Plod slash jog blog

With the sun setting at six or so tonight, I was able to squeeze in my first after-work run before it got dark and scary out. (I’m not afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of being hit by a car in the dark. It’s not so much the thought of injury that scares me; it’s the paperwork. And who would take care of my loving yet antisocial dogs? Nobody, that’s who.) I ran a little more than two miles, a little faster than I should have according to my heart rate monitoring. This was still ludicrously slow. But I’m still “building my base” as the cool running people say, and I’m supposed to be slow now: the “speed work” comes later. Look, all I want is my leg to not get hurt again, ok?

At one point I tried to sprint up a hill to see if my estimated maximum heart rate seemed reasonable. Not quite killing myself, I got up to a reading of 95% of supposed-max, which seemed plausible. Which is a shame; if my estimate were low, I could run faster and still be under the 80% target. But no, it’s still the slow-motion plod-slash-jog for me!

Who am I?

I’m a little worried I’m turning into someone entirely new. Between the consuming obsession with fitness and nutrition and the newfound ventures into sociability, I am becoming unrecognizable to myself. It’s a metaphysical quandary. We all change a bit every day, and none of us is the same person as we once were, but this is so sudden — and it’s mediated by medication. How much of the change is the Zoloft, and how much is my own will? Are the changes real? Is this who I want to be, or is it an escapist response to the death of a spouse?

The hard-to-admit truth is that I am happier right now than I have been in a very, very long time. Which is great, but I feel like this happiness is something I can’t admit to, because it wasn’t that long ago that my wife died, and shouldn’t I still be moping about and wearing black? Whenever I meet someone new and tell them about what happened, I’m afraid of two things: one, that they will judge me for having fun so soon (I don’t know whether this judgment ever actually happens) and two, that the awkwardness of them not knowing what to say or do will grind all conversation to an unhappy halt (this has certainly happened a few times). But her death is still the most important fact about my life right now, so simply not bringing it up when I am asked about myself seems like dishonesty.

I mentioned in my last post that I kept thinking about how that particular conversation would go with my dental hygienist. I like her; she reminds me of my mom and we get along well. In my mind, gallows humor took over and wanted the conversation to go like this:

Her: How have you been?
Me: Up and down. You remember my wife? She died in September.
Her: Oh God, that’s awful. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say… if it’s not too personal, can I ask what she died of?
Me: Tartar build-up.

Since I imagine only one in 60,000 dental professionals would find this conversation amusing, particularly once I assured them that the first part was true, I refrained.

First run in two weeks

To ease ever-so-slowly back into it, I decided during my lunchtime workout I would run for 20 minutes at most and keep my heart rate under 80% of my max. As I was expecting, that meant a slow, slow jog — a 12:30 mile pace. The only challenge was the weather — rainy and windy and in the low 40s. This was only the second time I’ve worn my new running shoes, and the feeling of the wind blowing right through them was a little alarming at first. But I like the cold and knowing I had a towel back in the office, I didn’t mind the rain. Twenty minutes took me 1.6 miles; I had about half a mile of warm-up walking and another half-mile of cool-down. My left leg wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t bad.

Five to six months ago

No running or walking for me today (by design) so I threw myself into the sit-ups this evening. My goal was 100; I made it in sets of 50, 30, and 20. The longest set I had managed up until today was 35, so I’m pleased with the progress there.

My left leg is ready to run; I’ll try to do a mile or two tomorrow. Hooray! Other than that, it’s an exciting night of doing load after load of laundry for me. Oh, and I changed my Brita filter. I’m sure it hadn’t been more than six months or so — urk.

Let me just remind myself that I have an appointment at my dentist tomorrow. Just a cleaning. I haven’t done a good job of flossing, and I’m a world-class plaque generator, so it probably won’t be entirely pleasant, but at least I go every six months to limit the depth of the buildup. I always see the same dental hygienist, so we sort of know each other, and so I keep running over in my mind what it will be like when she asks how I’ve been and I tell her my wife (who had also been there a few times) died five months ago.

13-mile loop

Sunday I drove over to Oaks Park at the east end of the Sellwood Bridge and started walking. I was feeling pretty good, so I made it all the way to the Steel Bridge before turning back to the south. After crossing the Steel into downtown, I made a brief stop for a slice of Rovente’s pizza (this is a little dive that produces something that I swear must be shipped in from Brooklyn… even the grease drips off it properly) then walked up the park blocks and headed for Terwilliger. (After a brief detour trying to figure out the most direct way up to Terwilliger from the Duniway Park track.)

