My new year's resolutions

I overdressed for yesterday's bike ride with Jake, and took my heavy old plodding touring bike. I didn't want to get my good bike dirty in with the sand on the sidewalks, the puddles and the crappy snow that was all over the place.

Jake rode his road bike, and then proceeded to kick my ass. And still I had fun. I was worrying over nothing yesterday. My passion for biking hasn't diminished, and now I can't wait to get on road bike and start building on my biking fitness. Jake road about 25 miles yesterday, I got in about 21.

Today, though ,was significant because it was in the mid 60s and I wore shorts for the first time in about five months. To me, the first shorts day of the year is the real start of the year, and it's most appropriate to talk about resolutions on that day.

So here are mine. 

Athletic goals:

Take more walks. Do some yoga whenever I can. Make sure I do some kayaking. Run and bike and don't worry about a race that's coming up -- just go. Go mountain biking after work once in a while. Do more trail running, especially on Rib Mountain. Do more speed training down at the cemetery on the mile loop. Don't worry about how speed. Race to run or ride, not the other way around. (Racing is the best way to develop fitness, and fitness makes everyday training more enjoyable.) Have fun.

Mental health goals:

See above, especially the yoga and long walks and not worrying about times. Write in this and other blogs more, and don't worry about whether it's any good or not. Try to put together some audio podcasts, maybe makes some video stories. (This is for me, and not for work, but work will benefit, too. When I'm happy at work, I'm happier all the time.) Read more. Noodle around with the guitar. Have fun.

Time to get rolling

Maybe spring is here.

The snow cover is melting, leaving behind sand, soda bottles, beer cans  and frozen chunks of doggie doo-doo that are melting into small pockets of smelly brown goo. Yay spring!

It also seems that the cross country skiing season is over. I'm gonna miss it. I think one of the reasons I like cc skiing so much is that I'm not very good at it. It seems like every year I learn something new, figure out a better style or find a new waxing tip. By the end of the winter, I feel like I'm almost mediocre.

Last weekend, after we got a dumping of a half foot of snow, was terrific for skiing. I went 20 kilometers around the outside of Nine Mile County Forest Recreation Area, and was completely knackered. It was the first time I went that far on skis in what, three years? And now it's over.

So today I'm meeting Jake for a bike ride, probably around 14 miles or so. I'm not all that keen about it. Which is disturbing. Because usually I'm slathering to go for a ride about this time. Without that yearning, it feels as if I've lost touch with a high school friend, and I'm not ready to reconnect. I'm hoping that the ride today will touch off a spark, because if I don't like riding anymore, I spent $2,000 on a fancy carbon fiber bike two years ago for nothing.

Walkin the streets of Wausau

I discovered the pleasures of the long walk recently.

My truck was in the shop, and I had some time on my hands. So I decided to walk to the library. It's about a three-mile hike one way. And the walk goes through one of the iffiest neighborhoods in Wausau, which means it's got some lower middle class housing and plenty of rentals filled with people who like to leave furniture and children's toys outside all winter.

The homes may be a little run down, but they are interesting, and I found myself looking at the different turn of the century building styles, day dreaming about how I would fix up that place or renovate this place, and soon I was in downtown, a few blocks from the library. Wow, I thought, that was kind of cool.

I spent about an hour wandering around the books. I was looking for a specific copy of a Joseph  Campbell book, but couldn't find it. Finally, a little reluctantly, I decided to head back for home. Part of the allure of walking is that you can noodle around with your routes. This time, I headed down for the river, and strolled the pathway that runs parallel to Wausau's world-class whitewater kayak course. The water is open at the rapids, and it burbled musically around the rocks. I felt totally at peace.

Ten minutes later, I was stepping into Cafe Latte on the corner of Grand and Thomas, ordering a large mocha. I took it to go, and felt the warm sweet coffee glow in my stomach. It made mile or so stretch of noisy and jarring Grand Avenue seem a little more pleasant.

Back in our southeast neighborhood, I took a round about route to home, and saw homes that I never noticed before. My legs, hips and knees were getting a little sore when finally slumped on our new couch.  But it was that special kind of relaxing sore that tells you that you did just the right amount. I decided then and there that the long walk will now be a regular part of my exercise repertoire, along side the bike riding, running and skiing. It's not the glamour sport, and it won't make be faster or stronger. But it just makes me feel good, and that's the main goals.

Running away from the crazy

About a week before Christmas, I found myself having a breakdown of sorts.

This is difficult to describe and harder to admit. I had been struggling for a while (when I look back at it now, a long while) with low-grade depression.

The first thing any doctor or mental health professional will ask someone dealing with depression is whether they are suicidal. In my case, the answer was no, but I was at the point where if I did die of more natural causes, I would have been OK with it.

The morning things came to a head I found myself forcing myself to go to work, with my stomach roiling and my soul feeling as if it were soaked in sludge. I had been in a similar place before several years ago, and that time my wife and supportive coworkers encouraged me to call my doctor. I did that, and was put on a low dose of anti-depressant medication. Things got better. But I hated taking the pills, and after a year or so, with my doctor’s OK, I stopped taking them.

This time around my wife again first noticed the cloud coming down.

“You don’t seem to enjoy anything any more,” she said.

I am an expert at self-delusion and denial, and I had a variety of excuses. I was training for a marathon and just tired, I said. Things will get better after that. Things are stressful at work. Things will get better when we go on vacation.

Things did not get better. Just talking, working and living took so much energy.

Finally, I just ran out of oomph and it seemed like something cracked in my psyche. I decided this feeling wasn’t normal. So I called my doctor and started to cry while trying to make an appointment, much to the consternation of the person at the other end of the line.

