One week to go

This time next week I'll have my race packet. I'll have my number on my bike and helmet. I'll have the bike loaded on the car ready to head to the park ridiculously early - 4:30 AM, that is, since the park gates will close at 6 AM and all competitors must be inside the park, ready for the 6:30 swim start (my swim start will be a bit later, since starts are staged according to age group and mine is one of the last - I think it's a 7:10 start).  I will have attended the pre-race gathering the evening before and heard race instructions. Training will be done. It'll be race day.

I'm fighting nagging nervousness. My panicky experience two weeks ago with the open water swim practice has me feeling a little less confident than I had been feeling. My trail run today, which felt long and slow has me a bit worried about that 5k at the end.

I'm trying to be positive, trying to do all the mental work to set myself up to finish well. I'm telling myself that my goal is to finish, but really, I'd love to do it in a good time, though what that is for this first-time sprint triathlete, I'm not really sure.  We shall see. (Yes, I did the Ramblin' Rose in 2012, but that wasn't an official sprint tri. The Tri Latta is an official distance).

Tomorrow I'll do another open water swim practice. I hope I can breathe after 20 yards and don't have to flip over on my back and talk myself out of panic. If I do have a panic reaction again, I know what to do. It'll be ok and I'll just keep stroking and breathing and get past it.


I am so grateful for the gift of health; for the ability to swim, bike, and run; for the support and encouragement of family and friends.  I haven't shared in this space the really good news that my RA is now in medical remission, but that, too, is a tremendous gift which means that now when I hurt, it's not because joints are being destroyed, but because I've done a hard workout. It also means that I live mostly pain free these days, swollen joints no longer inflamed, hands and wrists no longer hurting all the time, rings sliding on and off easily. I wake in the mornings and do not hobble downstairs. It is good.

A year ago, I could not have imagined feeling this well. I had gotten used to pain, forgotten what it felt like to not hurt all the time. I just thought pain was my life. So, honestly, whatever happens next Saturday, it's been a journey that has been so worth taking. I'm already starting to wonder about the next race and how to improve ...

For now, time to pack the swim bag and get to bed. I'll keep you posted ...

November fitness goals

A couple of months back, my most-disciplined-exerciser-in-the-world husband asked me what my fitness goals were for the next few months.  I'm glad he asked the question because I've been rather hit or miss in the exercise department.  More hit than miss, but still, on my mapmywalk monthly workout summary, there are far too many empty spaces.  I feel it in my legs when I hop on the bike.  I feel it in my arms when I get in the pool.  I am neither as strong nor as cardiovascularly (is this a word?) fit as I have been in previous months/years. I needed the gentle nudge of Coty's question to get me thinking more seriously about my goals and formulate a plan to put them into action!

So, here are my November goals.  I'm planning to ...

1)  Exercise on a regular schedule:

Swim - twice per week
Cycle - twice per week
Walk/run - twice per week
That gives me one day off.

The key to maintaining this workout schedule will be planning ahead for swim and cycling days.  It's no big deal to get out the door and walk, but with cycling, weather is a much bigger factor so I'll need to look ahead at the forecasts and figure out at the beginning of each week which days will be my cycling days.  Swimming takes advanced planning, too, since it requires a bigger chunk of time.  I have to drive to the pool and back and there's changing and shower time included.  Also, I like to swim when the pool is least crowded (middle of the day) so I have to do it on a day when my mid-day is free.

2) Talk to the Masters Swim coach at the aquatic center and find out about swimming with the Masters swim team.  OK, this feels pretty scary to me.  I've never been on a swim team, never had any swim coaching or training.  Just community pool swimming lessons as a kid and lifeguard training at the Y in high school.  I have a LOT to learn.  I feel sort of intimidated by this and don't know if I'll do it.  The practices are from 5:30-6:30 AM.  It's dark then.  And cold.  And you have to go and jump into a cold pool.  After driving in the dark.  And the cold. I hope the lights are on in the pool.  But the water will be cold.  You get my drift.

But, this is the year of overcoming cold and dark wimp-hood for me.  I'm determined.  I'm going to embrace the dark ... and the cold.  My new motto, with thanks to a Minnesota friend, is, "It's never too cold.  You're just wearing the wrong clothes."  (I don't know how that works with a bathing suit. Not much you can do there, unless you don a full wetsuit, which I don't own or plan on purchasing. But I guess I can make sure I'm clothed sufficiently warmly on the way to the pool and back which, frankly, will be much easier in North Carolina than in Minnesota. Thank goodness for that).

