Monday 30DEC2024

Jimmy Carter was the first President I knew as a young kid.  I was six/seven in 1976. I recall the school staff wheeling a TV into the classroom to watch him get inaugurated.  And, while I didn't understand it, I recall hearing the swirl of Nixon and Watergate in Ford's loss.  It was one of those moments in your young life where you start to get visibility and some understanding of your country and government.  It came on the tail of the 1976 Fourth of July.  That was a big deal too as it was the 200th birthday of the country.  

I also remember, going through those last few formative years before becoming a teen, the frustration the country felt with Iranian Hostage Crisis under Carter.  It was a weight on the country every day.  I recall seeing a full center fold spread in the New York Daily News of all the hostages.  I remember the failed rescue attempt.  Of course, the lens of my experience was through my home, my parents, and they were definitely not Carter fans.  Regan was someone who they saw as saving the country.  

Even if Carter had not ever been President, the life he lived in the last four plus decades is one worth admiring.  He could have taken to staying the public spotlight, but he moved back to a two bedroom one bath home with his wife (who he shared marriage with for 77 years).  It is said the Secret Service staff cars associated with his protection were valued more than that house.  He remained committed to the community, building homes for Habitat, teaching Sunday School, fighting disease.  He won a Nobel Peace Prize.  

He was a man from another time, certainly not representative of the politicians of today.  His passing at this time comes at a painfully obvious time of contrast.  

Here is a picture of him with a guitar that was built from a tree he planted earlier in his life.  

2 mile walk in the AM.  Winds were already rolling.  

I did get a bit worried about the winds last night.  I recalled the circumstances from exactly 3 years ago and was wondering if we'd be dealing with something similar.   

Obviously it was not as bad.  The winds actually died down to just a typical breezy December day (after some AM muscle flexing of 60mph gusts locally).

I ended up on the stat bike internally.  My legs get something out of this but I can't really elevate my HR up to a typical 140 I get out of a run.  I sit around 80-100.  And it does make my butt hurt.  I am getting something out of this but I don't think it is much.  I wonder if the stat bike is better in some ways than the regular bike in that there is no coasting indoors.  

Anyway, I guess I could push the pedals harder.  Or crank up the resistance.  The machine said I did 17 miles in 62 minutes.  

Last week was my play into push ups, doing 100 a day for the seven days.  Seeing the need to get some discipline with some other daily workout other than running, I have decided to go with at least a half an hour a day of something.  Yeah, undescriptive, but frankly - doing anything is good enough for me.  I am so functionally weak, it is all work.  I will try to keep some focus on working the strength of the legs because of the knee issue, but it will be all the way around.  

Today I torched myself with the simplicity of a 15lb kettlebell.  Curls, extensions, squats, shoulder work, etc.  And some crunches, legs raises, etc.   

    

Sunday 29DEC2024

15.2 mile ride in the afternoon.  Seems unlikely that I will get out tomorrow with the winds predicted to be super nuts.  

2 mile walk in the AM.  

100 push up.  That is a week of that.  I can see the challenge in making this a habit.  I need to get into a better defined routine if I am going to do this workout thing.

Another 2 mile walk in the afternoon.

Saturday 28DEC2024

I have been listening to Stephen Wilson Jr most of this year, enjoying tunes like Year to Be Young 1994 and Grief Is Only Love.  With his recent interview at the Print Shop, I am fairly convinced this will be a guy that takes off like Billy Strings did - meaning, see him now because it is gonna be nuts in a few years.  

A couple of shorter walks in the earlier part of the day (1.8, 1.5) and then a 17 mile ride in the afternoon.  Downwind and out towards 25 was clipping along well, hitting over 20mph in some sections.  Paid for it on the uphill and wind back with that being 7 or 8 mph and work.  All good.  

100 push ups (35, 35, 30).  Had to do the last set before bed because I had forgot otherwise.  

Friday 27DEC2024

Fourth day off of running.  How many to go? 

