minutes, jog for 1 minute, repeat for at least half an hour (longer when I can get the time).  Do that three times a week (at least), for at least two weeks, then walk for 4 minutes, jog for 2.  It’ll take a long time, but it’s a safe (injury-free) way to get back to running.  And MAN do I want to avoid hurting myself.  I miss running.  The hard part now is figuring out when I can do it.  Jack still has, like, NO pattern.  Not for eating, not for sleeping, and that makes it hard to work out with John when I can leave him with Jack during the work day.  It’s best (for all three of us) if I go out immediately after feeding the baby, but will that be when John can look away from work for a bit?  Hard to say, hard to predict.  But we’ll figure it out.

I did see someone using the same brand jogger that I have and actually jogging with it.  We exchanged brief hellos, but she went by too quickly for me to ask how hold her baby was when she started jogging with her.  The recommended age is 8 months, so it’s likely to be a while before Jack and I jog together.

Thanks, but no thanks

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I had my free session with a personal trainer tonight, and, uh, yeah.  I won’t be doing that again.  The workout was fine, but she totally ignored my requests about what I wanted her to show me.  When we were done, she gave me the hard sell to work with her regularly, in the MOST annoying way.  Maybe this works on your other clients, lady, but I CAN meet my goals without your help, and I can certainly do it for less than $400 a month.  You don’t know me.  Don’t assume I need outside motivation just because I’m taking advantage of a free session.

I’ve been home for an hour and a half, and I’m still super irritated.  Must let go.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Oh hell, I’ll probably see her at the gym again sometime.

Breathe out.

Maybe she doesn’t come in early in the morning.  She didn’t look familiar.

Breathe in.

I really don’t want to have to keep telling her no.

Breathe out.

The pushy personal trainer can shove it.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

All better.

I am a fascinating person

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I’m not going to talk about work.  Instead, I will tell you what’s new!

(What’s new?)

Um….we joined a gym!  Again, but for the first time since we moved.  Our gym is less than a mile from our house, and it has oodles of cardio and weight machines and some group classes (although mostly at times I can’t go to because of work) and a scary half-circle-shaped room that’s always dark for spin classes – I’m not going near that.  (Spin classes have too much yelling.  I don’t want to be yelled at all, but I feel like if you’re going to yell, you should at least turn the lights on.  It’s weird.)  And they have 5 or 6 heavy bags, so we can resume our boxing workouts.  Yay!

I lifted weights (and by “weights”, I mean “lightweight dumbbells” – let’s not get crazy here) for the first time in months (since May?) yesterday morning, and I am paying for it today.  It’s the good hurt, but it’s still a hurt.  Oh, and then I sliced my finger on the edge of the sugar container lid that John chipped earlier this week, so that hurts too.  I did NOT bleed in the sugar.  (Much.)  At all!  For reals.  The sugar is not contaminated.  (Much.)  At all!  (I’m sorry -can’t help myself.)

So let’s see…what else is new?

Hm.

Well.

I guess that’s all.

Eula Ridge, May 27, 2017

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This is a bit out of date, but I have pictures and video, so why not share?

Eula Ridge is only maybe 30 minutes outside of Eugene (although it took us more like 45 minutes since we went past it the first time – it’s not well-marked).  It’s all wooded, nice and shady.

There’s a little parking area at the bottom, right off the road, and there was a truck and a school bus parked there when we arrived.  The bus driver warned us that they had just dropped about 35 mountain bikers off at the top (I can only assume there’s a road that goes up since a bus did NOT take the trail we were on), and they were going to be making their way down, and we should be careful.

John and I started up the trail worried that a pack of mountain bikers would mow us down.  We spent the entire hike scouting for good spots to hop off to the side.  There were a few kind of narrow scary parts, but mostly there was plenty of room for us to get out of the way.  They came through pretty spread out, one at a time, not at the breakneck speed I was picturing.