A blister hit the ball of my left foot along the windy Terwilliger Road path, then the ball and heel of my right foot. Nothing I couldn’t walk on, though. And my knee and shin felt great! I was a little anxious that I wouldn’t be able to find the path that was supposed to go under I-5 and Barbur Boulevard to get back to the river — I’d never walked it before, only read about it. It’s a wooded trail down through George Himes park, and, as a public service, here is a closeup view of the route:

The trail goes straight downhill alongside a small creek. It’s marked at the top with a “40-mile loop” sign. There’s one intersection; take the steep path down to the left. It passes under an interesting bridge (Barbur) and dull bridge (I-5) then steeply down a bunch of railroad-tie steps until it come out on Iowa Street. From there, you are on sidewalks through the John’s landing neighborhood until you reach Willamette Park, but the route is well marked with “SW Trail #3″ signs on the street.

I’m proud of my 13-mile walk; I was walking 15-minute miles most of the way and I’m thrilled to have more muscle soreness than joint or tendon pain this morning. After the walk, I went to a MiPL Scrabble happy hour; that was a whole lot of fun too. What a great weekend!

I don’t like Pina Coladas either, no

I promised myself I wouldn’t try to run this weekend, and it was too rainy for biking, so I took my dogs, two male Scottish terriers, for a walk. It turned out to be the longest walk they’ve ever taken — five miles in a leisurely 1:45 — and my skinny dog was struggling by the end. He’s more of a sprinter, very athletic when it comes to running or climbing short distances, but he doesn’t hold a candle to my fat dog when it comes to endurance. Is there a lesson to be learned there? Uh, probably not.

Anyway, the walk started out pretty nicely, with just some light rain. By the time we were halfway through it was pouring down. My water-resistant-not-waterproof jacket soaked through a little after that, and my jeans became saturated around the same time. My feet remained bone dry: I’m astonished how waterproof these Garmont cross-trainers proved to be. Both dogs, needless to say, were fully into their drowned rat impersonation. Here’s part of the route:

I used to like the suburbs

My recent lifestyle changes have really started to nibble away at my attitude toward where the best places to live are. Not on the big scale — northwest Oregon is still my paradise — but on the smaller question of whether I’d rather be a suburbanite or an urbanite; a west-sider or an east-sider.

The southwest Portland suburbs where I live and work are hilly, with a confusing topology of busy, curving main roads and twisty little local roads within the neighborhoods and housing developments. Most of these twisty little local roads don’t go through, or if they do, you wind your way through some long, crawling ‘S’-shaped route. Classical suburban design, all made for cars and maximizing the number of lots. My immediate neighborhood doesn’t even have sidewalks. It’s miserable for biking, running, and walking.

Another thing that has really been bothering me is the lack of independent coffee houses anywhere near me. If I want a fancified coffee beverage, it’s Starbucks or a long trip. (But there’s at least three Starbucks close by, sigh.)

Add it all together and the east side of Portland actually starts to look attractive. This is heresy for a west-sider like me to even contemplate. The biggest problem: my job is in Tualatin. And I’m not a big fan of long commutes.

I’d Rather Be Running But I’ll Settle For Today’s Walk

I’m happy to report that my leg is feeling good enough to go back to walking at lunchtime. I work in Tualatin, Oregon, where they do a pretty bad job of showing you where the nice walks are. Ah, the suburbs. But they opened up a bridge across the Tualatin River this month, and that allows for a really nice stroll connecting up the Tualatin Community Park (south of the river) and the Durham City Park (north). To the west of the Durham Park, still north of the river, is Tigard’s Cook Park, offering still more multi-use trails. I walked 3.6 miles in 55 minutes. Here’s the nothern part of the walk, as recorded by the Garmin.

Sit-ups

I went to a MiPL “mingler” tonight, so I didn’t have time to do my usual off-day strength stuff. But I was a bit overstimulated and jumpy from meeting a bunch of new people (all very nice!) so as soon as I got home I threw myself into some sit-ups. I got through 80 in pretty good time, making it through 35 in my first set. I feel a little more centered now.

Rest-day digression

Susan Orlean (the one Meryl Streep sorta-kinda portrayed in Adaptation — god, how she must loathe being described thusly; sorry, Susan!) has a profile of Robert Lang in this month’s New Yorker. What do you mean, you don’t know who that is? What’s wrong with you? Origami has been one of my on-again off-again obsessions throughout my life and Lang is one of the greats.

Oh, I have to bike *home* too?

