The Race for the Cure!

A few days ago, I looked at my schedule and decided to participate in the Susan G. Komen "Race for the Cure" this morning.  At the end of the month, my sister Ann will be gone for three years, and there is not a day that I don't miss her.  So I wanted to walk today for the 5K "race" and make a little statement to Breast Cancer:  "You took my sister, but as long as I breath you will not take her totally because I still remember and love her."

Pink was the dominant theme today.  I wonder how I would have looked in a pink tutu?

Not often you get to see the Good Health Fairy!

I wore the shirt I had made for the 2011 3-Day for the Cure with my sister's photo on the front.

Brown's Island down by the river is a popular venue for all kinds of events.

 Liked this view of the James River in the distance behind the banner.

Not much I can add...

More pink!

At the start of of the race, everyone is pumped up.  I was walking, not running.  I have not run since the Crawlin' Crab Half Marathon in October.  All of these photos were taken with my new iPhone, by the way.  It was a good crowd.  30+ minutes into the race, crossing back from the south side of the city, we could still see people heading across the Manchester Bridge in the distance, 30 or more minutes behind where I was - and I was hardly at the front.

Mother Nature decided to wear pink today,

as did these two dogs.  Pretty in pink!

It meant a lot to me to do this walk today in my sister's memory.

Twelve Years!

Where does the time go?  As I struggle about whether or not to keep this blog going - if not posting for more than a month constitutes "keeping it going" - I do have to reflect on this date, April 26, and its meaning to me.  For it was 12 years ago, as a healthy 50 year old, I was told "You have a large mass in the middle of your chest, something that should not be there."  The radiologist had written the word "Lymphoma?" on the edge of the X-ray, and that is just what it turned out to be: Hodgkin's lymphoma. 

It was like a bolt from the blue.  Time stood still as I listened in shock.  Thoughts poured through my brain.  "How is this possible?"  "Will I still be alive by Christmas?" "How will I tell my wife this news?"

That day lead to about a month of all kinds of tests, and then six months of living in a toxic world as I got the four awful drugs that saved my live while ravaging my body.  They may yet have the last laugh, as they themselves are carcinogenic, and two of them cause heart and lung damage.  But so far, so good.

How much I have done in 12 years!  When this posts, I will be off in the wilderness of West Virginia backpacking - a great way to celebrate the day and my return to strength.  I've done hikes all over the place, and seen some dream places - Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Glacier, and Alaska.  I've heading to Scotland later this year. I held my granddaughter on the day of her birth.  And along the way, I have given back, raising over $60,000 for the cancer fighting cause while doing three marathons, four half marathons, and a sixty mile walk.  Like anyone, the 12 years have had sadness and some heartbreak, but that is all part of life.  My glass is way more than half-full.  And I hope for many more years ahead before I take that last breath on earth, as we all do at some point.

Marathoning Bling

While I decide whether I am going to keep this blog going or not - although given that I last posted something more than a month ago, one could easily argue that I have not kept it going - I thought I would put a few photos out there of my medals from races - my "marathoning bling."

My six medals for my Team in Training races are on the outside.  Starting from the top left and moving clockwise, they are: Midnight Sun Marathon, Anchorage, Alaska, June 2005; San Diego Marathon, June, 2006; Arizona Marathon, Phoenix and environs, January 2008; Country Music Half Marathon, Nashville, Tennessee, April 2009; Seattle Half Marathon, June 2010; Crawlin' Crab Half Marathon, Hampton, Virginia, October, 2013.  In the middle is my medal from the Shamrock Half Marathon, Virginia Beach, March 2012.  It is my only long distance race that I didn't participate in for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  Instead, I did it to celebrate 10 years as a cancer survivor. 