4.1 miles of walking in the AM with TZ and the dog.  These are good.  The walk is a backdrop to good conversations.  

I can feel the crap still in the knee.  Not that I am expecting it to be magically better in four days, especially since I haven't done anything to address that.  It is just a note that I can feel its problems, coming down stairs, when I turn weird, or sometimes when I stand up.

The time off from running is easy physically.  It is more the mental challenge of not having that time to do that and figuring out what I want to do alternatively.  This is a good challenge - recognizing how habitual I have been with good and bad behaviors (running, alcohol, not reading items outside of work, etc.).  But I do need to establish some other routine ... otherwise I will do nothing and that seems wasteful.  

Broke away from the desk twice mid day for two ten minute sessions.  Sigh - I recognize that sounds so light.  It is.  But it is where I am at.   Got in a handful of kettlebell exercises, including upper body and squats, and the experiment of 100 pushups lives on (30, 30, 25, 25).

Separately, started watching Breaking Bad about a half decade after everyone else, started reading Red Rising on request of JZ, and have been trying to figure out the differences between diminished, half diminished, minor flat 5 and minor 7 flat 5 chords.  

Thursday 26DEC2024

Biking doesn't seem to aggravate the knee so I guess that is good news.  I can occasionally feel it twinge with walks, especially on the downhills.  Got in a longer walk this AM (4.5 miles).   Rode in the afternoon, swing a loop down to the 36 trail, over to Coal Creek, then Rock Creek - 17.4 miles.  Was pretty chilly by the end. 

I'm riding around on an old Trek.  Old as in older than my now adult children.  Functional but not state of the art.  It works and that is good enough for now.

100 push up (4x25 post the ride as I defrosted).

Wednesday 25DEC2024

Well, sticking with the not running plan but admittedly it is not enjoyable.  Anyway, got in a couple miles of dog walking in the AM, did 100 push ups (5 sets of 20), 100 body squats (33, 34, 35) and an hour bike ride on the stat bike (as it was raining out).  The watch told me that riding the bike for an hour killed 250 calories, so I guess it is sort of equivalent to a walk if I am not pushing it.  

Tuesday 24DEC2024

I have mentioned the concept of taking an extended break on running to a few folks.  Their reactions typically include:

a.)  "Wow.  What will you do instead?"
b.)  "That seems like a really good idea."  

I took today off from running.  Not sure if is the start of an extended break or not.  100 push ups (30, 30, 20, 20), 100 body squats (50, 50), 16.2 miles on the bike and 3.2 mile dog walk.  

Monday 23DEC2024

My recent experiment with dropping alcohol for a bit got me thinking about running several other similar sort of trials.  Rather than think, "hey, I am going to do this thing forever" it was "what if I tried this for a week?  Or maybe a month?"

Like what if I did some set number of body squats every day for a week?  Or wall sits for some time every day for a month?  And then the thought extended to other possible experiments outside of just physical exercise.  What if I spent 15 minutes every morning for a quarter working on writing songs?  Or what if I gave up social media for a month? 

Would I see a change?  I can't say that I have seen some sort of profound physical change in dropping beer:  I still have oddball sleep, I haven't dropped 10 pounds, and I sometimes still feel lethargic.  Mentally, however, I do take some satisfaction in that I have been able to manage a small amount of discipline in making this choice.  That certainly means something.  So I wonder if I will enjoy that with other experiments.  And maybe I will also be able to see some other benefits.  

I quickly penned out thirty possible ones the other day - everything from physical disciplines to mental ones to "art" projects to, well, frankly things I have thought I could do but for whatever reason I have put off.  I'll start this week with 100 push ups a day (not in one shot, likely sets of 20-50).  It is an easy start.  I should be able to push away from the desk at some point, not look at the phone, drop and do them.  No harder than saying no to a gin and tonic, right?  

The bigger objective here is to make little changes over time to make larger improvements.  Some of these experiments will work.  Some will fail.  I might falter.  I might hate it.  I should learn a thing or two in any case.  

