MS'ers Training in 2013

[teena marie]

Hi Mark,

I'm glad it's helping your friend. There used to be a guy from the UK on this site that took ice baths-literally-ice cubes in the tub. Ice is considred anti-inflammatory so it stands to reason that it would help.

Today was my first day that I couldn't go in my pool. I took a cold bath but it's not the same. I'm hoping it warms up a little so I can get in a few more swims.

How is your training going?

Teena Marie

[mvargas]

Teena, after learning that cooling the body helps someone else as well, I passed along the information to a friend in Alaska that is having trouble recovering from HSCT. He took a long cold shower and saw more improvement in the next hour than he had seen in months. According to his wife he still curses me during the showers but is all smiles during the hour or so afterwards when he exercises. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Mark

[teena marie]

Pell, that sounds nasty. But I can certainly relate to how it happened. Take good care and treat yourself to whatever it takes to help.

Larry, yes I ski. Not far but the sliding motion really helps the hip flexor complex. Cold water swimming is coming to an end before too long. I can hang onto the ladder and do some kicking (100-300 licks) but swimming in my harness less and less-I feel the core temperature plunging too quickly plus if it's windy I'm moving into hypothermia fast.


My new yoga therapist is great and I have my weekly training on the bike and strengthening.

Take care all,

Teena Marie

I may have said earlier that I'm determined to move out of my comfort zone so I accepted an invitation to do a 3 hour lecture to 107 McGill nursing students last week. It went well but it didn't leave me much time for exercising.

[AMFADVENTURES]

Pell, just noticed your update. Good Lord, a broken clavicle, how bad is it???? The thought has crossed my mind more than once this year, that it might be nearing time to slow down a little because of that whole aging thing and the added bonus of MS. Not ready just yet but sometimes, I can feel it getting closer.

TM, 56 degrees sounds just about right. Don't know that I could swim in it but it sure would be great to dip in. Nothing relieves the pain of a hard cycling workout on the back and legs better than spending a few minutes in really cold water. How long do you swim in water like that anyway?

I finally got a little over 100 miles in on the bike last week. It was hard, not very fast and kind of disappointing to realize just how quick you can loose strength and endurance and how long it seems it will take to get it back. My longest ride since I took a little break has been 45 miles. I need to get close to 110 before thanks giving to have a chance at the Tour de Tucson.

Also, we had our first skiff of snow recently. I've been threatening for a couple of years now but this is the year I WILL get back on the cross country skis. I hope someone will hold me to that! TM, you do some cross country skiing don't you.

Stay healthy,
Larry

[pawpaw]

More trials and tribulations...

Teena Marie, Your reaction to swimming in cold water is facinating. I'm not sure I could convince myself to go into 56 degree water no what the reaction.
I just spent the last week in Vancouver BC at a conference. The weather was Vancouverish- rainy and chilly every day. I had planned to rent a bike and cycle Stanley Park but that didn't happen. I awoke early the day of departure and it wasn't raining. I calculated that I could jog to Stanley Park, circumnavigate the sea wall and get back to the hotel (about 8 miles) in time to shower and catch a cab to the airport. Of course, this was all pre-sunrise- as in dark- and I haven't run in over a year. All was well until I didn't see a curb, tripped and fell on my shoulder- at the half-way point. If I kept my shoulders back and didn't move my arm, it didn't hurt too bad, so I completed my adventure as planned. In retrospect, not my best plan.
I'm now pretty miserable-hopefully with muscle pain not joint damage- and off the bike for a few days. This aging stuff sucks. Update: broken clavicle
Another observation - those really long escalators in convention centers are so dangerous for me. I get disoriented about halfway up and have to hold on for dear life. Carrying a cup of coffee on one of those things is absolutely out.
Glad to be home...
Pell

[teena marie]

Hi Mark,

This is the first time I've met someone with ths same reaction. I always hope it will last longer than an hour. It sounds like a great routine. My pool temperature is now 56 degrees so I can't stay in for long. I miss my long ocean swims of the summer.

So today I worked with my trainer. On the spin bike by myself and 12 minutes increasing intensity each minute, followed by some great strengthening-squats,superman,bridging ending with a good stretch. Two days ago, I started working with a therapeutic yoga teacher who also does Thai massage. We worked on breathing and some amazing stretching. He is also an occupational therapist so all in all, a good resource.

Take care all,

Teena Marie

[mvargas]

Teena Marie, after a cool swim I can walk without cane or crutches. Doing exercises right after a swim, my legs are 50% stronger, better range of motion and faster responses. It only lasts about an hour but it sure feels great.
My swimming routine is just a half mile swim each day. Not much time for more during the week.

