Looking for Coffee

November 17, 2024 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: , ,

Following up on last month’s post about sweaty hands while rowing, which stressed me out when I couldn’t hold the oars properly in a 5K race in early October, I had the same problem rowing at the Head of the Charles two weeks later. I drank plenty of electrolyte mix before racing, but I wasn’t as well rested as I should have been, and I drank too much coffee that morning. That got me wondering if I might do better if I abstained from coffee for a while.

So, I gave up caffeinated coffee and tea for three weeks, drinking only decaf until the end of the fall rowing season. That didn’t make the problem go away, either. It just made me feel cranky. I had been cheerful and optimistic when the season started, but by November I felt lost without a clue, wandering aimlessly.

Last week, after my final race of the year, I went back to drinking coffee—just one cup—each morning. As far as I can tell, a small amount of coffee doesn’t make me sweat more on the rowing machine. Even if it did, that wouldn’t matter anyway because holding the machine’s handle is a much simpler motion than sculling. My hands won’t be a concern in the spring either; for Masters rowers, the spring races are 1K sprints, which take about four minutes, so they’re already over before I’ve had time to build up much of a sweat.

Hopefully, by next fall the problem will have gone away. Until then, I am just going to enjoy my coffee and not worry about what might—or might not—happen many months in the future.

Word-art that says, "Not all who wander are lost. Most of them are just looking for coffee."

Not Sweating the Small (Midlife) Stuff

October 15, 2024 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: , ,

I got overly stressed last week after rowing the mixed double at the Head of the Ohio regatta in Pittsburgh, which for me was the start of the 5K fall racing season. The weather was great—sunny, with moderate temperatures and little wind. My husband and I, who were older than most of the crews, had a good start as several other boats got “satisfyingly small,” as my husband put it, behind our stern. We had plenty of energy and kept up the pace well.

But then, about two-thirds of the way down the course, my hands began sweating profusely. I couldn’t keep a firm grip on the oars and flubbed a few strokes. It didn’t matter in terms of where we finished; two crews were significantly faster, and we’d gotten well ahead of the others, so we had third place regardless. I worried about it afterward, though. My mind went into a gloomy negative spiral as I thought it was likely to be a midlife issue, and maybe it would last for years, and rowing wouldn’t be much fun anymore.

My husband offered the practical suggestion of putting Stickum on my hands when rowing. There isn’t really a product called Stickum anymore, although there used to be about 50 years ago, before professional sports banned it. Companies still make similar products for amateur athletes, though. It’s just a rag with a tacky chemical to wipe on the hands to improve grip.

Photo of a tacky rag inside a plastic bag.

The problem with using a Stickum-like product is that it starts to wear off after about 15 minutes, and a 5K rowing race takes longer than that in a double or single. So, although it did improve my grip, I was still stressed when we practiced on our home river last week. Because I was busy with work and with afternoon rowing practice, I didn’t have enough time to relax and get my mind in a better place before we left for another regatta in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. We had great weather there also, and we rowed well for a second-place finish. Although I never lost my grip on an oar, I still had unhappy thoughts, feeling that I didn’t even know if I could trust my own body.

After we got home and I’d had some time to rest and recover with a Monday vacation day, I finally did the sensible thing and read some articles online about how to deal with the problem of excessive sweating during exercise. As I suspected, it can be a midlife issue for women, caused by temperature regulation being less efficient. One simple recommendation was to drink ice water with electrolyte mix before exercise, rather than just drinking plain water (as I often had done). I tried that before getting on the rowing machine Monday evening, and my hands were fine, with minimal sweating.

We’re on the road again this week, rowing at the legendary Head of the Charles in Boston. I’ll keep in mind that in modern times, there is generally a solution for most issues and no need to sweat the small stuff.

Vegging Out with Intention

October 17, 2023 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: , ,

I thought about calling this post “Embracing my Inner Couch Potato,” but then I decided that didn’t work because there was nothing “inner” about the way my rear end inhabited the couch yesterday. I had a vacation week scheduled, with one free day between returning Sunday night from a two-day rowing regatta (in which my mixed quad crew won second place, yay) and setting out on the road again Tuesday. So, having very little energy when I woke up on Monday, I spent much of the day in total veg-out mode.

Photo of vegetables on grocery shelves.

(Photo credit: Pamela V. White)

My glorious day as a veggie queen ended around 5 PM when I begrudgingly pried my butt off the couch cushions and went to do my prescribed rowing machine workout, followed by shower, dinner, and packing clothes for the next trip. But it was wonderful while it lasted.