It was a really nice afternoon.  Some website said it’s three miles to the top, but there aren’t any spectacular views, and we had…something…that night (I don’t remember what – it was nearly a month ago), so we turned around at two miles up.  I took video to commemorate it.

And of course I tried to get a selfie of us.

We are not good at the selfie thing.

I will leave you with the soothing sounds of a babbling brook for meditation.

I want to do more hiking before we leave Oregon.

There isn’t an ocean too deep

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Today was a good day for a bike ride.  One that I am out of shape for.  (My butt is not too crazy about me right now, and my legs only stopped burning 20 minutes ago.)

John had an idea of where he wanted to go, so I said, “I will follow you,” out loud, to his back as we took off, and for the next half hour, I had Little Peggy March’s “I Will Follow Him” in my head.  I didn’t have headphones, I didn’t even have my phone, and we were going too fast to chat.  I had only my brain to save me, and oh, brain, you failed.  Little Peggy March faded to Sister Act, back to Tiny Peg, back to Whoopi not measuring up to her choir, and all the while, I was resisting the urge to be the crazy person pedaling madly after a man, singing “He is my destiny!” at the top of my lungs.

Self-motivation

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It’s raining outside.  It’s cold outside.  Two reasons not to run outside, even though it’s my running day.  I should go to the gym instead.

I hate running on the treadmill.

Well, I don’t have to use the treadmill.  I could use the elliptical thing that’s not an elliptical that I like.

But it’s at the gym and I have to go the gym to use it.

Yeah, but I was going to have to go to the trail to run on it, so what’s the difference?

It’s the gym.

The gym has wi-fi and I can watch an episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend while I work out.

Yeah, but…that’s a compelling argument.  Fine.  I’ll go to the gym.

She said I could

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My physical therapist finally said I could start running again!  But not, like, actual running, not yet.  I have to start slow, and I’m only supposed to run on a treadmill (soft, level surface), and I can only go for 30 minutes.  And only twice a week!  So many limitations.

This week, I walked 5 minutes, ran 1 minute, walked 5 minutes, ran 1 minute, and so on for half an hour.  Twice.  The first time I went for 36 minutes because I was focusing so much on 5 then 1 then 5 then 1 then 5 then 1 then 5 then 1…that I lost track of how many cycles I’d done.  No pain, though (yay!), and it feels really good to be running, even if it’s only for 6 minutes.  Lindsay said I’m allowed to move to the next level if I can do the first level twice with no pain, and I did, so next time I try it, I’ll walk 4 minutes, run 2.  PROGRESS is happening, and that’s a relief.

Wherein I speak Latin

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CNN is not the greatest news source out there, and despite where you might think this sentence is going, I’m not providing an exception here.  The article I’m linking to isn’t news.  It’s helpful, and it’s health-related and general happiness- and stop-hating-the-world-related, but still not news.

How to stop being annoyed by life

My tolerance for petty bullshit is, as you can probably tell by my phrasing, LOW.  So is my tolerance for incompetence, willful stupidity, and intolerance.  I can still be patient with people.  I’m still patient with LOTS of people.  I don’t seem to have as much patience, though…and then I get irritated…and then I get frustrated…and if I’m lucky, I remember to stop and wonder just what I’m so irritated about.  Is it important?  Does it matter?  Can I do something about it?  I’m rarely that lucky (to remember to stop and think), but I think I’m getting better about it.  Things like that article help.  Sitting in a chair in the backyard for a few minutes during the workday helps.  Reading helps.

Why am I not reading?  I’m pretty much always asking that question.

