Day two...

Tuesday, December 6, 2016
It worked.  It DEFINITEY worked!
I had reached the end of the day, a day filled with outdoor, tiring work.  And I was chilled.  On such days and after eating a dinner over the past several months, I would think it was time to just vegetate.  I wanted to and I was close to doing it, but I thought about this blog and what I’d written the day before and so I went and donned my riding outfit, put the trainer in the middle of the family room, tuned into an episode of ‘Shameless’ and began to ride.
I felt something unusual in my right knee as I rode, but was determined to ride the forty minutes I’d told myself I was going to do.  I’ve been adding five minutes to each ride over the last two weeks, but giving my knee a day off between rides.  So far, it’s worked.  I made it to the forty-minute mark easily and could have gone until the end of the show, but why take the chance?  I’ll do forty-five minutes the next time out.
I went to Heinens and bought quinoa, turkey meat, and loads of vegetables and made my special, low-fat concoction, which I just call quinoa.  I made enough that I can scoop some into a container each morning and take it to work for lunch for a week.  Time for paleo-like eating to go with the exercise.  The next step is to get my under-toned butt back to the park and into the Survival Workout.

Bike duration: 40 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories Burned: 600.
Bonus: 10,000 steps.

The return of the prodigal son..

Monday, December 5, 2016
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.  It has been five months since I last wrote in my blog and I feel like a slob.”

“Do 1,000 push-ups, ride your bike for three days straight and don’t eat any ice cream until you’re 100^th birthday.  Now…go…and sin no more.”

I could have written.  I have done some exercise during the hiatus, just not consistently enough to make me want to write.  Then there was my personal life getting in the way of being properly inspired and that held me up, too.

Those things still exist, but they really aren’t good excuses.  Since I last wrote, I’ve gone through a period with my surgically repaired right knee where I thought I’d torn my meniscus again.  I’ve had the absolute high of believing the Indians were actually going to win the World Series, only to be disappointed again (it was one hell of a ride though, and I’m really not complaining).  I’ve made three trips to the Adirondacks and struggled with that same knee. 

Exercise?  Not so much.  I’ve been lacking direction and goals.  I’ve been thinking more about selling my house and retiring, but really not taking the necessary steps to make things happen.  I’ve been in a funk, a limbo that I need to pull myself out of.  The best way for me to do that is to find something to challenge myself and second, to write about it.  I haven’t come up with that first thing yet so I’m writing about how I’m thinking about it.

At least I’ve decided to work through the knee pain and start riding on the trainer again.  I’m watching ‘Shameless’ on Netflix to divert my attention and make it bearable.  I’ve also gotten into the woods more with Dakota to add more steps to the mix.  I have not done the Survival Workout in two months, though, and I’m losing my tone.  At least the job remains physical and with the side jobs, I manage to keep a semblance of shape.

Yesterday was 12,000 steps and work.  Nothing else.  I’ve been eating a lot of salads and lean meats over the past week in an effort to redirect myself, but Savannah invited me over for dinner last night, which consisted of a Jets sausage pizza.  I ate five pieces.

Today?  Side job tonight so exercise may be limited.  I will have time to ride the trainer so we’ll have to see whether or not I’ve overcome some of my laziness.  Tis the season to get my butt in gear or I’ll head into January with an even larger mountain to climb.  Until tomorrow then?

Heat, biking and excuses...

Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Yesterday marked day two of bike riding.  Two in a row, that is.  In days gone by, that would not be worth mentioning, but in my current state of slovenliness, it is.  Excuses?  I’m loaded with them.  Jack has been home for the past two weeks and I’ve spent a lot of time either with him or accommodating his schedule so we could maximize family time.  And then there was, and is, the heat.  All too often I would find myself driving home from work too exhausted to do much more than drag myself to the shower to wash off the salt and sweat and then fall uselessly on the bed for a rejuvenating nap.  The sun and heat have been acting to just suck the life right out of me.  Finally and most importantly, I don’t have a goal right now.  I need a date in the books to return to the Adirondacks, and now I have one.  It’s mid-August, which is only three weeks away, and although I don’t know the exact weekend, mid-August is close enough to have gotten me back on the bike.

I pulled out of the driveway Sunday morning with a Kleifeld’s breakfast still settling in my stomach.  Alaska Paul had joined me and described his new camping/traveling vehicle, which he plans to use to tour North America with bikes and skies.  He is living his dream, no doubt.  I got home knowing it would reach the middle nineties shortly and decided if I was going to ride, it was then.  I was on the road by 9:30 and pedaled into Waite Hill wondering when, or if, I would hit a wall.  As I climbed out of the valley an hour later, I found that wall.  My legs were screaming from inactivity and the heat was taking a toll.  I pushed through the final thirty minutes at less than race pace (a guy with a walker passed me as I went through the park) and reached my driveway in time to fall gently into the grass without dismounting.

Inactivity is a killer and one shouldn’t go through long periods of it and then ride thirty miles in oppressive heat…in case you didn’t know that already.  I didn’t. 

Monday…after a day of work in the heat and extreme humidity, I did it again.  Same course, but better results.  Though my legs hurt from climbing the day before, I felt better and stronger.  It doesn’t take me long to ratchet up as there is some advantage, and muscle memory, to fifty years of bike riding.  Let’s see how long I can keep this going…shall we?

Bike duration: 90 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories Burned: 1250.
Bonus: 13,000 steps.

Solstice, full moon, and the year of The Tribe...

Monday, June 20, 2016

So…tomorrow is the longest day of sunshine for the year…the solstice I think they call it.  And it is also a full moon.  Big deal you say?  Well, actually it is and not because it happens only once every seventy years or so…no, no…something much more significant to those of us who are hoping to live long enough to see the Indians win the World Series.  The last time this phenomenon occurred was 1948.  If you don’t know the significance of that year, then you’re not really a deep and abiding fan of The Tribe.  It was, for all you neophytes, the last time the Indians won the World Series.  And here we are in 2016.  The Cavs have broken the spell of no major championships for Cleveland, the Indians are in first place, and it’s happening again…an equinox AND a full moon.  Coincidence?  Let me know.

