Discomfort

I have a wee note here in my notebooky list of bloggy ideas: “discomfort.”

I wracked my brain trying to remember what this might indicate. I thought of advertisements for remedies for various discomforts and decided it wasn’t anything quite so gross or banal. Then I—sort of—remembered. It was an overheard complaint someone was making about not wanting to do something because it caused her discomfort. Or something like that. Ok, I didn’t exactly remember the referent, but I did remember my reaction.

Give me a break.

How many things cause us discomfort in the world. I mean, just right now, my feet are a bit cold, which isn’t totally comfortable, but you know, I can deal with that. The person’s comment, though caused me to ponder, in general, about how people seem to want to avoid any kind of discomfort or inconvenience whatsoever. Buying any little thing, taking any little detour to try to avoid the inevitable little discomforts of life.

I don’t, for instance, need any kind of foot warmer to avoid my little cold foot problem right now. Neither any special piece of apparel. Thank you, I already have a perfectly good pair of socks.

Granted, if something causes me enough discomfort, I generally try to do something to change it or to fix it. I’m currently wondering whether a pair of shoes over my lovely socks would be a good choice.

But it seems to me that the original referent was about avoiding an activity or a situation because of some rather minor discomfort. And to that I say again, Give Me a Break. I can count any number of experiences that caused me “discomfort,” things I knew ahead of time wouldn’t always be pleasant, but I did them anyway. Childbirth is an easy one. But perhaps a more colorful and exotic experience would serve here.

Hot air ballooning in New Mexico, let’s say in October, during the International Balloon Fiesta,.

Seriously. You have to get up really early in the morning. Predawn is best, so that take-off can occur just on the other side of sunrise. It’s dark. It’s cold. It’s damp. The high-desert air prickles the insides of your nose. You’re wearing eight layers of clothes because you know that over the course of the morning, it will warm up gradually, but dramatically, so that by lunchtime you’ll wish you were wearing shorts. The coffee or hot chocolate is altogether scalding in the flimsy cup that inevitably slops sticky and/or hot liquid onto your gloved hand and sleeve, which will later be caked with sandy mud.

The work of getting the balloon set up is hard. Lifting, pulling, lugging, yanking. The inflation fan is dead loud. Oh, and cold, if you have to help hold open the throat of the balloon for cold inflation. The propane burners: also dead loud. And hot. Really hot. Especially if you’re holding open the throat of the balloon for the initial hot inflation.

From here, there are two beautiful paths. One has you in the gondola, and one has you hanging onto the outside of the gondola with a dozen other people to keep the jumpy balloon from taking off.

In the gondola, it’s crowded. You’re squished very close to at least two other bodies in a small gondola. There is probably a propane tank or some other apparatus jabbed into your butt or your shoulder. The top half of you feels sunburned with each blast of heat from the burner, while the rest of you is cold. Especially your feet.

On the outside edge of the gondola, it’s crowded. All of those other bodies piled on to hold down a balloon that wants to pop up above the cooler air are squished and jabbing into each other trying to maintain a handhold. Someone’s face might be in your armpit. Someone’s elbow is almost certainly in your ribs.

Why would you endure these things?

Because when the pilot gives the go-ahead, and everyone let’s go… It’s like magic. In the gondola, the world floats away from you on a puff of air. You are flying like a bird, and in the long quiet moments between burns, the world of sounds is cushioned, peaceful. The tranquility is momentarily infinite. On the ground, this monstrosity of wicker and metal and fabric and fire that weighs hundreds of pounds, just gently lifts from the ground, lighter than a feather. And floats away like a bubble.

No matter your perspective, it’ll take your breath away. And without enduring the myriad discomforts, you’d miss it.

But the endurance of discomfort need not be so grand.

Sitting here at the computer, next to my window, enduring my slightly chilled feet, I just saw a little bird, a tiny brown fluffy thing that would fit into the palm of my hand. It’s shuffling around in the garden, rummaging for bugs, the remains of last year’s basil seeds perhaps. And then it just fluffed itself up into the sky. It’s likely much colder than I am.

Isn’t everything worth doing like that, though? Anything really worth doing is going to have moments, or eons of things that are not only uncomfortable but unpleasant or even undesirable, but once surmounted they lead on through to the goal. No thing that you love is without parts that you hate. But that doesn’t mean you quit.

