An adventure in Cushing's and stroke » training

The last long ride

jennnigan — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:08:18 +0000

Today, I went for the last long ride I’ll do before leaving Sydney. I started at 6:30am and cycled 86km. I’ve done this route before twice, and what impressed me today was that I didn’t need to walk any of it. There are a few very long hills, and a couple of quite steep hills, that in the past I’d just got off the bike and walked. Today, every last centimetre of the ride was on the bike. I also didn’t feel like dying at the end. I felt incredibly sweaty and a bit tired, but not the “I think I might just lie down for a week” feeling I had the other two times.

I can only conclude one thing from this: If I can get fit, anyone can. I was the most unfit person on the planet before I started training for this, andd now I think I can say that I’m fit. Not super fit, and there are still many people out there fitter than me, but I think I’m fit enough to do this cycle. I hope so, anyway.

There are now two more pilates classes, two cycle classes, two weights sessions, and then I’m out of here.

The wonder of Pilates

jennnigan — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 09:31:32 +0000

Pilates is awesome. Really, it is. It’s even more awesome when you don’t have Cushing’s! I first started doing it in May 2007, and continued doing it until October 2008. I really loved it, and I would feel more flexible and stronger, but I never noticed a huge difference in appearance. In around June 2008, when all the Cushing’s symptoms appeared alarmingly, there was no difference at all. The Cushing’s belly remained no matter how much Pilates or exercise I did.

In October, my endo told me to stop Pilates, and only do really mild kinds of exercise, until Cushing’s was sorted. So I sorted out Cushing’s, but then had a stroke and couldn’t do anything. Even when I was at a point where I could do it, I couldn’t drive to Pilates, and my gym didn’t have classes. My gym now has Pilates classes with a great instructor, and I’ve been going for about a month now.

And this time, I can totally see the difference. It’s awesome and I love it. I feel taller, stronger, firmer and more flexible after every class. Twice a week at the gym there is a cycle class followed by a Pilates class and that is such a fantastic combination. I am enjoying exercising so much right now, it’s like a drug.

Mmm, sweat

jennnigan — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:33:12 +0000

There are a few different instructors at my gym who do the cycle class. I went to my first ever one on the 30th of July 2008, and that was with Steve. I didn’t go again after the first time, and instead did other sorts of training. About a month ago I started going to them again, this time with Mel. And tonight, I did one with Steve.

Between the first time I did a cycle class and tonight, I think I got a lot fitter. I remember after the first class feeling like I was about to explode from exhaustion (Is that even possible?) I felt incredibly unfit, even though I suppose I was fit enough to keep up. Tonight, I left the class not feeling like I was about to die, but feeling awesome and thinking, “I love cycle class”. I still sweated profusely, but that’s half the fun.

There are now exactly three weeks before I leave Sydney, and that means there are still thirteen cycle classes and about four or five days with cycling on a real bike before I do the Vietnam cycle. My goal is still to just be able to complete it.

Getting fitness back

jennnigan — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:05:25 +0000

About two weekends ago, I went for a 52km cycle, and it was really hard. There were parts that I walked up and I suspect the reason that a previously easy ride turned into something quite difficult was because I hadn’t done a lot of exercise for the three weeks prior. After that day, I’d been back at the gym and back to regular exercise, and last weekend I did a 24km ride which was easy. Today I went a bit further. I started at 7am with a friend, and we went on a 44km ride, which was easy. (I’m judging how easy a ride is by whether I walk the last long hill or cycle the last long hill; today I cycled it).

There are about four and a half weeks left in Sydney before I go, and I’m planning my life around cycling on weekends, cycle classes at the gym, pilates classes at the gym, and other cardio and weights training. I figure the more I do, the more likely it will be that I’ll actually complete the Vietnam cycle.

Cushing’s: A before and after shot

jennnigan — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:43:22 +0000

I was doing a search for my old workplace on Flickr, and came across a photo of me taken by an ex-colleague. It was taken on the 12th of November, 2008.

That was fifteen days before surgery.