Mark

[ActiveMSers]

While I have flashed more folks out on the road of life than a pack of paparazzi photographing Miley twerking, I've never squatted in poison ivy. I'm not sure why I just typed that, because usually that means it's about to happen. Krikey. Thanks Pell!

[AMFADVENTURES]

Pell, hands down, your story is the best....or the worst depending how you look at it. It still makes me squeamish to even think about poison ivy infused cycling shorts!

TM, nice to see you're back. A swimming pool in your living room?????? We had an unplanned for pool forming in our basement briefly due to unprecedented recent rains, but it's gone now.

Got 15 miles on the bike last week. It's a re-start, the first ride in two weeks. Although I struggled a bit, in the end it felt great!

Larry

[teena marie]

Yes, my walking improves dramatically after a cold swim. Which is why I do this. But it is a combination of swimming-the kicking and the windmill action of front crawl as well as cold water which does it. To me the pathways are still intact which is why I persist. I have cold baths all winter but it's not the same effect. I've worked up to being able to tolerate cold water.
What have you noticed for yourself? Do you have a swimming routine?

Teena Marie (don't worry about misspelling my name-it happens all the time)

[mvargas]

Teena Marie, sorry for mangling your name.

Mark

[mvargas]

Tina, do your symptoms improve after you have had a very cool swim? Mine improve dramatically but I am not brave enough to try 60 degrees yet, low 70s is low enough for now.

[teena marie]

Two amazing stories!

I'm back in Montreal, back at work, still having some amazing swims in my backyard pool although the water temperature has been hovering around 60 so I can't stay in too long. I'm back to the spin bike as well and am working with my trainer again. I'm in the process of figuring out how to put a pool in my living room. Tuesday, I start with a new yoga teacher. With all this muscle building, I need some help with flexibility.

Take care all,

Teena Marie

[pawpaw]

Okay- if you insist...

Larry, you tell a story so well. I won't be as eloquent, but here is my story.
Two years ago, while on a group ride, I experienced one of those "gotta go NOW" urges with little warning. We were on the tandem and it took me a few panicy minutes to convince my DH to stop NOW. He kept saying, there is a better place about a mile ahead. Later was not an option. Luckily, we were a few minutes ahead of the group and once we were stopped, I headed into the roadside bushes while the DH stood guard and sounded the warning of approaching riders. Business was handled quickly (travel with necessary tissue) and I shimmied back into the sweaty lycra shorts and off we went. Not perfect, but not too bad.
Fast forward a few days. It turns out, in my rush, I didn't carefully survey my surrounding vegetation. My shorts had spent time in close proximity with some very potent poison ivy. I had then ridden in said poison ivy infused shorts for an hour and then sat around in them for a few more hours.
And I am very allergic- need steroids every time I get poison ivy- allergic.
I won't go into too much detail, but it turns out that intense exposure to poison ivy over several hours doesn't lead to a rash. All of the exposed skin just peels off in large sheets. Absolute misery. Luckily, I did have some steroids around so I didn't have to explain all of this to my doctor. I don't think he could have made it out of the exam room before bursting out in laughter.
I haven't had to hit the bushes since then, but I will certainly be more careful in the future.

Pell

[AMFADVENTURES]

Potty Humor

I don’t generally engage in telling potty stories but it’s been a rough couple of weeks on the home front and I’m missing my endorphin fix on the bike so somehow my mind gravitated in this direction.

As MSers, even if we don’t experience elimination problems I’m sure we are all aware of their copious existence among us. I have a pretty good routine. I can usually have things moving and get on with the day as long as I am up about 90 minutes before I have to get going. An exception to this regularity occurs the morning after a long road trip. For some reason, road trips in excess of 4 or 5 hours have a paralyzing effect on my colon. The longer the road trip, the longer the paralysis lasts. This is exactly what happened to me on the most recent MS 150 bike ride in New Mexico.

I was up at 4:30 Saturday morning, the first day of the ride. The trip to Santa Fe the previous day had taken a little over 6 hours so, while I was hoping for the best, I was half expecting a frozen colon, and frozen it was. That’s OK, missing a moving experience for a day isn’t really a big deal and if it affected me at all on the day’s century ride, it wasn’t really noticeable. In fact, I felt confident that, with a couple of beers, I could have a big dinner and would still be able to get things going well enough the next morning to make it through the day.