I love to knit. I hate weaving in all the little tails at the end, or sewing bits together. But I do it. I love my children, but there are many aspects of child rearing that I’d love to take a pass on (shoe tantrums, just for instance). But they are all one. Without the discomfort, the experience is incomplete. The triumph less full.

Don’t quit when it gets hard. Don’t pass because it will be uncomfortable. Let’s figure out a way to find beauty, and value, and appreciation in those parts that we find uncomfortable.

Next Post: My presidential platform. ;)

Running Week Two

One little pill. One little, 200 mg ibuprofin caplet made a huge difference in my morning.

Running went really well at the beginning of last week. Temperatures were quite a bit cooler, and I had to do some fiddling each day to figure out what was comfortable. Too many layers at the beginning was too sweaty at the end. But bare ears were out of the question. Friday night was the coldest. I ran directly into a brisk wind for half the run, and the temps were in the low forties F (~6C) with a wind chill in the mid- to upper-thirties (~3C). The cold air chewed at the inside of my lungs and made it very hard to run at a relaxed and easy pace. I knew I would pay for the tense muscles at the end, and tried to concentrate on relaxing, running easier. But I was only warm during the running intervals, and so tended to run a smidge more than I’m used to. Then on the way home, I felt comfortable, relaxed, warm enough and with an easy stride.

Then it started to rain on me. Cold prickly drops of rain. So, I ran the last running interval, and ran much of the last walking interval as well. Tensely.

When I got home, my left hip, knee, and ankle were sore. I stretched, relaxed, took a warm bath at bedtime. Decided on Saturday to skip the run, and let the joints rest.

Sunday is usually a yoga day, but I woke feeling good and ran on Sunday morning to make up for the breather on Saturday. The run was good, and warmer, but when I cooled down at home, both ankles and the left knee were sore again. I stretched.

I woke this morning (Monday) with my knee still feeling a bit wobbly, and it occurred to me for the first time to take something. Duh. I took that one caplet of ibuprofin and the pain melted away. I took forty-five minutes this afternoon to slowly and carefully stretch out both legs and my back. I’m feeling pretty good, but I’m waffling about tonight’s scheduled run.

I may let the rain forecast decide for me.

Running Week 1

So far I’ve kept up with the running/yoga goal, and it feels very good. Running MWFSa, Yoga, TuThSu.

When I was just walking, I felt like I had trouble with pacing. I walked the same amount of time every day, but would walk drastically different distances each day. The first day of running, I felt like my running pace was awkward and elusive, but during the walking intervals, my pace was immediately comfortable and steady. Like falling into a groove.

The second day of running, I found a running groove too.

While I feel winded at the end of each running interval, I’m not reduced to excessive panting and gasping, and am able to recover a normal breath within a couple of minutes.

The first couple of days I had no soreness, but this weekend I find that all of my muscle ends are a little sore. Lower Leg, Lower Thigh, and a smidge in left ankle (which I twisted in a non-running accident). Ankle injury didn’t affect running ability, so long as I was careful of my footing. And the overall running soreness is really mild, not a deterrant at all.

The only troublesome consequence so far has been headaches. I run late afternoon or early evening, and on each run day, I get a migrainey headache around bedtime. Poking around on the net, it looks like it could be an exertion headache, perhaps helped by careful stretching of neck and shoulders. I’ve had migraines before, and it could be that the shift in circulation and pressure is bringing them on. The headaches could also be resulting from shifts in caffeine and sugar consumption following the Season of the Nutritional Abyss. I’ve returned to pre-holiday eating patterns, and my body may be adjusting to more sane levels of caffeine and sugar. If the headaches persist through this week, I’ll see the doc to check them out. And try not be lured by worrying about the worst-case scenario offered on the medical web sites. lol

It’s very empowering to discover that I’m capable of running like this. I have a lot more energy, and aside from the occasional flare-up of identity panic, I feel calm and positive about a lot of things in a different way than I can remember for a while.

Next time: Teacher Meme

Variety Update

After one week, I’m still on track with my fitness goal. I’ve walked every day this week—170 minutes, or about 9 or 10 miles. My first ten weeks is based on time moving rather than distance. Because I’m walking on sidewalks, my distances are estimated. Though I do know that the trip to the elementary school and back is a smidge over 1.2 miles.

