Pumping Irony

Craig Cox, EL’s managing editor, chronicles his adventures into the frightening world of middle-age exercise.

Monthly Archives: November 2009

Decisions, Decisions

By Craig Cox / November 29, 2009

I enjoyed a decent workout
this morning with my tennis buddy, M.E., at the Crosstown LTF. We cruised
through a set (I played OK, but got clobbered 6-2) and then shot some hoops for
about a half hour. Then it was back to the courts for another 45 minutes of
whacking the ball around (I think I lost 5-3, or something like that) before we
knocked off for the day.

This sort of cross-training
works way different muscle groups, and I’m really feeling it tonight in my
knees and back. Tennis doesn’t generally do that to me, but basketball is
another story.

You may recall an earlier
post in which it appeared that whole competitive basketball thing had been left
for dead. Well, M.E. now is talking about re-joining our old basketball buddies
for their weekly two-hour game (the first of which convenes tomorrow night),
thus the sudden interest in hooping it up this morning. Unlike our earlier shoot-around, this morning I really felt pretty good. I was hitting those little 18-footers like the old days and feeling pretty comfortable with the ball in my hands. Still, I’m a little
ambivalent: On the one hand, I haven’t played competitively for seven years. On
the other hand, I haven’t played competitively for seven years. You get the idea. So I thought it might help if I listed the pros and cons:

Pros:

• It would be interesting to
see if I can still compete after seven years of retirement.

• It’s always a great cardio
workout.

Cons:

• I could sprain one or both
of my ankles.

• I could wrench my back.

• I could blow out my one
gimpy knee.

• I could blow out my one
good knee.

• I could dislocate one or
more fingers.

• I could break my nose.

• I could develop some great
new blisters.

• I could really suck.

So, of course, I’m leaning toward heading over to the gym tomorrow night and letting it all hang out. Getting back on the court
holds some allure simply because I’d like to see how much I’ve lost as compared
with how much these other old guys have lost. And I do like the game. It’s just
that, well, it could be the dumbest thing I’ve done in a long time (and that’s
saying something).

I guess I’ll just see how I feel tomorrow night. Maybe the universe will give me a sign. Like If I can’t walk or something…

Attention Deficit

By Craig Cox / November 27, 2009

I strive on a fairly regular
basis to reduce my natural obliviousness to things (it’s a guy thing), but I do
not always succeed. Take Tuesday’s workout, for instance. I’d been avoiding the
gym during the latter phases of its renovation – it was actually closed for a
few days last week – so when I showed up after work, it took awhile for me to
get my bearings. Someone had moved the scale in the locker room, for one thing.
And the stretching area that once shared space with the cardio machines had
expanded into its own room (not that I’d ever spend any time there). I couldn’t
even locate the towels at first glance.

Eventually, I got myself
situated on the only Elliptical Death Machine that was available and swung into
my normal routine: pumping away while enjoying the mute ravings of that
investment guy with his sleeves rolled way up on CNN. It had been another
mysterious day for the Dow, apparently, and he was gesticulating a bit more
wildly than usual.

I looked down at the time on
the EDM’s control panel – after about five minutes I like to shift it into
second gear, upping the resistance from 10 to 15. My heart rate was rising in a
way that nicely countered Wall Street’s decline that day. So I cranked away.
I’d been doing some morning body-weight and kettlebell exercises during my days
away from the gym, but no serious cardio, so it felt good to be back on the EDM
again.

About 15 minutes into my
workout, though, I began to notice an intermittent high-pitched beeping noise. At
first, it appeared to be coming from the ceiling nearby, and I wondered whether
a smoke alarm somewhere had been set off by mistake. It certainly was annoying,
but I figured someone at the club would eventually locate the origin of the
sound and flip some switch. Meanwhile, the TV investment guy was working up
quite a lather over some particularly under-priced stock, waving his arms around
more excitedly than usual, desperately trying to get our attention.

I ratcheted up the
resistance to 20 and shifted my focus a little toward the effort required to
push through each stride on the EDM. The rhythm of my stride, I began to
notice, roughly coincided with that annoying beeping sound – which, I also
began to notice, was really more like a high-pitched squeak than a beep. When I
slowed my stride, the frequency of the annoying squeaking sound also seemed to
slow. When I sped up, it sped up.

I don’t tend to look at my
fellow sweat-a-holics when I’m doing cardio. I figure it’s no business of mine
what they’re wearing or reading or what annoying sound their machine happens to
be broadcasting throughout the entire club while they’re striding, oblivious,
toward endorphin-land. So, I didn’t really notice whether there was any discernible
sense of relief that flowed through the crowd when I climbed down from the EDM a
bit earlier than I had planned, toweled off and walked sheepishly toward the
water fountain in the suddenly quieter room.

No Excuses

By Craig Cox / November 11, 2009

My father died 30 years ago
today, so some of my siblings and I (along with my daughter) will be marking
the occasion later this afternoon at a tiny cemetery in Becker, Minn., where he
and my mother are buried – along with a large contingent of the Cox clan
(including my grandfather and great-grandfather).
There will be much reminiscing about our childhood years, I’m sure, and I
expect we’ll raise a few glasses of Grain Belt in his honor.

He made his living
delivering that golden elixir to bars and restaurants in St. Paul, an occupation
that earned him a barrel chest and arms like steel. (I remember returning from
Air Force basic training feeling pretty buff and foolishly challenging him to
an arm-wrestling match at the dining room table. It was over before I could
contemplate the true depths of my delusion.) He was strong, but somehow sickly
at the same time.

