about those signs of spring

Yeah, back on January 27, I wrote about how the average high or low had inched up a degree.

Last Saturday, we got around 20 inches of snow where I live. Philadelphia International Airport recorded 28.5 inches. I saw someplace that Philadelphia has only had one prior winter season with 2 snowstorms of more than a foot. This season 2 of the top 3 storms of all time now have happened.

And there are forecasts that late tonight and tomorrow could see a foot or more of snow on top of what’s here. If that happens, it’ll be more snow than I’ve ever seen in my life.

Work is going to be closed tomorrow based on the forecast. Crazy. Not crazy that they’ve made the decision to have us stay home, but this weather is a bit crazy.

Oh yeah, so I don’t forget, this morning the average high moved up to 41 degrees. Funny stuff.

yesterday’s walks

Now 3 weeks ago the alternator in my car had to get replaced. The original one had gone kaput.

It was with unpleasant surprise Monday evening when driving home, I stopped at an intersection, looked down at my dashboard and saw the battery light was lit up, indicating that the battery wasn’t charging properly off the alternator. Fuck. I drove the last mile home, parked my car and then thought about what to do.

First thing was I figured to take it back to the garage that had replaced the alternator. I had the service done there, I’ve been happy with their service in the past and I hoped that if this new alternator had somehow failed, that I wouldn’t have to pay the price of getting one replaced again. Now from what I’ve read up on what happens when alternators fail, I knew that I had time in which the car would start and run before conking out. Of course, it’s a bit nerve wracking to drive a car you know will eventually conk out, but I armed myself with a number for a towing service in case it should happen on the 12 mile drive to the garage.

And oh yeah, since this garage is fairly near where I work during the day, I planned that I would drop the car off there and then walk to work.

So once it was light enough yesterday morning that headlights weren’t needed, I went out and got myself in the car, then started it once I had my seatbelt on. I had also turned off the blower fan for the heating because I wanted to run the car with minimal electricity drain. It was 18 degrees yesterday morning. I wore long johns under my work pants and put a pair of boxer briefs in my backpack. I also wore a flannel shirt over my polo shirt.

It was a bit of a cold ride up. But tolerable, the extra layers kept me from feeling chilled. It was with relief when I arrived at the garage and parked the car. Good not to have to shell out extra money on a tow. I got a drop off envelope out of the box, wrote down my info and what was going on and slid the envelope with a spare key into the envelope slot.

Then I walked. I judged that I should have enough time to make work on time if I moved briskly. Which also helped keep me warm. It’s not a bad walk overall, it’s a bit nerve wracking to walk the short distance on a fairly major road from the garage to the first smaller city street, but once you’re there then it’s pretty good and relaxing up until a section near the end where my office complex is located.

On the way up Ashbridge, I could see a truck a yellow flashing light up on top and coming towards me. I thought at first it was a garbage collection truck, up until I noticed that it was at a section where there were no houses. I also noticed what almost looked like steam falling off the back end of it. Finally I got to see enough to see what was going, it was a truck spraying salt brine on to the roadway to treat the roads for the snow predicted later that night.

I walked past it and continued. I followed the same set of turns I used back in September when this had also been done. My experience told me that was the way, the way, let me reiterate, the way to walk from the garage to my place of work when doing this. Intellectually I realized that I could make some different turns and with the squared up nature of the city blocks, there would be little to no difference in distance or time.

I went as the way that felt like a rule of how it’s done.

And I thought about that and how I have rules about how I do my runs near home. Some of those rules are quite necessary as they relate to me being a type 1 diabetic. Some are arbitrary, but they are there. They reassure me that I’m running in a productive and measurable way.

——

Shortly after I arrived at work, my cellphone rang. It was the garage. Yes, the new alternator had crapped out, it wasn’t putting out enough charge to recharge the battery. It was under warranty and they were getting a new one from the supplier for me and it would be replaced free of charge. Shew. I was happy to hear that.

—–

So 4:00 came and I checked out of work. I pretty well reversed my morning pattern, save for changing walking on opposing side of road for a stretch that had no sidewalks on either side and was necessary for me to follow the rule when you walk on a road, walk facing traffic. So you can see if a car is coming at you too close for comfort. It astounds me when I see people walking with traffic some places. Oddly enough I would do exactly that though on the stretch of main road up to the garage. But there I have sensible reasons to override that rule of walking — the road is busy and it can a fussy wait to get a chance to cross the road safely and I would have to cross it twice if I went to the other side and then crossed back at the garage. Plus the road has larger shoulders than often found on Pennsylvania roads, so I felt like it gave me enough comfortable margin. Still, I would almost obsessively keeping turning my head back to the left to give my eye a chance to see if something was coming up badly on me.

I also got a bit stressed in the afternoon traffic in the town part of the walk. There was so much going on. So much to observe and try to account for. At an intersection with a 4-way stop sign, I got to the curb a little bit after and waited for a car to cross the intersection. Having lost the rhythm of my feet moving along, I felt my right hand tap against my pocket while waiting.

