In which is furlongs and more acronyms than reasonable.

unning in the Wee Town is interesting. The best training I ever did, I did in Southern Ontario, where there were at least the remnants of a rural grid of roads. Knowing how far I ran was relatively easy, with a ruler and a map. And here... not so easy.

The local roads are laid out in a sort of mangled radial pattern, following the lines of less resistance, wherever they may lead. In Toronto, runs can be planned by "Go to the next county road and turn right." Here, if you look for a chance to turn right and circle back home, you have to run to the next town first. Towns here are spaced out a great distance. (Parts of the province are rural. Other parts would require major immigration and serious infill development to become rural.) Loop runs around here start at five or six miles. So, to run a known distance, I'm up at the track. The track brings in a whole new method of measurements.


Back in the stone age(i.e. the 1970's), as we slowly discovered the world, some parts of it made more sense than others. One part which made little sense at the time was systems of measurement. The imperial system involves multiples of three, and twelve, and sixteen, which had just been discovered to be Too Complicated. (Seriously, the twelve times table? What kind of twisted genius super-race can multiply by twelve? Have we even discovered the twelve times table, or is that the thing they're working on at the CERN Large Hadron Collider?)

The alternative was the metric system. I'm sorry, the Système International. The SI has no commonly used measure of length between something smaller than the width of your little finger, and something longer than your arm, and is now the world standard. There is an undeniable genius to French political culture.

Of course, as with all declarations of new and perfect systems, subversion started immediately. Running tracks are now 400 meters. This is about seven and a half feet short of a quarter mile, which is not enough make a difference in training, or in any racing that most of us are likely to do. So, even though the local track is in meters, my training approach has not had to change since the 1970s. 

What has changed, drastically and fairly recently, is my ability to run. The last time I did any serious running, I measured my training in miles. That's not going to happen for a while. When I first went up to the track, I could run half a mile before I gassed. Intellectually, I know that's not far. Physically, it feels far. How to measure the distance? 

Meters, and yards are not marked anywhere on the ground. Miles and kilometers are discouraging, when you're running fractions of them. Even a lap is a discouraging distance right now. What's less discouraging is a half lap. Half a lap is within about three feet of... a furlong. 

Oh, the furlong. The perfect measurement. Organic. Sensible. Logical. Based on the well-known distance that an ox team could plow between rests. Standardized at 40 rods, the rod being the standard, normal, sixteen-and-a-half-foot long ox-whacking implement; no home should be without one, otherwise you may find yourself with an ox to whack, and nothing to whack it with, and then where are you? Don't say I didn't warn you.

Furlongs are easy to measure on the track. You run from one football goal line around to the other. They're short enough that I can run multiples of them, but not too many multiples to keep track of.

The current running workout is this: 
 Every week or two, do the Foot Journey of Length (FJ/L). (I can't call it a long run, because I'm still walking most of it.) As part of it, see how far or how long I can run non-stop. This is the Distance of Temporary Significance. (D/TSig.)

Two days a week, divide the D/TSig. in half. Run three of them, with a little rest in between. 
A third day each week, either repeat the above, or divide the D/TSig. in quarters, and run six of them, or, spend a Time of Astonishing Length (T/AL) on the the bike at the gym. The bike is useful, in the event of Unreasonable Soreness of Feet (US/Ft).

The fourth day, do any of the above, or repeat the FJ/L. 

When the D/Sig. gets over a mile, I'll rework the workouts, but for now this workout works.

Last Saturday, I did my Foot Journey of Length (FJ/L). It comes out to about six miles (thank you milermeter.com!) Of this, I could run about three quarters of a mile nonstop. (thank you again, milermeter!) Now, a furlong being half of a quarter mile, and a lap of the track being a quarter mile, I'm running three furlongs, three times. I've done this on Monday and Wednesday, and today I'm off to the bike, because of the previously referenced US/Ft.

More to come soon: The End of Railing, The Building of a Box, and the Visit of the Great Tucker.
  

In which is haste

Or

Which is in haste. Curved space confusion strikes again.


Some things to catch up on , and some excuses for delay.