Each of these races was special in its own way, but the Arizona Marathon was special for four reasons: (1) it was my first long race as a grandpa (2) it was my last full marathon of 26.2 miles - maybe ever (3) it was my first long distance race that my sister Ann's name was on my shirt, she having been diagnosed with breast cancer less than a year before, and (4) it was my fastest time in a marathon, and first time under six hours, which is really difficult to do if one is walking the race.  That being said, running a marathon in any time is harder than walking it.  I know because I ran most of my three half marathons.

My two favorite medals are from Seattle and from the Crawlin' Crab.  Seattle's featured Mount Rainier and a steaming cup of joe:

And how can you not like the happy crab from Hampton?

For each of my six TNT races, I also got my coveted 26.2 or 13.1 pin.

My medals are all thrown in a drawer together, buried under workout clothing, so it was nice to take them all out, get a photo, and think of all of the hard work behind each little hunk of metal.

One Step Forward and Two Backward

At the start of the year, I wrote of my fitness goals for 2014.  And I have dilligently been making progress on at least some of them.  I still can't fit into all my jeans, but I have lost two pounds, which I could easily gain back in a day or two of unbridled gluttony if I am not careful.  I've been walking a fair amount.  I've been on the eliptical machine a few times.  I've been doing crunches and planks.  I am walking the stairs at work at least 90% of the time, only using the elevator if I am late for something.  And I have been doing two to three upper body workouts a week.

And that is where my setback, my "two steps backward," has occurred.  I recently moved up to 80 pounds from 70 and it didn't seem too bad - until Wednesday night.  About seven years ago, I partially tore my right rotator cuff, and now I am having very similar pain in my right shoulder.  It is not agonizing - and in fact, I've had more or less continuous low level pain in that shoulder for seven years - but it is pain that was not there before this past week.  And it should not be there.  So clearly, I have done something I didn't want to do.

So what to do next?  I think I need to knock off the upper body for a week.  Then try a few light weight, say 50 pounds, workouts and see how that feels.  Or even 40 pounds, or if need be just 30.  I probably need to focus on lighter weights and many more repetitions.  I am not sure how best to do it, but it does seem that this particular fitness goal may be one that I need to back off of.

It is always discouraging to have setbacks, but they are part of life and we just have to do our best to move forward, even if we don't get quite as far as we hoped for.

Mesothelioma - A Big Word With a Terrible Implication

Have you ever toured one of the great World War II Battleship museums, like the USS North Carolina in Wilmington, NC or the USS Massachusetts in Fall River, MA?  It is fascinating stuff.  You can go all over the ship, from the bridge and the gigantic gun turrets to deep below the water line, and get a sense what it was like to be one of 1,500 - 2,000 men living aboard one of these ships in war time.  You can even get to the engine rooms with the massive power plants for the ship.  And while you are down there, you can see some of the heavy use of asbestos made on these ships - and in so many other places at the time, and since.

I remember the first time I saw this, it struck me how much the men who built and later served in these ships must have been exposed to asbestos, a valuable and useful mineral with a terrible cost: mesothelioma.  This is a lethal cancer of the lungs that is only caused by asbestos fiber inhalation.  Thus, it is a totally preventable cancer.  Yet, about 30 million pounds is used annually in the USA.

US Navy veterans of World War II and the Korean War have the highest incidence of asbestos related diseases.  But of course, many others are afflicted as well.  I have wondered for some time if my father could have been one of them.  In the late 1930's through the mid-40's as a young man, he worked in ship yards as a shipwright and later as a naval architect, helping to build and design the ships that helped the men and women of that generation literally save the world.  Forty years later, he was dying of a terrible lung cancer.  It was not necessarily mesothelioma - he had been a smoker earlier in his life.  But he certainly had been exposed to asbestos, and that could have been the cause of his death in 1983.

At the time my dad was working in the shipping industry, very little was known about the hazards of asbestos.  That is not true today.  Should we still be using so much of it?  What will the cost be in 30 years to those handling it today?  No level of exposure to asestos is safe.

Want to learn more about this not too well known cancer?  Here is an excellent fact sheet about mesothelioma.

