Tag: utah

Posted on
by

This year’s review of my movement practice will be a bit less detail-oriented than last year’s, when I included a long list of exercises, and a long list of non-exercise movement that I’d engaged in over the year. This year I exercised a bit less and moved a bit more, and came to a balance that I’m pretty happy with—that I don’t feel much urge to analyze.

I continued the winter exercise regimen that I described a year ago for the rest of the winter, but then let most of it go in favor of less-structured movement. As I say, I’m pretty happy with what I ended up doing, although the result was a decline in some of the strength increases I’d made.

Summer included a lot of solo walking (mostly in natural areas very close to home) and a lot of walking with Jackie (in a wide range of environments, including natural areas somewhat further afield).

One major piece of our walking was our big trip to Utah, where we got in plenty of hikes in Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, and Arches. (See image at top.) The length of any particular hike was nothing to write home about (although we did write home a bit), but the ruggedness—and especially the steepness—made the hikes very different from anything we manage at home.

Basically, summer was great—lots of time spent in the sun, lots of walking, lots of time spent with my sweetie, lots of time spent alone.

As summer transitioned to fall, I had the same problems I usually do, perhaps slightly worse this year than average because the transition seemed more abrupt, with early fall being unusually cold. Happily, late fall was no worse than early fall, and what was unusually cold for early fall is actually rather mild for early winter.

One thing I have done this fall is get back to running. In the past I’ve always meant to establish a running habit that I can carry forward into the cold months, and I have nearly always failed. This year, so far, I’m doing okay, getting in a couple of runs a week, with long runs of 5 miles or more. With just a little luck (not too icy, not too much bitter cold) I’ll be able to carry a lot more aerobic fitness into the spring than I usually manage. That would make it possible to do a spring running event, if I want.

I’ve had very good luck this year on the injury front, managing to stay healthy though the whole year.

I still teach taiji, both the beginners class and a class for continuing students, and it remains rewarding it all the ways it has been—physically (I get my own taiji in), mentally/emotionally (I get my meditation in), socially (I gather with a group of friends several times a week), and financially (admittedly in a small way).

Looking ahead, I’m rather inclined to stick with a movement focus, spending more time doing stuff (moving) and less time preparing to do stuff (exercising).


Posted on
by

On my Flickr feed I shared several pictures of the rocky canyon paths that Jackie and I hiked in Utah with the tag “vitamin texture.” Katy Bowman uses the term to talk about how always walking on flat, level paths fails to provide some of the “movement nutrients” our feet, ankles, calves, knees, and other body parts need to be healthy and capable.

There’s not much in the way of rocky terrain here in Central Illinois (although there are some forest paths with enough exposed roots to produce a reasonable degree of ruggedness). There’s also not much in the way of ordinary hills unless you’re willing to drive for at least half an hour, but I do have one reasonably convenient hill: the highest point in the county is just a couple of miles away—a man-made hill in Colbert Park.

Jackie and I walked there a couple of days ago and climbed up and down the hill a couple of times. The image above is the view from the top of the hill, and here’s an image of Jackie walking up:

It’s not like the climbs in the canyons:

Looking up

But it’s steep enough to provide a good calf stretch.

I’ve thought to use the Colbert Park hill for running hill repeats, but it’s just far enough that I’m generally not up for running there, running hill repeats, and then running home. (I think I did that one time, about two years ago.) I could drive to the park, but that just seems too lame. Still, my running is coming along okay this spring, so maybe I’ll be in shape to do hill repeats in the middle of a five-mile run pretty soon.

Posted on
by

About three weeks ago, just a few days before heading out on our vacation, I noticed a black spot in the vision of my right eye, modestly to the right of the center of my vision.

I hustled to the optometrist, who dilated my eyes, looked inside, and said, “Yep, I can see a thing that matches what you describe.”

Two things I already knew:

  • Your eye ball is filled with a fluid called vitreous humour,
  • that fluid shrinks as you age.

But in my brain that fluid is rather more liquidy than it apparently is in reality. In my actual eyeball, that fluid is so gelatinous that it is attached to the retina with strands of connective tissue. My vitreous had shrunk enough that one of those strands pulled free, and the strand (connected to my vitreous and no longer connected to my retina) is what I’m seeing. Or rather, the shadow of that strand is what I’m seeing.

They call it a floater, but this one is unlike other floaters I’ve had. The other ones floated—that is, they moved around. This one is fixed in place. The others were also translucent, whereas this one was black. Looking out was rather like using a screen with a few dead pixels.

The prognosis is good. The black spot should become less noticeable, through both my immune system scavenging up the no-longer needed connective tissue and my brain learning that there’s no information in the black spot and filling in with detail from my other eye. (The spot is already turning browner and translucent.) There’s a slightly increased risk of retinal tears and detachment, not from the floater itself but from the shrunken vitreous.

I asked if there was anything I could do to encourage the vitreous to regain it’s original size, but apparently there isn’t anything known to help with that. The doctor said that it was often recommended that people refrain from heavy lifting, and I actually did quit lifting during the couple of days before the trip and the duration of the trip itself, but I’m certainly not going to give up lifting.

Because of my tendency to worry about such things, it was kind of daunting to have this happen right before our long drive, but in actual event was a non-issue. I’ll update if anything more comes of it.