So I was thinking about all that on my bike ride this afternoon, pedaling along the path by the river, enjoying the sunny day and the stiff breeze that made me work a little harder, when BAM!  Something small and sharp and OW PAINFUL IT HURTS hit me in the upper arm.  I never saw it, it was gone immediately, like it bounced right off, but it felt like I’d been stung.  Can you get stung at that speed?  Can a bee or a wasp or some other flying (I assume flying) insect hit you at just the right angle at approximately 15 mph to sting you and then get away?  I shouted a few things, maybe startling a duck, and pulled over to look.  It did kind of look like a bee sting (although the last time I was stung was on my knee in Chesapeake Beach in 1985 or ’86, so how would I know what it looks like?), and there was a tiny dot of red in the middle, and it hurt like crazy.  I considered going home, but I was mostly done (6 miles left!), so I figured I’d keep going unless it started to hurt more or I started to go into anaphylactic shock.  (WordPress doesn’t think “anaphylactic” is a word.  Screw you, WordPress, I spelled it right on my own!)  Would I recognize anaphylactic shock?  If it started, would it be too late at that point to get home?  Why was I worrying about this?  I didn’t die when I got stung when I was 6, so I’m probably not allergic to bee stings now.  Shut up and bike.

So, yeah, I think I got stung.  It stopped hurting as much, the swelling started to go down and spread out, like more of a welt, and now (an hour later), there’s hardly anything to see.  I think I’ll live.

Moral of the story: I didn’t get angry or irritated or frustrated by it.  No, that’s a TERRIBLE moral and has nothing to do with anything.  Getting stung by a mystery insect on a bike ride is not in the same category as the things that annoy me.  What’s to get annoyed about?  Nope, this story only barely escapes being a non sequitur, and it’s only a sequitur because the bee sting literally followed my thoughts on that article.  It’s a LITERAL SEQUITUR.

Wind-up toy

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Getting out the door to go the gym was a bit of a production today.  I broke a nail putting on my shoes.  Where are my clippers?  They must be upstairs.  Nope, not upstairs.  Oh, here they are in the downstairs bathroom.  Now where’s my nail file?  Not in the downstairs bathroom.  Upstairs?  Nope.  Maybe I’ll use John’s.  In his office?  Nope.  Upstairs?  Nope.  Never mind.  Skip that part.  Okay, I’m going to listen to music on my phone.  Where are my headphones?  John, have you seen my headphones?  No.  Not on my desk either.  Upstairs?  Nope.  Could they be in the car?  Nope.  Oh, they’re in my purse.  Fine, I’m ready to go.  Got my headphones, my phone, my keys.  Out the door, lock the door, grab my bike….where’s my helmet?  Back inside, helmet’s in the basement.

That’s what?…four trips upstairs and one trip to the basement in about three minutes.  Who needs the gym?

Useful! And productive!

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I’VE GOT BLISTERS ON ME FING…palms.  The tops of my palms, right under the fingers.  Does that part of your hand have a name?  Doesn’t have the same ring to it, regardless.  I tried the rowing machine today.  Only 15 minutes, but I’ve got four blisters that hurt like hell.  I won’t be doing that again.

Today was a Thursday that felt like a Friday.  Disappointing to find it wasn’t, but at least tomorrow really is Friday and we have a three-day weekend!  Are we doing anything for the 4th of July?  Who knows?  It’s enough not to have to go to work.

Speaking of work, I actually did work that felt useful today.  Most days are all meetings and crisis management, and I never feel like I’m getting anywhere (which is why it’s so stressful).  Today, though, EVERYTHING was down.  All the websites we host, all of our test websites, our ticket tracking system, our phone system, our network – EVERYTHING – was down.  Everyone in the office was sent home because the office didn’t even have internet.  It came back up around 1pm, and everyone came back to work (and I went back to putting out fires), but in the hours between 10 and 1 (eastern) today, I researched and started to create a new writing test we’re going to use on job applicants.  I’m completely over the TERRIBLE grammar three-fifths of my team displays, and I won’t hire anyone else with bad writing skills slide because we weren’t on the lookout for it during the interview.  Everything my team does, all of our communication with our customers, is written.  It HAS to be good.