It was an exhaustive day.  Temperatures in the low nineties and humidity high enough that I was wringing out my shirt like it was a sponge.  I was six feet down in a ditch for much of the day trying to get to the bottom of the leaking foundation on our rental house, but the narrowness of the trench and the rocks were making me work for every shovel full I pulled out and threw.  I was light headed by noon and after copious water and some lunch, returned to the hole until I received a distress call from the farm.

“There’s a bird in one of the furnaces in the large arena, John,” Gail said.

“And?” I asked.  There were hundreds of sparrows and barn swallows flying all over the indoor arena every day of the year.  For one of them to fly into one of the five overhead furnaces, currently turned way off, was not unusual.

“I guess the horses are afraid,” she said.

I climbed from the hole, changed back into my farm outfit (digging in shorts which is taboo gear on the farm) and headed for the arena.  Locating the offending furnace, I wondered out loud of the necessity of pulling a ladder and disassembling it for the sake of a chirping bird.

“It scares the horses,” I was told by the Equine Manager, wondering again why they weren’t disturbed by the ones chirping next to and all around the furnace as they flew in search of tasty insects…or to annoy me.

I don’t question what scares them too loudly and went about getting the ladder and pulling the bottom from the furnace (it’s suspended in the air way above where horses can run into it) to find that whatever bird had been in there had rediscovered its powers of flight and left through one of about fifty openings to the furnace.  I put everything away, notified everyone it had been a successful mission, and returned to my hole. 

I continued to feel like crap, but dug on until quitting time.  Exhausted and covered in filth, I went back to my shop, grabbed a change of clothes from the Jeep and took a shower.  I went home to meet up with Jason and drive ninety minutes to Poland, Ohio where we were to pick up lots of furniture and home accoutrements from my sister.  He’s a pack rat and we had to load the truck to the maximum before we could leave.

“I’m tired, hungry and getting angry.  Let’s please go!” I said to him and he finally stopped looking for useless trinkets to pack in his truck.

I walked a lot, dug a lot, sweat a lot and didn’t do a workout.  I didn’t need to.  

All the way with LBJ!!

Sunday, June 19, 2016

“Donnie…I’m telling you…it is IMPOSSIBLE!,” I said on our morning chat.

“John…have some faith!  All the way with LBJ and then the Indians are going to win the World Series,” he replied.

We’d been talking about the Cavs winning the NBA championship throughout the playoffs.  He is an avid LeBron fan…who isn’t...and had been making this prediction all season long.  I would constantly remind him that no team in Cleveland had won a championship since 1964, which meant around 150 straight seasons when you included all three Cleveland sports teams.

“There’s too much stress after all these years.  If a team gets close…a key player will have a meltdown.  Don’t you remember ’97?” I asked.

Donnie and I had gone to games six and seven in Florida in 1997 to see what we hoped would be the end of the championship drought if the Indians could defeat the Florida Marlins.  Instead, with a lead in the ninth inning of game seven and the Indians only two outs from the championship, Jose Mesa gave up the tying run and eventually we lost in the 11^th inning.  Heartbreaking.

“And if we did win, don’t you realize the earth would spin off its axis and we’d all be doomed to another ice age or something?”

He wasn’t buying it, and neither was LeBron James last night as the Cavs did the impossible, becoming the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3-1 deficit to clinch the title.  I will admit to tears of joy and more importantly, new found hope that the Indians CAN win a World Series in my lifetime.  Thanks, Cavs.  Go Tribe!

"Hey...slow down!"

Thursday, June 16, 2016
“I did a hike with the pack and managed 150 step-ups,” I bragged to John knowing full well his lazy ass hadn’t done a thing.

“My lazy ass hasn’t done a thing!  You said you were out of shape and wouldn’t be training for this trip,” he whined.  “You lied…again!”

“That’s what I do…lie and train,” I said.

But I really haven’t done nearly enough to consider myself in shape.  Yet I am pleased that despite not hiking with a pack since last fall and not having done much with the Survival Workout, neither has left me sore this past week.  I have been particularly active both at the farm and on my second jobs, but I’m surprised at my level of conditioning for not having trained.

We discussed the itinerary, which would include camping on the Bouquet River just outside of Keene Valley and eating at the Noonmark.

“It’s a short trip and I’m not sure I feel like lots of dehydrated foods since we won’t be in the back country,” I said.  John was all in.

I had another grueling day dealing with issues at the farm, exacerbated by torrential rains.  I’ve been trying to waterproof the basement on our rental house by digging out the foundation and then patching, but the giant hole is collecting water and sending it into the basement faster than ever without any soil to slow its progress.  It’s also a horrible idea to pick up bags of cement, put them in the back of an open truck, and then have it rain like hell on them.  When I tried to pull them from the bed, they broke open and spilled their sixty-pound contents on the ground.  Oh…and it gets hard when mixing with water.

I went to scrape the inside of a garage to try and clear it of loose plaster and black mold after leaving the farm, which  didn’t work out so well.  I should pull the wall down and start over, but the owners want a band aide…not surgery.  I picked up salmon, ground turkey meat, spinach and other vegetables on the way home and cooked up bunches of good paleo meals until 8 p.m. when I finally collapsed and rested.

So…another day without a formal workout.  John should be happy, but I’m functioning on overdrive and may walk him into the dirt in the mountains.  That, or I’ll kill myself.
Bonus: 10,400 steps.

Sore foot...

Wednesday, June 15, 2016
To every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction…or so I’ve heard.  Anyway, I had considerable pain across the TOP of my surgically repaired foot all day and I think I can attribute that to the hiking with a pack from the night before.  I had been feeling some pain in that area prior to the hike, but it was certainly intensified after.  I don’t regret trying because I need to test it and neither the weight I was carrying nor the amount of step-ups and hiking I did were excessive – by my standards – and so I will just ice and see where it goes.