Later on I felt a great deal of relief at a crossing with a stop light when my timing was fortunate enough I didn’t have to stop. I almost exhaled a sigh of relief at that.

—-

I’ve rambled enough. But that, that’s only a small portion of how I’ve been thinking a lot, a lot about the rules I have and perceive in this world around me.

almost Fran

The wind started blowing hard yesterday. Hard enough that the thought of running in it had no appeal whatsoever. But I wasn’t too pleased about the idea of bailing on a workout. So I’ve made myself a deal — any time I bail on running because of weather, I have to do Crossfit’s Fran workout instead. 95-lb thrusters and pull ups. The full prescription is for reps of 21-15-9, but I chopped that down to 15-9-6 because I figured 10 minutes of cardio hell would be plenty.

The last time I had attempted Fran was back in 2008, and when I did it, it was 65-lb thrusters. I knew then that I didn’t have enough squatting leg strength to do the full 95. But with the progress I’ve made on squatting strength over the last few months, I felt it was time to do 95 lbs.

I had forgotten how evil those thrusters are. You drop down into a squat and then explode back up trying to driving the bar off the shoulders’ rack position and then up over the head. It is brutal. Your whole body is getting work almost — the hamstrings and glutes, the quads, the calves, the triceps, the pectorals, the lower back to keep you stable. It gets at almost everything. And when you’re done the thrusters, you go off to the kipping pull ups to get more hard work and catching areas you miss with the thrusters.

When I finished up 9 minutes and 27 seconds later, I collapsed to the floor and panted for a while. Later in the evening, my hamstrings were screaming at me. What the fuck did you do to us, they asked me.

I figure this deal will always get me a good cardiovascular workout and now that I remember the hell that is Fran, may inspire me to gut it out more when the weather is a bit inclement.

a step towards spring

Back in December, there was the solstice, the day that slipping away of daylight reached an end here in the northern hemisphere and we began to see the daylight hours grow longer again. I thought about that last night as I drove home after running at the park. A month ago a run at the park meant a drive home in the thickening darkness, now it’s still twilight and the world feels more open.

This morning I checked my local weather listing on wunderground and saw something which hadn’t happened now for a long long time. The average high moved a degree upward, from 39 to 40. The average daily low remained at 23, but it’s begun. We’re starting to warm up again. Longer daylight and warmer weather, we’ve taken a couple of steps towards spring.

——

I was tired yesterday. Didn’t sleep well the night before. When I ran the few miles, it felt like I could close my eyes and run while I slept.

I slept much better last night.

160 lbs on the scale this morning.

I’ll be lifting tonight, military press and deadlift are the two big ones that must be done. Then depending on time and how I feel, I may add in a few other lifts. That’s just supplemental work. The military press and the deadlift are the ones to make me stronger overall and get me to grow if I feed myself right. That’s been happening. I was down around 150 lbs at the end of November. Now I’m consistently seeing scale readings of at least 157 and up to 160. I expect in February I should likely see the bottom number rise to 160 and the upper number maybe reach 163 or 164. When that happens, that will be the biggest I’ve ever been in my life.

my legs were

tired. I didn’t try to run hard at all yesterday and it still felt hard. There are some runs where even running hard doesn’t seem like much effort, just let the legs go do what they want to do. Not yesterday, even a slopping slow effort had me struggling to say “just keep going.” I felt every one of the 1890 lbs I pulled with the 7×270 lbs of deadlifts of the final set on Wednesday.

But I got it done. That’s good. Now I got to run tomorrow, I’d like to do at least 8 miles. We’ll see what happens. Next week should be an easier running week anyhow, I did my 2 sessions of hard lifting this week and next week is a recovery type of week for strength. So not an easy running week in terms of cutting back on miles, not that I can say right now I can cut back with how little I’ve been running, but easier in how my legs won’t be so tired, I hope.

I had some awful dreams last night. Woke me up at 11:30, at 4, and the alarm woke me from the final one this morning at 6.

sleepy

I woke up to the alarm today and it felt like I could have just closed my eyes and slept another few hours.

I lifted yesterday. Was very pleased with both results, military press of 5×85, 3×95, and 9×105. Then deadlifts of 5×215, 3×240, 7×270. Ahhh, those deadlifts. I think the squatting I’ve been doing is helping there. Last year I was having a tendency to cheat my form on the deadlifts, to alleviate that I took to doing sumo deadlifts to get my hips lower and avoid a tendency to good morning the weight up. But not yesterday, all 7 reps of the 270 lbs were very good with my lower back remaining solid and the hamstrings and glutes working properly.

I also did a short run yesterday, got the legs warmed up, then did 6×10 second hill sprints.

I’m going to run this afternoon. Don’t know how my body and legs will do. I suspect those 7 reps of heavy deadlifts might have me whacked some.

brrr, it was cold

Cold weather this past weekend. Windy too. I didn’t run. I’ve only run 6.6 miles the past 3 weeks. Fuck. It’s supposed to moderate some these next 2 weeks.