So anyway, it felt great to actually work on something that can be completed and put to use.  We’ll start with applicants for my team, but I think (because I think highly of myself) that HR will adopt it for the company hiring process.

Bad timing

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I got a cute sundress at Target yesterday, but I want more than one cute sundress.  More than one more cute sundress.  My one chore for the day was to bike over to Trader Joe’s to pick up dinner while John was rehearsing at Will’s house, so I figured I’d do it after I finished my long bike ride for the day.  It made sense at the time, but I didn’t think ahead to how much I don’t want to still be on a bike after that many miles.  Still, Trader Joe’s is only a mile from the house, and what’s two more miles at that point?

Yeah.

Trader Joe’s shares a parking lot with Old Navy, so I figured since I was there anyway and not in any particular hurry, I’d check out their sundresses.  They have the added benefit of being super-cheap.  It wasn’t until I took my helmet off and noticed how gross and sweaty my hair was that I thought about how gross and sweaty my whole body was.  So….maybe shopping for and trying on clothes wasn’t the best idea.  I cruised through anyway, just looking.  I’ll have to go back.

Then I was disappointed by Trader Joe’s (they don’t have fresh, non-frozen salmon!).  I couldn’t face biking to yet another store, so I called John and he picked up KFC on his way home.  I can live with that.

Sneaky

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I ride my bike through the park three or four times a week, and I see a lot of people doing a lot of different things, but it wasn’t until I noticed someone sitting on a bench reading a book that I realized I almost never see people reading in the park.  They walk, ride, run, play with dogs, play catch, throw a frisbee, have a picnic, take a nap, swim in the river, fish in the river, play on the playground…but no one reads.

So one day, someone was sitting on a bench, reading a book, and it caught my eye because it was unusual.  A few minutes later, I passed another someone sitting on a bench, reading.  A few minutes after that, I passed a third person sitting on a bench reading a book.

That’s when I got suspicious.  People (other than me) don’t read in this park.  Clearly, these are plants, spies set to report on my workouts.

As if to confirm my suspicions, after I noticed them and realized what was actually going on, there weren’t any more.  For the entire rest of my ride that day, there weren’t any more people sitting on benches reading books.  I haven’t seen a single other person sitting on a bench reading a book during one of my bike rides since then.

I’m on to them.  And they know it.

Why, yes, I am still listening to Welcome to Night Vale.

Soggy routine

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I get up, work, go for a long bike ride.  While I’m out, I get rained on, and I see a wild animal.  Today, it poured for seven miles, and I saw a fox.

This is my life now.

I miss running, not least because I didn’t feel I had to do it for an hour and a half to burn any calories.  You’re less likely to get rained on if you’re not out for 90 minutes.  I need to join that gym.  I’ll get a pool, weights, classes, no rain, and no wildlife.  And eventually, I’ll be able to run again.

Bugs. Also, puppy.

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Did you know that when you fly through a cloud of gnats at 15 miles per hour, they feel like tiny pebbles hitting your face?  Now you do.  Good thing my mouth was closed.  And I was wearing sunglasses.  I always wear sunglasses when I ride my bike, sunny or not, getting dark or not.  If I don’t, all that wind rushing into my face makes my contacts get all dry.  Plus, bugs.  I was riding my bike back from yoga one night several years ago, no sunglasses because it was getting dark, and a bug flew right into my eye.  It was gross.  And distracting.  And gross.

What’s not gross?  I just watched a video of a guy proposing to his girlfriend by handing her a puppy with the ring tied to its collar.  SO CUTE.  The puppy, not so much the proposal.  I don’t care about that.  Although, ACTUALLY…that’s kind of gross, too.  Not gross in the same way as bugs in your eye, but it’s like cheating.  “She CAN’T say no to me after I’ve given her the cutest puppy in the world!”  Cue evil laugh.

I hope you said yes because you want to marry him and weren’t swayed at all by the cute puppy in your arms, lady in the video I watched with the sound off so I don’t know what really happened!

