Running again...and riding, too.

Friday, December 2, 2011
Holly’s Kitchen Aide was ready to be picked up...and there is little chance that we will have holiday cookies without it, so when she asked me if I’d get it, I was more than cooperative.  I arrived at the repair shop and after discussing the amount of time before my return...he figured five years...I paid for the mixer, picked it up and moved towards the door.  It’s a seven-quart unit and pretty heavy...I’d say around 20 pounds.  Anyway, as I stepped out the door with the mixer in my left hand, I somehow didn’t notice the six inch drop to the parking lot.  You know how you feel when you think you’re foot is going to be touching something solid only to discover air?  When my foot finally hit pavement, I jerked my lower back to right myself and keep the mixer...and me...from falling.  I felt a twinge in my lower back...one I’ve had many times before...and which is never a good thing.  I put the mixer in the trunk, myself in the driver’s seat and hoped my lower back wouldn’t become a big issue.  Wishful thinking.

I went to the Metropark thinking it was time to try running.  My knee was still troublesome while trying to sleep, but seemed pretty good during the day.  I put on my old, destroyed running shoes and started down the bridle trail at a slow jog.  No pain after half a mile, so I picked up the pace and tried to concentrate on running forefoot and not heal, toe.

I stopped after running 20 minutes and walked a short distance to see if I would feel any pain.  I didn’t and broke into a run to finish the workout.  I completed 30 minutes and jumped back in the car pleased with the results...but not satisfied with only 30 minutes of running with holiday calories on the horizon.

It was in the low 40’s and clear and my thoughts drifted to biking.  I planned my outfit on the way home, worried most about keeping the hands and feet from freezing.  I had cold weather riding booties to cover my shoes and went with a pair of black isotoners on my hands...very GQ.  I wore tights to cover my legs, a polyester t-shirt closest to my skin, a fleece jersey next and my cycling shirt over that.  I wore a stocking cap under my helmet and felt ready to ride. 

I had some trouble getting comfortable on the bike with all the layers and couldn’t get much use from the profile bars as bending over was difficult.  After 20 minutes of riding, I concluded the isotoners were insufficient, and pulled a second pair of thin, cotton gloves I had in my saddle bag a put them on underneath the isotoners to maintain the GQ fashion statement I was making.  I rode for 75 minutes, completely comfortable except for my hands.  Once back in the garage and taking off the gloves, my left index finger began to throb painfully from the cold.  I have heavier gloves which will resolve that issue and now feel that as long as the roads are dry and the temperature is in the mid to upper thirties, I ought to be able to ride.  Much colder than that would be dangerous because patches of black ice could be precarious on narrow tires with 130 pounds of pressure and very little tread.  It turned out to be an excellent double and my knee seemed to be fine for both.  My back, on the other hand, was feeling poorly for the remainder of the evening.

Run duration: 30 minutes.  Bike duration: 75 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 140 running, 130 for the bike.
Calories burned:  520 for the run, 1125 for the bike.

Pushing to the limit...

Thursday, December 1, 2011
Once again I started a workout with a pr push-up effort, managing 87.  My knee had been feeling better and I’d also decided to start testing it with more bounding and sprinting moves through the workout.  I started with a set of bounds up and over a picnic table and followed it with a set of sprints up a steep bridle path.  My sides were heaving when I finished my third sprint and crested the hill...something I haven’t done often over the past few weeks...and it felt good to hurt that much.

I hit a good number on my second set of push-ups and all of my lifts were going well.  I found, as I often do this time of year, that the swing set pole was too slick to climb.  I’m going to have to purchase some water-proofed gloves...the cheapie cotton things dipped in some kind of rubber compound...if I’m to keep these climbs in my routine and that is something I really want to do.  I am making some plans to move some of my lifts inside though, as the realist in me understands once we have over a foot of snow on the ground, I’ll have some workout issues.

I continued to push hard throughout the workout and when I returned to the car for my final set of push-ups, my upper body was feeling the fatigue.  Still, I could break my 3-set pr if I could reach 80 again.  When I hit 50, I knew I was through managing with an extreme effort to squeeze out another 10.  I’d managed 220 though...my third best effort ever.

Survival Workout duration: 60 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 100 to 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 600.

Honus Wagner tops Marilyn Monroe

Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Alaska Paul was back and we were getting together for some dinner, but we needed to do some exercise first.  He suggested a run, but I was reluctant to try that out yet and we settled on a hike.  I took him off-trail to check the site of the park squatter.  We struggled up the hill to the ridge on a muddy slope covered in wet leaves.  The sleeping bag was still there...no Ranger has yet to check the site...so we checked ourselves by combing the ridge for any sign that anyone was still around or that they’d never made it back off that ridge.  We found nothing more than a huge deer bedding area.

