Keeping the faith

Some people listen to music with exactly 180 beats per minute while they run.

Some people listen to the sound of their breathing and the sound of their footsteps.

I listen to National Public Radio.

Which may explain why I’m among the world’s slowest runners.

In any case, as I ran to the highest point in Hampshire this morning, I was mesmerized by Krista Tippett’s interview of poet and author Marie Howe who talked about words and writing with depth and magic. On Being’s Tippett recites part of one of Howe’s poems, “The Meadow”:

Bedeviled,
human, your plight, in waking, is to choose from the
words
that even now sleep on your tongue, and to know
that tangled
among them and terribly new is the sentence that
could change your life

Tangled on my tongue — or between my brain and my typing fingers — is the sentence that could change my life. Said Howe, “Language is almost all we have left of action in the modern world. I mean unless we’re in Syria, you know, or we’re in Iraq. But for many of us, action has become what we say. The moral life is lived out in what we say more often than what we do.”

A writer, of course, worships at the altar of Words Are Action.

“It’s easy to attack and destroy an act of creation.
It’s a lot more difficult to perform one.”

~ Chuck Palahniuk

A runner’s closet

The best home organization techniques are created to streamline everyday activities.

So while folding and stacking a pile of T-shirts, for example, is organization and feels like renewal, it’s only truly useful if one can keep the pile of T-shirts folded and organized.

I’m excited that the organization I implemented today might make my morning routine easier.

While my mother-in-law was instructing my stepdaughter on the nuances of making cabbage rolls this afternoon (I refused to carry on the tradition, but my stepdaughter was up to the task), I cleaned the upstairs bathroom and organized my bedroom closet.

These metal baskets from Clever Container have been put into service holding my workout gear:

• Basket 1: Athletic bras and sweat socks.
• Basket 2: Baseball hats, including my running hats.
• Basket 3: T-shirts, rolled.
• Basket 4: Running shorts, rolled.
• Basket 5: Long-sleeve Ts, yoga pants and sweat pants.

The baskets are the perfect size to fit on my closet shelves, and you’ll note I can label them if desired.

Previously, I wandered from bedroom dresser to closet looking for wearable gear. If my Beloved was still sleeping, I was forced to use a flashlight or turn on the light (eek!) to find appropriate underthings and socks.

Now, however, with all my exercise gear in one place, I can assemble an inspiring outfit in my lighted closet. I’m counting on the fact that rolling my clothes instead of folding them will keep them organized when I’m washing and sorting.

I created this system based on a tip from a recent issue of Runner’s World magazine which encouraged storing all one’s running gear in one place. I don’t store any of my shoes in my bedroom closet — they are all stored in the entryway closet since I don’t wear shoes in the house. But someone else might create another bin to store shoes, headbands, mp3 players and headlamps.

Stepmill vs. treadmill

My local Snap Fitness recently installed a stepmill, the sort of stair stepping machine that is a mini revolving staircase. One actually has to lift one’s foot from one step to the next, unlike a stair climber with two revolving foot plates.

I’ve given it a try the past two weeks, and I’m hooked! I sweat more and feel like I’m working harder than I do on the treadmill. Yesterday when all the treadmills were full briefly, I used the stepmill for 10 minutes and then switched to the treadmill for 20 minutes, and the treadmill, even at 6 mph, felt like a break!

Added bonus: Since I’m bouncing less, I can actually read a book while using the stepmill (Lorna Landvik has never been more of a sweet distraction!).

According to the stepmill’s own calculations, I can cover a mile in 10 minutes (I have no idea how distance is calculated — I’ve traversed the height of the Empire State Building many times over now). I have to run at 6 mph to cover that distance on the treadmill, and I don’t do that often enough.

Today, I also hit the weight machines, and I can barely type this blog entry now. Pathetic.

DIY salad jazzes up lunchtime

When I’m trying to eat right, I eat a salad for lunch.

That’s Rule No. 2. Rule No. 1 is fruit and eggs for breakfast. Rule No. 3: Everything in moderation the rest of the day.

Those are my diet story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

In any case, a salad for lunch every day gets boring if your only choices are chicken Caesar and chef salad. So I collect salad recipes, and I build crazy combinations around whatever leftover protein I have on hand. Here’s the DIY version of a tasty salad:

• Protein: Chicken, ham, tuna or beans of any sort.
• Greens: Romaine is my go-to green.
• Chopped vegetables for flavor and color: Green onions, cherry tomatoes and cucumber get into almost every salad I prepare, but carrots, peppers, celery and fresh herbs like parsley or mint are nice, too.
• Cheese: Try parmesan, feta or mozzarella. Avocado is a good-fat alternative to cheese.
• Something sweet: Some kind of fruit like dried cranberries, grapes or oranges adds a flavorful counterpoint, but sun-dried tomatoes or a dash of sugar in the dressing is nice, too.
• Something crunchy: Pepitoes are my favorite, but croutons, nuts or corn chips add texture, too.

When you’re looking for a particularly hearty salad, a whole grain carbohydrate is a good addition. I love quinoa.