Under attack

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The universe may have been trying to tell me not to ride my bike today.  Before I left, I had to convince a fairly large spider to get off my front tire.  I convinced it by wheeling my bike around.  The spider wasn’t on the tire anymore, but I don’t know where it went.  I didn’t crush it.

Worse than that, I saw a snake.  It was slithering frantically off the bike path and into the tall grass, and I saw it at the last minute.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t run over its tail, but I did shriek and nearly fall over and crash my bike.  It was a small snake, but it freaked me out.

THEN, last but least scary, a dog charged me, growling and snapping.  It was on a leash, and I was racing by, so I was probably in more danger from the spider that went missing, but still, I flinched.

It’s amazing I didn’t crash my bike today, actually.

Physical Therapy

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The last time I went to the podiatrist, he suggested physical therapy, and today was my first session.  I’ve never done it before.  Well, I’ve never been injured before.  All of my preconceived notions about it can be boiled down to that one scene in the movies when the temporarily paralyzed person (usually from a car accident) is trying to walk again using those parallel bars and being encouraged by the well-meaning and super-peppy therapist.

You know what?  It wasn’t that different.  My physical therapist was super-nice with a normal level of pep.  There’s a big open room that reminds me of a kid’s play room – well, no, that would the best kid’s play room EVER.  It’s more like an elementary school gym for the littler kids with lots of stations.  I didn’t get to use any of them (sad for me), but they looked like fun.  I just walked, stood on one foot, and then stood on one foot on a cushioned pad.  Then she poked and prodded and twisted and pressed and said I’m stiff and weak in some areas, but pretty symmetrical in those deficiencies.  Yay for symmetry?

I have some stretches to do, and I’ll see her again next week.  The goal is to continue resting until the pain goes away and get me running again.  The strengthening should help prevent future pain.  I don’t know how long it’ll be before I can run again yet.  I was afraid to ask (and also, I have a feeling the answer would be that it’s too soon to tell).

Maybe next time she’ll let me play on the fun-looking stations.

Wrong people are wrong

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Whoever told me that Oregonions Oregonians no, i’m keeping Oregonions never use umbrellas didn’t know what he was talking about.  I was out in the rain today (mostly not on purpose), and I saw four people using umbrellas to keep dry.  The other twenty people were probably just trying to impress somebody.  Or they took the same chance I did and bet wrong.  It was a little bit invigorating to speed along the empty trail with rain pouring down and my favorite songs playing.  I got plenty dirty (bikes kick up a lot of mud in the rain), but I’d do it again.

Then I came home, cleaned up, made scrambled eggs (ALMOST as good as Mel’s), and watched TV.  It was an okay Sunday.  I barely spent any time dreading work tomorrow.  That’s an improvement.

It’s not that easy

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Yesterday, the podiatrist seemed to think that the way he wrapped my foot would bring instant relief, even after I remove the wrap.  He said I could even go for a test run that night.  That was a bit too optimistic.  I rode my bike out to a soft trail (cedar chips, no asphalt), locked up the bike, took three excruciating steps on the trail, turned around, and got right back on my bike.  That was way worse than before.  When not running, it didn’t hurt, so part of what he said was true.

I followed his directions.  I bought supportive insoles for my shoes, wore my running shoes (with insoles) around the house all day (as instructed – no barefoot walking for me), put them on again first thing this morning, and then went for a walk.  The first half of the walk was fine.  Second half, painful.  (Not debilitating, just not normal.)

So.  I’m doing what the doctor said.  I still feel pain, but not all the time.  Do I need a follow-up?  Do I need more time to rest it?  Should I be biking?  Swimming?  Yoga?  Nothing?  If I can’t run when he thought I’d be able to, is something more serious going on?  Can I work myself into a frenzy without the use of Google or WebMD to tell me I’m dying?

I’m scheduling a follow-up.