My Health Journey

With the weather cooling down yesterday, I took my daughter out on a rowboat. It was a beautiful day. Not too hot, not too cold, not to cloudy, not too sunny, a few sprinkles of rain, ... Since my daughter is only 8 years old, I ended up doing all the rowing. I don't row much so found it much harder to move and control the rowboat compared to a paddle boat. My left arm was hurting until I realized that the oars had slipped through their rings and thus weren't of equal length. After correcting their alignment, the rowing became easier.  I ended up rowing steadily for 2 hours, with only two short breaks. That's the same length of time it takes me to run a half-marathon. I fully expected my back, chest, and upper arm muscles to be sore and hurting. Thankfully, that hasn't materialized (yet). After getting back home I was exhausted, energy-drained, and starving. Practiced yoga at night to ease the tension in my neck, accentuated by the need to constantly turn my head...

For 36 hours on Monday and Tuesday, we were drenched by the remnants of hurricane Florence. Intermittently, walls of water fell from the sky. I was awakened at 2 AM on Tuesday morning by a flood alert in my area. Suddenly and ahead of the schedule, on Tuesday afternoon, the storm blew over, the sun peeked at us, and the humidity began subsiding. I had to go outside. Though I had worked out in the morning, and was somewhat exhausted, I had no power to resist the inviting sunshine after days of gloom. I headed over to the nearest lake to watch the floodwaters rush the dam.

I have practiced yoga on and off for decades, having participated in classes and also on my own with the aid of books. When I started running, I wanted to continue my yoga practice, but in a way that is complementary to the running. I found this book called Yoga for Runners, by Christine Felstead to be really helpful. Like other yoga books, it illustrates many yoga poses. However this books goes beyond many yoga books I have seen in several useful ways: It is organized by muscle group. Each chapter opens with a section illustrating and discussing the different muscles and their relation to running, followed by yoga exercises aimed at strengthening and stretching those muscles. The book indicates the exact benefits of each pose. The section on "Restorative Yoga" teaches a number of poses where the body is supported to allow for deeper relaxation. I use some of these after a race or a particularly hard workout to reset my body. It has two tables on injuries: one ...

The humidity over the last few weeks kept me mostly indoors. I walked here and there, but I couldn't even contemplate running in 90% relative humidity, even with cooler temperatures in the 70s. Yesterday, the clouds finally cleared up and a partly sunny sky invited me to go outdoors. First I thought about a long walk, but when I saw the humidity was down to 70%, I couldn't resist putting on my running shoes and heading out. Turtles basking in the late summer sun after days of cloudy weather. It was a good run, though more on the humid side, and a sweat bath when the wind is to my back. I ended up running 2.4 miles around the lake. The construction is almost completed on the opposite side of the trail, flattening out a severe 30-40 bank in the trail that was gradually steepened by erosion. The new flat trail is nice and so much easier on my ankles. Today, the main residual soreness is in my glutes. That's a good sign. It means the program I've been following to ...

Exercise calendar I made using an excel Template To keep track of my workouts and help me vary it up, I use a monthly exercise calendar I customized using the Excel templates at Vertex42.com . Typically I rotate between three types of activity, like running, weights, and yoga. The calendar helps me sequence them to ensure I have enough days of rest or active recovery. If I am training for a race, I weave my selected training schedule into the calendar. I can then check completed workouts, enter notes about my time, etc. For more detailed notes, I recommend keeping a dedicated exercise journal. A good example I have been using is the  getfitbook .

Blank chart I use to fill out my workouts Record-keeping is key to successful weight training. Though I have always recorded my exercises, I was applying the records far too automatically in determining what weights to use on a particular day. Looking back, it appears I have been increasing weights too fast, and adhering too rigidly to the plan. That, perhaps, can explain the frequent injuries I was having. After a year-long hiatus from weight training, I wanted to ease in gradually. I am finding the need to revise my strategy for weight training. The main observation is that my form degrades as I continue an exercise for more reps . As muscles fatigue, others pitch in to fill their place. The hip starts to move to assist the bicep, or the lower back moves in to help. That's not good because it's recruiting muscles other than the ones in focus, for a job they're not meant to do in the first place. Another observation is that I'm not training for an event. Rather...

One of my earliest goals when I started exercising was losing weight. Following the advice in No Meat Athlete , I wasn't counting calories or anything - just striving to eat healthy foods, including lots of fruits and veggies and whole grains, and to avoid processed foods. Then, more recently, I learned I had severe food allergies to nuts, and a moderate allergy to wheat.  Nuts I could give up, although they occur as ingredients in many a thing, from peanut butter, to marzipan, to almond soap and massage oil. Wheat is much harder to let go off.  We tend to eat wheat at almost every meal, and it enters many processed snack foods like cookies and crackers. I did some trials and found out I get less congested and can breathe and feel much better if I avoided those foods. However, given wheat's preponderance, I decided to cut down rather than eliminate it completely. To do this, I refined the two-step process I have relied on for the past few years. First, is the shopping li...

In Eating Healthy: CSA What? I talked about the Farm program to which I subscribe for fresh produce. Here, I illustrate how the program works with this week's plentiful harvest. Upon visiting the farm, I ended up getting over 11 lb. of tomatoes, lots of several kinds of peppers, a spaghetti squash, kale, and eggplant, and more. Had to decide how to split all that food across the week, especially that tomatoes are perishable. Decided to make a sauce out of the 4 lb. of plum tomatoes and store it in mason jars. The remaining tomatoes, I designated for salsas and salads. That would use up some of the peppers. This week's harvest of CSA tomatoes: Blonde salsa from CSA veggies (made three of these):   Tomato Pasta Sauce with Veggies:   Roasted veggie wheat-free sandwich, using the eggplant, sweet roasting peppers, poblano pepper, and a summer squash left over from last week's harvest:   Finally, I made both a kale pesto and a roasted tomato and vegg...

Apart from a few nice walks at sunset, the heat wave kept me indoors for most of the last ten days. I managed to do three weight sessions: Monday, Friday, and Labor Day Monday. I have been battling injuries on the left side of my body. Through yoga and foam rolling, as well as a couple of chiropractor adjustments, I managed to eliminate that pain by the beginning of the weekend. I had been using mostly 5 and 10 lb. dumbbells to reintroduce my body to weight training gradually.  Friday's session felt easy I decided to upgrade the weights to 12.5 lb. for the Monday session (keeping the left arm at 10 lb. for some exercises to give it more time to heal). In retrospect, that was a mistake, as I had spent an active and vigorous weekend with my girlfriend. We exercised both in and out of bed. She left me exhausted on Monday, and I should have rested instead of immediately doing weight training. By Tuesday morning, I woke up with serious pain on my entire right arm, from the ...

In Getting Enough Nutrition , I wrote about my increased interest in eating healthy. Fortunately, a year later, I heard from a friend about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Essentially, rather than getting their groceries from the supermarket, they contract with the local farm to deliver their produce. Pasta sauce from CSA farm vegetables The basil is also from the CSA farm It turns out this nice farm I pass along my way to work - a green oasis amid a growing suburban sprawl - has its own CSA program. For about $30 a week, I share in the produce of the farm, receiving a decent quantity of 10-12 different vegetables a week, all organic, in-season, and fresh from the earth. There are no guarantees as to what we get. We pay for our share at the beginning of the year, and receive whatever the earth gives, which bounty varies from year to year and depends on the weather. Thus we share the risks and rewards with the farmer, and the adventure of finding out what's in store...