That barrel chest loomed
over an even larger belly (he fought weight issues for much of his adult life),
and he suffered from ulcers and other digestive ailments. His love of fried
foods and sweets was legendary around our house, and we all learned how to
smoke cigarettes and drink beer by observing him.

Of course, back in the ’40s
and ’50s none of us knew the dangers of smoking – much less the insidious
threats posed by greasy foods, refined carbs, a sedentary lifestyle and chronic
stress (Dad was a hall-of-fame worrier). So, when he landed in the hospital
with a heart attack at the age of 52, we were all shocked. And when cancer
claimed him eight years later, we all felt he’d been stolen from us.

So I was thinking about Dad
this morning while doing my morning zazen.
And later while sweating through a half hour of push-ups, planks and kettlebell
moves. He really didn’t know any better. I don’t have that excuse.

No Car, No Problem

By Craig Cox / November 9, 2009

It’s not often that we’re
treated to temps in the 60s in November around here, so My Lovely Wife and I
were able to spend a good portion of the weekend out and about on foot and on
our bicycles (the Crapmobile’s right front wheel is making calamitous sounds, as well, so we left it in the
driveway).

Saturday morning, we pedaled
down to Minnehaha Falls and descended into the creek gorge below the cascade
and hiked part of the way to the river. There are points along this trail where
you can actually escape all signs of the city. It’s a fabulous little urban
getaway.

We weren’t feeling too
ambitious though, as MLW’s knee was starting to act up. So, we hiked back to
the falls and climbed on our bikes (which always helps our creaky knees) to
explore the bluffs between the creek gorge and the river where the state
veteran’s home is located. I’m guessing that they don’t get a lot of bicycle traffic
over there, because we got some strange looks from folks as we wound our way
among the historic and contemporary buildings that make up this little village
above the river. All in all, a lovely morning.

I got in a little indoor
workout Sunday morning: pushups and some kettlebell exercises that got my heart
pumping pretty good. I’m always a little amazed at what a great cardio workout
you can get by spending just a few minutes swinging a kettlebell around. These
kettlebell swings are particularly invigorating.

Later in the day, with rain
threatening, MLW and I once again climbed aboard our bicycles — this time for a
meeting near downtown Minneapolis, about six miles away. (The whole carless
thing makes for a more adventurous life, I think.) The wind was at our back,
though, so before long, MLW was shedding her fashionable plaid jacket and we
rolled to our destination without breaking a sweat.

Note: Our meeting took place
at a neighborhood pub, so I enjoyed a pint of Surly Furious, even though I felt
like I hadn’t actually earned it.

Then, it was off to the
co-op, a mile or so distant, to buy exactly two bags of groceries (another
thing about carless shopping: you can’t buy more than you can cart home) and a
pleasant ride along the river back home. The rain held off.

As I write this, the
Crapmobile is sitting in the shop awaiting a diagnosis. And as much as I
appreciate the healthy benefits we gain from leaving our cranky old vehicle in
the driveway, I’d really miss it when the snow begins to fly.

Unintended Consequences

By Craig Cox / November 6, 2009

Just back from my fourth
acupuncture session, during which I noticed that the cicadas
between my ears had shifted slightly to the right (an ominous sign for the Obama
administration?), leaving my left ear mostly quiet. They’ve since returned to
occupy their former space, but I’m holding out hope that eventually this whole
needling thing will offer some respite from the incessant ringing in my ears.

Katherine, my acupuncturist,
is a little inscrutable — partly because we have to whisper during the
treatment due to the fact that the room is full of people snoozing in
Lazy-Boys, and my hearing is such that whispered wisdom often doesn’t make it
through the flock of cicadas she’s attempting to disperse; plus, I really don’t
have any clue about what questions to ask. This much I’ve been able to grasp, though:
any sign of movement is a good thing.

I’m a patient guy, anyway,
and I understand that the healing arts — unlike the pharmaceutical sciences — can
take time. I wouldn’t mind getting a prescription specially formulated to evict
the cicadas from between my ears (“Ask your doctor if Silencium is right for
you. . . .”), but these sorts of solutions tend to have unintended consequences
(“Side effects may include headache, dizziness, dry mouth, aneurysms . . .”)
and they tend to leave untreated the actual cause of the condition, which in
the case of my cicadas probably had something to do with a lack of effective
stress management when my newspaper went under four years ago.

I know, there’s a pill for
that. . . .

Anyway, while I’ve been
waiting for the needles to rout my cicadas, a couple of interesting things have
occurred: A painful kink in my shoulder and a more mysterious — and worrisome –
problem in my hip have both disappeared.

The hip thing actually had
me hobbling over the weekend and threatened to derail my Tuesday evening tennis
match with M.E. I decided to go for it despite the pain, because . . . well,
because I’m a guy, and guys just figure that if something hurts the best way to
cure it is to pound on it until it gets better. So, M.E. and I whacked it back
and forth for 90 minutes (6-2 in his favor; then 7-7 when my ailing hip finally
gave in). Wednesday morning, to nobody’s surprise except perhaps my own, I
could barely walk.

My shoulder felt pretty good,
though.

I was moderately more mobile
on Thursday, when I got needled again. And by this morning, the pain in my hip had vanished and my gait was back to its jaunty self. Was this a byproduct of
my cicada treatment? Who knows? You start getting your qi rearranged and, before you know it, maybe everything else starts
to fall into place (can’t wait to see how the brakes on the Crapmobile are working now). Let’s just call it unintended consequences.

Pumping Irony

Monthly Archives: November 2009

Decisions, Decisions

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Attention Deficit

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No Excuses

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No Car, No Problem

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Unintended Consequences

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