I had a very full day at the farm and was on my feet throughout.  From there, I went to a side job where I was on and off ladders for five hours and it is little wonder that by day’s end I was exhausted and hurting.  I didn’t even think about working out.  I did have a Paleo dinner and once my head hit the pillow, I didn’t stir until six the next morning.
Bonus: 10,700 steps.

Step-ups with a pack...

Tuesday, June 14, 2016
I knew that the Survival Workout was important to my overall fitness and that it was also a perfect night for a bike ride, but with a trip to the Adirondacks looming and regardless of how tough a peak I hoped to encounter, I needed to get to the park…or the bleachers…with a pack on my back and do some hiking.

I pulled my pack from storage, placed thirty pounds of salt in it and with the sleeping bag and its own weight, was carrying around forty pounds once I strapped it to my back at the North Chagrin Reservation.  I started with 30 step-ups on the boulder next to my car before marching off down (up) the bridle path.  I noticed some fatigue as I climbed that first, steep hill and even more when I found a log just off the path on which I did my second set of step-ups.  In all, I did 150 step-ups, broke a very good sweat, pushed my heart rate to 120 beats per minute, and had some trembling, fatigued leg muscles by the time I returned to the Jeep and dumped my pack in the back.

Sports specific training cannot be over-emphasized and I will do some more of this before the next trip.  Painting late is no excuse.  I have the pack in the Jeep and can stop at the Mayfield track and hit the bleachers any night.  Tired?  Sure…I’m beat, but enjoying the Adirondacks the way I like to demands a certain level of conditioning and I’m sorry to say I’ve ignored that for too long. 
Hike: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-120 bpm.
Calories Burned: 600
Bonus:14,000 steps for the day.

Paleo Diet and Survival Workout...

Monday, June 13, 2016
A couple of years ago, I decided to try the Paleo Diet to see if it could have any impact on my ability to tone and lose weight.  It was the first time I’d ever followed any structured diet plan, though it really isn’t structured, in my life.  As a simple reminder, the Paleo Diet is designed to mirror our ancestors dietary habits before true civilization as we now know it had evolved.  Humans were hunter/gatherers before they learned about agriculture and raising livestock for food.  The Paleo Diet tries to mimic this by sticking to lean meats, fruits and vegetables, with all foods being low on the glycemic index (sugar content).  I had to radically change my dietary habits, eliminating cereal for breakfast, pastas, legumes, and most of all…sugar!

I quickly noticed a difference as my pants started to get looser.  Over the next month, fat seemed to melt from my body and in the end, I’d dropped twenty pounds.  I made some modifications, working in a healthier cereal that I covered with a banana and almond milk, and eventually worked back into a more traditional diet that did include pastas again.  I maintained things like my smoothies, but eventually found ten of those pounds I’d lost. 

I bring all this up now because I have decided to give the Paleo another serious and more lasting effort.  I want to be leaner and stay that way.  I’ve rededicated myself to the Survival Workout…a key ingredient to maintaining low body fat and good fitness levels, as well as getting the cardio going.  Scheduling time in the Adirondacks and taking a serious look at doing some fitness training with clients has put my head where it needs to be.  I do it well and should never have gotten so far afield. 

I went to the park Sunday afternoon to do the Survival Workout and began with the usual push-ups.  I’d only managed 75 my last time out and was expecting something in that neighborhood, but when I hit 70, I knew I was strong and managed to push through to 90 before collapsing in a heap.  The rest of the workout when extremely well and by the time I’d returned to the Jeep, my whole body was quivering from the effort. 

Paleo Diet, Survival Workout, and hiking with a pack.  Look out, Johnnie, I’m going to be ready for our trip to the Adirondacks.  And Kimberly, don’t forget what you promised.
Survival Workout: 60 minutes
Training Heart Rate: 100-150 bpm.
Calories Burned:  600
Bonus: 12,000 steps

Odd job mania...

Sunday, June 12, 2016
I’d had a pretty full day on Saturday working…and leaving no time to work out.  I started at Mimi’s and worked through the early morning hours pulling weeds and working in the gardens.  The thermometer was heading for ninety and I wanted to be done with that and move on to painting the condo, which was indoors and air conditioned, which I did for the rest of the day and into the early evening.  Then I stopped my old friend Kathy’s place, which was a few miles from the condo to help her in the final phase of preparing her house as a rental property.  She would be moving out Monday and she had a list.

“I work for food, but this is a pretty long list,” I said when she went over what she hoped to get done.  On top of that, she fed me first…a paleo dinner of steak, fruit and vegetables…so I could have bailed since I was getting tired.

Instead, I pulled a door off its hinges in the bathroom and took it outside to sand and paint.  It needed one color on the hall side and another on the bathroom side.  I then drilled a hole through ceramic tile in the kitchen…a task that sounds easy but has to be done carefully to avoid cracking the tile.  Kathy wanted to help, and she is extremely handy, but not at this particular moment.

“Hand me that screw for the molly,” I asked.

She moved next to the stove to hand it to me…and then dropped it.  Of course it fell in the crack between the half wall on the side of the stove and the stove, which meant I now needed to pull the stove out to retrieve it.  Once I did that, I asked her to stop helping.

Heavy boxes were dragged from her second floor out to a storage area in the back of the garage where a lock was not functioning and needed to be fixed…which I did. A cabinet and heavy mirror were loaded in the car and by about 10 p.m., all chores were complete and I got the chance to swim in the pool I’d closed up the previous fall.  I’d easily lost several pounds to sweat throughout the day and it felt wonderful.

I ate well and I worked hard.  I did nothing to really improve my conditioning for climbing mountains, but I didn’t hurt my chances either.  I’m pretty sure John is doing little or nothing, so I guess as long as I’m ahead of him, I’ll be alright. 
Bonus: 13,000 steps.

Play...it's always better

Friday, June 10, 2016
I happened to find myself part of a conversation where a parent was being criticized for not involving her daughter in more summer structured activities like dance classes, gymnastics and soccer.  The little girl was five.

