It's 3am...

It's 3 am...


...and I'm wide awake.


These last few weeks have been rather eye-opening for me, pun intended.


As many of you know, I broke a toe 2 weeks ago. I stubbed it on Friday, December 5th and had surgery the following Thursday (December 11th) to put a pin in the spiral fracture to keep the bones together and stationary while it heals.


My doc said he wouldn't routinely do this, but because of my running, Spinning and biking, he recommended we hold the bones together with something besides taping one toe to the other. He promised me a quicker recovery and less pain when I started running again. (My orthopedist is one of my Spinning students; we've known each other for 10 years.)


His original plan was to put two screws in the toe, but luckily he was able to get the two bones secured with just one pin; no incision and the pin will be removed at the end of 4 weeks post-op.
Of course, this means I am wearing one of those awful "moon boots" on my foot to keep my foot from moving around and to protect the exposed pin from getting stepped on. I'm still supposed to "stay off" the foot, and when I do walk, I'm to keep my weight off the front of the foot so I'm really hobbled by it.


Worse still? No walking, spinning, running or swimming. Yeah, you heard right. The cardio junkie is spending most of her free time on the couch.


And let me state, for the record, that if this is the worst thing that happens to me this year or next, I'll consider myself a fortunate person. In the scheme of things, I'm grateful for my health and my family's health, and I'll never take it for granted. But that doesn't mean I have to be happy about this!


I've always said no one ever got fat from sitting around...that people get fat from sitting around eating. So I'm trying my best not to do that. The good news here is that cooking is cumbersome--I am slow at EVERYTHING right now--so I haven't been too tempted to replace my exercise time with kitchen time.


But while inactivity alone may not make you fat, it has a whole lot of other downsides. And maybe for people who aren't used to exercising a lot, these things aren't an issue, but for me, as I'm entering my third week of doing absolutely nothing, I'm learning a lot about the hazards of inactivity...and a lot about myself.


1) Exercise is a powerful anti-depressant. Endorphins are feel-good hormones and exercise increases seratonin levels. Exercise improves your mood and decreases anxiety; suddenly doing without it is a lot like stopping your Prozac without weaning yourself from it. To call me "grumpy" would be a gross understatement.


2) Exercise improves your circulation and sweating makes your skin look great. There are really no benefits to sweating, per se. The idea that you sweat out toxins is bullshit. You sweat out SWEAT--water, salt, minerals--to cool your body. Contrary to what many people would have you believe, sitting in a sauna doesn't rid your body of toxic anything. It just dehydrates you.



That said, I swear that sweating a lot during a workout makes my skin look fantastic. In part it's the increased blood flow but it's also the oils and moisture brought to the surface of the epidermis. Right now my skin is dry and pasty looking.


3) Did you know the primary causes of constipation are a low fiber diet and inactivity? Sorry if this is TMI, but I had to take a laxative for the first time in my life last week because all this sitting around has all but brought my digestive system to a screeching halt. Everything I eat upsets my stomach because my whole system has slowed down...and you all know how I adore food. I guess the good news is it's forced me to eat less, which is good given the 3500-4500 calories a week I am suddenly no longer burning.


4) Cardio fitness gives you more energy and muscle makes you stronger. A bit of a no-brainer, huh? Yeah. Here's the thing. My friend Liz, who is an incredibly smart and educated trainer, says that after just two weeks of inactivity, you start losing muscle tone. After 4 weeks you start losing cardio fitness. But honestly, I'm feeling the effects of both already. I went from doing 7 hours (minimum) of exercise a week to nothing, and I have zero energy and I can already feel myself getting weaker.



5) Exercise improves sleep. Not only has this been scientifically proven a thousand times over, I know it from experience. I was always a terrible sleeper until my early 20s, when I started exercising regularly and intensely. I was amazed then at how quickly I fell asleep (it used to sometimes take me 30 minutes, usually more) and how well I stayed asleep, once I incorporated exercise into my life. This recent lack of exercise explains why I am writing this blog at 3:15 am, while everyone else in the house--including the cat--is sound asleep.


6) Ugly footwear blows. Yes, yours truly, in addition to suffering the indignity of dragging herself around in one of these...