First, the second blood test came back.

Fasting Glucose 4.4 (down from 6.4)
Haemoglobin A1C 5.1 (down from 6.

Basically, the probability of going blind and losing my extremities has taken  a very large hit. This entailed a visit to Dairy Queen... because if you go out for ice cream, there aren't leftovers in the fridge, calling softly to you in the wee hours of the morning. Or the middle sized hours of the afternoon.  Or the large-ish hours of the early evening, when it's hot and humid, and you've worked kind of hard, and deserve it. (Yeah, I know. Humidity in Nova Scotia. Who saw that coming?)

Second, I'm hurting in new ways, because I've taken up a new, and I hope brief, career in (very) rough carpentry. 

A few weeks back, Sue and I bought a house in Kentville. We're renting it to my son and daughter-in-law and their son, Micah (AKA Howlin' Mouse the Bluesman). It requires some changes to make it a little safer. The one I'm working on now is the railing around the back deck.  

"But Bob," you cry. "Granted that you are the Suzerain of Profitless Arcana, what do you know about building decks?"

And comes the answer: "A hell of a lot more than I knew three weeks ago."

I went down on the first of June, and came back on the ninth. At that point, I had removed the stairs on the north side (by the simple expedient of picking them up and walking away with them. You see why I thought the deck needed a bit of work?) The north side is now a rose arbour. (Note: If you want people to walk there, DON'T PLANT ROSE BUSHES. Just don't, okay? The two species are happier in a long distance relationship, for values of long ≥ three feet.)

By the ninth of June, there was a railing on the east side which pretty much meets code. There were steps on the east side which will meet code when I get hand rails on. There was a vague impression that somebody had been pounding nails into random parts of my body.

Now, a week later, I'm heading back to do the south side. There will be pictures.

In which things get intense, arguable madness ensues...

For the last few weeks, the weight loss has been kind of stuck. Certain changes must be made. Here they go.

     First, the weight workouts have been changed, again. They have the gall to be divided into three parts. The first part uses some intensity, in the 8-10 rep range. Second is a volume section, which uses 50-75% of the weight in the first part, for many, many sets. The third part is the small stuff, mostly rehab for shoulders and knees.

     I'm using two workouts. The first is leg presses, bench presses and seated rows. The second is deadlifts, military presses and pulldowns. With the exception of deadlifts, these will all happen on machines. Deadlifts may well get swapped out for more leg presses, because of a weird cultural thing at my gym.

     Most gyms I've been in are based around machines. The free weight section (if there even is one) is tucked away at the back, and is nearly deserted. Everybody wants to use the machines, with that sweet, sweet, shiny chrome that makes everything better.

     My current gym is about 25% free weights (by floor space) and the rest is a bemusing variety of machines, most of which isolate one muscle at a time. So far, so expected. But about 80% of the people at any one time in the back doing free weights, while the machines stand mostly idle. I've seen squat racks that were constantly busy before, but this one is actually being used for squats, instead of shrugs or curls. I feel like a rarely privileged and fortunate anthropologist, given the chance to see an ancient folk ritual in the same class as the Minehead Hobby Horse but I can't really afford to

wait an hour and a half for a chance to do three quick sets.

     Besides the waiting time, I'm still having issues with my left shoulder, so squats are off the menu right now, and I'm doing leg presses, instead.  And leg presses hit 270 last week! Rows were 120. Bench presses were a gingerly 60, with minimal problems. The first two weight will go up five pounds at a time until I hit a sticking point; bench presses will slowly sneak up at a lower speed.

     The second workout is aerobic, and that now means running. I burned 600 calories yesterday, but more importantly, I did nearly five minutes of real, no-kidding running. This has prompted a spasm of "I just gotta try this.."

So, I'm going to set an actual goal for running: a ten minute mile by the end of July. That'll be about twice as fast as I usually go on the treadmill. We'll see whether it results in this

 Or this.

I'm hoping for the first option.
    
     Finally, I've realized, again, the truth that you can't outrun a bad diet. My one indulgence is almonds. I've been eating too many of them. Reluctantly, I have to cut them back. I'll miss them.

