Sick!

Just before Halloween I got sick. Very sick. This is notable because I used to get sick a lot before Death By Mountain, but after working on diet and exercise my susceptibility to sickness had nearly vanished. In the grand scheme of things I wasn't nearly as sick as I used to be, but I was sick for a long time. I was miserable for most of a week, bedridden for a day, and still coughing two weeks later (which is today).

My daily walking has plummeted. Just before getting sick I had been pumping out 10k steps per day, but while being sick I've averaged only a few thousand. I hope to rectify that soon.

My weight seems to be easily kept at 15 pounds lighter than what it used to be. With more care and more exercise I should be able to bring it down even more.

Weight lifting hasn't been going well for me. I hurt one of my hamstring attachments, and that is preventing a lot of progress for me. Being sick has also hurt me a lot.

Oh well. Life goes on.

Running

My attempts to run earlier this year met with dismal failure. Even the few hundred yards at a time I attempted in couch to 5k were unsustainable.

Yesterday, to kill time, I was going to walk around Clark Field a few times. Instead, I started running around it. I ran around it four times without stopping. I did the same run tonight.

Things are looking up!

Life

I'm unemployed now. Lack of work and funding. You'd think I'd be hiking more, but I'm not! I need to work on that. Tomorrow I hope.

I am losing weight though. Mostly through dietary changes. I've become very frugal in eating. I eat less overall, but a greater proportion of vegetables and much less meat.

I suppose I should talk about depression. I like to eat when I'm depressed. Now that I've been a week without work, I feel significantly less depressed. I always knew I was unhappy at the job (it was the work I was doing, not the people) but I think I was more unhappy there than I really knew. Now I have worries about what am I going to do with my life, but I'm not gorging myself on fatty or sugary food every day. My chocolate consumption has gone way down. Money will be a problem though, eventually.

Mesa Trail Recap

I have a lot of rambling to get to my point.

I've been hiking up Mesa Trail since about the mid 1980s. I think it is the second best trail in the Magdalena mountains. When I joined Search And Rescue the litter carry practice was to carry a real human up Mesa Trail. Thankfully, I was sick and couldn't go that day. I've been thankful ever since, actually.

Also, Mesa Trail might not be the name of this trail. Matt's GPS showed that the other trail was called Mesa Trail. And someone had nailed boards across the "gate" to Mesa Trail. It used to be a little boxlike non-turning turnstyle to keep things like cows and motorcycles out, but that was gone. Now it is just a hole in the fence, and someone nailed boards across it. There was no sign saying it was closed, and the side-gate wasn't locked, so we just went through the gate.

All my years of hiking up have taught me things. Going out and hiking it without recently prior hiking experience is quite painful. It is a short trail (to where I normally stop) of less than two miles. A bit steep. And normally my first time or two onto it is a pain fest. I'm too out of breath to hike up, my legs are quickly too sore to hike up it. I can't walk the next day because I'm too sore from having walked up it.

And now I ramble! I've been weight lifting for a couple of months now. Medhi, whose 5x5 plan I'm following, says squats are the main exercise. Squats can hurt. Interestingly, the places that squats hurt are also some of the prime hurting-places for having hiked up Mesa Trail. It's like stepping up a trail is somehow similar to lifting up your whole body with your knees.

So yesterday, with months of weight lifting behind me, but fifteen months since my last hike, I hiked up Mesa Trail. I plodded on steadily. I didn't become out of breath. My legs didn't scream at me. We took no sit-down rests, the only substantial stop we made was so that Brad could fish his Gatorade bottle out of his pack. If not for that, it is likely that I could have hiked non-stop to the top, which isn't what I'd expect after a broken ankle and fifteen months of not hiking up things. The only time that has happened is when I've made hiking up Mesa Trail a routine occurrence. But this time I just jumped right in and it was easy. I have every reason to believe that weight lifting is what made this easy.

There were some problems hiking up. The rains have brutalized the trail. What used to be a smooth dirt path is now a rocky and painful rut. I was wearing five-fingers, and this was the most painful terrain I've every tried to walk on. At the top I had some terrible foot cramps. Walking around on flat ground after getting back to Socorro was hard, and I limped a lot because of how knotted my left foot was. This morning isn't bad. I can feel that I was mean to my feet yesterday, but I'm able to walk around, which is good. My left ankle also has some pain in it, but it got a work out too.

We hammocked at the top, as always. I took a few pictures. Despite saying I needed to take a lot of pictures, I didn't. The hike down was painful because of my foot cramps. If my feet were in better shape then it would have been pretty easy to get down.

Mesa Trail

Heading up Mesa Trail tonight. I packed 8.63kg for the trip but added a couple of things that probably weighes half a kg. Camelback, junk bag, two hammocks, rain parka, rain pants, camera, M&Ms, figs, GPS, hat, trekking poles, and a camp towel.

Hiking Tomorrow

Tomorrow I lift weights, then I go for a hike. Mesa Trail. It might be #13, but I really can't remember. Maybe 13 is the one that comes off to the South and lands up the road a bit?

