Fitness Archives - Midlife Sentence

Of Elbows and Umbrage

December 20, 2020 No Comments

Here we are, not even a month after I was feeling all puffed up about picking up a new sport, and now I’m grounded from it for at least a couple more weeks.

Or, I might be. It depends upon the Olympics.

This is where I introduce you to my friend David. Sometimes I wonder if all of David’s friends are tempted, like I am, to ask him for free physical therapy advice in social situations. I’ve refrained from this, since it doesn’t feel polite. And until last spring, when my knee started hurting enough to be hard to ignore, I’d never been worked up enough about anything to make an actual appointment.

Fitness, musings, Nonsense, Parenting

Not the kind of uphill battle I’d envisioned

November 20, 2020 2 Comments

Last week there was a grey-haired guy at the climbing gym.

Most of the time, there aren’t a ton of people at there at all, which is how we like it. Thing is, I happen to be the self-appointed official climbing gym over-thirty spokesperson, thank you very much. It’s an official position I just made up and also one for which I’m looking for sponsors, in case you’re wondering.

The climbing thing feels good. Like accomplishing something. Anything. Even if all that means is new callouses and ruining my manicure on purpose. I know we’re supposed to be leaning into this pandemic with all kinds of commitment to wellness and self-care and whatever else, but this has been a weird year for maintaining any kind of fitness. Besides this, the only other thing I’ve accomplished in 2020 is gaining about fifteen pounds without trying.

I started out with good intentions, diligently plotting a twelve-month half marathon calendar in January. Now, at regular intervals I get Google reminders for events that would have happened if 2020 hadn’t imploded. Goody.

As it is, I can’t muster the enthusiasm to run more than two miles at a stretch these days anyway, and I haven’t replaced road running with anything else. I haven’t been to my regular gym since March, of course, which is about the time being indoors with other people lost appeal.

But the climbing gym has a people-counter on their website, which is handy. We’ve learned the times it’s likely to be just us there, along with the guy at the counter, and maybe one other dude who looks like the Hercules cartoon character from the eighties (I’m not exaggerating either, who knew you could recreate that haircut in real life?)

Fitness

“Remember: no one’s watching,” and other lessons from 50+ half marathons

January 2, 2019 4 Comments

This year I accomplished my personal goal (the one I co-opted from my better half) of completing 50 half marathons before my 50^th birthday with the Bridge of the Gods Half Marathon in August. This was over a period of about 12 years (the overall goal, not that one run), with the majority of the events happening from fall 2011 on, after I got serious about the idea.

The goal was about quantity over quality. If I thought I’d be required to do any one of these events with any more speed than it took to come in some place other than very last, I’d have thrown in the towel. I may talk tough, but I’m a couch-potato at heart, really. My participation in most of these events could be considered neither particularly pretty nor fast. I keep a pace of between 11:30 and 12-minutes per mile.

Just so we’re clear I’m not breaking any speed records.

But I finished every one of ‘em, plus a few relays and other events. And because I’m a giver, here’s a list of things I’ve learned about running over the course of this little endeavor:

Fitness

Giving up a lung for Zion

June 11, 2018 No Comments

Once a year, a group of friends of ours gathers for a running relay event somewhere in the region. Mike and I haven’t been able to join them for the last couple of years for reasons that basically boil down to the fact that everything in our lives tends to happen all at once, and sometimes we have to prioritize as though we’re bonafide grownups.

If you don’t remember my talking about running with this group, here’s a little thing about the Grand Teton Relay, three years ago, and Hood to Coast, which we finished up on my birthday the year before that.

This year we were able to join the group for the Top of Zion Relay: 12 people split up between two vans winding 195 miles through southern Utah, with the opportunity to experience some of the best scenery the West has to offer.

I was really nervous about this run, not because of the distance, nor the prospect of spending 36 hours in a van with five other sweaty runners, but because of the elevation. I’ve run in the mountains before, mostly when Mike and I have been camping with family and I realize I need to get away from the people I love before killing them. I’ve noticed three things:

Fitness

Which will be the Big Five-Oh

April 16, 2018 No Comments

Midlife Sentence | My Next Half Marathon

Some of you already know this, but I started running fairly regularly again in 2006 after a twenty-year hiatus. Then in 2011 I decided the half marathon event was more or less my thing. A little later, I stole adopted Mike’s goal of running 50 half marathons by that age.

Well, my 50th is coming right on up. I have four events left to go by August if I’m going to make my goal. Plus we have another relay event in June we’ve signed up for. It’s a little tight, but doable.

This weekend’s the Race to Robie Creek (my 13^th time in this event, and my latest “last time on that damn hill,” but probably not if we’re being honest). I’m also signed up for the Boise Women’s Classic, May 5, and the Tutu Run, May 12.