Miles for Meg

Last Monday, I'm sure, started perfectly normally for 34 year old Meg Menzies of Hanover County, Virginia.  An avid runner since her youth, she headed out on her morning run.  She was training for the Boston Marathon, and her husband - also a runner - was running with her.  I imagine that their three kids had headed off to school.  And then, at about 8:00AM, her time on this earth came to an abrupt and tragic end.  A vehicle driven by a physician, who was allegedly alcohol impaired, crossed the line onto the shoulder of the highway and struck and killed Meg.  Her husband was by her side as she died.

I don't know Meg, although many in the local running community do know her well.  What I know of her- about her running interests, her grieving family, and the fact that she was director of her church's preschool children Bible school on Sunday - came from the newspaper or from talking with others today.

Meg was doing everything right - running facing traffic; running in daylight; running off the road and on the shoulder; and even running into the sun so that drivers should clearly see her as they headed west with the low morning sun behind them.  But it was not enough.  And now, a husband is widowed, three children have lost their mother, and a genuinely good person is gone.

Today, all over the US of A and all over the world, people signed up to run and walk "Meg's Miles."  I am not on Facebook and so did not formally sign up.  But I did go out with my friends from the current Team in Training group and put in six miles for Meg.  And I logged my participation on this map, and I logged my miles on this website.

May you rest in peace, Meg.  All over Virginia, all over the United States, all over the world people you did not know were thinking of you today as we moved our feet.

Here is a view of some of the USA participation on "Meg's Miles:"

 And here is a view of world wide participation - even as far away as New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, and Japan, people were running and walking for Meg.

Rockport Mile VO2 Max Test, Take 2

I blogged the other day about cardiovascular fitness and trying the Rockport Mile Test to estimate my VO2 Max level.  Well, having the day off today, I decided to go for a five mile walk, a rare treat for me on a Monday through Friday.  And after about 1.5 miles, I came upon a middle school with a track.  As it was during school hours, I thought I'd better keep going, but no kids were out and I saw two ladies running and walking laps.  So I figured it was OK (more about that later).

I decided to do four laps on the level track and see how my VO2 Max estimate would compare to the hillier neighborhood route of the other night.  So I walked four laps on the kind of soggy track as fast as I could, and I knocked about seven seconds off my time of the other night, down to 13 minutes and 17 seconds.  And my heartbeat was slightly lower than before at 140.  The overall result was that my VO2 Max level rose slightly to 36.01.  That is still on the high end of "good" for males of my age.  To get to "very good," my heart rate for the same time in the mile would have to be about 133.  To reach "excellent," my heart beat would have to be at 114 for the same time.

If nothing else, just trying to walk a mile as fast as you possibly can is great exercise.  My normal walking pace right now seems to be about 14:30 to 14:45 per mile, so cutting 1.25 to 1.5 minutes off of that requires a lot of effort.  I'll be evaluating ways to improve my level of cardiovascular fitness in the coming months.

Now, the rest of the story.  About a minute after I finished my laps, I was cleaning gravel out of my shoes, and a police officer appeared.  He told me that the school had called in a concern that I was on school property and that I had to leave.  I apologized and left immediately.  I only walked there because the two women were, so I figured that it was all right.  Interestingly, the two women continued to walk and run, and the officer left without speaking to them.  I guess women are not viewed as the potential threat that men are, with some level of justification, I suppose.

Cardiovascular Fitness

In the paper yesterday, there was a very good article about how the single most important indicator of good health as we age is our level of cardiovascular fitness.  It seems to drive just about everything else.  But there was not a reference in the article as how we can measure it, so I did what anyone with internet access would do: I used Google.  And I found that one's VO2 Max (maximum volume of oxygen) level is the best indicator of this.  VO2 Max is " the maximum capacity of an individual's body to transport and use oxygen during incremental exercise, which reflects the physical fitness of the individual."

