MSers in Training 2017

[mvargas]

Teena Marie, you have inspired me to swim in a cold pool, everything improves dramatically by lowering my body temperature to around 95 degrees F. Never would have tried it without you leading the way.
Good luck with your rehab and recovery.
Mark

[AMFADVENTURES]

Teena Marie, as far as I'm concerned you ARE the inspiration. I know how hard it is and the uncertainty that is involved in recovering from a major setback and I want you to know how much I appreciate the updates. You are constantly in my mind.

All the best,
Larry

[ActiveMSers]

Suebee, TM, Larry, Veronica, et al, pretty awesome. Alas, I don't know if I can get a $10K tester, much less two, since that would be the price of a new car. So glad Veronica found the stool tip helpful! I've got other stool tips here.

http://activemsers.org/tipstricks/toilettips.html

As for exercise, I went to the actual gym for the first time in a bit and worked on upper my upper body. Usually I do legs since my arm bike really works, shocker, my arms and chest. But today I'm still sore from Saturday's workout, so I guess that means some of my muscles aren't getting exercised as much as I thought. But which ones?

I found a link for the benefits of arm cycling, but it doesn't identify specifics. Says it works chest, shoulders, back, arms and core.

https://www.livestrong.com/article/1...bike-benefits/

[teena marie]

Oh my, thank you all so much for your words. It is unbelievably helpful. This kind of support is what this site provides so, a big thank you to Dave for all you do.

Amazing physio yesterday. Pushed 200 lbs on the leg press and significant improvement on sit to stand.

Thank you again and huge, virtual hugs to all.

Teena Marie

[penkalet]

Veronica, I think on your trike you can install a BionX 350Watt for $2500.00 at a good bike shop. I like that one because they can adjust the computer to compensate for my bad leg by keeping the power on little longer so you can do the full revolution. Very useful for hard climb. Let me know if you are interested I give you more detail.
Larry, I am now 2 months on Ocrevus and I must say I am very impress! No progress at all on the walking but my mind is so much clearer! I can multitask more and I really got ha-ha moment 3 week ago when I could drive like a regular driver on a curvy road and enjoy it. Since my DX 8 years ago I never have enjoyed to drive because always little in lala land, to really I should not drive specially in town with busy traffic. Even my kids say I was more engaged.
Actually I have exercise less because I enjoyed more doing other thing. Will see how long all that last.

Good life and training to everyone.
Alain

[Veronica]

Alain, thanks for this comment.. Yup, the Bionx system is what I want to look at. I see there is a 350 RL kit and a 350 DL Touring, slight difference in price, but I can't figure out why they are different. Do you have one of these? That is very useful information on the possibility of adjusting for the weaker leg. I have to see if the battery will fit on my boom, as I had it shortened considerable to accomodate my five-foot-nothing frame. I see that it has been also mounted on the rear tubing, but don't know if that would affect the ride with more weight on one side instead of centered when on the boom. So, good things for me to research. Any other info you can give me, I will thankfully take....

Glad the Ocrevus has had such a positive result for you... Must be joyful! Fingers crossed it continues....

[penkalet]

I think the touring is the one I have.
There is a pannier holder with a rack to hold the battery above the back wheel. One battery as little more power the other for the price difference, and if you have a 26” wheel I will take the stronger for sure. Alain

[AMFADVENTURES]

Wind, wind, and more wind

TM, great to hear you're making headway, hoping it continues.

Alain, glad the Ocrevus seems to be helping. With my Rituxan program, I noticed lessening of progression shortly after I started, but it wasn't for a year and a half or so that I started to notice motor function improvements. Nothing momentous but I rejoice in every little bit.

And the Bionx! If it's really as easy as replacing the rear wheel and adding a battery I am defiantly going to check into it!

Dave, great reminder to start out easy as winter sets in and we head back to the club for our workouts. No need to injure one's self right at the start.

