Category: health

That Makes Two

The only thing more shocking to me than starting a running program thingie is that two days after the first “event” I went outside and did a second. Really… the first one is staggeringly unlikely for me. The second… literally unthinkable.

The app I have been using keeps some stats but I haven’t nerded out on them yet. Now that I have two data points for comparison, you can guarantee I’ll be pouring over whatever is there soon enough. Up until now the only thing I’ve checked out was the super groovy GPS map that shows my route. Given that my route is just around the circle we live on, it isn’t anything terribly interesting. More of an oval than a circle. I think it’s super cool though.

Today’s drill was identical to two days ago. Walk for three minutes, run for one minute. Repeat six times. I haven’t looked into round three yet, but I did notice that it’s supposed to last longer. The first two were 25 minutes (that math doesn’t add up… think they are lying to me?). The next one says 33. We’ll see how it goes on Saturday.

Fun With Migraines

Was the headache I had yesterday a migraine? I thought it might have been, but I wasn’t 100% sure. It usually starts with my vision going blurry and a blank spot in my field of view. The actual headache either comes half an hour later or doesn’t really come at all. Yesterday they headache came first followed by a little bit of blurry vision, but not too much.

Today there was no doubt. At 1:30, shortly after sitting down to eat my lunch, my vision went bad in the exact manner it normally does. I took some Tylenol right away. The vision started clearing about 20-25 minutes later. There hasn’t been much headache pain, though I do feel a little foggy headed.

Now it’s almost 3:00 and I feel well enough that I am able to work without issues. I just wish it had skipped me today. Two days with headaches in a row is pretty crappy.

Rough Night

It started a little after 4:00. Migraine. Shit. Usually my vision goes weird, then the headache comes a little while later. Today it was the other way around. The headache hit out of nowhere and it was bad. Then my vision went all screwy.

After about an hour and a half my vision was okay but the headache was hanging on. Not nearly as bad as it was at the start, but it was lingering. Jen made chicken in the air fryer for dinner and it was fabulous. Unfortunately I had one bite too many and the foamies hit. Worse than that? It’s been two hours and my stomach still feels blocked up. I have another 15 grams of protein to go to hit today’s goal so I have to have something to eat.

One last annoying thing. I am friggin’ exhausted. Is it the couch to 5k’s fault? I don’t think so. I just don’t sleep enough and sometimes it catches up with me and kicks my ass. Yippee.

Tomorrow is going to suck out loud. It’s an in-the-office day and I have meetings almost all day. Worse, I am running all of those meetings. I hate when that happens. Before work though I will need to watch the series premier of Marvel’s Secret Invasion. I’ll also have to play some guitar. I have four songs leftover from May that need rhythm guitars. Only two are ready to go though. Hopefully I’ll be able to sneak one of them in before I have to pack up and get ready for the commute. That means I am going to have to get up early.

Yeah, tomorrow is going to be a tough one. Tonight has already been a tough one. It’s going to be the old one-two punch of suck.

Wish me luck.

I Have Experienced Hell and Lived to Tell the Tale

Wow! Was that ever sucky!

I really thought I was deluding myself but here I am, recapping the first painful, awful, baby step.

Can you dig it?

I just finished the first couch to 5k experience. I neither ran five kilometers nor actually traveled five kilometers. It’s just the first step. The app had me walk for three minutes then run for one minute, and repeat that process six times. I am pretty sure I died during the second run, and then died again during each of the remaining runs. I was planning on going to the movie theater parking lot but when push came to shove I just stayed in the neighborhood and went around the block a bunch of times, ignoring the fact that I was really insecure about all of my neighbors staring out their windows watching me the entire time, which I am 100% sure was happening at each and every house on the street.

What did I learn from this experience?

  • I learned that the coach the app has chirping in your ear the whole time is an annoying person.
  • I learned that jogging is a whole ton more difficult than yogging.
  • I learned that, while I don’t have nearly the loose skin issue I expected I would have a year after gastric bypass, there is loose skin in my world right now and when you start actually running for real, that loose skin literally jiggles and it’s a slightly disturbing experience.
  • I learned that running fucking sucks. I mean I only ran for six minutes but WOW did it suck.

Couch to 5k workout number two will take place on Thursday. Wish me luck.

On a slightly related note, I did make a friend out on the road this morning.

Couch to 5K: Take Two

I installed another Couch to 5K training app on my iPhone today. I did it the other day only to get iCockBlocked by a required subscription plan. This time I was able to get to the training description (run for one minute, walk for three during your first workout) without being forced to pay money. I take that as a win.

The app wants you to do three workouts per week. My questions for myself are, when and where? The when will probably be Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I would rather do Monday, Wednesday, and Friday but Wednesday is my in-the-office day and there isn’t a lot of time in the morning to waste on things like workouts. So I think we’ll start on Tuesday.

The where is another issue. Originally I was planning on just running around the block, starting at the end of my driveway. I don’t know if I want to subject the neighbors to such a terrible site though. Now I am thinking of following my same game plan for car music. There’s a movie theater in town that doesn’t open until well after I start my work day. They have a huge parking lot that often doubles as my recording studio. I think that, starting Tuesday, it might also double as my 5K training track. Either that or the rail trail downtown. Maybe I’ll alternate between the two. Who knows.

Fingers crossed I don’t chicken out on Tuesday morning. We’ll see how it goes. I’m sure I’ll write 236972357 blog posts sharing every minute detail.

Couch to 5K?

When we went to Disney World* back in January we were there for the Disney Marathon weekend. The weekend ends with a marathon, but in the days leading up to it there was a half marathon, a 10K, and a 5K. Jen suggested that next year I should run the 5K.

