Take a length of sturdy rope, a sanded-down section of a tree branch, and hang from ceiling hook. You can do lots of stretches and exercises with this simple device. I sometimes do it while watching TV. I also have one in the office. The invention of Bruno Atkey (see pp. 90, Builders of the Pacific Coast).
My training for the Dipsea race in June got rudely interrupted when I stumbled and injured some hamstring muscles out on the trail last Saturday. 6 weeks until the race and now I’m waiting and watching (feeling) for muscles to heal so I can get back to training before it’s too late. For competitive runners, ’twas ever thus…
Coincidentally Lesley gave me a CD yesterday of fiddler Johnny Kimble (recently interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR) and one of the songs has these witty lyrics:
What do you do
when you just cain’t do
what you did
when you did
what you did?
When you opened your eyes
and finally realized
you ain’t no longer a kid.
Sigh…
I’m back in a running groove for the first time in 8 or so years. It’s taken about 5 months, 3 times a week, to slowly get the machinery working and circuits and plumbing opened up. I can cruise, I can run 8-9 miles, and the mountain has never been more beautiful than right now. My tempestuous affair with running is on an upswing. It’s good to be on the trails again.
Yesterday I took my Joe Bark racing paddleboard out in the lagoon. At certain tides, there is a winding 1- or 2-mile long channel that I paddle through. It’s 20-30 feet wide, mud bottom, pickleweed growing on mudflats, birds abundant. It was a quiet day, overcsst, kind of warm, and the water was glassy like a mirror, but with bits of foam from the incoming tide. I’d paddle hard for a while, and there’d be a spray about a foot long on either side of the nose, like a slow speedboat. This thing skims across the water. I crept up on a beautiful egret. A few days before I’d been watching a flock of terns on a mudflat when two of them took off and flew together in perfect unison, diving, climbing, soaring, an aerial dance, the pair joyous with synchronization…how do they know to both take a right turn at exactly the same moment? In the book Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon described starlings or some such birds in a huge flock, and how they all turned at the same time as if the group were a collective intelligence…
Above photo, taken 10 minutes ago, of divider strip on Columbus Street, outside Cafe Roma, North Beach, San Francisco
Three of us took off about 6:30 last night, heading up the cliff-climbing trail south of Muir Beach. We’ve had a wonderful 5 or so inches of rain the last 4 days with powerful storms roaring in from the Pacific, The night was clear, but the next storm was hovering, so the air was supercharged. Up at “my” point, a finger of cliff aimed at San Francisco across the water, the wind was howling. A thousand feet down to boiling foaming crashing waves on rocks. My chi meter was maxxing out. Talk about feeling good!
I was dawdling and my two friends went on ahead and of course my light goes out when I’m still a mile and a half from the inn. There was a 1/4 moon and barely enough light for me to stumble along the trail. I got into it after a while, my eyesight sharpened and pretended I was a coyote; they don’t have no stinkin lights! It was kind of a thrilling experience, what with the storm energy, negative ions — and lucky, because if the clouds had covered the moon I ‘d have been on a cold hillside on a black night with no idea of direction home. My guiding spirits pulled me through (once again, thanks guys!) and I made it to my truck and warm clothes, pint of Guinness and the lads at a candle-lit table at the pub.
Que experiencia! A few weeks ago I went paddleboarding in the lagoon late in the day. The water was like ice and as I came back toward the town dock, some people were watching me. My (racing) paddleboard is really fast, it seems to skim across the water and people are invariably surprised to see its speed. And so what do I do, being the mature person I am, but showboat it, sprinting, paddling as hard as I can. I should add that I hadn’t paddled for some time. Things were OK until I got into bed that night. I felt chest pains and had trouble breathing. Never happened before. 911-time and the full rescue experience. A roomful of local firefighters, an IV in my arm, the EMTs, and then a ride to the hospital. There was also a helicopter, which I declined: “No way!”
I ended up spending the night in the ER of Marin General Hospital, where they ran test after test. I saw 4 doctors, got spritzes of nitro-glycerine, the whole catastrophe. The ERs are geared for serious stuff; a dumbass condition like mine isn’t on their radar. Too simple. One doctor was pissed at me because I wouldn’t get a chest X-ray (by that time I knew I was OK). The next morning a cardiologist put me on a treadmill, and said, “I didn’t know you were a runner.” Everything was fine. Sheesh!
Home never looked so good. Got into my own bed with a hot water bottle and bowl of homemade chicken soup. Paradise!
Conclusion, later talking to my own doc: chest contractions from overexertion, muscles constricting lungs, brought on by showing off. I know, I know…
As I took off on my weekly coastal run last night at 6:30, it was pelting a little rain. I was wearing my Maxit® tights and long-sleeved shirt, and a knitted hemp hat. This outfit has worked for me for years. Even tho it’s cold starting, I always get warm after 10-15 minutes of running. Last night I got up to one of “my spots,” a finger-like ridge of land that you can walk out on; It’s maybe 30′ across, with crashing waves on the rocks 500′ below on both sides. You stand out on the end facing southeast and the Ocean beach side of San Francisco, it’s like being on the prow of a ship. Last night the storm was coming in from the south and the air was perfumed with ozone and ocean essence.
I took off on the rest of the run, climbing up a fire road, light off because moon was full behind clouds. Every so often one of those little mice-hunting owls would float across the road in silent grace. It took about 20 minutes to get to the crest of the hill and I turned around to run back. By now the rain was increasing, and the drops felt just on the verge of being snow. Chilled to the bone. Back at the pub parking lot, changed into clothes in rainstorm, then went in and got a pint with the boys. We were sitting at a candle-lit table, it looked like the middle ages..
A study done in 2007 (that I belatedly discovered) showed that “…alternating short bursts of high-intensity exercise with easy-does-it recovery…dramatically improved endurance capabilities. “
NYTimes drawing by Chris Sharp