Due to unexpected scheduling, I walked in the dark for the first time today. I live in a safe little town, but the idea of walking at night still made me rather nervous. Many of the streets—even main ones—are sporadically lit, so much of a nighttime walk occurs in real darkness. If I had planned ahead on this one, I’d have taken the giant flashlight with me—you know, the one that doubles as a blunt object? Because I was nervous, I walked too fast, and my lower legs and toe joints are sore for the first time tonight. I had planned to walk one more time tomorrow, then start running Wednesday, but I may have to give myself a day of recuperation to make up for the zoomy walk tonight.

Other issues:

The sleeping goal is mostly still on track. With the exercise, I’m finding that I get impossibly tired at around ten o’clock. The writing goal is turning out to be a bit more challenging…

The exercise and sleeping goals have the advantage of having quantitative markers (moving for 30 minutes; in bed by a certain time). The ‘write every day’ goal is more qualitative. I want this goal to be flexible enough to encompass a variety of different types of writing, but I think I need something more concrete to guide the goal. Perhaps like exercising, I should strive to write for 30 minutes per day. Or have a schedule of different types of writing for each day of the week (such as Blog on Monday, Catch up on Correspondence Tuesday, etc.). I’ll have to think on it.

Oh yeah, I’m still a knitter too! Knitting: scrap sock. Black cuff, then alternating one row of black with one row of whatever teeny ball of yarn I pull out of the bag (currently dark blue). I’m doing a solid black heel and will continue with the blue until it runs out, then grab another ball. The other sock will be slightly different. I’m saving a small ball of a slightly lighter shade of blue to start off the stripes on that one.

Next Post: The Supplemental Laundry Center

Pre-Running

I’m following a plan from Runner’s World, which begins with eight straight days of walking. Then ten weeks of interval training, combining walking and running for 30 minutes, four times a week. In the beginning, it’s much walking and little running, but as the weeks progress, the ratios change until it’s half running, half walking. At that point, soul-searching determines whether to make the leap to a full 30 minutes of running or a repeat of the half and half. Anyway. Three days gone and I’ve walked every day, in spite of a nasty and fluctuating head cold that is now settling, against my wishes, into my chest. Gr.

My three day total is sixty minutes of walking, with a total of about 3.6 miles walked. Hoo rah.

Oh, and the other goals, hm, I’ve blogged or written very long email messages every day. And I’ve been in bed for at least eight hours the past two nights, though, due to aforementioned head cold, not slept a full eight hours either night. I’m trying. :)

It occurred to me as I was responding to Cass’s comment yesterday that I may not have been clear on the challenge I’ve set out for myself with this running thing.

I have never participated in organized sports. Or disorganized sports of any time. The one and only time I tried out for a team, was trying out for the Powder Puff football game in high school. I was one of only three girls cut. I took a tennis class in college. I liked it, but I can’t say that I really set the court on fire. I really enjoyed an aerobics class I took in college once, but I think I was more inspired by the hot, long-haired, rock-star looking instructor than anything else. The only physical activity I have stuck with for more than a couple of months is yoga. I participated in a class for nearly a year, and have maintained a spotty individual practice since then.

I don’t object to getting sweaty. I don’t even object to a little satisfying achiness after a good workout. So I can’t really explain the lack of athleticism in my life. The past few years, a lot of my physical energy has been spent on my small children. What with the incubation and the nursing and the carrying and the chasing (times three), I figured I was getting a pretty good workout, even if it was sort of random and varying in intensity.

All children weaned and walking responsibly now, I find myself feeling a little sluggish and looking for something physical to do. Hence the running. It’s cheap (I shelled out for some fresh Nikes [my olds ones were at least six years old, and a little weary feeling] and borrowed a stopwatch from my oldest child), so it doesn’t betray my goal to minimize my consumption. I can do it almost anytime and anyplace, which is helpful when juggling the schedules of three children and a partner who is often in demand outside of the work day.

It feels like a big deal to me, and I’m inordinantly proud and excited to be trying to run. Funnier now, don’t you think, that I’m less worried about the running goal than the sleeping goal?