And that was taken at Notes for Stroke, about ten and a half months after surgery.

I know that Cushing’s did some horrible things, but it feels like such a long time ago. I’d almost forgotten what it was like. I remember that it felt shit, but the actual details were something I don’t really think about anymore. It’s kind of fascinating now.

In other news, there are 41 days left in Sydney. I have an incredibly packed schedule for that month and a half, and many hours on the bike and at the gym. I’m getting the feeling that no matter how much I do, I will wish that I did more. My goal is to just be able to cycle what I’m supposed to without dying.

Naturally unfit

jennnigan — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:43:45 +0000

I went for a bike ride today, and it was one of the hardest cycles I’ve done. Not because it was long – it was 52km in total, and today was the third time I did it. The second time I did this it was easy.

It was hard because it was the first major exercise I had done for three weeks. I did an 83km cycle on Christmas Day, and since then had been to the gym twice and done a normal amount of walking, but that was about it. And I discovered that three weeks is enough to lose fitness.

So, in the 45 days I have before I leave Sydney, it’s going to be back to exercise five times a week.

Off the wagon

jennnigan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:33:04 +0000

For the past five days, I’ve been in Parkes, a town in country NSW about five or six hours west of Sydney (five or six depending on how you travel and how fast you drive). I was there for the Parkes Elvis Festival, a completely insane and massively fun festival that is held annually on the second weekend in January.

During the weekend, I ate far too much “bad” food, and did too little exercise. I did, however, sweat a lot. I think the average temperature for central NSW in the middle of summer is about 40 degrees, so I still sweated as much as I would during a good gym session. I wonder if that counts?

Stairs

jennnigan — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:51:37 +0000

At a training session a couple of days ago, my trainer and I left the gym and went outside. Close to where we are is a long set of stairs, and the activity that day was to run up the stairs (there were 60 steps; I counted). Run up, come back down, do ten push ups. Then run up, come back down, do 9 push ups. And keep going until the last single push up, which means in total doing 55 push ups and running up those stairs 10 times.

I walked down the stairs not holding onto the rails (I’ve never liked walking downstairs, and hate it even more now), and at one point when I really, really hated my trainer, I remembered a time about a year ago when I was walking up and down stairs with someone watching me. There were only four steps, and I walked up and down them 50 times – five sets of 10. The person watching then was my physio.

And then I thought that running up this set of 60 isn’t that bad, in the scheme of things.

Tired!

jennnigan — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:32:37 +0000

I rode 83km today. Am very tired. Remind me again why this is a good idea?

Fitness and training update

jennnigan — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:36:04 +0000

I have been going to the gym and riding once a week for about four months now. For the past two weeks, I’ve been going to the gym five days a week, sometimes after work at around 4:30pm (I finish work at 4pm and work about two minutes away), but more often at 6:30am or 7am before work.

At the gym, I’m doing a variety of cardio and weights, but mainly it’s cardio (interval training).

Most of my sessions are with my personal trainer, Josh. I’ve had a few people ask me how much I pay, and then they’ll say “Why are you paying him that much?! Pay me and I’ll train you!”

I pay for the sessions because at the beginning of this whole regime, I was the most unfit person on the planet and needed someone who knew how to push me to get me to a level of fitness I needed for the cycle through Vietnam. I think that by now, I can probably train without Josh and survive Vietnam, but he does make a difference. I work harder with him, I sweat more with him, and I definitely have more fun with him.

I continue to pay Josh now less for his knowledge and expertise but more for his motivation and company. He is the one who continues to push me to that extra level, that extra weight, and for those extra five minutes. I am now using the cross trainer and bike at higher levels than I did at the start, lifting heavier weights, and holding the plank position for (slightly) longer amounts of time.

Personal training isn’t for everyone, and not everyone needs a personal trainer. But I know that for me, it’s Josh that makes me enjoy the gym and exercise as much as I do. I think that if I didn’t have someone I tell everything to, someone to joke with, someone to have stupid hypothetical-question conversations with, and someone to train me at 7 in the morning, I might have stopped this exercise business about three months ago.