So how does one measure their VO2 Max level?  Well, it has to be done scientifically, using measuring equipment while one works out on a treadmill, but it can be approximated with something called a Rockport Mile Test.  Essentially, you walk a mile, with no running, as fast as you safely can (please note, if you are not used to working out, it could be dangerous to do this, so consult a doctor) and then take your pulse immediately upon finishing the walk.  Ideally, the mile should be as level as possible.  Then you plug the results, along with your age, weight, and sex into the web site above, and it will calculate your VO2 Max.

In my neighborhood, I have a measured mile that I am confident is within feet of a true mile, as I measured it with a GPS - actually, 0.5 miles each way.  And while it is not perfectly level, neither is it excessively steep.  So tonight, I decided to take the test.  I felt like I would get a cardiovascular fitness rating of "good," and I was right.  My walking mile time was 13 minutes and 25 seconds.  My pulse rate immediately upon finishing was about 144 beats a minute, more than double my resting pulse of 60-64.  Plugged into the formula, my estimated VO2 Max value was 34.95, which is on the high side of "Good" for males my age.

This is interesting stuff, and I plan on exploring this a bit more in weeks to come as I try to gauge my level of fitness.  I think I might research ways of improving our cardiovascular fitness, try some of those, and see if my Rockport Mile results go up over time - or down.  I imagine there is some variabilty about the exact time to walk a mile.  Or maybe this weekend, I will go to a track and do four laps and see if there is any difference, a track being perfectly level.

If you go to that website, you will see that your age affects interpreting the results.  For example, my estimated VO2 Max value of 34.95 is considered a good fitness level for my age.  But for males 10 or 15 years younger than I am, it would only be considered "Average."  And for men 35 years younger, it would be "Poor."

2014 Fitness and Racing Goals

I had mixed results on last year's fitness goals, crushing a few and missing others by a wide margin.  But a new year is here, and I am establishing new goals.  This time, every one of these goals is measurable - I am specifically writing each one so that I will know if I attained it or not.

This first one is not a goal.  It is a resolution.  I will fit into all three pairs of jeans this year.  And not just at some point in the year - at the end of 2014!  This will be a tough one to achieve, but in setting this as an objective, I do not need a weight goal.  First, I am not a lot overweight.  Second, I can only meet this goal if I do shed my few extra pounds.

My walking goal is to take 5,000,000 steps again this year.  Because I am not anticipating training for a half marathon in 2014, I will have to be more diligent to reach this mark.

Instead of just saying "do more upper body workouts," I will set a measure.  Right now, I am doing workouts with 70 pounds of weight, and 15 pound curls.  So by the end of the year, I want to be using 100 pounds of weight, and 25 pound curls.  That would be a very nice gain - over 40% on the weights, and 67% on the curls.

We have a crunch bench in our community fitness room.  I am doing 150 crunches.  My goal is to double that to 300 crunches without stopping.

I used to do 45 minutes of elliptical workout at the highest setting (mountain, level 16).  I rarely do the elliptical now, but when I do, 15-20 minutes is more like it.  I am going to set a goal of getting that back to 45 minutes.  I'll only hit that goal if I start doing elliptical more often.

By the end of the year, I want to be holding a side plank for 60 seconds and a regular plank for 2 minutes, which is about double my current times.

By July, be walking to the top of my 18 story building.  I work on the seventh floor, so need to build up from there.

That's it for fitness.  Now, how about racing?  Well, when I say racing, I mean "racing for a cure."  Right now, I am not signed up for any races, not even the Monument Avenue 10K.  And I am not running.  I am not sure if running is a good idea for me.  My left knee feels fairly good - not pain free, though - for the first time in two years, and I have not run since the Crawlin' Crab Half Marathon.  I feel like there is a correlation there.  Entering a race means running, unless I want to walk it, which right now, I don't.  So I have to give the thought of running again a lot more evaluation and consideration.  I like running, but I love walking and hiking, and I want to be able to do those for the rest of my life.  I don't want a knee or hip replacement.  I need to take care of my legs, and that may mean not running.  Or I may figure out a way to run without damage.