I thought back to my own childhood and what things I did when I was five and I can assure you my parents signed me up for nothing…except ‘go outside and play’.  And that’s what I did.  I played with the neighbor kids at hide and seek, kicking a ball, riding my little bike, catching ants, crawling in the dirt, and playing in our sand box.  If my parents had grabbed me from any of these activities to go to a soccer match, wear a uniform, run in the hot sun until a coach told me to stop, I’d certainly have wished I could be back in my yard looking under rocks for salamanders.

Oh yeah…there was no ‘childhood obesity’ epidemic at the time, either.  And yes…I was probably eating things that, by today’s standards, were absolutely unhealthy.  And when I got a little older, I played baseball, football, kickball, crocket, pickle, badminton and about anything else you could imagine…with the kids in the neighborhood, no parents for an audience, no uniforms and lots of arguments and fights.  I had fun, learned how to compromise, and was fit and healthy.  Am I missing something?

Anyway, I couldn’t help but to chime in and suggest that all parties read ‘Last Child in the Woods’, Robert Louv’s wonderful book on nature deficit disorder and the need for everyone to get outside…in the woods, the creeks, under the rocks, and in the dirt.  If we all did, we’d be in better shape, happier and more stress-free.  And I really think if you ask the average five-year old if they’d like to go every day to a dance class or just hang out in the yard and play with their friends, they’d pick the latter.  In the end, the kids may know better than us about what’s good for them.

No workout...

Thursday, June 09, 2016
Though another very active, busy day, it was again one without a formal workout.  On the 24^th of this month, I will be asking my body to climb some reasonably steep peak in the Adirondacks and I have a feeling it is going to say, ‘you screwed up!  You should have done more training.’  Well…oh well…I’ll hurt the next day and then climb something else until the pain subsides.

I did buy some new shoes.  I picked up my first pair of Merrill hiking, low-cut shoes and they do have vibrum soles.  I’ve been breaking them in around the farm and the heel is feeling pretty good.  The true test, of course, is always descending on steep rock face and whether or not they stay in contact with the rock…or my butt does when they’ve slipped. 

I met up with Todd Miller, my riding buddy from my trip to New York to visit my grandparents just after we graduated from high school in 1973 and again on Tour Ohio two years ago.  Both trips were around 1,100 miles of riding.  He is always in peak form.

“Rode about 3,000 miles so far this year, John.  How much have you done?””
“Let me see if I can add it up…hmm…I’d say 90-91 miles,” I replied.  He was judging me.

“You need to get your ass in gear,” he said.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.  The side jobs are eating up time, but you’ve heard that excuse before…and it sucks.  As soon as I finish painting Henry’s condo, I think I’ll be able to turn that around.  This weekend should be the big push to finish it off. 

Bonus: 11,000 steps  

Forty percent of American women are found to be obese...

Wednesday, June 08, 2016
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention released its latest findings on the levels of obesity in America and women, as a group, have topped 40%!  Men aren’t far behind at 35.7%.  Now…this is based on being above 30% fat on a body mass index (BMI) chart, which is the age-old, and in many cases terribly inaccurate, height to weight chart utilized in the insurance and medical industry when and where taking a more accurate indicator…a body fat assessment done correctly…is not in the cards. A man weighing 210 pounds and 5’10” tall would be considered obese, even if he had a 32” waist and was a solid piece of muscle.  The chart can’t quite figure out the difference between muscle and fat, as a pair of body fat calipers can.  Having said all that, truly there are too many overweight, underactive people in this country.  The National Institute of Health makes the following statement:

Causes of Overweight and Obesity

Overweight and obesity result from an energy imbalance. The body needs a certain amount of energy (calories) from food to keep up basic life functions. Body weight tends to remain the same when the number of calories eaten equals the number of calories the body uses or “burns.” Over time, when people eat and drink more calories than they burn, the energy balance tips toward weight gain, overweight, and obesity.

Too true.  I have, and will continue to, preach activity.  Trying to monitor caloric intake and balance it against how many you burn in a day is almost impossible.  Rather you should do something every day to increase the amount of calories you burn AND follow a routine that has you increasing the amount of muscle on your body, which is metabolically more active and will burn calories for you even while you sleep.  Yes…weight resistance of some kind is critical though, as you know if you follow this blog, can be done without a gym or weights such as I do when I do the Survival Workout.  Muscle tone, exercise that emphasizes muscular endurance, will suffice. 

Diet…what we eat…is important and again, some version of the ‘Paleo Diet’ where an emphasis is placed on reducing foods with a high glycemic index (the wrong sugars) will always work.  Lean meats, fruits and vegetables for 80% of your intake and then a routine of exercise and poof…no more obesity.  Get the discipline.  Give it a try.   

I had an off-day from exercise again, but burnt tons of calories walking over 10,000 steps, digging a hole for two hours and painting for three.  It did nothing to prepare me for a walk in the Adirondacks though, but I just ran out of time. 

A fitness test...an IPhone cover...

Tuesday, June 7, 2016
I was sitting in the Verizon store waiting for my old phone to download all its information so it could be uploaded to the new IPhone I’d been forced to get (I have insurance, but the deductible was $150) because it would no longer charge.  An $800 phone that, in eight short months, had failed because I could no longer plug it in.  I wasn’t happy, but I was trying not to take it out on anyone.

“Are you in construction?” Darian, the sales guy was asking.  I looked puzzled so he continued,” there’s so much dirt in these openings for your cords so I figured you do a job where you get dirty.”

And then it hit me.  Of course I could no longer plug in my phone and get a good connection.  Tiny bits of hay, dirt, manure and whatever else I climbed into and worked with, which often found its way into my pockets where I stored my phone, had naturally found its way into my phone, as well.  Shit, damn…

“You should have one of these waterproof cases on it, which seals it entirely, so you’re not back here in eight months spending another $150,” Darian said.

The bastard!  I hate when people are right if it’s going to cost me money.  “How much?” I asked.

