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.

Did I Meet My 2013 Fitness Goals?

2013 is almost history.  I wanted to compare how I did against my fitness goals for the past year.  You know, those goals I posted in my blog a year ago and then never looked at?

I missed my first goal by a mile.  Remember, I was going to fit into all three of my pairs of jeans, not just the one pair?  Sure I will.  Well, in the upcoming year, I will either accomplish this mission or have to buy new jeans, because my one pair that fits (barely) is wearing out.

My second big fitness goal was to continue to walk and hike, and average at least 13,000 steps a day for the entire year, with bonus points for averaging 14,000 and whipped cream and a cherry on top for hitting 15,000 a day.  How'd I do?  Well, for the year, I took nearly 5,111,000 steps, which averages out to 14,002 per day.  In miles, that amounts to over 2,000 miles on foot.  So I crushed that one.

My third goal was to figure out what is going on with the left knee, and take actions to heal it.  Well, I guess I get partial credit for this.  My knee has hurt for two years now, ever since training for the Shamrock Half Marathon in 2012.  I did get medical attention this year, and did stretching and physical therapy religiously for several months.  I also largely gave up running.  The net result is that the pain is much less, although I never did really figure out the exact cause.  I do need to resume the PT work, however.

The fourth goal was to participate in Team in Training again.  And (proof in the photo at the top) so I did, walking with just enough running to finish under three hours the Crawlin' Crab Half Marathon in Hampton, Virginia on October 6.  The race was on what would have been my friend Ed Stone's 44th birthday, and was a special moment.

Regarding my fifth fitness goal, I didn't do very well.  That one was to get a regular upper body workout going.  Unless the definition of "regular" has changed, I missed the mark pretty widely on this one.

And finally, although not strictly a fitness goal, I wanted to keep this blog updated with at least a post a week. I am going to claim success with this one, have posted about 70 times for the year, even though I know that there were some weeks that didn't get anything written.

So with six goals, I hit three right on, partially hit a fourth, and missed the other two.  I am sure I will have some fitness goals for 2014 soon, and this time, I will write them down outside of this blog, too.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Battered Shoes

For the first time ever that I can remember, I've done a really good job with my latest New Balance shoes in reserving them for "formal" walks and runs - where I go out to do specific miles rather than just taking a walk.  I used my older and worn pair of New Balance shoes for the latter.  I got the newer shoes in late June, and used them to finish my training for the Crawlin' Crab Half Marathon.  I carefully kept track of the miles on them in a spreadsheet.  And since the half marathon, I have pretty slack about "formal" walks.  I still do plenty of walking, mostly on breaks at work and short walks around my neighborhood, and for all of those, I used my older and increasingly battered shoes.

Until recently, that is!  About a month after the race, I realized that the old shoes were actually hurting my feet, they were so worn out.  So I stopped wearing the old shoes and I stopped keeping track of the miles on the new ones at the 211 mile point.  To show you how worn the old ones were, the newer ones with over 200 miles on them felt brand new by comparison!  But now, they have many more miles on them from all of the incidental walking, and I will have to replace them soon.

Buying shoes is a major purchase, costing about $150 with inserts.  It is money I don't want to spend right now.  But I also know that I need to walk more, not less, than I have recently.  For the next five weeks, I am back on 8 hour days at work, which means I will have a hour for lunch.  In the cooler weather, that is a perfect time to get in a 3 or 4 mile walk right in the middle of the day.

So I guess my strategy is something like this: buy a new pair of New Balance shoes as soon as I set $150 aside.  Wear them only for walks where I go out for a predetermined distance.  Use my current shoes for all incidental walking, including walks at lunch.  They will wear out quickly with all of that use.  At that point, I will look for a less expensive pair of just walking shoes, and try them without inserts.  I'll use those shoes for any incidental walking, of which I do a lot.  In a given day, I probably average 8,000 - 10,000 steps a day between the time I get up and come home from work, and more than that if I have an hour for lunch and it is not really hot or pouring rain.

I have been walking about 5 million steps a year, which translates to over 2,000 miles in a year.  That is a lot for anyone who is working full time (which is how I can afford shoes).  But it also means that I wear out shoes.  A good pair of walking / running shoes should last about 400 miles, but I wear mine longer.

So that is my latest shoe saga.  For any serious runner or walker, there is always something going on with shoes.  And it usually involves money!

The Things I Missed

Wow, today marks 11 years in remission for me from Hodgkin's lymphoma!  Here is a picture of me on chemo in 2002!  ;^)

This past Saturday, Team in Training did the Silent Mile ceremony for the Spring Team.  I was out of town, and so wrote something for Kate to read to the gathering.  Here is what I wrote for the team: "The Things I Missed."

Dear 2014 Spring TNT participants:

I was thinking about all the things I missed these last 11 years because of lymphoma. I never got to hike up Tumbledown Mountain in Maine with my wife and good friends, a trip we had planned to do together. I missed my friend’s fiftieth birthday party on the same excursion.

I would have loved to have been present at the birth of my granddaughter, to hold this sweet little bundle that day, filled with instant love for her. But I couldn’t, nor could I celebrate her birthday each year, watching her grow a little bigger each time.

I never got to go to Alaska to do that incredible marathon for Team in Training. I also never got to do marathons in San Diego and Arizona, and half-marathons in Nashville, Seattle, and Hampton for the same great cause – to raise money to help find and fund a cure.

My wife and I always wanted to go to Glacier, Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone National Parks, and also to Alaska. But we never got to any of those places together, all because of that lousy Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis in 2002. Too bad, because it would have been amazing!

In 2007, my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she died in May of 2011 from this awful disease. I wish I could have been there to give her some support and comfort. Likewise, I wish I had been around to celebrate her 60th birthday along with the rest of the family.

Speaking of birthdays, it would have been nice to have been around to celebrate my wife’s birthdays, and our wedding anniversaries, and Christmases. It must have been lonely for her.

And, it would have been amazing to have walked in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure 60 mile walk to honor my sister’s memory – and to sleep in a pink tent! I hated to miss that!

Those are just a few of the big moments that I missed in the last 11 years. And when I think of all of the little day-to-day moments of joy that I missed as well, it is almost overwhelming. These little moments may not be earth-shaking, but they still help to weave the rich and colorful fabric of our lives. I missed so many things!

Now, the statements about the things that I missed are false. I actually did do all those things, and many, many more as well. But had my 2002 cancer diagnosis turned out differently, I easily could have missed all of them. Because of effective research on my type of cancer, conducted years before, I had such a great chance to survive. However, many others don’t have that same chance. You, by your sacrifice and hard work, are giving hope to others who don’t have much now: giving them the chance to build their own great memories, just as I was able to do!

I want to thank you for all you are doing for this cause, and for tackling such a tough challenge. I wish I could have been here with you today at the Silent Mile, my 11 year remission anniversary weekend. But up in Pennsylvania, I will be (silently) cheering for you and thinking of your efforts and sacrifice. Thank you so much!

Art