It's the second nicest trail in Water Canyon. Copper Canyon is definitely the nicest. The trail that cuts around the back side of South Baldy could be really nice, but it's too short, and I consider it part of Copper since it connects up and is often used in conjunction with Copper Canyon.

When I joined Search and Rescue back in the mid 1980s it was Mesa Trail that the litter training was held on. The team put someone in a litter, and then carried that person up the trail to the top. I was thankfully unable to attend that day, and it was apparently the last time they were that hard core about litter training.

I hope and plan to spend more time taking pictures on this hike. It's the one thing I constantly regret on these hikes: too few pictures. And I often take a lot, but there is a huge difference between the wow of being there and the blah of what the camera captures. It always looked so much better in person, and the pictures suck. Practice will help though. I'll get better at taking pictures.

Sunday should be another hike. Probably Mesa Trail again. It's a nice trail.

These hikes should provide me with some major spikes in my pathetic pedometer logs. I made a webpage for my daily step history. pedometer graph

Reflection On My Ankle

Reading over the past year of updates was interesting. Today, and recently, I'm annoyed by my ankle because it still seems weak compared to my right, and the range of motion is restricted. But when I read what it was like after the bolts came out and I was finally allowed to walk on it then it seems like I've made so much recovery. I have recovered a lot, really. Yoga can still hurt it, but even that is getting better. Downward dogs, for instance, are quite doable now.

Two Good Reads

You Walk Wrong: http://nymag.com/print/?/health/features/46213/
How To Transition Into Barefoot Running: http://www.runbare.com/446/how-to-transition-into-vibram-five-fingers/

Hiking, Eating, Walking

Last night was a good walk. Despite feeling like my core strength has been doing well, I felt sore in my core after the walk. Obviously I'm still not doing enough to keep it strong. More walking will help, as it will require me to hold myself upright. On the other hand, my core could have been sore because of all the stooping I did to cook my okra stew. Oh, and there is also the fact I did squats, overhead presses, and deadlifts, yesterday, all of which I could feel in my core.

Turkey Creek needs to happen sometime soon. The prospect of going to do that will certainly motivate me. I need to hike up Mesa Trail soon, to find out just how bad off I am. I'm sure I'm pretty bad off.

Walking

The rain inspired me to go for a walk tonight. It was a nice walk. There are a lot of frogs out. Big frogs too. They grow quick once the water comes I guess.

I'm at El Camino now. It's dead. There are just three people here talking about sex and dating at Tech. They make it sound easy.

My pedometer has certainly gotten a good baseline of how lazy I am. But today and yesterday were good days, in that they were high points in the graph. The lower heat and the fact that the mountains are open again should be motivating to me.

The fries here are terrible. I suspect they just cleaned out the grease.

My weight has been not so good. Lower than what I think of as my natural weight, but not really falling. My rain gear fits a bit tighter than it should. At my peak exercise, before the crippling surgery, it fit better than it does now. More walking will probably help that.

Short Time No Post!

My eating habits have varied from good to bad. Sometimes I just stuff myself full of fat and carbs because fat and carbs are delicious. Sometimes I eat carefully and choose good for me things that are still delicious.

One problem I've sunk deeply into is monotony. It's not that I'm eating the same single meal each say like I used to, but my adventuresomeness has faded drastically. I'm trying to fix that. As well as trying to fix my poor food choices.

I have, for starters, stopped going to the gelato shop for cookies. It's not really that I don't want the cookies, but that they have successfully waged a war against customers to the point that I'm just not willing to go back. For a while, then the war was just a skirmish, I wore earplugs to go in there. But they just kept upping the volume of the music. The time I tried to eat something there the music was so loud that people were having to raise their voices to be heard talking. The last time I rode my bicycle past the building I could clearly hear the music through the front windows. And the end result is that I don't eat cookies anymore. So I guess their terrible music selection and volume knob that goes to 12 (one more than 11) worked out well for me.

I'm making a concerted effort to keep up on my fruits and vegetables again. I'm making a concerted effort not to eat french fries again. I've been trying to eat fish more.

And I'm trying to remember to cook new things that I haven't cooked before, or haven't cooked in a long time. Two nights ago I made a chicken and mushroom dish. The mushrooms were fried until they started to brown, the chicken was pounded flat, and the sauce was made from garlic, balsamic vinegar, and "dijon mustard". The dijon mustard is in quotes because I made it myself, and it wasn't really quite right in terms of the recipe. But it tasted good.

Tonight I plan to make spaghetti with tomato sauce. I have roma tomatoes from Tom Hyden. He only had a few, but the people ahead of me in line passed them over. I find it baffling, really. I'd be hard pressed to think of any tomato recipe I know that doesn't call for a roma toma as the best possible tomato to use. They are firm, meaty, and low in seeds.

Tonight my spaghetti sauce will be made from them. Though I'"m still unsure if it will be raw or cooked. Either way,. I have a pound of tomatoes to make it from.

Every Friday, for several weeks now, and continueing tomorrow, I've been making Pho. The goal is to get good at it. I use Andrea Ngyuen's recipe as written about my Jada's Steamy Kitchen website. I'm getting better. I think this week should go pretty well. I plan to cook the broth a day ahead of time (tonight) so that I can properly defat it.