For much of the year, I’d been feeling overscheduled and run down from so much hurrying to row after work, in combination with some overtime this summer and road trips to regattas. That was far too much, and my body had been screaming at me to slow down and rest. The Monday veg-out day was greatly needed and was taken with intention. Truth be told, I didn’t feel at all guilty about lazing around on the couch while my husband was in the home office all day fixing the latest software blow-up at work.

Taking a Rest Day

June 22, 2023 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: , ,

Although the training plan that my husband and I got from our online rowing coach provides for a rest day every Sunday, we haven’t been taking it regularly. Sometimes we practice with our quad mates on Sunday afternoon, and sometimes we go for an easy row when the weather is nice. If we travel to a Saturday regatta towing the boat trailer and get home late, then we have to take the boats back to the boathouse on Sunday, so it’s not the most restful day whether or not we do any rowing.

My husband always has plenty of energy, but it takes me longer to feel fully recovered after a long road trip. To make sure I get enough rest, for both the mind and body, I’ve decided not to do any rowing most Thursdays. That is an easy day on the training plan, in a low heart rate zone, allowing for cross-training if desired. Today I did 20 minutes of yoga and then took a quiet, peaceful walk.

Photo of concrete steps with hostas and other plants on both sides.

(Photo credit: Sergei Gussev)

Although I enjoy rowing, it does get a bit hectic sometimes when I hurry to get my work done so that we have time to go down to the river and finish whatever we have on the training plan before it’s late in the evening. Too many days of that can get overwhelming. Blocking out Thursdays as a day when there’s no rush to do anything should help to give my weekly schedule a more restful flow.

Unburdening in Progress

March 30, 2023 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

I had a demanding interval workout on the rowing machine Saturday afternoon. My results were much better than a similar exercise I did last year, and I was able to stay more consistent from one interval to another, so I was pleased with my efforts.

When I woke up on Sunday, I felt okay—no aches or pains anywhere. All my energy seemed to have drained away overnight, though. I sat down on the couch with my coffee and breakfast, and then I couldn’t bring myself to get up and do anything else for a very long time. I just browsed aimlessly on my phone, with occasional thoughts that maybe I ought to do some spring cleaning or write a blog post; but it was pretty clear that neither of those would be happening anytime soon.

After what seemed like a very long time, I did get up and do some short yoga exercises, and later in the day I went for a walk with my husband. So, I wasn’t a total couch potato, but I felt that I wasn’t anywhere near being back to myself, either. Nothing whatsoever came to mind for a blog entry, and I wasn’t sure that I could put words together usefully even if I had a topic.

Monday morning didn’t go well. I had a woe-is-me internal narrative on auto-replay in the back of my mind, along the lines of, “Oh, yuck, the weekend is over already, back to sitting at my desk all day, and then I have to go sit on the rowing machine again, I’m so tired of having all my time and energy sucked up by these workouts, why can’t we have good spring weather so I could at least row on the river.”

Although I felt somewhat better on Tuesday, the blahs came back on Wednesday morning. That was even worse because it didn’t seem to make any sense; I’d had difficult workouts before, and they hadn’t left me feeling totally tired of everything for days. I put a “down under” image from New Zealand on my art display because it seemed to fit the upside-down feelings I’d been having.

New Zealand beach photo.

At that point, it occurred to me that my New Year’s resolution of feeling unburdened by self-imposed obligations wasn’t going too well either. That Saturday workout, however tiring, was not actually much more than 12 minutes of hard exercise, plus warm-up and cool-down time; it certainly shouldn’t have left me feeling overwhelmed by life in general.

“But you know it wasn’t just the workout.”

The girlish voice came from Dot, who had appeared in my New Year’s resolution post representing my to-do list personified as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Toto trotted happily at her heels over the warm sands of the beach picture.

“It’s all the disruptions and uncertainty of the past few years, plus all the time and effort that went into better fitness. Needing time to rest and take care of oneself is perfectly normal. For example, when my Kansas house got blown away to Oz, of course I was terrified for some time, but then I fell asleep. And before starting out on the yellow brick road, I took time for a good breakfast. That’s healthy.”

“Okay, maybe,” I answered, still feeling doubtful, “but if it’s healthy, then shouldn’t I feel better? And why haven’t I had any energy to write the simplest thing in my blog this week?”

“Don’t rush it. Get a good night’s sleep,” Dot advised, “and write that blog post tomorrow.”