“Eighty dollars,” he said, like I was grabbing a Snickers bar to add to my tab.

“Well holy, f&^%kin” shit,” I said.  “Sign me up for two!”

I did buy one, though.

And then I drove quickly home to give Kimberly her first ever fitness test.  She was less than thrilled about the body fat analysis, having the same objection I’d heard a thousand times before.

“I know I’m fat,” she lamented.

I assured her she was not, and she wasn’t, but that it was important to have a baseline.  Like using a map, you can’t know how to get where you’re going if you don’t know where you are.  Besides, I explained, now she could quantify exactly what she had and, more importantly, have a deeper understanding of the best way to change her body composition.  A retest would also demonstrate the value of the program I was about to map out for her, too.  In the end she decided she didn’t hate me and it was useful information.

She and I are working on a business plan to work with people suffering from depression.  She is a Life Coach in this area and I will be the one working with them to help them achieve their fitness and healthy living related goals.  I wanted her to understand my approach, hence the fitness test and the corresponding program design with goals and an objective; in her case climbing a peak in the Adirondacks in four weeks and doing a Warrior Dash at the end of the summer.  Much more to come on these topics…

My own workout skipped a beat.  I did take 11,000 steps throughout the day and had some hard physical labor, but it was no substitute for the necessary training to put me back in the Adirondacks and on top of my game – as someone should be who is advising…and inspiring…others.  I am determined, however.
Bonus: 11,000 steps

Back again...

Monday, June 6, 2016
I won’t write this with some conviction that this will again become a regular publication as I have had many stops and starts over the past year.  I will write it to inform readers that I have personally recommitted to getting my fitness and wellness back to the top of my priority list.

For way too long, I’ve been hit or miss, consoling myself that my very active job and my side jobs would keep me fit…or at least slim.  They do the ‘slim’ part, but fitness is another story.  I have always needed a goal and recent events have put those back into play.  My longtime hiking buddy and friend, John, is certainly part of that.

“Man…I need a mental health break,” he told me in a recent conversation.  For a variety of reasons I may or may not get into later, so did I.

“Adirondacks, John.  Let’s go.  Soon,” I countered.

“Totally out of shape,” he lamented.

And so was I for any serious climbing or backcountry camping, but there is more available in six million acres.  I reminded him of that and we vowed to go up the weekend of the 24^th for some serene camping and manageable day hikes and climbs.  I have been on several peaks with spectacular views that I could do if I weighed 100 pounds more.  I’ll take him there.

So…I need to do some riding and I particularly want to get back to the Survival Workout and the tone I’ve lost.  I’m also working on a business plan that would utilize my skills as a coach and trainer and so must again walk the talk.  More on that later.

I arrived at the park after painting ten hours Saturday and another eight on Sunday.  I’d stopped to cut Kimberly’s lawn in the rain, as well.  I had loaded the mower back in the Jeep and was ready to drive home when I decided I was a complete mess and the driving rain might feel good while working out. 

It did.  I started with 75 push-ups…rather encouraging since I’d not done one in three weeks, and then dips, pull-ups, curls and crunches followed.  I tried my surgically repaired heel with a run across the rugby field to the woods beyond, a trip of about four hundred yards.  It felt okay, but my breathing was heavy.

I lifted rocks and logs and did many more sets of upper body work, but noticed my endurance slipping away quickly.  I squeezed out only 35 push-ups in the second set and barely 25 in the third.  The layoff had totally sapped my ability to do repeated movements over extended time.  Naturally.  That’ll come back quickly.

I finished the workout barely able to move and nixed the idea of going to the bleachers on the way home.  Enough was enough and I knew I’d feel it all the next day.
Survival Workout: 60 minutes
Training Heart Rate: 100-150 bpm.
Calories Burned:  600

Sour can get sourer...

Thursday, April 28, 2016
I was shoveling limestone screenings into the back of the gator and wondering why I didn’t just grab the tractor and fill it with one bucket load.  As this thought bounced through my cranium, I felt the muscles in my abdomen tightening and contracting with each shovel full I tossed.  I considered how much my biceps and other arm and shoulder muscles were involved and decided filling by hand was a decent workout. 

I went to our rental house to do some prep work on the inside basement wall where I was getting seepage.  I’d priced doing it the correct way…having a waterproofing company come out and dig around the foundation to add new drain tile, tar the wall, and backfill with gravel, but that wasn’t in the budget.  It had started to rain while I was working and suddenly I noticed a little stream in the wall in front of me.  I measured its location and went outside to try and determine a cause.  And it was pretty simple.  Downspout.

I dug down around the downspout to the 4” pvc piping to which it was attached and decided I need to dig that up and see where it led.  An hour later, I found its terminus, which was simply six inches under the soil and entirely buried. 

“Somebody should be shot for doing something so lazy and stupid.” Donnie said when I shared the story later.

“I don’t have a weapon and I’m not sure it’s a capital offense in Ohio anymore, but yeah, that would be a fine idea,” I said.  Or maybe I just thought it.

The bottom line?  I’d managed to dig a very big hole and gotten a lot more exercise.

I decided to have some chili for dinner and while it was heating, reached into the refrigerator for the sour cream.  When I opened it, I realized quickly it was bad…which puzzled me because I didn’t think things that called themselves ‘sour’ could spoil.

I finished the night quietly, icing and stretching my foot and feeling reasonably pain-free.  I’d only done 10,000 steps and that may have been the reason.  I’m nowhere near thinking I might be finally getting better. 
Bonus: 10,400 steps.

Goodbye's can hurt...

Wednesday, April 27, 2016
I directed the driver to back his dumper to a particular spot to drop my stone and stood back to watch it fly.  As the hatch swung open and the contents began to pour out, I knew immediately I’d received the wrong product.

“Hey…is that limestone screenings you’re dumping?” I asked…knowing the answer.

“Yup.  That’s what the ticket says,” he replied.