Long Time No Post

There had been an anniversary hike to the Turkey Creek Hot Springs scheduled for May 21 of this year. But the Gila was on fire, and the area was closed. Since then, everything has closed. Even the river is closed, so I can't even hike on the sand next to the water.

I am however, make to weightlifting. The thing that led me to all this. My hydrocele made itself known when I started weightlifting in 2009. The hydrocele caused them to find my blood sugars. And those made me try to become healthier. So here I am.

The surgery to remove the hydrocele was crippling. I should have just told them to chop it off rather than fix it. Oh well. Live (in pain) and learn.

Weightlifting has been going on for some time. Day one, we lifted the bar with no weights. It was a bit hard. We started lifting in late May of this year. We started with a pure strength program, StrongLifst 5x5. It is a pure strength-based program that just builds strength. One person hated it the entire time because we were building too much strength at 5 pounds per workout-day, so we recently switched to a more endurance based program, but still following the core exercises of the 5x5. The same person still hates it because he thinks we are doing too much endurance each workout day. I think he would be happier not lifting. I'm not sure which program I like more. I felt I wasn't doing enough work on pure 5x5 to make me feel accomplished, but I liked how quick the sets were and how easily we were progressing in strength. With the endurance sets I like that I feel sore afterwards (something I seldom got from 5x5) but it does take a while to do the workouts.

I bought a pedometer a few weeks ago. So far, I'm not aiming for any goal, though when I bought it I had said my goal was to outdo someone else I know who has a pedometer. I need to start walking for a goal soon. As it is, my steps counts varies wildly per day, depending on what I do.


I should mention that I'm tremendously stronger now than I was this time in May. And I like the feeling of being strong.

I guess that's a good catch up post.

Death By Frisbee

For weeks now I've been going to Yoga on campus on Monday and Wednesday. Each time I've left it, I've noticed people playing ultimate frisbee. I used to play ultimate frisbee with the campus club. Back in 1982. I don't think I've played since then. With the couch to 5k thing, I've found myself feeling really good. Ultimate frisbee requires running and walking, and some throwing, and it's fun. So I showed up about 17:00 yesterday to see if they were there, and they were. I tossed the disc in a circle with them for a while, then joined a game. Wisely, no one passed to me, but I did try my best to block. I can barely run, so I wasn't effective at blocking either. But it was a hard work out for me, and I enjoyed it a lot.

In the end, it was far more painful than what Brian has me do. I was a little worried I might have hurt myself. My ankle made some weird pops and felt really sore. I strained the inner thigh muscles on my right leg pretty badly. But, it all passed. If it is swollen today, I can't really tell by looking at it.

The group meets Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 17:00. I think I'll plan on being there to play on Thursdays. The Mondays and Wednesdays are in between Yoga and Couch, so perhaps I'll just take pictures of them for a little while on those days. They also play on Saturdays at 13:00, but not this Saturday as they will be in a tournament in Las Vegas.

Couch To 5k again

Yesterday I did my second couch to 5k. I was a little surprised I made it, not because of the first, but because of my lunch. Lunch made me feel bad.

But I made it. Brian got back from Albuquerque in time that he made it too.

I wore the five fingers again. I put the left on first, and it was tight. My foot was swollen. But the right foot was swollen too when I put that one on. Interesting.

On the first day, but the end of the first 60 seconds of jogging, my left foot hurt. It was the hurt of tired, the hurt of having overworked weak musclles. I made it all the way through last night without that hurt being nearly as intense. I improved a lot in two days, which I expect given the way things havce gone for me.

I'm supposed to do it again tomorrow or Saturday on my own. I might very well do it twice before Monday comes around again. It's a 20 minute work out, and not hard, and I like the way it makes me feel, even if I do complain a lot about the sore muscles.

In other news, I'm wearing shoes again today. Myheels are getting too dry, and wearing shoes has proven to be easiest way to moisturize them.

Yesterday's yoga made my left arm numb. It's sadly common for my arms to go numb if I exercise my shoulders. And yesterday's class really hit the shoulders hard.

Couch To 5K

Yesterday I did day one of the Couch to 5k. It was five minutes of walking, which I was able to do at a normal person's walking speed, then we alternated running and walking for 20 minutes. All told, it was at least 2100 meters.

My foot rather quickly discovered that it was weak. Very very weak. But I managed to do it all. I started out up front and by the end I had migrated half way back to the middle group.

I wore my five-fingers. I want to learn to run barefoot, so why not start learning that as I relearn to run. I limp today because of mild soreness. Very mild soreness. I expect that tomorrow will be a bit worse. And tomorrow I do it again.

Good news?

Since the start of 2011 I have good news. I can stand on my toes! I can also walk almost as fast as normal people can walk.

I made a new years resolution: to go on a five mile run.

Starting Monday Dr. Borchers is doing a "Couch to 5k" program that I definitely plan to attend.

I'm in yoga classes two or three times a week now, depending on the week.