I was thinking about it last night. I fake run more than 5K pretty much every day. At the pace I go when I jog in place in the cellar (pronounced “yog” with a soft J) I run for 32 minutes, which is enough to close my 30 minute exercise ring while also rounding off to the nearest mile, which is four miles. 5 kilometers is 3.1 miles, so my watch congratulates me for running a 5K every day.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that my faux running is about as far removed from actual running as you can get. I don’t actually run 5K, I just pretend. We are all in agreement on that, right? If I were to actually take up actual running, I would need help and I would need to carefully build up stamina before running any notable distance.

That brought me to YouTube last night when I should have been sleeping. I searched for “couch to 5k” and started watching. A few minutes ago I installed a Couch to 5K app on my iPhone. I promptly deleted it after it took all of my information and then prompted me for the $40/month subscription. Fuck you.

I have an idea of how to start based on a video series I watched last night. Now the question is, do I actually do it? Am I seriously thinking about taking up running? It would be pretty cool to run the Disney World 5K next year. Pretty cool indeed. It might even impress my wife a little, which is more or less my goal for everything I do.

We’ll see.

*More on Disney World coming soon. You have been warned.

Stress

Why are things stressing me out today? Everything is rubbing me the wrong way. I feel like I am fucking things up at every turn. First my stupidity with the trash pickup this morning. I’m not even going to mention the mouse trap incident from this morning. That would just make me sad.

There isn’t anything specific that’s going wrong today, it just feels like everything weighs 10 times more than it should, emotionally speaking, and I am doing everything wrong.

What the hell, Robert? Stop being like that. Everything is fine.

Everything that is except for the fact that I am in the office when I would rather be home, and it’s friggin’ freezing in this conference room right now. Brrr, babie. I wanna go home and hug Jen and pet the kitties and play some shitty blues rock on the guitar. Those are my happy places. Those are my mental health medicines.

Sleepy

Despite the possible influence of a mild migraine headache overnight last night, I thought I got a decent night’s sleep. Apparently I was wrong. I have felt seriously exhausted all day today, and it’s especially bad (as it often is) after I finished lunch. I just feel really tired and I wish I didn’t.

I didn’t use my CPAP machine last night. For some reason I thought it would be a mistake to wire myself up while dealing with a migraine. I didn’t want any extra noise or distractions. I just wanted to pass out and stay that way until the alarm went off. I think it worked, but now I expect if I had put the machine on I would feel better tonight. Hindsight, and all that crap.

Change of subject, all of the guitar playing I’ve done over the last few days is really making me want to get the work I need done to my two 1970’s Gibsons. I have two shops I want to bring them to and get an estimate from. One is in Rockport, MA, which is an hour away from here. The upside of that shop is that it’s open on Saturdays. The other shop is in Malden… or Medford… same difference. They are not open on weekends though, but they are open until 7:00pm on weekdays. I should be able to get there before they close. I am thinking of making an appointment for 6:30 or so next Monday. I have no clue how much they will charge for frets and wiring. I just hope it’s low enough that I can pay for work on both guitars without needing to sell anything else. If I do need to raise a little more money I will probably sell my Fender Bassbreaker 18/30 amp, but I don’t think I will be able to get very much for it.

I might sell the 18/30 anyway, even if the money I raised is enough to pay for the three things I need. Maybe I could raise a little more fundage and pay for new pickups for the Les Paul Custom. I don’t know. That’s a pie in the sky kinda thing.

I am really tired and I still have 2.5 hours to go in my work day. Blah. I hope to get some better sleep tomorrow. I might mix a song before bed though. I have three songs ready to go. Huzzah, right? Rock and Roll.

Fear the Walking Migraine

Last night at about quarter to 11:00 I decided it was time to go to bed. At that very moment, I noticed my eyes were off. I was just starting to have the first symptom of a migraine. It wasn’t bad, but it was there. I turned off the lights, buried my head in the pillow, squeezed my eyes shut, and within five minutes was asleep.

When I woke up I had a mild headache, but nothing too bad. I got up (after hitting snooze six times) and got dressed and started my day. I added some Extra Strength Tylenol to my morning vitamins for what remained of the headache and went down cellar to do my day’s exercise.

That’s when things went bad. What happened, you ask? I put on last night’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead. What else could cause such a disaster?

Spoilers ahead, but it’s probably okay because you’re not dumb enough to watch this idiotic show, are you? I’m the only one left watching, I am positive of that.

Anyway, you’ve been warned… spoilers for what passes as a plot for season nine episode five… I think.

I always bitch about how the plot for this show is constantly driven by people talking on magic walkie talkies that have unlimited range, unlimited battery life, and there is only one channel available so everyone in the former United States of America can hear every word, yet they still constantly give away all of their plans and positions while knowing the baddies are listening in. It’s the dumbest plot device imaginable.

Anyway, this episode kicked it up a very large notch. I have to believe that the writers and show runners wrote this episode to troll us. You see, the entire episode was people sitting around talking on walkie talkies. Seriously, pretty much the entire episode was just people talking on walkie talkies. There was one other plot device in play. Yeah, it was the seven year old kid making all of the decisions. The seven year old kid traveled all over Georgia with a dying adult who was going to turn into a zombie at any moment and everyone was okay with that. The seven year old kid performed radiation therapy on a patient. The seven year old kid was able to run a railroad hand cart without help. As if those things do not require any strength at all to operate. The seven year old kid decided where to go and what to do. All of which was done over a walkie talkie, of course.

Fuck this show

The worst part is that much of Reddit is on blackout today to protest the company charging enormous fees to access their API, thus putting a number of third party apps out of business, and r/fearthewalkingdead is down so I can’t bitch to like minded masochists.

This sucks.