Okay, enough rambling on that.  Can you tell that I am conflicted - very conflicted?  So here is my racing for a cure goal for 2014: I will do something to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I have two specific ideas in mind, and one of them is quite a different thing from my usual.  More on that later!

I hope anyone reading this has a great year ahead, and that you achieve your goals!

175 Miles?

A calorie, abbreviated as c, is a unit of measure of energy.  If I remember from my science days, it is the amount of energy that will raise the temperature of one gram of water by 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit).  But in dietary terms, what we call a calorie, such as "That chocolate bar contains 280 calories," is really a thousand calories, or kilocalories.  So in that sense, if we eat something that contains exactly one (dietary) calorie, that is enough energy to heat a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of water by 1 degree C.

Too much science stuff?  Too much metric system (a beautiful system of measurement, by the way)?  Well, the practical effect is that everything we eat contains calories, and if we eat more than we need - I should almost say "when," not "if" - we store the excess as fat.  So fat contains calories, roughly 3,500 of them for a pound of fat, although I am sure that number can vary considerably.  And it takes energy to do everything we do - stand up, walk to the door, type this sentence, even to think a thought.  Even if we stayed in bed all day, even if we were in a coma, our body would still be burning some energy.  It seems logical that we burn more energy when we are doing something active than when we are sitting down, right?  I've heard, but cannot prove, that walking or running a mile burns approximately 100 calories - although that should vary based on how much you weigh and how rugged the terrain is.  I do know that one of the real challenges for long distance backpackers is getting enough to eat.  They burn so much energy that they can lose all of their body fat and start breaking down muscle tissue for energy, essentially starving even while eating a lot.  That is why when they hit town after a couple of weeks on the trail, they can do things like eat a half gallon of ice cream or a couple of gigantic hamburgers.

I was thinking the other day of how I am about five pounds heavier than I was in September 2011 when I walked the 60 mile Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure in Washington DC and suburban Maryland.  And I was thinking what it would take to lose those five pounds, approximating that I would have to walk about 175 miles to do it.  I doubt that losing a pound by walking 35 miles is exactly true or quite that simple.  There would be a lot of other variables involved besides just the number of miles.  And to reach my goal of fitting into all three of my pairs of blue jeans, I probably need to drop another 5 pounds, so that would hypothetically be about 350 miles of walking total to lose the ten pounds.

I realize this is all speculation and gross approximation.  One key factor is what kind of calories I am consuming.  100 calories from kale is entirely different from 100 calories from chocolate which is different from 100 calories from honey.  Plus, I doubt it is as simple as "walk 35 miles and you lose a pound" - not at all, I am sure.  But it seems logical that if I walk enough and watch what I eat a little better, those extra five pounds will slowly come off, and then eventually the other extra five pounds, and maybe I will fit into those jeans again.  Maybe it will take 175 miles to lose the first five pounds, or maybe it will take 250 miles - I don't know.  I just know that it can be done.

So with the New Year, and with my temporary 8 hour day work schedule for the next few weeks, and the cool weather, I have been walking more.  Essentially, I use most of my lunch break as a chance to take a nice walk.  I can get in about 3 or 3.5 miles, and there are plenty of places to walk downtown.  I change into a exercise shirt and underwear so I don't come back with my work clothing all sweaty, plus the cool weather helps with that.  So far, so good - now I just need to stick with it and figure out how to keep it going when I go back on 9 hour work days next month.  Right now, that is my goal - just walk a lot.  I am very unsure about taking up running again, or even about trying to do another half marathon.  And another full marathon - while you never want to say "never" - seems really unlikely at this point in my life.  I will just keep walking and trying to stay in shape and see where the rest leads.