Onwards!

In which are tests, and cooking, and a flailing moment of creativity

My lovely wife out of town overnight, so I'm messing with music, doing laundry like a baus, and it's time for a blog. 

     As mentioned, I went and started a workout with a VO2 max test. It was up about 3 of whatever it's measured in. That's likely due mostly to weight loss, but higher is better, however you get there. (Yay!)

     Next up that day was weights, and it's getting tedious. Dumbbell deadlifts start the day, and at 60 pounds (x10x10) would just about do to end it. It's not a lot to deadlift, but there's a pretty good range of motion with dumbbells, and I'm also lifting a lot of me.

     Still, pressing on, never say die, there are leg extensions and then either pulldowns or T-bar rows. Generally, that will fry me to a light golden brown, so sprinkle a little lemon juice on me, and put me on a plate, 'cause I'm done. 

     On days when I'm really far sighted, I hang around and do shoulder work. This is problematic, because the shoulders are problematic, and tend to clank when asked to do full-range work. The sets therefore are on the lat raise machine, at ludicrously small weights, or some subset of the Jobe exercises, at even more ludicrously small weights. Still, they're working, and I can occasionally do bench presses very carefully, with no problems. 

     The imminent return of the bench press (and its cousin, the military press) are devoutly hoped for, as I'm running out of exercises. At the moment, I'm trying to avoid isolation exercises (the one-muscle-at-a-time approach) because it's too hard to keep up intensity like that. Unfortunately, compound exercises break down into Squats, Deadlift, Pushes and Pulls. Generally, you combine squats and deadlifts at your peril, so I need the pushes back!

     On the cheerful side, it's only another week until I change up the programme again, and I may make a somewhat radical change, which will relieve the boredom a bit.

     Anyway,  you were promised some cooking, and here it is, the simplest and best breakfast ever, the Spinach and Jalapeño Omelette. 

Grab as much (washed!) spinach as any sane man would put in an omelette. Grab the same amount in the other hand. Chop it all up. 

Get about three slices of hot peppers (I've been using pickled  jalapeños) out of the jar. USE. A. FORK. because touching jalapeños is a really bad idea, don't pay attention to me, let your hangnails explain it for you. Drop them beside the spinach, and cut them up, without touching them. 

Beat two eggs, (or three, if you're living large) with salt and pepper and tabasco sauce. 
Get a slightly oily pan rilly, rilly hot, and in rapid succession: 

• Pour in the eggs.
• Shake the pan to move them around a bit, so the liquid stuff flows under the cooked stuff.
• Sprinkle the spinach around
• Scrape the jalapeños into the eggs with the knife. 
• Just before the eggs are all cooked, roll the whole thing onto a plate. 

Some people will think it's boring to eat the same breakfast every day. If it's boring, you're not using enough jalapeños. 

And the weird burst of creativity: The Local Anglican Cleric has asked me to do musical stuff at Easter, as the organist will be away.  There's little stuff written for solo brass, and little of that little is practical at the current level of technique. 

     The Bach cello suites have been arranged for trumpet... just not this trumpet. Lightning midnight raids on the historical treasury of plainchant have produced the beginning of a little suite of Easter music, but it's not going to be ready. There really was nothing happening until: 

     About 10PM last night, Lasst Uns Erfreuen started running through my head... as a slip jig. Now, that's one variation... There are a couple of other possiblities... and it was done. The theme, plus three variations, without resorting to diminutions, which I can't play any. Composed entirely in the lilypond text editor. Set for any solo instrument in the treble clef, or my old buddy Andrew on trombone. (Available as a PDF upon request.) It's a kind of rudimentary thing, but it works. The L.A.C. likes it. We have a prelude. 

     Postlude.... hmm.. Something's trying to occur to me, but it's not here yet.

      Finally, the kind-of-good news. I hit the weight loss plateau about three weeks ago. It seems to have come to an end. Onward and downward!