“Well…when I went to the yard and asked the yard manager about this job and what to order, he said ‘304 limestone’, which is what I have written here and what I called in,” I said, waving the paper I was holding.

“I’m only the driver,” he said, but reached for his phone and called the sales rep.

After a brief conversation where the rep assured me he never made a mistake, I graciously agreed to use the product.  I could have forced him to pick it up, but I’m nice that way…and it was cheaper. 

When Justin arrived, he was skeptical, but it was there – all twenty-one tons – and we had to start moving it.  He loaded the tractor’s bucket and dumped it in front of the manure pit and I began shoveling and raking.

Eight hours later, we’d moved and spread ten tons and my muscles were aching…but loving…the effort.  I drove from the farm to a side job I was working before heading home and a little rest before heading off with Jason to move some furniture from my father-in-law’s place.  I was limping by the time we reached his front door.

“I’m at 13,000 steps now, so I’m going to conserve from this point on,” I said…but I didn’t.

I knew this would be the last time I would set foot in a place that held so many wonderful family moments.  I had watched my children celebrate birthdays and holidays here. I shared many a meal and a laugh with both of their grandparents and observed first-hand the absolute love that passes between family members who would give anything for another moment together.  I had been forged in the warmth of this home, and I was seeing it for the last time.  We turned out the lights as we walked out the front door, but before Jason closed and locked it, I rang that familiar door-bell just one more time, as I had done for so many years to announce my arrival.

I limped in the house and applied the ice pack, noting that I’d achieved over 14,000 steps again and without a hike of any kind.  It was a good day, all-in-all, because I knew in my heart that I’d loved a very special man, that he loved me, and that there were people in my life that felt the same about me.
Bonus: 14,500 steps.

"You stink"

Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Each day I begin work with a plan.  Each day something happens and that plan flies out the barn door.

“John…come listen to this gurgling sound in the drain,” a barn staffer suggested.

I listened to the water trying to drain through a floor drain in one of the horse aisles knowing there was likely hay and other horse debris trapped in the pipe about twenty feet away.  That didn’t stop me from dropping to the ground, pulling the cover and sticking my arm down to the point where the vertical line intersected with the horizontal.  Nothing there as far as I could reach, but I did pull back and arm covered in the wonderfully smelling sewer goo.

“Holy shit, John, you really stink,” Justin – Captain Obvious – told me.

“You could have put your arm down there,” I said.

“Yours is longer,” he concluded.

We worked the line trying to free the clog, but it became apparent that a jetting was in order.  We then moved back to what we’d been doing, which was loading dirt into a gator and shoveling it out into tire grooves cut into the front lawn over the winter when the ground was soft by the same vehicle. 

I went home with every intention of doing a Survival Workout, but looked at the debris sitting on top of the Jeep in the garage and realized how I'd be spending my time.  I'd heard a crash the previous evening, but could not locate the culprit.  Turned out a shelf, which housed scrap wood and hung over the Jeep, had cut loose and dumped about a hundred pounds of wood on the hood.  I dealt with it, but ran out of time to be in the woods. 

In total, it was a dirty, exhausting day and one in which I managed another 14,000 steps.  I’d brought my ice wrap to work in hopes of using it during the day, but the frantic nature of the work not only left me with no time to do it, but also caused me to leave it behind when I packed to go.  Consequently, I did not ice at the end of the day either, though I must admit by bedtime, I was feeling very little pain.  Maybe doing nothing to make it better is better than doing something?  Probably not, but that’s how it played out on Tuesday.
Bonus: 14,300 steps.

It's touch and go for an old man...

Monday, April 25, 2016
I had a call from an old camping, biking and kayaking friend, Henry Billingsley.  He expressed some concerns over my current condition.

“John…man, I’m bothered.  I’ve always thought of you as practically indestructible and now you seem to be falling apart,” he said.

“That’s because I am,” I replied.

But not really.  I suppose the foot issues, which have certainly held me back for going on two months, are problematic, but at least I see some form of a light at the end of the tunnel...not on this day though.

I had problems with our electric fence at the farm again, which meant walking a couple of miles of fence line trying to detect anything that might impede the voltage flow.  The horses had been leaning against the fence in their effort to get at the grass on the other side, which meant the jolt wasn’t enough to discourage them.  In fact, I’d tested it by grabbing it myself before going on my search and found the pulsing charge, while uncomfortable, didn’t really bother me.  How much could it bother a horse weighing 1,200 pounds and trying to get at the equivalent of a quart of Breyer’s vanilla ice cream?

After several hours of checking, I called my electrician to have a look.  He checked the main power supply and found everything to be fine, but I did notice him reversing the way the two ends of the plugs were attached to activate the fence.  I placed my voltage tester on the wire and found the reading no different than when I’d called him out

“It’s still reading…yeeaaahhhh….” I yelped as I released my hand from the fence.

“Holy shit, Mike, what did you do?  I just got enough of a jolt to push a horse off the fence,” I said, shaking my arm while still feeling the tingle in my toes.

“Maybe the polarity changed when I reversed the way it was plugged in.  It should go this way.”  He demonstrated the appropriate way to have the ends plugged all the while telling me it wasn’t grounded and that the whole thing should be reworked.

“So my meter reader won’t tell me if it’s in correctly and the only way I can tell if I’m fully charged is to grab the fence and light myself up again?”
“That…get someone else to grab it…or have me do it right,” he said.  He gave me the estimate for the necessary work, which caused me to think about who might take a jolt for the team each day to be sure we had full power to the fence.  Justin was a possibility, but he was only part-time.

“Alright…schedule a time to come in a fix it right,” I said.

I left the farm with 11,000 steps and went to Mimi’s to fertilize her lawn and do some other yard work.  I left there with extreme pain in my foot and still owning a commitment to meet Kimberly for a walk in the park.  I thought I’d have time to ice my foot before going, but received a text from her saying she was drowning and would appreciate a ride back to her car.  She’d started walking without me.