I was kind of half right. The next morning I did get things moving but less than I would have liked so I was still carrying some extra weight as I started the ride up the Truchas hill. Maybe that’s why it took me 15 minutes longer than last year and why I wasn’t able to get all the way up the “Bring You to Your Knees” pitch in a single go. In fact, the more I think about it, the more certain I am that’s exactly what held me back. While I was able to climb Truchas, turn around and ride the screaming 8 mile descent back down all without having the you know what beaten or scared out of me, somewhere along the remaining 20 miles I started to feel the “urge”. It wasn’t the “you gotta go now” urge, it was the “you better start looking for an opportunity” urge that precedes it. I think it was the last rest stop where I took advantage of the opportunity to relieve that urge.

I pulled up not 10 feet from the port-a-potty at that rest stop unclipping one foot to assume the 3 point stance I require for a few minutes before dismounting. There was no line to stand around and fidget in so I went right on inside. I was wearing bib cycling shorts that day because they are typically much more comfortable to climb big hills in and I had my “I Ride With MS” jersey on. For those of you who might not be aware, cycling etiquette requires that the straps of the bibs be worn under the jersey. What that means is that the jersey has to come off before the straps can come off, all of which has to happen before the shorts can come down to use a toilet. Although I hadn’t really paid any attention to this before, my jersey, which came from the Colorado MS society, was a ¾ zip, meaning it didn’t fully unzip but had to be taken off overhead. That’s wasn’t such a huge deal really, even given that it was damp from sweat of the heat of the afternoon 4/5ths of the way through an arduous 55 mile bike ride with the only pockets a cyclist has in the back of it stuffed full of crap. Right, even given all of that, the jersey came off relatively easily and the straps and the shorts came down and business was conducted in short order with great satisfaction.

Putting things back together however, is an entirely different matter. First, in the event there are uninitiated out there, a word about port-a-potties. They are very small, typically having barely enough space to turn around in between the door, the urinal and the toilet seat. They are ALWAYS placed in direct sunlight such that at mid day they heat up to approximately the temperature of a pizza oven. (I believe this is done to encourage people to spend as little time as possible in them and it works.) They are unstable, particularly when placed on uneven ground, which is where they are always placed. If a port-a-potty has been in use for more than 20 minutes, it is filthy. And finally, the odor of a port-a-potty in the heat of the mid day sun, well let’s not even go there.

So, I’m in the port-a-potty, I’ve finished my business, I’m getting my sweat dampened shorts pulled back up and the bib straps untwisted after slipping them over my arms and onto my shoulders. I take my jersey down from the convenient hook on the back of the door and noticing the bulging pockets, briefly consider emptying them before I put it on. I immediately discard that notion as there is no flat surface much less a clean surface in the port-a-potty on which to place the items. Very carefully, so as not to dump the contents of the pockets on the floor, I raise the sweat dampened tight fitting jersey over my head and slip it down over my torso. I find I have managed to get one arm through an armhole and the other one through the neck of the jersey. With some difficulty, the jersey comes off again and it takes a minute to get it untwisted from the rather awkward removal before I make another attempt. Being careful to get my arms in both armholes this time prior to lowering the jersey over my body, and making certain not to spill the contents of the pockets, I start again but something goes wrong. Something somewhere in that tight damp mess is twisted and, with my arms over my head and the jersey blindfolding me, I can’t tell what or where. I try to force it down hoping that if I can do so, I can untwist it afterward. It doesn’t go and is twisting up worse, so much so that it’s beginning to constrict my upper chest. The temperature is getting to me, the exertion is tiring me but obviously, the jersey has to come off again, except it won’t do that either. Finally, in the confined, dirty, smelly heat of the rocking and rolling port-a-potty, the jersey comes off. It is twisted in an unbelievable knot of “I Ride With MS” fabric and with it in hand, I burst out the door, take three steps and collapse in the shade of a nearby vehicle.

It takes me more than a few minutes to get the Gordian knot of that jersey untwisted but I am able to get it on with little drama when I do. I apologized to the lady who was waiting all that time to get into the port-a-potty, a lady who had commented on my “I Ride With MS” jersey on the route. I was hot and exhausted and feeling very MSey so I stumbled over to the rest area proper and plopped myself down in a chair in the shade to try to recover a bit. As fortune would have it, both Krista and Maggie were at that rest stop. I think Krista thought I was done for, she seemed to be particularly concerned by my state of exhaustion. While I tried to assure her it would pass in a few minutes, Maggie came over and put a cold wet towel on my neck. I’m sure you can imagine how heavenly that felt. As I was convincing Maggie and Krista that I did not require a sag to the finish, or at least not yet, the lady who had been waiting for the port-a-potty came over to express a greatly appreciated vote of confidence in me. I think she simply said, “No, he’s doing just fine”. And with that, I got up, remounted my bike and, having successfully avoided another messy end, lightly rode off to finish the ride in comfort.

Potty stories anybody?