In which the Strangeness and Contrariness of Life faithfully manifest themselves.

ith the machinery of weight loss running smoothly, the appearance of a monkey wrench was inevitable. In response to  the call of its ancestral destiny, a monkey wrench duly showed up. And the manner of its arrival was thus. 

     Assorted studies have revealed that one the necessary conditions for catching a cold (perhaps the only truly essential one) is dehydration. Your common mucous membrane is quite happy with its job of slipping the occasional stray rhino-virus on its way, as long as it is sufficiently hydrated. (The membrane, not the virus. I don't know if viruses are happier when hydrated, and face it, nobody cares, because nobody loves a rhino-virus. The way that they reproduce should make it clear that rhino-viruses are not even attractive to other rhino-viruses, and I'm not surprised in the least. But I digress.) One of the problems of the training programme I've been on, is that you sweat. A lot. There is a fix for that, which oddly enough consists of drinking water by the gallon. Still for various reasons, (the taste of the local water is one) a couple of weeks ago, I got nicely dried out, which the local rhino-viruses took as an excuse to roll up and start squatting in my sinuses, writing graffiti on the walls, throwing all night raves, and never cleaning the bathtub. Overall, not good tenants. 

     "Okay," said I, "I'll just carry on as I was." Which I did... until late last week. At that point between exhaustion, bad sleep, and lack of food, things took a turn for the worse. By Thursday, the viruses had started to file badly written court documents asserting adverse possession of the sinuses on the left side of my head, and I wound up mostly in bed for about three days. 

     Good news: I live in a civilized country, where one can purchase codeine over the counter. This greatly relieves the, ahem, discomfort associated with raving viruses in one's sinuses. 

     Bad news: I can't take ephedra based decongestants. Which would have helped, a lot.

     Good news: Doctor Who is on Netflix. Which helps, more than I would have imagined. 

     By Monday, I was back in the gym. I did about half a workout, and found myself looking for reasons not to go to sleep on the floor, beside the squat rack. This was taken as a sign that it was time to go home. I finally got a really good night's sleep, which also helps. 

     Today, in celebration of the temporary and anomalous lack of blizzards, I went for a walk. Allow, y'r o'b't correspondent, at this point, a small divergence to rave about one of the greatest websites in the world: http://gmap-pedometer.com/ This is a development on top of Google maps, which allows you to track the distance you walk (or drive or run, or bike, or whatever.)  It will give you a number of details of your walk, including the elevation changes and, a calorie counter! So, even in the absence of The Cardio Machines, there is impartial evidence of a 750 calorie workout.

     Based on this, y'r o'b't correspondent can be pronounced "Back to normal," for vaguely defined values of normal. The weather is also back to normal (for here.) When I click on the weather network, it just says, "Honestly, now, do you really want to know?"

     The inability to work out did not put any weight back on me, I'm happy to see. 

     While it's good to be working out again, and will be better when I can drop the intensity below "Kamikaze pilot on three-day meth binge," my musical situation is really strange. There's no band to play in. I still practise, and might arguably be getting better, but even so, there's a strange feeling of, "and then?" I miss the Trafalgar Players more than I can say.  

     The same malaise, (aggravated by the pernicious interference of gravity) affects the realignment of the studio. I've just about figured how to make it all work, but question keeps coming up, "and then?" 

     More dispatches to come, on the road to finding out.

Because it's all about accountability. (Until it's all about something else.)

his is the first post in a new category, which will be of interest only to people in a similar medical situation, but it does put my efforts on an undeniable public platform.  I'm hoping that this will make it harder to blow off workouts.

     Today was aerobics day. Started on the treadmill for 20 minutes. (The club will not allow you to do more that 20 minutes at a time on the machines. Faut pas chercher à comprendre.) 

     Then, on to the elliptical for 20 minutes, which was exhausting and painful. I haven't figured out how to slow down on one of those things.  On the treadmill I was doing around 500 calories per hour, which is plenty right now; on the elliptical, the least I could do was over 600. Next time I'm on those machines, I'll have to investigate further.

     Back on the treadmill for another 20. This put me up to about 475 calories burned. Over to the bike! 75 calories worth on the bike.