I grabbed Dakota and headed for the park where I found her on a bench.  It had stopped raining and when I heard she had more steps than me for the day, I became jealous and suggested we walk some more.  Had I thought this through, I would have realized she’d be matching my steps, but thinking things through is completely over-rated.  By the time I returned to the car, I was over 15,000 steps and my foot was screaming.

I iced at home for thirty minutes before Jason came to pick me up for a trip to Mill Tavern, a burger and some time watching the game and shooting the breeze.  An hour later, when I climbed off the barstool and put my foot to the floor, I realized just how much pain 15,000 steps could cause.  Jason watched me limp and grimace and suggested he pull the car up to the door.

“Hell no!  It’ll get better after a few more steps,” I said…convincing no one.

So yes, Henry, I’m damaged goods, but no, I’m not on the sidelines or ready to be put down just yet.  I shouldn’t try for 15,000 steps though, at least not for another couple of months.
Bonus: 15,500 steps.

A weekend of family and honoring a man of great dignity...

Sunday, April 24, 2016

It was a weekend of filled with laughter and tears, as funerals often are, but this one held far more happiness than remorse.

I knew workouts would be put on hold with the activity coming for the weekend, but managed to take a hay delivery on Thursday, which always makes me feel like I put myself out there.  It was only 200 bales, but they pushed sixty pounds each, which means I handled around six tons of the stuff.  Jack arrived Friday morning and after a quick ‘hello’, he moved to the sports ball cabinet in the garage and pulled out his basketball.  “Want to shoot some hoops, dad?”

I’d already done a bunch of yard work…weeding, fertilizing, roto-tilling, and grass cutting…in anticipation of his return.  I hadn’t factored in basketball.  “Not that I ever could jump, but I’m kind of limited with this foot,” I explained.

We drove to Jason’s since he has a hoop and was home as part of his bereavement leave.  He’d been putting the final touches on an urn for his grandpa’s ashes, which he made from cherry.  It was beautiful and his labor of love had done much to help him cope with the loss of a man so important to him.  He moved the cars and for the next hour we shot around with Jack demonstrating some slam dunks, which I filmed…and drooled over.

I returned home to do more yard work and house cleaning since dinner was at my place.  I managed some time to ice, but mostly was on my feet.  I was suffering by day’s end.

Saturday morning started with a smoothie.  We needed to be to the church by nine for visiting to be followed by an 11 o’clock service, a spreading of ashes in the memorial garden behind the church and a lunch in the church hall.  I picked up Kimberly and Jack and headed for the church thinking I had good control.  I was wrong.  Several times during the beautiful service punctuated by my children doing readings and Holly and Bill talking about their father, I felt tears stinging my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.  He had meant so much to me and be a larger than life presence for me that it was hard not to think about how I would miss the simple pleasure of being able to visit him and talk about the Indians, the kids, and our lives.  Still…he’d had such a wonderful life that it was hard to grieve for long.

Kimberly and I took a hike with Dakota after the service, which my foot was feeling by the time we returned to the car.  I dropped her off and returned home for more icing before a family dinner.

And then the day after letdown set in.  I went to church Sunday and sat alone.  I’d been sitting with my father-in-law for the past few years since my mother-in-law died and I again found those tears stinging and flowing.  I left the church and grabbed Dakota for a trip to the park and a Survival Workout.  Once back home, I decided I needed some healing time and spent most of the afternoon with my foot up and wrapped in ice.  I did cut the back lawn before calling it a day.

Formal workouts should begin Monday again.  Life throws curves and I dance around them to try and stay focused.  Exercise and fitness is important, but tending to family in times of need trumps it completely.

Heart condition...

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

“Why didn’t you mention you had a heart condition?” Mark Mendeszoon asked me…or at least I thought that was what he was saying.

I had just had surgery performed on my right heel in an effort to relieve the pain I’d been experiencing for that past year and a half.  It had taken all of twenty minutes, during which time I’d been knocked out.  My son Jason was sitting next to me expressly for the purpose of listening to what the doctor had to say after the anesthesia wore off since I never seem to get things clearly after being under.

“I…you…what?” I articulated.

“You have atrial flutter and your heart rate was only 20 beats per minute while I was performing surgery.  You need to go see a cardiologist next door…RIGHT NOW!” 

Well…I wasn’t arguing, though I did explain that I’d had an unusual heart beat most of my life and always been told it was functional and not to worry.  It seems to skip beats at rest, but beats steadily when I’m exercising.  The doctors in the emergency room had noted the same concerns when I’d been there two summers ago for my kidney stones.

“This is something different,” he said and something I would hear again when I did meet with the cardiologist thirty minutes later.

“You have atrial flutter, which means that the electrical impulse that should move across the heart in a straight line to initiate the contraction of the heart, is bouncing back and forth in your right atrium and causing this ‘flutter’,” he explained after reviewing my ECG strips and looking at the ultrasound of my heart.  “I’m not overly concerned and I’ll tell you why.”

He had asked me a series of questions, the most important being was I getting dizzy and did I feel fatigued.  I’d answered ‘no’ to both of these, which made him happy.

“Look…with flutter, blood pools in the right atrium and has a greater propensity to clot.  Clots break free and if they end up in your brain, you have a stroke.  That’s bad.  If you were like almost all of the other people in my waiting room – had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, were out of shape, dizzy or tired, I’d be much more worried and we’d be talking about blood thinners or pacemakers.  As it stands, I want you to start taking an aspirin a day to help thin your blood.  You are at an increased risk for a stroke and so you and I are going to see each other from time to time.”

He also described a more serious concern – the slightly enlarged condition of my aorta.  “I can only see the upper end as it leaves the ventricle with an ultrasound, so I want you back here in 90 days for a CAT scan so I can be sure it’s not worse.  I don’t think it is and it’s only slightly enlarged, but the aorta is like a balloon.  Stretch it out like high blood pressure will and eventually it breaks.  If it does, you die.  End of story,” he said.

We talked for a while longer about my activity level, which impressed him and gave him hope that I would be fine.  “You seem to take good care of yourself, but you need me to monitor this,” he concluded.  He had my full attention.