Food Tracking Farewell

May 26, 2022 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

When I got a Fitbit four years ago, I started using the food-tracking feature in the app. I didn’t have any interest in counting calories precisely, but just thought it might be informative to see how much I was eating, on average. Even after the original device was replaced with a newer model, I kept using that feature.

Photo of Fitbit.

Because my preferred exercise is rowing, which does not have motions that Fitbit can recognize, the calories in vs. out calculation was never accurate. Fitbit sometimes would record my rowing as some other exercise, such as swimming or an elliptical machine, but more often it was left out of the calculation. As a result, the food tracker usually showed that I was eating more calories than the amount needed.

The incorrect calculation was somewhat annoying, but I kept using the food tracker anyway because I had gotten used to it. The small graph was not intrusive, and I wanted to track my water intake anyway, so entering calorie amounts (quickly estimated and rounded off) didn’t seem to take much more time.

Last week, I decided I’d had enough of it when an update changed the food-tracking display to show, in all caps, “OVER BUDGET” or “UNDER BUDGET” whenever the total calories consumed so far that day was not within 100 calories of the amount Fitbit’s calculation showed—which, of course, it almost never was. I asked myself, why was I still using that feature when, by now, I had a good idea of my usual calorie intake? The only answer was that it had become a mindless habit.

So, I removed food tracking from the features on the app, and I don’t miss it. In fact, my subconscious mind seems to have cheered on that decision, because twice this week I put down the Fitbit somewhere in the house and forgot to put it back on for several hours. I suspect that my subconscious is telling me I’ve let my life get too regimented, what with rowing schedules and everything. To some extent, schedules and tracking are useful, but it’s high time to start unwinding whatever unnecessary complexity I’ve added.

Recalibrating, stand by

March 9, 2022 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: , ,

When I went on vacation with my husband the last week of February, we brought along a rowing machine—a Concept2 RowErg, which has the advantage of being easy to take apart and move. It fit reasonably well in the back of my husband’s SUV with one of the back seats folded down and our daughter in the other seat, with her little dog on her lap. Arranging the suitcases around the RowErg was manageable, and the boats and bicycles went on a trailer.

Our plan was to row our double scull on the Florida Intracoastal Waterway for a week, so as to get back in practice after being off the water during the cold northern winter, and then race in a regatta on Sunday, February 27th in Sarasota. The regatta was smaller than usual because a circus had taken up much of the space in the county park where it was held, but we still had good competition. Bringing the erg to Florida allowed us to keep up with the winter fitness schedule our online coach had given us.

We set up the erg on a screened back porch of the house where we stayed. The view of the bay was gorgeous. Before rowing on the water in the early afternoon, we did our workouts on the erg in the morning, while the temperature was still reasonably cool.


I still felt like I was wilting in the Florida humidity, though. After being indoors all winter, I wasn’t at all used to it. A demanding workout on Wednesday morning, which focused on more strength at a slower rate, left me totally dripping with sweat and grumbling to myself about how I could’ve been so crazy as to be a fitness freak while on vacation.

The afternoon rows on the water were easier. We just paddled around with the dolphins and enjoyed the sunshine and the lovely scenery. Then we rode our bicycles in the late afternoon, on a path that ran beside the Gulf Coast for part of the way. It felt like a great, relaxing vacation—but for self-inflicted erg misery.

When race day finally came, though, I gained more appreciation for the daily workout schedule. Sprinting for the 1K distance that is standard for Masters races didn’t seem nearly as long, or as hard, as in past years. I was able to keep the pace more even, and each stroke felt more powerful. When I looked to see how far I had gone on the course, thinking that I was about halfway, I was surprised to see that my boat was already two-thirds of the way to the finish line. In the single, I was far ahead of my competitor in the next lane; and in the double, we nosed in front of a team that always used to beat us handily at regattas.

Now I feel as if I am recalibrating—that is to say, tossing out old assumptions about my limits and getting used to having a healthier and more capable body. My husband just signed us up to row our double next month in an open 2K sprint with a younger field of competitors, which we haven’t done before. We may not win, or even place, but it will be a good experience no matter what happens; and I’m not going to make any limiting assumptions before we even try.

After we got back home, I had a weird dream in which I lived in a messy apartment. A circus started setting up on the grounds of the apartment complex, like what happened with the regatta at the park. I left the apartment and came back to find that the building where it had been, just a few hours earlier, was no longer there. I saw a construction worker walking by and asked him what had happened. He told me that the apartment building had been temporarily disassembled to make space for the circus and would be put back together afterward.