We finished the hike in almost complete darkness, but the trail was partially lit by a beautifully clear half moon.  I enjoy walking so much in these conditions...the quiet of the woods and solitude of being alone in the park on a moonlit path is very special.  I walk slowly in these conditions, both to enjoy the stillness and to keep from falling on my ass in the dark.

Paul is a collector.  He’s really into baseball cards and baseball memorabilia so when we returned to the house, we jumped on e-bay to check the prices of some things he was telling me he had.  “I’ve got some issues of ‘Playboy’, too.  Like the one where they interview ‘The Beatles’ and one with Marilyn Monroe,” he said.  I’m sure he had them for the articles.  Anyway, we checked on the Monroe issue and found it selling for almost five thousand dollars.  I had to see how sex stacked up against the most famous baseball card of all time – Honus Wagner’s T-260 and googled it next.

“Hole...lee sheeeit.  Someone paid $2.35million for a mint Honus card and once again baseball outsells sex,” I said.  The card continues as the iconic symbol of the baseball card industry.  This one in particular continues to escalate in value with the previous owner paying $1.2 million for it in 2000.  Not a bad ROI for 11 years.  It is believed to be one of about 50-60 cards in existence but far and away in the best condition.  Its value comes from the combination of Honus being the second greatest player of his era (behind only Ty Cobb) and the fact that there are so few of the cards.  They appeared originally in packages of cigarettes in the 1909, but as the story goes, Wagner did not want to encourage kids to use tobacco products and had his image pulled.  Paul doesn’t have one and neither do I.

We had a partial Paleo dinner...chicken breast, green beans, and a left-over turkey stew thing.  There was a little ice cream left that Jack hadn’t seen and so we had a little of that, too.  In all...positive calorie day.  The calorie burn from the hike couldn’t keep pace with a good bowl of Breyer’s Vanilla with natural bean specks.

Hike workout:  90 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 75 bpm.
Calories burned during workout:  350.

Plauteaus...and beyond

Tuesday, November 29, 2011
I remember the old days when I was hooked on weight training and particularly the bench press.  I would tend to start each workout by trying to surpass my pr for one lift, using this as my indicator that I was getting stronger.  I had periods of time when, for three or four consecutive workouts, I would set a new pr for this lift and others where I could go weeks with no improvement.  Plateaus...maxing, recovering and building towards climbing to the next one is  a normal pattern for any kind of intense training.

I’m going through one now, it would seem.  I have put the weight room in the rear view mirror, but use the push-up in the Survival Workout as my bench mark for improvement.  I pay close attention to both my one and three-set pr’s as a reinforcement that the program is working and to encourage myself to try harder.  Over the past two weeks, I’ve pushed my one-set pr to 74 then 78 and two days later...80.  I started thinking that maybe I could him 100 before the year ends...a number I’ve never come close to hitting at any time in my life and one I never thought achievable when I struggled to reach 25 the first time I did the workout.

So...having done 80 on my final set and 216 for my three-set total on my last workout, I was expecting to be a little off that total as I began my last workout.  I was completely surprised when I busted 85 in my first set.  I managed only 72 in the second, but finished with 83 and a new three-set total of 240.  Amazingly, I broke my previous single set record twice in the same workout and only two days after I’d set it.  I’ll keep pushing myself since I only have a month to achieve 100 before the year ends, but I think it’s doable and having the goal helps tremendously.

My knee is slowly healing, but only about 50% back I’d estimate.  Still, I felt compelled to do some running up the steep hill I normally reserve for my cross over’s.  Any side motion with a torn meniscus is agony and ill-advised, but straight ahead seems to work.  I did three short 10-second bursts up the hill, which was the hardest thing I did for the entire workout.  Uphill sprinting is extremely intense and offers tremendous benefits in very little time.

The trails are becoming almost impassable as the rains of 2011 continue to pile up new records each day.  I’ve been using the bridle trails for 30 years now and can’t remember ever having to leave the trail and move into the woods so often to navigate around lengthy mud areas.  I could plow through them, but then my shoes stay wet into the next workout...and stink like hell.  And it’s just a little too cool to submerse in Clear Creek to clean them...and me...off.  I may rethink that though.  I remember spending my ‘Leave No Trace’ training with a man named Hawk Methany.  I awoke one chilly morning to watch him dive into water about 50 degrees with extreme delight.  He said as long as it was a liquid, he always started the morning plunging into the nearest body of water.  Maybe when Kim returns for the Christmas holidays and she and Reza go head to head on the Survival Workout, I’ll challenge them both to a plunge in Clear Creek.  Keep it interesting, I always say.

