Personal Life Update: Short

Just a post to inform that I'm still alive. I've never had such a full schedule before, that I've actually depended on carrying a calendar with me to make sure that I don't miss deadlines for things on any given day. I feel so very 'adult' because of it. It's a different experience, to know exactly just how much time I have--and don't have--to do anything, like studying or blogging, and I think it's helpful to keep me motivated and busy. A side effect is simply that extracurricular activity takes a back seat while I work on keeping abreast with homework assignments, so that I'll still have time to study for exams on top of it.

More to come, just no guarantees on when or where or how much. :)

~Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Rare Consistency

I joined Cross Country when I was in high school, and was pretty mediocre, at first, but the summer between 9th and 10th grade, I ran laps around my driveway (we lived on what was an old farm, so the driveway consisted of two parallel farm lanes that may have been 1/8 mile in circuit) for 20-30 minutes every/other day. It made enough of a difference that by the spring, I was in such good shape that I decided to take things up a notch. Instead of just running for time, I would time my runs and go for distance. And between the summer after 10th grade, and the end of the Fall season in 12th grade, I managed to run nearly every single day (missing a grand total of 20 or 30 days, perhaps), getting to the point where an average run could easily be a 4-mile or 6-mile jog with the mile-splits between 7:00 and 6:20 minutes. I loved the energy I had as a result, and I want to get back to that. It's only been about 8 years since I fell off my hardcore "run every day" routine, but it looks like I'm finally getting back to it.

Following is a record of my runs (longer than 1 mile at a time -- seriously, if your heart rate isn't at target for more than 5 minutes, it's not worth keeping track of), where splits are separated by commas, and stretches with a walk in between are separated by a colon.

Wednesday, July 29: Run 0520 @ 7:20,7:55,9:35  ; 8:35 Friday, July 31: Run 0525 @ 7:50,8:10,9:30  ; 8:10

Tuesday, August 4: 1mi @ 8:10
Wednesday, August 5: Run 0555 @ 7:52,8:12,9:16  ; 8:15 . Thursday, Aug 6: Run @ 7:45,8:07,9:21 ; 7:52 Friday, Aug 7: Run @ 8:05,8:30,9:45 ; 7:45 Saturday, Aug 8: Run 0535 @ 7:50,7:45,8:50  ; 7:15

Did you see that? ^ I've managed to control my schedule enough that I've run each of the last 4 days in a row  -- did I mention that all of these runs are pre-dawn runs, so that I can escape horse-flies and energy-draining sunlight? I'm so excited :D

My heart rate within the first 30 seconds after any of these runs has tended to be 160 beats per minute. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's statistically normal for a strenuous workout according to the little chart at the Y.

Some things that are neat for me to note: my first miles are not stellar--but can be, as the July 29 run shows--part of this is that I've been dealing with figuring out how to avoid chafing my heel. Every day a different part of the body feels whiny, but it loosens up after 2 miles, which I find extremely gratifying -- running makes your body feel less achey? Sign me up!

Also, the standard deviations of the individual runs appear to be diminishing, meaning that my performance is getting more consistent per every individual mile, as opposed to getting really good first miles but worse later miles. Compare the 29th with today, for example. There's a 2:10 minute range for my splits on the 29th, and only 1 minute for today's 3-miler. This shows in my enthusiasm for the 4th mile on each day -- it was worse than my first mile on the day I "bit off more than I could chew," but today I had enough oomph in me to run harder on the return mile. Arguably, though, every time I push myself, it improves my ability to do the same work next time. It's just a matter of pounding the pavement, and soon enough I'll be back to breaking the 7-minute barrier without totally gassing myself.

official Phys. Exam bp: 112/70. Good, but can be better! :D. A young woman in my summer class had a blood pressure of 90/45, I kid you not. The professor explained that as long as you're not dizzy, faint, or weak, the lower the better. Such a low blood pressure (she'd been running 4 miles every day and was training for a (half?) marathon) is indicative of an extremely efficient cardiovascular system. The heart doesn't have to work as hard, and the vessels are in such good condition that there's next to zero risk of hypertension or the associated atherosclerosis/blood clots/strokes that come with high blood pressure. I don't know if I can drop down to her level, but it's something to shoot for.