7 miles in the afternoon, slow (9:15) with a lot of breaks.  100 push ups (20, 20, 25, 35) over the day.

Sunday 22DEC2024

Finished the week with a 7.3 mile run, and so 45.6 on the week.  Missed Monday this past week.

On the year I am just a handful of miles under 2300.  I can't seem to immediately find my post of where I added up miles on the lifetime so I will put it around that 90k mark from a murky memory.  Most of the miles came in the front half of the year before the knee went wonky.  

I expect miles to be significantly less than 2k in 2025.  I am actually contemplating a true break - multiple months off of running with focus on other physical activity.  Some of this comes from realizing how much I have over indexed on this sport over 40 years, to the point of ignoring other functional movement, some of it from recognizing that I don't have any competition planned, some of it inspired by guys like Shad and Andy doing other things.  

Saturday 21DEC2024

Solstice day.  Got out with GW in the AM and got 7.1 miles, 8:45 pace.

There have been a handful of reasons why my general fitness has declined in the last few years.  One part of that story is the pulmonary blood clots I had a few years back.  I "feel" that the scarring in the lungs that came as a part of that still impacts me today, and overall oxygen uptake.  I'll still often wake with a cough / hack for the first part of the day.  

Friday 20DEC2024

Last night was more fun at Rails at their monthly open mic.

I have probably played 100 open mics or shows by now. I started in May of 2019, so I am at 5 and half plus years and so thinking 20 a year is not a far stretch.  

But I am still learning.

7.9 miles in the afternoon.  Ridiculously warm for December, 65F+.  Some of it was with LF.

Thursday 19DEC2024

30 days.  

I woke up on a Wednesday morning in Redmond last month.  I went for an "in the dark" jog, enjoyed listening to some new music (it was Alter Bridge and I found the song "Blackbird" to be excellent). 




But I felt like shit.  

The night before I had gone down to the hotel restaurant, had some brussel sprouts and a couple of beers.  A typical night.  But on this jog, I determined waking up like this meant I needed a bit of a break from the alcohol.  

Today is 30 days on that.  Not a big deal for most, many - but a significant shift for me.  "Seeing" my brain call for a beer or something else at an open mic, a holiday dinner, a get-together ... it is a seeing that is a habit.  When does a habit become an addiction?  I am sure there is some clinical definition of that, but in my day-to-day, that is a blurry line.  With this there is a recognition that "none is easier than one."  

I can't say I wake up feeling great.  Nor am I going to say that I won't ever drink alcohol again.  But the pause has me considering that set of choices, self-control, and to some extent, other similar "experiments."  More on that to come.  

Fly on blackbird. 

7.2 miles.  9 min/mil pace on the east Lake Link side through Commons

Wednesday 18DEC2024

Spinning slowly around 40 miles a week.  Knee slowly degrading again as the cortisone shot wears off.  Playing music as I can.  

As has become a bit natural for me with the wind down of the year, the longer nights, I get a bit more contemplative about what to accomplish in the next round of the sun.  I've been thinking about rebooting this blog to cover that.  

02DEC2024 Check in

Short of it ... the cortisone shot to the knee was starting to wear off.  And then the gracilis lit up again.  I was plugging away with 50 mile weeks but then spun down to 40 and now I am taking time off again.  The hammy is just that bad.  

It wasn't like I was getting into shape or something and this is some new unravel.  It is this on-going unraveling that I have been working on for the last five years.  Lungs, knees, hammies.  It is where I am at.  

I did have a trip to Redmond.  It was nice. 

I am on a break from alcohol I guess.  That is about two weeks in.  Frankly, like many, it is easier to have none than to keep it to one.  Been plenty of opps to enjoy a beer and I have wanted to, but I am playing the game for the minute to see if I can maintain a stance here for a bit.

The Pinebox Sleepers project had a gig at Rails on Saturday.  It was a blast.  

Sitting around near 2200 miles on the year.