Actually, I was looking forward to the trip home for most of the day. But the anticipation was a bit better than the actual experience. Home is higher up than work, so the trip back is harder, plus I was physically still tired from the morning. Or maybe it wasn’t the difficulty that made it something less than fun. Maybe it was that most of the trip was on roads I’ve already biked, so it lacked that sense of exploration. (Although I did get to go over the new pedestrian and bicycle bridge over the Tualatin River, then ride the trail through Cook Park.) Maybe it was the annoyance at stopping at long red lights. Maybe it was the cloudy skies and drizzle. I’m not sure.

I did take it easy and keep my heart rate under 150, like I think I’m supposed to, for most of the trip. My knee hurt quite a bit by the end of the ride, but seems to be doing all right now.

Commuting by bicycle

It was cold but sunny this morning and I knew it was time to follow through on my idea to bike to work. I bundled up and threw spare clothes, a towel, and my Camelback’s bladder into a big backpack. Then I strapped my Forerunner’s heart monitor around my chest and the unit itself onto my wrist, put on my helmet and hit the road.

It was 7.3 miles with one segment of backtracking I had to do when a shortcut didn’t work out. It took me 45 minutes — astonishing to realize that’s slower than a world-class marathon runner’s pace. (I did have traffic lights to deal with, though.) (And it’s a heavy mountain-bike style bike, not a road bike.) (But still!)

This was my first exercise with the heart monitor. I believe my maximum heart rate is somewhere around 185. That means I’m supposed to keep my heart rate under 150 — 80% of the max — for the best cardiovascular training (and fat burning, but that’s secondary for me). I failed there — my pulse was more like 160 to 170 most of the time. Tricky stuff.

The new GPS is here! The new GPS is here!

And it’s raining! All day! Blah. Well, it’s not like my leg is ready to run on anyway. But I really can’t wait to try this wrist-mounted magic out on my favorite trails. I’m already obsessive about Google maps; this should raise it to the next level. I got a Garmin Forerunner 305. The first thing I did after charging it was to install all the latest firmware; I’ve read that can make a big difference in the performance of the thing. Then I tried it out. It acquired satellites very rapidly and worked like a champ. The heart-rate monitor also worked flawlessly, even if I do have some ambivalence about wearing a chest strap.

In terrible, terrible news, I haven’t exercised all day. And now my stepson is here, getting some more of his stuff and doing his laundry, and I’m too self-conscious to do my sit-up routine in from of him. I should probably just do it; it would set a good example. Bah. Nah.

Update:

I went out for some magazines and coffee, and when I got back, my stepson was still here. This time I gritted my teeth and changed into sweats and started doing the sit-ups. I’m trying to add 10 every day. Today’s goal was 70; I made it and enjoyed the pain. Then I did some more exercises on the floor (leg-lift type of things) followed by a metric assload of deep-knee bends. I’m sure my stepson thought I was crazy, with all the grunting and sweating, but he didn’t bat an eye.

Rest Day

They say you don’t get stronger by working out; you get stronger by recovering from working out. They say this to try to get you to take days off as you train. It sounds like a trick. Still, it’s a nice out: “I’m not lazy, this is my rest day.” There are two things I don’t like about rest days:

1. I don’t feel as good. No “runner’s high.” Less confidence. More worries.
2. I feel as if I have to watch the amount I eat more carefully on rest days. I can’t tell myself that I’m just refueling, and need all those carbs to reload my glycogen supplies.

Anyway. As far as my leg goes, it’s definitely on the mend. Sometimes it hurts a little, sometimes not at all. The range of motion without pain is very much improved. I played ping-pong today — a lot of twisting, lateral motions the way I play it — and it wasn’t too bad. I wish I had brought an ice pack to work though; the leg probably could have used the deep-freeze after the game.

The new GPS unit is supposed to get here tomorrow, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be running yet. I do want to be very careful and make sure I’m all better when Portland Fit starts, at the end of March. If the weather ever clears up, I’m thinking about trying to bike to work. It’s less than seven miles (although most of them are on busy streets, ugh) and mostly downhill from home to work, which is perfect for not getting there all nasty and sweaty.

I biked some more this morning

I made an 11-mile loop, exploring what I think was the full length of the Fanno Creek trail along the way. A much more interesting ride than yesterday’s. The Camelback worked very nicely, especially with a jacket on, to hold up the hose near my mouth. It wasn’t very grueling at all, except for the last tiny little bit pushing up the very steep hill I live on.