That's where I am in my journey to become hard-core, once again. :)

~ Rak Chazak

I haven't died! (PLU)

Not yet, anyway. After my summer course ended, I've been reviewing various subjects from old textbooks I kept (I never resold a single book at college, figuring there could be some value in the information one day). Then, as my Fall textbooks have been arriving, I went to Staples and grabbed some non-spiral notebooks (so they'll lie flat and not have an irritating ridge in the middle), and I've been going through the early chapters, compiling and condensing the stuff I think I won't remember off the top of my head, and making neat, neat notes out of it.

My Organic Chemistry notebook was done the same way, and I was so thorough and explanatory with it that I've been using it to reteach me, to great success. Organic Chemistry 2, which I have not taken, is a required course for a Chemistry Minor, which I'm going to squeeze in to my course of study. See, because I already have a degree, I don't need to pursue the general education requirements which the program left slots open for, so I can pick other courses to take instead. And as it turns out, all that's required for a chemistry minor is to have a minimum number of courses taken at the university, and a certain number having to be upper-level (300-level and above) courses. And that number exactly matches the slots I have available in between my other classes. (The only question is whether Orgo transfers. I graduated with the class but not the lab (wasn't required), but this university has the lab and class together. It could thwart the minor objective; in that case I suppose I could just retake Orgo once again and get an unquestioned A....then I could pursue a biochemistry major part-time when I become duly employed. I kind of want to do it just to show myself that I can, and that my rocky road the first time around was because of non-academic reasons.

On the subject of not having died, I'm still a little bit skeptical of the accuracy of the blood pressure cuffs at the YMCA, but the values they're giving me are pretty consistent. The across-the-board medical consensus on what's healthy is a blood pressure of 120/80. Either number being less is a sign of above-average cardiovascular health, but higher pressure in either number indicates danger signs for heart issues. The lower number, the diastolic pressure, is the one to watch out for. It indicates the elasticity of your arteries--higher pressure, more trans and saturated fats in your cell membranes, ergo, stiffer arterial walls, meaning that the blood pressure can roughen them, exposing underlying collagen, to which platelets react, then dislodging and causing embolisms. Or not dislodging, and causing atherosclerosis.

[Here's an image] -- comparing the two pressures

The higher pressure indicates the strength of the heart--it is when the stethoscope first hears the pulse, which means that that is how much pressure your heart can generate with each contraction. It's essentially an estimate of the strength of your ventricles, which means that an abnormally high systolic pressure can indicate an enlarged heart muscle, for whatever reason. Conversely, the lower this pressure is, provided you're in visibly good health, the less effort your heart has to put in to do its job.

Yesterday morning, I woke up early enough to start a run at 5:20 a.m. I ran three miles at 7:20, 7:55, 9:35 pace, walked one, and then ran another at 8:35. Heart rate was 161 beats per minute after each segment (the 3-mile and 1-mile). That's a good baseline that I'll use to keep track of how well I'm progressing. The more you run, the better your body optimizes and the lower your resting heart rate, aerobic heart rate, systolic and diastolic arterial pressures will be.

So I was thrilled that the electronic cuff measured my pre-workout blood pressure at 110/57. When I get my physical exam later in the month, I'll find out how accurate those cuffs are.

And in the meantime, I'll keep running. Which requires me to go to bed really early. Days I sleep in are my rest days. My body and I have a two-way dialogue when it comes to exercise. :D

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Timing is Everything

I got a big envelope in the mail today.

It was from my student loan servicer. It was dated two weeks ago, and it warned me that they'd need documentation within the next two weeks to renew my Income-Based Repayment Plan. Hey, thanks for that notice! ;D

As it turned out, I had already sent documentation, so this made me a bit worried. I'd sent it quite a while ago, so hopefully it hadn't been lost or intercepted on the way. I called the number. After putting in my information, the electronic voice said that my renewal request had been received -- four days after the slow-moving envelope was sent -- and approved.

Problem solved.

Most stress can be prevented or resolved, it truly seems, simply by second-guessing what you think.

~ Rak Chazak