That brings us to 49 half marathons.

Run For Your Life in August. Despite the heat, it was a PR

The Tutu Run (duh)

Race to Robie Creek – Approaching the summit

The Fit One Half

This is what it looks like finishing a half when you’re also trying to finish the Whole30 – BONK.

The scenery at the Leavenworth Half Marathon

Running with friends at the Leavenworth

The scenery along the Boise River at the Beer-n-Brats Half

I’m shopping for the big five-oh now. And between our relay and summer plans, I left myself about a two week window in which to schedule the dang thing.

Here’s the other thing, it’s going to get warm around here soon, and lumbering along in the summer heat is about the least amount of fun I can imagine. I sweat. A lot. My muscles cramp. I whine. I look like one of the bad guys in that Indiana Jones movie who witnesses the opening of the Ark. Full on melty-face.

Fitness

A Bonafide Review of the Whole30

May 13, 2017 1 Comment

I’ll admit, when I posted my little rant earlier about a particular diet, I was a little overwrought. I don’t normally go in for drama, but it had been a trying couple of weeks. Now that we’re at the end of the Whole30 and I’ve had some crackers and calmed down, I thought some of you might like more of straightforward review.

… You know, in case you’re here for bonafide advice instead a load of nonsense.

We’ve done an elimination diet before – where you leave out most or all high-allergen foods for a while, then re-introduce them, one at a time, to isolate any food issues. We thought the Whole30 would be familiar territory.

It wasn’t.

Fitness, Nonsense

Breakfast with Jerks: Musings on a #Whole30 Morning

April 19, 2017 1 Comment

Who eats grapefruit at a pancake house? Actually, who eats grapefruit anyway?

You know what happens when you order grapefruit? You pay three bucks for an orb of sour water pustules on which you must perform delicate surgery with a weird, serrated spoon to excise each tiny bite full of kill-me-right-now.

This is currently my life. A table in a pancake house, smack in the middle of maple and bacon and bakery smells threatening my thirty-days-and-then-some of meal prep and healthy eating and a whole lotta’ pretending I wouldn’t kill someone for a pancake at any moment.

And I normally don’t even like pancakes.

Fitness, Nonsense

My Pre-Run Whine Session

March 1, 2017 No Comments

Midlife Sentence - Pre-Run Whine Session

I admit I’m not feeling much into the running thing lately.

And here I just signed up for another half marathon. This one’s in April, and I have to tell you if the registration wasn’t almost as arduous as the actual event, I might not have.

That makes more sense the better you know me.

This particular run is a big deal around here. It sells out in a few minutes. And since I’m competitive about stupid stuff, I get kind of wound up around this time every year.

First thing that morning, I was online, watching the countdown clock and yelling at my family to stop streaming stuff so I wouldn’t have fight for bandwidth at noon when registration opened.

I’d signed up and forked over my money before I even thought about what I was doing. And then I thought “well crap. I should probably train now.”

Fitness

The Ten Emotional Phases of a CSA Subscriber

August 13, 2016 3 Comments

The Ten Emotional Phases of a CSA Subscriber - ManicMumbling.com | One of the best kept CSA secrets is nobody knows what to do with broccoli rabe except sauté it in butter and hide it in a glob of mashed potatoes. It’s that time of year when our grass has turned brown and crinkly and I’m giving serious thought to xeriscaping, or maybe installing a Brady-family era AstroTurf lawn.

August is also known in the life of a CSA subscriber as “isn’t it about time we get some freaking tomatoes?”

About six years ago, I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle, about the virtues of eating locally. Since then, I’ll admit I’ve been one of those moderately insufferable farmer’s market shoppers, paying exorbitant prices for grass-fed beef and organic beets. We’ve also been subscribers to one community supported agriculture (CSA) program or another each year, which means every spring we start picking up a weekly allotment of locally-grown seasonal vegetables, and I start combing the internet for new ways to make kale palatable, and for answers to what the hell one is supposed to do with kohlrabi.

Fitness, Parenting

Blood drives and bucket lists

July 15, 2016 4 Comments

Photo: Rotary Global Network for Blood Donation. Not sure why the vampire capes were necessary.

About a month ago, Jack saw a blood drive van and told me he wanted to donate – had been wanting too for a while, in fact – and now that he was seventeen he could do so without parental permission, which makes two whole things I didn’t know.

What he actually said was it was on his “bucket list.” I told him he and I had different understandings of the term, but then he told me another list item was traveling to all seven continents. So maybe he does get it and is just a weirdo.

I’m not totally surprised he’d include something altruistic on his list of things to do before he dies, but why not digging wells in Africa or something? Building a house? Letting someone poke around trying to find a vein is on a list I keep too. A list of things that make me woozy if I think about them too much. Heights are on that list. Cleaning toilets. Ebola.

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