.
















..has had to encase her one good foot in a thick soled, flat shoe so as not to walk like a drunken sailor or risk hurting my back and knees with an uneven gait. A colorful collection of sexy, beautiful shoes is languishing in my closet the way I'm languishing on this fucking couch, and I feel like a frumpy old lady.

So what have I learned here?

Well...I've learned that I am an exercise junkie. And based on how I feel physically and emotionally, I'm learning that this little addiction isn't a BAD thing.

I've learned that I'm going to be a crotchety bitch in my old age. If I ever get to the point where I lose my mobility before I lose my faculties, it won't be pretty.

I've learned that handicapped parking spots aren't really any closer to the door than the regluar spots, and that an aircast boot in the snow is more slippery than a greased watermelon in a swimming pool

I've learned that you can't teach a Spinning class with one leg but that you can teach a really challenging, interesting class without ever once getting on the bike. Any instructor will tell you that the hardest thing to do is to teach a whole class off the bike. But once you nail this, it will forever change the way you teach--for the better.

I've learned that I have to learn to be patient and give myself a break. I can't change this situation, I can only make the best of it. So I'm going to hobble to the weight room tomorrow (um, ok, technically TODAY) and at least do all my upper body and ab work, and see if I can manage a few unweighted squats without hurting my foot. I'm going to try to do this a couple times a week. I won't get the endorphine rush and I won't work up that great-for-my-skin kind of sweat, but at least it's something.

And I've learned that I really, really, really miss my shoes.

Performance Enhancing "Drugs"

Originally written September 24, 2007 - Monday


Just to be clear, this isn't a missive on how Floyd Landis was stripped of his Tour de France title. That topic has been discussed ad nauseum on every cycling board in the world.

This is a post about something to which every athlete reading this can relate. The "runner's high". The "endorphin rush". The natural version of morphine that is produced after an extended period of high intensity exercise. The natural performance-enhancing drug.

You've all been there. Four miles into your run, thinking you won't make it through the fifth when suddenly you feel a burst of energy that takes you easily over that last mile. Or even 20 minutes into Spinning class, feeling like you have legs of lead and won't make it through the class...and the next thing you know the instructor is leading the cool-down. Or climbing some 15% grade on your bike, thinking you might actually have to get off and walk at some point, and the next thing you know you're at the summit.

It's real. It exists. And if you like challenging your body, you've experienced it and you crave it. That explains why athletes and triathletes go out there day after day and push their bodies to their limits.

In Philadelphia there is an annual bike race; it's one of the top races in the country and it draws riders and teams from all over the world. The course for the race takes riders through the city, along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway by the famous art museum, and along beautiful, winding Kelly (East River) Drive along the Schuykill, then through a neighborhood called Manayunk. Manayunk is literally set into the side of a hill, like some of the villages in Italy.

This is obviously an important part of the course route because it features a stretch of road known as "The Wall". Thus nicknamed by local cyclists, as in "hitting the wall", it is about a 20% grade if memory serves. I've walked it (difficult in and of itself) but never ridden it. When I lived in Philly I wasn't a strong enough rider to attempt this hill. But I'm going there in 3 weeks and I've already arranged to rent a road bike at a shop a few blocks from "The Wall".

Note the photo below. Don't look at the rider yet, just look at the crowd of spectators to her left and then the roof-lines of the houses. The fact that the roof of one house is level with the first story of the house above it gives you a pretty good idea of the steepness of the hill.

I don't have a lot of experience with hills. Michigan, at least in the lower portions, is pretty flat. I'm pretty sure I'm not up to this challenge, but I'm also not above getting off my bike and walking. The worst that can happen? I lose my momentum while clipped into the pedals, not be able to get a foot down in time and go over sideways like some Monty Python animation. One good thing about being too old to be a great athlete is that I'm mature enough not to give a shit if I make a fool of myself.

Back to the photo. We've established that this is a bastard of a hill. Now look at the rider. She's out of the saddle; that means she's really pushing hard. Look at her braids flying. She's got that bike whipping back and forth with the force of her pedal stroke.

Now look at her face. That grin is priceless.

I want to be her, if only for 5 minutes.

Powerful drugs, those endorphins.