There’s plenty of fodder for dream interpretation in that one!

Instant Message: Body to Mind

October 27, 2021 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

Because I generally subscribe to the belief that the body has its own innate wisdom, when I am dealing with its quirks, often I’ll begin by asking whether it has something that it wants to communicate.

I’ve been wondering recently, now that I have reached that age, what message the female body is trying to get across by way of midlife issues. Given the fact that most women experience them to some degree, treating them as medical disorders does not make sense. But, why would a natural transition cause us to feel uncomfortable?

Maybe it wasn’t always this way. The modern world is such a busy place, vastly different from the world our ancestors knew. So, I’m inclined to believe that our bodies want to tell us something like this:

INSTANT MESSAGE
To: Overscheduled Mind
From: Busier-than-usual Body
Subject: Hot flashes and such

Sorry to interrupt your carefully planned workday, Mind, with these annoying reminders that you live in a body. Well, actually, I’m not sorry. For way too long now, you’ve been treating me as if I exist only as a beast of burden to carry you from one task to another, without taking time to rest. And you know what? I just can’t do that anymore.

Yes, you’re busy, as always; but you need to understand that I am busier than usual too. It takes a lot of energy to rebalance those hormones and recalibrate my systems. I need much more relaxation and gentle nurturing so that I can recharge.

I’ve been trying to get your attention in other, less intrusive ways, but you haven’t listened. When I got so exhausted that waking up was a struggle, you plonked me down in the desk chair every morning anyway, sucking down enough coffee so that you could ignore how I felt. When I started to get achy from holding up the weight of the world, you just popped some ibuprofen and kept on going. You were so focused on meeting the culture’s demands that you never took the time to consider how poorly suited they are to the needs of midlife women—and everyone else, for that matter.

But I love you anyway, Mind, even though sometimes, you haven’t got the sense God gave a goose. That’s why I am still trying to give you this very simple message—slow down before you fall down. Instead of complaining about your change-of-life issues, understand them in the way they’re intended, and go take me for a peaceful walk in the woods.

Woods with autumn foliage.

(Photo credit: Jim Lukach)

Or listen to music for awhile. Read a good uplifting novel. Write a short story. Do crafts. Watch funny cat videos. Cook a new recipe to share with family and friends. Just look up at the sky and daydream for a few minutes, like when you were a child. You do remember being a child, don’t you?

I promise, taking a little break from the to-do list won’t make the world come crashing down on you.

Cartoon Experiment

September 1, 2021 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags: , ,

I mentioned in a recent post that I might change my Gravatar/WordPress image to a cartoon avatar instead of a real photo, just to have more fun. I’ve changed it now, and not only as a Gravatar, but also on Gmail and on my work Outlook account. A few other people at work have done the same, so it’s not entirely silly—or if it is, at least I’m not the only one. Here it is:


Because the cartoon image looks younger than my real age, I’m curious as to whether seeing it every day will cause me to feel younger and more energetic as time goes by. There are research studies establishing that older people actually become healthier when put into an environment filled with reminders of their youth, showing measurable improvements in conditions associated with aging. It’s an interesting experiment, and even if it’s a bit on the goofy side, there can’t be any harm in it.

Core Strength

March 17, 2021 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Yesterday afternoon, my husband and I went downtown to get the Covid-19 vaccine. County Public Health had set up a mass vaccination clinic in the convention center, and I was impressed by how smoothly it went. We were directed along rows of chairs when we arrived, and after we had been sitting for a few minutes, people came by with carts to administer the shots. Although the vaccine requires a long needle because it has to go into the muscle, I did not feel it much. The clinic had good attendance and left me feeling hopeful that our country, and the world, will soon see calmer waters.

Still waters of a lake reflecting a snowy mountaintop.

(Image credit: Millie Walker)

This morning my arm felt a little stiff at the injection site, but that did not last long. It’s fine now. And to be honest, I didn’t notice it anyway because I was sore through the midsection from doing planks on Monday. Usually I row for exercise, but the power went out just as I was sitting down on the rowing machine, so I decided to do a “core strength” online workout on my phone. That might not have been the best idea when I hadn’t done planks in a long time.

It did, however, leave me thinking about the hardworking public servants who contribute so much to our society’s core strength, such as the public health workers who organized the vaccination clinic. I am thankful for their efforts and dedication.

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