The wind's been howling here, I haven't had a windless ride in over a month. On my first 90 mile attempt I got blown up into the foothills by a moderate wind, took a break at the top until a noticeable temperature drop and wind increase hit. I had to pedal down 5% grades into the wind! The bikes coming up were going as fast as I was going down, even the cars were being blown around. Completely exhausted, I stopped about 15 miles from home for a sandwich and possible phone call home for help, but the wind shifted while I was eating and I eventually got blown back. Managed 80 miles, learned later that the gusts were 40 to 60 mph.

Last week the wind was down to a manageable 5 to 15 mph and I finally got my 90 mile ride in. It totally reminded me why I stopped doing century rides!

Tour DE Tucson this month, 106 miles but if the forecast is calling for much wind I will shorten that.

AMF

[ActiveMSers]

The fall weather here in New Mexico has meant lots of training outdoors in the fall colors. Exercising at home or gym just isn't as appealing as getting into nature when it is at its finest.

While I've been cranking on the bike trail, I've also hit the bumpier trails with my offroad wheelchair. When the trail gets tricky (or goes uphill), it's actually great exercise for both me and Laura. I crank while she pushes. Our heart rates climb the more technical it gets. Works surprisingly well. Yesterday we went on some flats, so she jogged while I "hiked." Perfect!

Great to hear from Alain! (And everyone else, of course. Thanks for the hug, TM!)

[penkalet]

AMF, the BionX is little more complicated to install because you need to register and set the computer. I will advise to have bike shop to do it for you. But I think you are to good for it, I have to go to the trike because I couldn’t clip and unclip my feet fast enough with out falling too many time!
Thanks Dave, and thanks again that I read your story how you trained with your sister to improve your walking speed and that new study of 6 minutes twice a day so I started walk twice every day for a week, 30 minutes the morning and 6 to 10 on the evening and my speed is improving a little but I let you know later how much I have improved for sure. Good luck to every one.
Alain

[AMFADVENTURES]

Alain, I did check out the Bionix wheels as well as an assortment of e-bikes. The Bionix is pretty cool, the only e-wheel I've seen that claims an 80 mile range and sure enough, it can replace the drive wheel on many standard bikes. However, it's probably more than some carbon fiber bikes might tolerate long term and in any event, would void the lifetime warranty on my bike. But, there are some pretty decent looking e-bikes for sale out there at prices less than the Bionix wheel! I hope to demo an e-bike for a couple of days some time in the future.

My training for the Tour de Tucson is mostly done and I am seroiusly looking forward to getting off the bike and back into the weight room. I'm confident that I can do the106 miles, the bigger question might be whether or not I can finish before sunset! My training probably peaked 6 to 8 weeks ago and although I might be a little stronger right now, I certainly am NOT faster. For the life of me, I don't understand why stronger and faster don't go hand in hand but that certainly seems to be the case.

So today will be clean tune and lube the bike day, tomorrow will be a short set of intervals and then I'm off to Tucson. My brother and daughter bailed out on me so I'll be riding with my sister - if I can catch up to her. She's doing the 75 mile version of the ride which will start an hour and a half after I do, 30 miles ahead of where I start. I expect to be within 5 to 10 miles of her when she starts and hope to be able to make up the difference by the 50 mile mark. That would be the Sabino Canyon wash where I would very much like to borrow her shoulder to help me across. Assuming I catch her by then, the rest should be a piece of cake, except for Snider hill. It's only about a city block long but it seems nearly verticle. Maybe I'll get smart this year and walk up it.

Take care all,

Larry

[penkalet]

AMF, you are amazing.
Good luck in Tucson.

[Veronica]

Larry, I second Alain's comment. Enjoy the "Tour de AMF".... Looking forward to the story...

[Marinadca]

I am seriously slacking in updates and staying current with this thread! But I check my email and see Dave's smiling face is an email from the National MS Society and that jogged my memory and made me smile so much

Biking update: I have completed my final century for the year in mid October and now that the weather has turned cool I am inside on the trainer. My aim is for 4 work outs a week. Some weeks I make it and some I only get 2-3 in, life is getting in the way constantly!