That was thirty days ago.  I’ve been taking my aspirin daily with dinner, but am just now getting back to exercising.  I have been paying closer attention to my heart beating and I have noticed some dizziness, but that could be the result of my looking for it.  Low blood pressure and resting heart rates can lead to feelings of dizziness when you move from a lying or sitting position to a standing one.  The blood needs to catch up with the move and get it to your head so you don’t pass out. 

I did another 11,000+ steps on the job and then hurried home for a bike ride.  It would be my first outdoor ride since the surgery and I was anxious to see if my heel would be affected.  I rode off feeling good, but quickly noticed a slight twinge in the right heel, which I elected to ignore.  Ninety minutes later and after climbing a couple of hills, I was pain free and feeling quite giddy about having ridden.  I went to dinner with Heidi in Akron and didn’t get home for some icing until after nine, but there was limited soreness though walking to and from the restaurant had been slow going.

Recovery continues and like all people in their sixties, new physical challenges will arise.  I know that my body wants to slow some, but if I give into that urge, I’ll have that much more trouble getting it going again.  The more we do, the more we can do.  I have so much more I want to get done and so I will push on.
Bike duration: 90 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories Burned: 1250.
Bonus: 13,000 steps.

No more boot...

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

The boot was due to come off Wednesday, but the way I was struggling with pain in my left foot just putting a shoe on, I elected to stop with the boot a day early.  I was pretty sure the limp the boot forced me into was the reason for the pain in the other foot, even without a medical degree to my name.

I went through the work day taking the normal 10,000 plus steps and headed to Mimi’s afterwards for a couple of simple chores.  Since I’d started back writing the day before, I had decided it was time to start exercising at some level, so I drove from Mimi’s to the North Chagrin Reservation with the intention of doing some portion of the Survival Workout. 

It was a perfect evening with sunny skies and temperatures in the low sixties.  I propped my feet on the gate at the starting point of my workout and managed 70 push-ups.  My goal had been to reach 100 before my 61^st birthday, but the foot surgery had made that unreachable.  Now I’m thinking I can get there in four weeks.  And I will.  I did my dips, pull-ups on a tree branch, rock curls, and crunches before walking/limping across the rugby field and into the woods.  I walked about two-thirds of the course and completed 14 sets before returning to the car and driving home.  I cut it short as much to save my foot as to get home to Dakota who had eaten four drumsticks from the counter the previous evening and, according to Savannah who had stopped mid-day, was suffering from diarrhea.  I got home to find I was too late and with a mess to clean up.  At least it was on hardwood floors.

I pulled out the lawn mower and cut some grass, completing my steps for the day at 14,100, which is probably too much for recovering feet.  I wrapped them in ice and ate some pea soup while watching ‘Longmire’.  I followed the ice with the night splint for stretching, which hurt like hell.  It’s time to push myself, in any event.

Survival Workout: 60 minutes
Training Heart Rate: 100-150 bpm.
Calories Burned:  600
Bonus:  14,100 steps

He will be missed...

Monday, April 18, 2016

Where did the last month go and why haven’t I written a thing?  For the most part, I stopped writing because I stopped exercising, the other reason being I again got too caught up in doing very little to take the time to do something that really matters to me…or does it?

Wednesday will mark four weeks since I had foot surgery to repair a damaged plantar fascia in my right foot with the hopes that I will again be able to walk…and maybe run…without heel pain.  Time will tell as the healing process is three months for someone who doesn’t average 11,000 steps a day for work.  “Yours will take longer,” my doctor reminded me.

And it is.  In fact, this past week has seen me grimacing with each step from pain in my LEFT foot, instead of the right, which is likely a result of the overcompensation I’m doing from having the protective boot on the right foot and the corresponding limped I’m forced into from having one leg longer than the other by an inch.

During this time, I have done my job and walked quite a lot, but only ridden the bike twice…the only form of formal exercise.  I’ve lost a lot and am looking forward to the day (today) when I stop wearing the boot and attempt my comeback.

The real reason I left the sidelines to join the game again though, was to write something about the passing of my father-in-law, Bill Heckler.  He died this past Friday of congestive heart failure after a two-month battle with the same and pneumonia. 

I met my father-in-law to be during the summer of 1973 on a visit I made to their house to pick up a couple of matching shirts Holly and I were going to wear to work the seafood buffet at Hospitality Motor Inn.  We began to date that winter…she was still in high school and I was in my first year at Cleveland State…and so I began to know and appreciate the man he was.  It didn’t take long, either.  His absolute goodness, his hard working nature, his honest and straight-forward approach to any and all issues made him an open book.  He quite simply began to be the most influential man in my life as he invited me into his family and his world.

Over the years we would grow very close.  We had very similar interests and we shared a common love of family…which were the same people.  When my children were born, he embraced them as grandparents do, but with a love that exceeded anything I’d seen before or since.  As the years passed and I had longer and more time to share in his company, it was plain to see that there was no close second to the love he gave to his and my children.  In the end, he lived for them and to see them settled in to secure and happy lives.  His compassion for them will be his legacy and what will affect all that they do and the interactions they have with their own children and grandchildren as the years pass for them.  His impact will be never-ending.

I was fortunate enough to have been with him to discuss the Indians, Donald Trump and Hillary, how wonderful his grandchildren were, and how special his daughter and son were only two hours before he died.  When he saw me walking, with pain, into his ICU space on that day, his first comment and one he would repeat several times before I left for the night was, “you need to take a couple of days off and let your feet get better.”  In keeping with the man he was, as he was dying, he was thinking of someone else and their well-being.  As much as anyone can, he made me ‘feel’ love.  His actions overshadowed his words.
I will miss him terribly.  I will continue on my life’s journey though, a better man for having known him.  I will remember how he treated others and how he lived his life and draw inspiration from it and try to emulate, where I am capable, what he would have done in a situation.  I will be proud if someday my children, and others who knew us both, think I was half the man he was