I don’t understand my left leg at all

So this morning, my leg still felt, well, terrible. Sometimes the pain was in the bottom part of the knee, sometimes it was lower down on the front of the shin. Standing around, it hurt. Sitting, it hurt. It wasn’t an intense pain, maybe just a one or a two on the scale of one-to-ten they use at the doctor’s office, but it was more than enough to remind me that I still couldn’t run.

I looked at my dogs. They looked at me. “Okay: I’ll take you for a walk.” I drove over to the Garden Home Rec Center (you remember, that place that I’m out-of-district for?) to try out the path I had learned of that starts there and ends over on Allen. Nice path. Two-and-a-half miles round trip. My leg hurt the whole time. Making it back was a mental struggle.

I drove home and slapped a frozen gel-pack on my leg. Well, that’s what the web tells me to do. (Don’t you always listen to the web?) The ice felt good, of course… and then, the leg kept feeling pretty good. It felt better than it had when I started the walk. (And, yes, I had iced it earlier in the day too.) Maybe my leg had learned that I wasn’t just going to give up.

By mid-afternoon, the weather in Portland had turned spectacular: sunny and warm. Warm for February, anyway. The walk was arduous, but not a workout. I called my stepson and asked him if I could borrow his bike. Then I spent an hour running around getting ready to ride: I bought a helmet, inflated the tires, adjusted the seat height, and filled my Camelback. And I was off.

I did a six-mile loop, almost all of it uphill or downhill to some degree. After a long uphill struggle, I almost threw up. It felt good to push myself. And the leg didn’t bother me much at all. But all in all, I’d rather be running.

Eating biodiversely

In addition to my aforementioned trip to the nutritionist, I admit my current dietary philosophy has been influenced by this New York Times article by Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. It is summed up by the author this way: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly from plants.” By “food”, he means stuff your great-grandparents would have recognized, not the processed nutritional engineering that passes for “food” today. He also makes a good case that we don’t tend to eat enough different species of plants. I’m trying harder there now. So here’s the species list for tonight’s dinner:

• Valerianella locusta
• A hybrid of Citrus reticulata and Citrus maxima
• Chenopodium quinoa
• Dried Vitis vinifera
• …And whatever was in these hot Italian chicken sausages from New Seasons. From the burn, I think some variety of genus Capsicum is a safe guess.

Sigh

The knee’s a little better today, but this process is frustratingly slow. Running looks unlikely this weekend for me. My new heartrate/GPS unit isn’t supposed to get here until Tuesday, so at least I won’t have that around to tempt me. Maybe I will try to do some biking. Right now, I don’t even own a helmet. Or a bike — but I bet I can borrow one from my stepson.

Kneedlework

My left knee actually hurt more today, even though I haven’t done anything. I’ve been looking through other WordPress blogs with the tag “running”, and almost every single one of them is like mine — complaining about shin splints. If you’re learning to run, you overdo it. Seems to be universal. I suppose whatever’s wrong will right itself with time. But a hot lance of fear stabs through me that I’ll never get over it and my running career is over. The optimist in me shrugs it off. That little optimist also likes to spend money on gadgets, so I ordered a Garmin Forerunner 305. It’s a GPS unit and a heart-rate monitor that fits on your wrist, like a watch, if watches were the size of toasters. It’s completely cool and entirely dorky at the very same time. I can’t wait.

Love in the Time of Cholesterol

Two months ago, I went to my doctor with kidney stones and left with some painkillers and the news that my cholesterol was high. I talked to the nutritionist she wanted me to see, and actually made some pretty sweeping dietary changes. With that, plus the exercise, I was optimistic that my cholesterol levels would be improving, and they have! My LDL (the bad cholesterol marker) was down from 139 to 132 (anything over 130 is still considered a bit too high though) and my HDL (the good cholesterol) was up from 68 to 76. Apparently there’s no upper limit on how much good cholesterol you want. Over 60 is considered optimal, but the more the merrier. My weight has also been — I think — trending down, maybe a half a pound a week. I’m curious to see how long I keep this fitness and nutrition stuff up.

I would really rather be running.

I already mentioned I hate gyms. But my left knee and shin ache when I walk a bit and I am really Jonesing for some cardio workout. Which means a stationary bike or elliptical machine, I suppose. But I’m not about to “join” a fitness center — this is temporary — and I’m not about to let those vultures get their hooks into me with some sort of free trial offer (complete with high-pressure sales techniques and unexpected difficulty cancelling, no doubt), either.