Sort of related to biking, I have a fit bit and have been struggling to get my steps in the 2 days a week I work from home. If I dont really try then even with the 45-1:15 minute biking work out I would only get 4-6 thousand steps. So I bought a nice under desk bike, and I LOVE this thing. I have already been a figeter and this lets me channel that into something useful. So now when I am home I also get a few hours of (slow so I can work) biking in. I can't say enough good things about this item.

In order exercise news: I am still walking for an hour twice a week and going to a yoga class once a week. I applied to the CAN DO MS 4 day program to get some good exercise and nutrition tips and get 1 on 1 advice from PTS and OTs and other professionals about my right side weakness, particularly hand and my gait issues as I'd love to up the intensity of my walks with a bit of jogging but its not possible with the way I kick myself currently.

[AMFADVENTURES]

Tour de Tucson 2017
What a perfect time of year for a bike ride in Tucson. Temperatures between 50 and 80, perfect sunrises and sunsets, calm and quiet, almost enough to make a person think they could live there. It genuinely was a near perfect setting for the ride.

My heart was set on doing the whole 106 miles but since almost everyone who had originally expressed an interest in doing this ride with me bailed out, I altered my plan a little. I started my ride about 6 or 7 miles into the 106 mile course. This put me just on the other side of the first sand wash, which I wasn't keen to walk without a shoulder to hang on to anyway, and allowed me to sleep in a bit since I didn't have to get there at 0-dark thirty to get a spot at the beginning of the que. It was a good plan, all I had to do was wait for the really good riders to pass by first. That and a little fooling around with the bike, took about 30 minutes which gave me a 7:30 start time.

My sister's start was at 8:30 more than 20 miles ahead of me and it was slightly uphill into a moderate head wind of 5 to 10 mph, consequently I wasn't even close by the time she started. Our alternate plan was to meet at the Sabino Canyon wash if I could close the gap to something reasonable. But in spite of holding a pretty good pace, I was only able to get to within 30 minutes of her by the time she got to Sabino Canyon so I told her to go ahead and maybe I'd catch her before the end.

Even though I was getting passed by every other rider on the course, I made good time to Sabino Canyon and I only stopped twice, once for water and once for a bathroom break. The Sabino Canyon wash was in excellent condition this year, the bulk of it was hard packed, even rideable except for the plethora of bikes and people and bathrooms and aid staitions strewn all along its length. So I walked it. If I got passed by a lot of bikes on the course, I got passed by twice that many while walking across the wash at my usual slow ambling pace. Ah well, I may have been embarrassingly slow but at least I didn't stumble and fall down. I side stepped up the short but steep climb out of the wash on the other side and once again got a little push from a good Samaritan to clear the lip at the top. Thanks again who ever you are.

Once thru the wash, I took a few minutes to empty the sand out of my shoes and grab some water and a snack before making my way to the dreaded Snyder Hill. Throughout that first 48 miles, my left ham string had been bothering me, a leftover from all of the training and one I thought I'd managed to overcome but obviously hadn't quite. I was painfully aware of that ham string as I approached Snider Hill. The hill wasn't quite like I recalled, it was longer but started out easier than I had thought but toward the top it got every bit as steep as I remembered. However, I managed to get the right gear this year and got accolades from the onlookers as I stood on the pedals to crest the hill, heart rate running at maximum. I think that hill is what it takes to really get the endorphins flowing. After I got over it, the ham string problem was gone and I felt great.

I encountered a cluster of 55 mile riders and another cluster of 38 mile riders, always unpredictable groups. They tend to wander across the entire road and can't be relied on to respond to an "on your left" voice alert. They carry dogs and people in trailers, bandy boom boxes on their bikes at full volume and are generally an unruly bunch out for a casual Saturday fun ride. It was a slow go, taking about 30 minutes to get through them safely, but not long after I did I made the turn onto the final stretch with a nice tail wind to take me in.

In the end I rode 100 miles in 6:33 saddle time, a 15 mph average, and about 7:40 elapsed time, still a pretty good pace for me. There are still some rough roads on the TDT, rough enough to bounce the chain right off your chainrings but the beer afterwards was the best I've had so far.

AMF