3) Finally, in keeping with the above determination and my new motto, I plan on cycling through the winter this year.  I'm figuring out what the "right clothes" for winter cycling are for a small Southern woman who is cold from October til June.  I have thermal tights.  I have full finger cycling gloves and insulated lobster mitts.  I have a very bright cycling windbreaker. I'm looking at thermal cycling shirts, balaclavas and shoe covers. I have a warm house to come home to, hot showers, hot tea, hot chocolate, a heating pad, a space heater, a down comforter, a hot husband ; )  If I get cold, guess what?! I can warm up again.  I hope.   

So, that's it.  Those are my November fitness goals.  If I survive the month, I'll press on through the rest of the winter.  Hold me to it. OK?

Aches and Pains abate ...

with exercise.

I am continually amazed at the way my body works.  You would think that after a run, an arthritic ankle would hurt more.  You would think that after a long, strenuous bike ride, that same ankle would really be aching.  Not so.  I continue to marvel at the fact that when I exercise hard, my RA affected ankle feels better.  What a gift!

It's after things like spending all day cleaning the accumulated clutter of several months out of the garage that it hurts worse.  Well, there's an easy solution to that.  More cycling, less garage cleaning!

A little get-away

Coty and I had scheduled a little retreat far in advance of the decision to do the floors.  But the fact that the big mess days for the floor work were the days we were going to be away was pretty good timing.  When I arrived home today, Ben, our friend and wonderful floor man, said I was back too early. He told me to stay away for another week.  Not to be. We just had two days away, but they were two very relaxing, enjoyable, restful, refreshing days.

The view from the mountain house

We have decided that we want to come back here in August to watch the Perseid meteor shower across this expanse of sky with so few artificial lights in the vicinity!

Coty's goal - read Martin Lloyd Jones' sermons on Matthew 5 and 6.  That's 44 sermons. He did it.  I sat in the other cushy chair in front of the fire and finished two books, caught up with my Bible reading, finished a chapter in another book, and knitted.  

But we didn't just sit! On Tuesday afternoon, Coty went for a long bike ride.  There are some great routes on the country roads around Asheboro.  A bit hilly, but not much traveled and quite lovely.   While he was cycling, I visited the antique mall in town.

I have a bum ankle right now so hill walking and cycling are out.  Kathie introduced me to the weighted hula hoop and I decided to add the 5 pound dumbbells for a fun workout.  Pretty nice view behind me there.  Actually, most of the time I hula hooped looking across the valley to the ridges beyond.  

Some very generous people donated the funds to build the Powell/Warren Mountain house at camp. It is very pretty, very quiet, and very simple. It has a metal roof and I awoke during the night to the peaceful sound of rain on the roof.

The house was built specifically for pastors and their wives to use as a retreat house.  We are so grateful to these folks and to the Caraway staff for their gracious hospitality.

And though we came home to a mess, it's a happy mess!

Training, Part 2

When you feel like your body has betrayed you, as I did when I first heard the RA diagnosis, you can feel somewhat powerless.  That's certainly how I felt at first.  I felt sad.  I cried whenever anyone asked me about it. I imagined years of pain, a succession of drugs, decreased physical abilities, and more. It was a discouraging time.

Thankfully, it didn't last long.  I started to read and talk to other people and realized that one of the very best things for people with RA is physical activity.  And then, for a little bit, I felt defiant.  I thought I'd start running again and just overcome the pain by sheer force of will.  It didn't work.  Running resulted in sore joints and painful feet.  I couldn't keep it up.  I knew my exercise would have to be walking.

And now a little background....

In Kenya, where I've lived, people walk.  In Cameroon, where I've lived, people walk.  One of my first impressions on arrival in both countries was of people walking.  Driving from the airport into Nairobi and years later, into Douala, I saw people walking everywhere.  Walking from the outskirts of the city to jobs in the city center; walking from a slum on the west side to the bus station 5 miles away; walking from home to the open air market.  People walk.

In Cameroon, we bought coffee from a man named Pa Shadrach.  If we needed coffee, we told our neighbor's cook, Joseph who would somehow get the word to Pa Shadrach.  Without fail, Pa Shadrach would show up on our porch very early the next morning, having walked for more than an hour to bring us our coffee.  Pa Shadrach was in his 80's and strong as an ox.  He walked everywhere.