I am now on another anti-depressant, and I’ve attended a few counseling sessions. The medication took weeks to take hold, typical for most anti-depressants. The counseling sessions helped immediately, especially after the therapist gave me practical suggestions about how to deal with depression and anxiety.

She also told me that it was likely I have a form of depression called dysthymic disorder. When I looked it up on the Mayo Clinic website, the listed symptoms unfortunately read like my personality profile — hopelessness, lack of energy, fatigue, low self-esteem, trouble making decisions.
Oddly, that comforted me.

I’m lucky that my particular illness is not severe in the whole spectrum of the disease, and I have come to understand that it is an affliction and needs to be dealt with like any other ailment.
But the most striking thing to me is how important exercise is as a weapon against depression. I was struggling to run a couple of times a week just before the breakdown, and exercise alone wouldn’t have cured me. But now that I’m feeling better, I’ve got the energy to go for runs, walks and cross-country ski sessions.

I can’t even begin to describe the difference.

I’m not skipping up and down staircases, but the sludge is gone. My goodness, but that feels good. The whole experience has led me to reframe the way I look at exercise. Now I’m doing it primarily for mental fitness — physical fitness is the secondary goal.

Let it snow

It's a dangerous thing to yearn for snow in Wisconsin at this time of year.

We live with the stuff for at least a third to half of the time in most typical winters. Snow is cold and wet and heavy and slippery, and it makes life a lot more complicated. Snow slows us down -- we've got to shovel before we eat our breakfasts and scrape it off our windshields before we drive to work. It speeds us up in the most alarming of ways -- such as when we careen through intersections with our anti-lock brakes chattering. Or when we slide down our front steps, heels above head.

So for most of us, looking at a bare back yard with frosty green grass at the end of December would be a fine sight indeed. And it would have been for me, too, before I changed my attitude about snow.

I was at a low point deep in February when it came, shoveling the concrete-like snowbank left at the end of my driveway by a city plow. The wind was blowing hard, seeping down the back of me neck and settling in my spine. Snow pellets were hitting me in the face. But then I started thinking about what I was doing. I was breathing hard, lifting stuff, moving stuff. It really was a workout.

That's when I decided that snow would be my personal trainer, and that I would try to embrace it all because what it really did for me. It forced me outdoors during the dark days. It can be fun when you strap on the cross country skis swoosh along trails.

I'm about to go for a bike ride, and that will be fine. But I'd rather be gliding through the woods, truth be told. And although I'm OK with not shoveling or sliding through intersections, I'm also missing out on the strength training that is a natural part of winter.

So I guess I'm wishing for some snow right now. Just don't tell anybody.

The addiction

Went for a run this morning after week of sloth, no exercise whatsoever.
I'm not sure if I didn't exercise because the week was so stressful, or if the week was stressful because I didn't exercise. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that I woke up at 5:30 a.m. this Saturday morning, and was out in the dark 13 degree morning shuffling along.
Like all first runs after a lengthy layoff, this run was schizophrenic. My legs and knees felt stiff and slow in the beginning, but as I warmed up, they seemed to loosen up, and after a couple of miles, I felt just great.
It's as if a dark wool blanket was lifted off my mind, and my thoughts flowed freely, whereas just 20 minutes before they seemed to be mired in some kind of neurotic sludge.
A colleague told me that he believes that some runners are akin to drug addicts -- that in fact they are drug addicts because they need the endorphins and other natural mood enhancers that aerobic exercise can bring. It's certainly the case for me. So I need to run or bike or swim or do something to get my heart beating and blood flowing; that's OK. That's good.
What's bad is that all too often stress, worry, depression can overwhelm the feeling of wellness that I get from running.
That's when I have to go for a bike ride.

Heat wave

Two days ago, I went for a 14-mile bike ride -- maybe 15 -- and crashed. It was 10 degrees out, and because of the layers I had on it was a little like jumping into bed. OK, maybe not that soft, but I came out of it unscathed. I rode a mountain bike.

Today I went for a 23-mile ride on my touring bike. It was 28 degrees when I started, and about 35 when I finished. It took me about an hour and 50 minutes, so I was slow, slow, slow, but it still felt great.

The greatest thing about it was that, at 28 degrees, it was a pleasant jaunt, one in which I could enjoy my surroundings, cruise along and let my mind wander a bit.

When it's 15 degree or colder, biking takes on a different vibe. I don't feel the freedom of thought on a ride in that kind of cold. Instead, your mind is constantly taking stock of the status of various body parts. Are my feet freezing? No, they're just a little tingly. Are my hands frostbitten? Well, maybe just the tip of my left thumb. Is my head cold? Well, my cheeks are stinging, but that's to be expected. Are my private parts OK? Hmm, well, so far so good.

And then the thought cycle starts all over again. If at any point the internal warning lights go on, it's time to cut the ride short or find a warm library, coffee shop or bar or in desperation, a mall.

On that list my feet are the most problematic. My feet are constantly cold in the winter, and biking makes the problem worse times three. So I use wool socks, neoprene booties that go over regular biking shoes. My feet still get cold, but so far this year it's been manageable.

The wee-wee is the most worrisome. If that gets frostbitten, you're in for a world of hurt. It's happened to me twice,and although there doesn't seem to be any lingering long term effects, it's a private part status I am most anxious to avoid. So when it's really cold, the running list goes like this: Feet, check; wiener, OK; hands, all right; wiener, still OK; head, feels good ... and so on.

My wedding tool worries have dissipated somewhat after my purchase of Sugoi wind-cutting boxer briefs. These have a sort of fleece lining with a windbreaker codpiece. Oh my gosh, but these are life-changing terrific.

Of course none of that mattered today. At 35 degrees, I felt as if I were on spring break. Although it was windy, it was a soft wind, not cutting or biting. The sun shown down and warmed my back. It was heaven.