I lifted yesterday. I did the main 2 lifts, bench press and squats early on then during the rest of the day I had some fun with lunges, barbell curls (which isn’t completely an isolation exercise, you do need to tense up the musculature of the shoulders and back), and rows. Also did 3 sets of 5 glute-ham raises, the negatives as I work on strengthening my hamstrings to first be able to control the descent the whole way.

I’ve begun to believe that most of the time, most people don’t really think of other people as people, as human beings. Our brains have to use models to help us navigate the physical and social world around us, and the truth about models is that they are inherently limited in how much depth and detail they have. So many of the people we know of are kept as only thin and sparse models of them in our heads. This has the advantage of keeping us from dwelling too much on things and moving us along in taking action and making decisions.

The problem with it all is when it permits stupidity and cruelty to dominate, especially in a case where an in-group and out-group situation has formed. It’s much easier for all of us to be cruel towards someone we don’t fully recognize as being human, in our heads we aren’t hurting another person, we are hurting their caricature.

And caricature is so easily done.

I have reasons now in my life to be frustrated and angered by this.

stronger, faster

Of course one of the goals this year is to get stronger. Do that while also getting faster at running. Running has taken a bit of hit lately since the big snow back in December that messed up places for me to run, then getting a cold last week. I finally ran again on Tuesday night, but just 2.5 miles. I’ll try to run some more this evening, at least 4 miles.

I did overhead presses and deadlifts last night. For the OHP, 3×80, then 3×90, then as many reps of 100 lbs as I could do, 9. I was happy about that. Then I moved on to deadlifts, 3×200, 3×225, then as many reps of 255 lbs as I could do, 6. I was a bit disappointed, I think 7 should have been at least how many reps. But overall I felt strong while doing the reps, better than I felt on Monday night when I did bench press and Zercher squats, I felt weak during those.

I put on about 5 or 6 lbs in December. I hope to equal that this month. To achieve that, the plan is to try to make sure I lift 2x a week and do my sets and reps for squats and deadlifts. Along with drinking at least half a gallon of milk every day. I’m able to drink a pint before I leave for work, I buy a quart on my way into work, drink a pint of it in the morning and then another pint at lunch, then I drink at least another pint with dinner. If I have to raise blood sugar, I drink milk for it and get some more to put me up over half a gallon for the day.

I’ve been having way too many low blood sugars lately. Already this month I’ve had 7 blood sugars down in the 30s. I got to start to taking more detailed notes and data again. I’ve gotten lazy and I don’t really know what the numbers are and what the numbers should be doing.

A couple months or so from now will be my 25th anniversary of diagnosis as a type 1 diabetic. On Sunday, Chantal said to me she doesn’t see me as a diabetic, but as a person with diabetes. Her point was that I may sometimes too strongly identify myself in ways that identify a certain broken nature. She wants me to see myself as being whole, being complete, being healthy. It’s hard though. Very hard. Very hard when every day sees me stabbing my fingers 8 to 10 times and so frequently I see numbers that show something is wrong, whether the blood sugar is too low or too high.

Overall, I do a decent job at keeping it from being too much of a restriction or intrusion into my life, or even more importantly, upon what Chantal and me do together. Still it has its moments and it’s always in my head. That’s frustrating to me. And sometimes to her. But it’s not going away, it just has to be managed. Constantly. Always.

I love her more than anything I’ve ever known in my life. At times, it elevates me, makes me whole, makes me feel strong and wonderful and capable. But then there are those other times, when I feel doubt about myself, feel a bit broken in managing what’s broken about me or not so wonderful, then I struggle some.

And try to remind myself that she’s worth fighting for with everything I’ve got. And I can’t let myself stop me.

winter in a wintry place

I was up in Montreal over the weekend. It pretty much snowed the whole time I was there. At times it was very light and it never really snowed super hard, but it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. With a little more snow on top of that.

On Saturday I went running in snowshoes for the first time ever. They were a Christmas present to me from Chantal. Snowshoe running seems to be suited to my bow legs, I just let my legs spread out and I never had any troubles with the snowshoes clacking together.

I’m very tired this morning, Monday. Saturday night we went to see Avatar in IMAX 3d and the movie started at 10:30. We didn’t get back from it until like 2 in the morning or so. It feels like my body’s clock has been hit by a hammer. Especially since my flight home last night got delayed about an 1 hour and 20 minutes. The landing in Philly was a bit nerve-wracking, the gusty winds were really pushing the plane around and we kind of jolted down onto the runway with the right side wheels touching first and then the left side slapping down.

Didn’t get home until 11:30, got in bed a little after midnight, then woke up 30 minutes prior to the alarm. Ugh.

getting better

On Saturday, I woke up and felt a little off. By late morning, I could feel how my throat was starting to go bad, it was swelling up and becoming uncomfortable. The sore throat would last me all through Sunday, but when I woke up Monday morning it was gone. Instead, my nose had turned into a faucet and spent much of the day constantly needing to be blown out and wiped.

The nose is still dripping some today, but not nearly so much and I’ve also finally lost the warm feeling behind the eyes. Also feel more energetic, yesterday I felt drained all day long. I feel good enough that I could even run this afternoon, but it’s super windy today and I don’t feel like having all that additional discomfort.