Survival Workout duration: 60 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 100 to 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 600.

Cuyahogo County removes 8-year old from home because of weight...

Monday, November 28,2011
About a month ago in Cleveland Heights, the Department of Child and Family Services of Cuyahoga County removed a 218- pound 8-year old third grader from his mother and placed him in a foster home because of the imminent danger to the child’s long-term health.  The child appeared on the County’s radar screen in early 2010 when his mother took him to the hospital when he was having difficulties breathing at night.  He was diagnosed with sleep apnea, which can be weight related, and outfitted with breathing equipment to help with the situation.  The agency said that the mother was not following doctor’s orders to control the child’s weight gain and took him from school on October 19^th.  The mother has visitation rights that amount to one meeting a week for two hours.

Wow.  I’ve worked with abused children and I understand fully the health issues related of obesity...though I’ve never thought to put them together in the same sentence.  The PD article reports that children are normally only removed from their homes when there is evidence of physical abuse, neglect or under nourishment.  It also pointed out that the State Health Department estimates that 12% of Ohio’s third-graders are severely obese...which would put the number in Cuyahoga County at a little over 1,400 kids.  So you have to ask yourself...is the County really in the best position to begin this invasive government trend?  Can we afford to take apart that many families?  Are there that many willing foster homes?  Bear in mind that the thinking of the current U.S. Congress is that pizza and fries should be reclassified as vegetables so they can be kept on school menus every day of the week throughout the land...take THAT childhood obesity!  AND...I could have kept them in my Paleo Diet...and I could still be 30 pounds overweight!  Government intervention?  Well...you can never get too much of a good thing.

As I read further, I found that the child was on the honor roll, participated in school activities, and had no health issues other than the sleep apnea.  Again...I believe that the obesity is a huge health issue but what about the psychological impact on an 8-year old removed from his home, family, friends and school?  Naturally, the mother has an attorney and will be fighting this action.  The child, in the meantime, is in a foster home where they are having difficulties getting him to all his appointments so he may be moved again...to a home with a personal trainer!!  I don’t have the answer...which I guess makes me part of the problem...but I recognize crap when I see it...and this is crap.

I hopped on the trainer and watched the last two episodes of Season Two of the Soprano’s...which is another way of saying I rode that crazy sweat machine for two hours.  My knee was a little sore early in the ride, but the lubrication of over 1,000 pedal revolutions seemed to loosen it up.

Bike workout:  Two hours.

Training Heart Rate: 130 bpm.
Calories burned during workout:  1700.

"Those deer are creeping me out"

Sunday, November 27, 2011
It was scheduled to be another high calorie day...taking Holly out to lunch for her birthday and more leftovers that evening...so I planned a double.  I started with time on the trainer since there was a steady rain falling that didn’t look like it would be quitting.  I managed and hour before heading out to lunch at Appleby’s where I had a Paleo lunch of Caesar’s salad with grilled chicken breast...and the rest of Jack’s bacon cheese burger.

I swung by Kim’s place and picked her up for another Survival Workout.  She complained of muscle soreness in the shoulders and abs from our Friday workout.  “I really didn’t expect my abs to hurt.  I do quite a bit for them and we only did the one set,” she said.

“That’s the Survival Workout.  You’re constantly using core like doing the picnic table hop, high skips, pole climb, rock lifts and even maintaining balance climbing and descending those slippery hills.  Your body is making constant adjustments when you do this kind of work...and the core is involved in all of it,” I reminded her.

She started with 20 push-ups while I was knocking out my second highest total ever at 74...a good start to challenging my 3-set pr.  Once on the trail, I noticed the unusual way she was holding her arms, cocked and away from her body, as we walked.  “You trying to show off your pump?  Too big to let them dangle now?” I asked.  There is something unusual going on when you’re using the muscles of the upper body in this fashion.  The extra blood flow necessary to do the moves swells the muscles and makes you ‘huge’ for awhile afterwards.  Kim’s arms were swollen to the size of my wrist...pretty slender but pumped for her.

I had her do a set on the picnic table, which taxes her heavily, before side stepping up the steepest trail in the park.  I managed to run it just behind her...the first running I’ve done since the knee trouble began two weeks ago.  She was exhausted when we hit the top...and exhausting her aerobically is no easy task.  We recovered quickly and were soon moving through the woods and down a root-covered trail and back to the main bridle path.  I like this particular trail because the roots require agile feet when moving at a slow running pace.  I had her bounding side to side over a fallen log and then lifting more heavy rocks as we wound our way to the cabins and more push-ups.  I managed another 72 and would now need 71 on my final set to break my pr.