     The original plan (and I insist on calling it that) was to do another 20 minutes on the treadmill, but I was already up to 550, which is a modern era record, so I bagged it at that point and staggered home for a bowl of lettuce.

     Next week I'll be over 600 calories in a workout, which will put me back to where I was three years ago, although it will be taking me about 50% longer. (Who was the pitcher who said, "I throw as hard as I did 20 years ago. It just takes the ball longer to get there?")

     Tomorrow I wrap up the first cycle of German (sic) Volume Training and bid farewell to the leg press for a while. The new workout will be built around deadlifts and pulls, with some pressing and squat variations. The aerobic workouts will continue to be built around tedium and exhaustion.


     One question, if anybody knows: How many calories does it take to wish they would stop running the same vershlugginer hockey highlights for hours on end, and put the curling on? Because I did a lot of reps on that.

    

In which our hero meets German Volume Training, and is not sure that they'll ever be friends

here is some tentative news to report on the health front: As of today, I appear to have lost something quite close to twenty pounds in the course of a month, without contracting scurvy, beriberi, or the galloping epizootic.


     The method has been extremely simple. In a previous post I alluded to the dietary restrictions. (Did I mention, there has not been a moment in the last month when I could not have instantly devoured the Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast, including immediately after finishing supper?) The other half of it involves going to the gym six days a week, and being there for something between an hour and two and a half hours.

     So, of course, when you go to the gym, the question is, "To do what, exactly?"  My goal over the next month or two is to burn precisely as many calories as humanly possible. I'm familiar with many weightlifting protocols, but they all seem organized to be as efficient as possible, because burning extra calories will interfere with teh gainz. This is not what I want. I'm not here for teh gainz. I'm here for teh Lossez. To that end, I want huge, unreasonable energy expenditures, and not efficiency of any kind.  Baffled and confused, I had only one way to turn for help:

     My friend Google. I asked about high volume weight training, and it gave me something called German Volume Training. (To be honest, the connection with German history or culture is a little vague. Perhaps I'm supposed to time the rest intervals by reciting the greatest hits of Karl Barth, or singing a bit of Schubert. That would still not be the strangest thing I've seen people do in a gym.  But I digress.) The deal is to do sets of ten repetitions. Ten of them. The sets, that it, as well as the reps. And that's not ten sets per workout, or ten sets per body part. That's ten sets per exercise.

     For example: Tomorrow morning, I start with leg presses. It'll be 160 or 170 pounds. I'll do ten, then step off the machine for a minute and a half to contemplate the meaning of life. Then I do exactly the same sequence nine more times. Then I do the same thing with straight-leg deadlifts. (or as many sets as my back will allow.) Then I do about three or four sets of leg extensions, because the leg extensions are an "assistance" lift, not a real lift.

     And wherever there are leg extensions, I meet another old friend.One-and-a-quarter reps.

     One-and-a-quarter reps have done me so much good in my life. They stabilize my knees. They make my legs stronger. They improve the tracking of my kneecaps, and increase the likelihood that I'll be able to live my entire life in my own home. They signal that my warfare is accomplished, and the lower-body part of the workout is over. They give me a benchmark from which to minimize many other unpleasant experiences.

     The other major exercise I do is seated rows. Again, supremely boring, and long, but it burns calories. When my shoulders stop hurting quite so much, I'll be doing bench presses as well, and possibly military (overhead) presses, too. Leg presses will give way to squats in about a week and a half, Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

     There are a couple of things that have to be said about German (sic) Volume Training. On the one hand, it's unpleasant. On the other hand, you get to do a lot of it.

     A standard workout will involve forty working sets (distinct for warmup sets). My gym gives out workout cards that have room for a maximum of twenty one sets. I'm apparently doing about twice as much as I'm supposed to.
         
     There is one more good thing about this training: It seems to work. My clothes are looser already. In another week I try another VO2 max test, and see if there's an improvement. In a month I check the blood sugar again, and see if there is progress on the one thing that matters. The stiffness, soreness, exhaustion and questioning of the meaning of life are just the box that the results come in.