In Cameroon, we often went to visit the families of our students who lived in neighboring villages. This meant, at times, walking for an hour and a half to reach their homes.  Once at our destination, we sat down to tea, coffee, or a soda quickly purchased from the little shop down the road.  We talked, met the family, were shown the coffee plants and beans drying, the orange trees and mangoes.  We sat some more.  Perhaps neighbors came to meet us.  Then, after a good long visit, we walked home.  Such visiting could take an entire day because we had to walk.

When I lived in a small college town in Massachusetts, I loved to see the family that walked together to and from school.  It was a walk of about a half mile for them and rain, shine, snow, or wind, the mom in this family would bundle up her children, wrap the baby in a warm blanket and tuck him in the stroller and walk to school with her children.  In the afternoon, she was always there at the school to meet the children when they came out.  They walked along home chatting about the events of the day, I imagine.  The walk to and fro was together time and must, I think, have been a sweet part of the day for that family.

Can you tell...I have thought a lot about walking.  I love walking.  Living where I do, I often mourn the reality of car dependent suburban living.  Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I had to walk to the store.  How would I think more carefully about my purchases if I could only buy what I could carry home?  How much would walking places slow me down and simplify the tasks of the day by limiting me to what I could do "on foot."

I think about things like walking to my sister's house, 35 miles away.  Someday I want to do that.

I think about walking across my state.  Someday I want to do that.

All of these thoughts have been rattling around for a long time.  Then I got the RA diagnosis.  Finally, about a month back, a simple invitation brought all of this into focus and launched me into this decision to train for a marathon....

Training, Part 1

In October, I began doing something I haven't done since college.  I started training.  Distance walking training.   I'm not just walking for exercise, anymore.  No, this is honest to goodness training with the goal of walking a marathon in early 2010.  

In college, I trained.  Granted, I was one of the slowest runners on the very first Davidson College women's cross country team, but I worked hard, encouraged by a star track and cross country runner who later became my husband.  It was with him, one lovely Sunday afternoon that I ran the 10 mile loop on country roads around Davidson.  That's still the longest distance I've ever run.

Anyway, through the years, I have always exercised.  Its sort of a "given" when you are married to a man that has run a bunch of marathons and who took our young children on "Iron Kid" hikes for fun!  Though never as hard-core or disciplined as Coty, I've stayed reasonably fit over the years by running, walking, working, out and swimming.

Back when I had access to the Williams College gym, I was one of about twelve regulars who showed up at the fitness center as soon as the door opened at 6:00 AM to log in miles on the Stairmaster, do a couple of circuits with the Nautilus machines, and then swim.  Come to think of it, that was pretty hard core.  It may have been what helped me maintain my sanity with six children in various stages of babyhood, toddlerhood, and beyond.  It was good for me to get out the door and exercise.  Probably made me a nicer person to live with.  I will always be thankful that Coty made sure I had time to do that.

So now, thirty years (since college), six pregnancies, many years of nursing babies, life on two continents, and a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis later, I am beginning again to really train for something.

Why, you ask?

Well, the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) diagnosis has something to do with it.  Back in the spring, when I was told I had an autoimmune illness that could permanently damage by body, an illness that was, in fact, my own body attacking its healthy cells, I felt pretty low.  I have never been one to take medicine and it took me three weeks before I could bring myself to go to the pharmacy and pick up my prescription.  I just did NOT want to take a drug long term.  I felt like I was being betrayed by my body. 

I did finally start taking the medicine, and after about a month and a half on the drug, I started feeling better.  Well, maybe this drug thing isn't so bad, after all, I thought. Wrong! My first liver function test after being on the drug for a couple of months was really wacko and my doctor told me to stop taking the drug immediately!  My body couldn't tolerate it.  Well, I didn't want to take it anyway.  I threw the rest of the pills away and headed off to China and India for the summer...free from meds, but not free from pain.

When I got back home, I went back to see my dear rheumatologist.  I'm not a person who likes to go to the doctor (do you detect a theme here?), but I do really like this rheumatologist.  We talk.  I ask questions.  She explains.  I ask more questions.  She listens patiently and explains some more. She thinks about what to do.  She treats me like a person with a brain. We come up with a plan together.  She wanted to put me on a stronger drug but I held out for something weaker.  We negotiated and I won.  I'm on the less "toxic" drug.

Now the thing is, I knew that I was not only going to take medicine.  I've done lots of reading and know that there are many things that help improve the outlook for folks with RA.  Exercise, diet, fish oil (isn't it good for everything??), herbal supplements.  So, I knew that I could hold out for a less toxic, invasive drug and come at this malady in lots of other ways.

And that's where the walking comes in...