I was reminded of the need to have someone of similar strength levels when doing certain team moves...like the rock pass.  Standing back to back and holding a heavy rock, I swiveled at the waist to my left to hand her the rock.  She took it...sort of...and because of the weight and the mud on it from my throwing it...dropped it to the ground.  She moved her feet quickly, showing cave-man like agility.

“Okay...too heavy,” I said.  She tried picking it up...got it about waist high...tried to throw it like she’d seen me do earlier...and let go.  It traveled out about three inches away...and then down.

“Yep.  Too heavy,” she said.

We crossed Clear Creek twice, soaking our feet in the water running high from yesterday’s rains.  We were working with rocks at one of the final stations when I noticed three deer peering at us from the protection of the woods.  I pointed them out to Kim, who shuddered.  “They’re soooo creepy,” she said.  I’d forgotten how deer frighten her like I worry about grizzly’s.  When we hit our final station it was practically dark and when a buck snorted its displeasure at our presence, I thought she was going to run the remaining distance to the car...which would have been a nice addition to the workout.

We reached the car and I encouraged her to knock out another 15 push-ups.  I told her what I needed to do to break my pr.  I was less than optimistic as I passed 30 and could feel the burn beginning.  By 50 I was beginning to think I could make it and at 60 I was sure.  I hit 72 and kept going until a final collapse at 80.  I was shocked that I managed a single set pr on my last set and that I’d crushed my previous 3-set total by 11.  There’s something to be said for having someone along to push you.

Reza...if you’re reading this...Kim is challenging you to a Survival Workout showdown on her return visit for the Christmas holidays.  Good luck...she is a beast.

Survival Workout: 75 minutes.  Bike duration: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-150 for SW, 120 for bike.
Calories burned:  700 for SW, 800 for bike.

Black (and blue) Friday. Is it really that important?

Saturday, November 26, 2011
Gunshots.  Pepper spray.  Riots breaking out.  And John Lennon singing “ ...and so this is Christmas” over the P.A. 

I normally stay away from commentary on current events...normally...but the ‘Black Friday brings riot in Strongsville’ story in the PD really had me scratching my hairless head.  Police were called to Victoria’s Secret to quell a riot at 4 a.m.  Apparently shoppers were banging on the store’s gate to open at 4:05 a.m. and when they were, rushed inside toppling displays, knocking people down, throwing merchandise and generally acting like barnyard animals.  There was another report of a customer using pepper spray in a Walmart in LA to keep fellow shoppers from the merchandise she wanted.  These were bad, but for me the most disturbing account I read was of a teenage girl going to stand outside a store at 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day and staying there until the store opened...foregoing a Thanksgiving Dinner gathering of any sort (apparently mom was standing in line at another location...something she’s done for the past 25 years so maybe there wasn’t one to go to) to get to whatever ‘thing’ it was she needed so badly that she was willing to put herself through such an ordeal.

I know there are some crazy good deals out there for shoppers willing to make the trek and fight the good fight on Black Friday.  Personally, I just can’t get my head around spending the kind of time people do in these maniacal shopping situations to save any amount of money simply to get ‘stuff’.  I won’t get on any soapbox and start talking about the true meaning of Christmas...like I know what it is and have any right to pontificate.  It’s different for everyone and I don’t know that there is any ‘right’ way.  I just think I know a ‘wrong’ way when I see it and the hype of Black Friday is just that...the ‘wrong’ way.

It was a gorgeous day to ride, but we were celebrating Holly’s birthday at 2 p.m. and there was really no time to do it.  But as people were leaving just before 5 p.m., I got it in my head that I could ride for a short time in the fading daylight, and if I stuck to the side streets, could finish up in the dark, if necessary.  I suited up and rode down the driveway a hair after 5 and found myself in the North Chagrin Reservation as it was getting really dark.  There was little traffic though, so I powered down the road for the next twenty minutes with little trouble.  It was completely dark as I left the park though, and I had to pick my route home wisely to avoid vehicular traffic.  I was mostly successful, finding that the only time I had cars passing me was when I had a shoulder of over three feet on which to ride.  I was wearing limited reflective gear and it wasn’t the wisest move I’ve made...but I did not want to let two beautiful November days pass without taking the opportunity to get out on my bike.  Good logic...no.  But it’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Bike workout:  70 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 130 bpm.
Calories burned during workout:  1000.