Anyway. There’s a community center less than a mile from me as the crow flies. It has a fitness room where you can drop in for a few bucks. Great. Now, I have some social anxieties (another reason I’m trying the Zoloft, actually) and that makes walking into this place and finding out how to use the fitness room a little difficult. Also, I don’t have the right pants. (Hey, I’m neurotic, little obstacles like that can be a big deal to me.) I worked up the courage tonight. First I went to Fred Meyer and bought some gray sweatpants. Then I went to the rec center. Parked. Walked in. They had a front desk. A young lady asked me if I was looking for something. “Information. You have a fitness room, right? What do I have to do to use it?”

“Well, let’s see if you’re in-district or out-of district. What’s your address?”

“3401 SW Hogsback Terrace.” [Address changed to protect the innocent.]

“Hmmm, yeah, you’re out-of-district over there to the east. We’re right near the edge here. But you can still use the facility, it just costs a little more.”

“What’s ‘a little more’?”

“$52 every three months.”

God damn it. Thanks to a quirk of geography, I’d have to join this place too. I can walk to this place. They should have a rule… if you walk there, you’re in-district.

Introductions. Blog, world. World, blog.

I was struggling through some situational depression a few months ago — you don’t want to know the situation. I was seeing a counselor, and whatever other advice she gave me, she always came back to one thing: I should be exercising. I half-heartedly tried. I’d walk my dogs or go for light hikes. Maybe once a week. “Not enough!” my counselor nagged told me. It was the middle of an Oregon winter. I hated hated hated gyms. I mostly hated exercise. I didn’t feel like I could do more.

I was feeling down enough for long enough that I was ready to try something different. So I asked my counselor about meds, and she was supportive of the idea. That week I made an appointment to see my doctor. I was very apprehensive about telling my doctor I wanted to try antidepressants. She was very nice about it, though. I left with a prescription for Zoloft (Sertraline).

The next day was a Saturday. I felt a little dizzy, almost a little high, and my skin was a bit numb. Other than that, I felt ok. (Yes, I know: Zoloft is supposed to take weeks to have an effect. I don’t know what to tell you; that wasn’t my experience.) I went for a hike.

I drove to a trail I’d hiked years ago. It starts at the Marquam Nature Park shelter, just off the road up to OHSU. It ends at Council Crest, the highest point within the Portland city limits. It’s 1.7 miles up through the woods, with an elevation gain of about 900 feet. I remembered it as very steep — more challenging than the hike from the arboretum to Pittock Mansion that I’d done recently — and I was wondering if I would make it to the top.

I did. I was huffing and puffing and slow, but I made it with no problem. And something strange was happening. I was feeling good. I was exercising, and feeling good. I’d heard of such things, but it was a brand new experience to me.

I did what I saw other people doing on the trail: I ran back down. It was fun! Downhill, I could run and run and keep running, without running out of breath like I usually did. And there was that feeling, that feeling-good feeling. That high. When I made it back to the car I felt strong. I felt vivid. I felt less shy. I came back and did the same trail on Sunday too.

The Zoloft cut through my anxieties, providing a strange little roadblock against worry and melancholy. But the Zoloft plus a workout… that was something else entirely. It changed who I was, it left me happy and hungry for more. I started walking through my lunch hour during the week, seeing how far I could get in an hour. I bought some new cross-training shoes at REI. Weekends, I hit the trails. Two weekends later, I finished a four mile hilly hike and had two miles of running path in front of me to get back to the car. I ran almost all of it. Slowly. But I was running, and that felt good. And I wasn’t running short on breath. My lungs, the ones I always said had poor capacity from childhood asthma? Not playing along with the story. The next weekend, I hiked and ran 10 miles. I bought running pants. And a “technical” shirt. My lunchtime walks started turning into runs. I started reading everything I could about running and especially trail running.

I’m still a very slow runner. My pace is somewhere in the high-nine-minute mile range, and the longest I’ve run at a stretch is 4.2 miles. But I’m excited about this. Obsessed, I’m told. I’ve signed up with Portland Fit, a “a training program for runners and walkers of all abilities, each with a goal of completing events including the Portland Marathon, Helvetia Half Marathon, Hood to Coast, and many more.” I’m planning on doing the marathon in October. Although I’d rather be running on a trail.

I’ve started this blog to track my progress. Last weekend, I ran and hiked for 13.1 miles in Forest park (I calculated the mileage after; the fact that it was a half-marathon distance was a coincidence). That left me hurting, with shin splints in my left leg. But I had signed up for a group run on Sunday, and I wasn’t going to miss it. I probably should have — I’ve been out of commission since then, and it’s killing me. Heal, leg, heal!