I made a delicious lentil and barley salad earlier this week, but today’s protein to build around was barbecued pulled pork. My Beloved can eat only so many pulled pork sandwiches, and I can’t bear to throw away what’s left. WordPress’s Photo Challenge this week is “Lunchtime” so I’m sharing it with you.

Pulled Pork Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• A dash of each: Ginger, allspice, salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup or so of last night’s barbecue pulled pork
• A couple of cups shredded romaine
• 1/3 cucumber, peeled and sliced
• 1 green onion, sliced
• Fresh cilantro leaves
• Pickled baby corn, sliced
• A canned peach half, chopped
• About 10 roasted almonds, chopped

Preparation:

1. Stir together dressing: Vinegar, oil and spices.
2. Assemble romaine, vegetables and peach on plate. Top with dressing.
3. Warm up pulled pork in the microwave (about 45 seconds on high), and arrange on salad.
4. Top with almonds.
5. Eat and feel virtuous.

Oh, my aching feet

I can’t believe, of all the ways my body can fall apart as I age, it’s going to be my feet.

Regular readers may recall me complaining about an irksome case of plantar fasciitis that required me to cut back on my weekly mileage and, yawn, stretch regularly.

What a boring malady.

This week, my toes are numb.

If they got they way from excessive curling, you can bet I wouldn’t be complaining about it in a public forum, but no, they’re numb, I suspect, because I ran 5.4 miles on Tuesday.

Oh, it felt to so good to run so far. I tried it just to see if I could do it after witnessing that 10K last Saturday, and lo and behold, I still have long distances in me.

But two of my toes are numb. And they’ve been that way since Tuesday.

Google diagnoses Morton’s neuroma. The internet prognosis? “Nonsurgical treatment does not always improve symptoms. Surgery to remove the thickened tissue is successful in about 85% of cases.”

Ahem. Surgery.

I saw a little boy today (yes, brief change of subject, but it’s relevant — stay with me), and he was enthusiastically sweeping a garage. At first I thought he was a midget (what kid sweeps with enthusiasm?) but when he was done, he propped the broom in the corner and skipped — skipped — across the clean floor.

The skip gave him away as a child. Adults. Don’t. Skip.

Old people walk slow, shuffle, keen side-to-side, avoid walking altogether because it hurts — somewhere — to walk normally.

It’s going to be my feet that have me waddling into old age.

Alas.

Bitten

Happened by a 10K in progress yesterday, and I thought, “That looks like fun.”

Me. Thinking a running race looked like fun.

Never would have said that seven years ago when I started running, just about this time of year. I’m been reading Runner’s World magazine long enough now to see the “Newbie” transform himself into a half-marathoner. And here I am thinking I should find a race and run in it.

Just for fun.

My enthusiasm this morning, when I was laced up and actually running in a cold rain instead of watching other people run, was dampened (excuse the pun). But still.

Swimming lessons are a non-negotiable

I saved a kid’s life once.

The Municipality of Sebeka paid me $4.25 a hour to work 40 hours a week at the Sebeka Pool for three months during two summers in the late ’80s, and I remember saving only one kid.

She was about 6, and her siblings were swimming in the part of the pool that was 5-feet deep. She kept skirting her way down the side of the pool with a death grip on the edge, apparently thinking she wanted to be swimming with her sisters even though it was obvious she was in over her head — literally.

More than once, I told her she shouldn’t be going that deep and she should go back to the shallow end of the pool.

But in a crowd of at least a hundred bobbing around in the water in 90-degree heat, she persisted in inching her way back to the deep end.

Maybe I sensed her fear or maybe I was just lucky, but when she slipped and started gulping in water with a look of wide-eyed panic on her face, I zeroed in on her and was there to grab her and pull her to safety. And like a good Scandinavian who can’t let a “I told you so” moment slip by even in the face of tears, I shook a trembling finger at her and scolded her for  going where I told her not to.

To be honest, I hope the community of Sebeka got its money worth because I think I saved a lot more kids from the brink of death by teaching swimming lessons even on cold, cloudy days in early June when being in the pool was a different kind of goose-bumply water torture.

Every kid in America should learn to swim.

In church today during the children’s sermon, the pastor asked the assembled group of people shorter than 4 feet if they were taking swimming lessons this summer. Only half the hands went up.

OK, maybe the other half weren’t listening. Or they didn’t understand the question. Or they had taken swimming lessons during another season.

But while the pastor was teaching a life-or-death lesson for their eternal souls, I was worrying about those kids who didn’t take swimming lessons this summer. Because it’s a life-or-death lesson for their mortal bodies.

I’m not a parent (not a biological parent anyway), so I generally try to keep my opinions about parenting to myself, fully aware that every task looks easier from an outsider’s perspective (“Sure, honey, your kids would eat their vegetables and wouldn’t throw tantrums in Target. But you don’t know until your toddler spits beets all over the kitchen and holds up the 10-item-or-less line because you won’t buy her gum.”)

Still, I spent two summers of my life teaching 5-year-olds how to swim so I feel like I can safely tread in this territory.

If you don’t give your kids a chance to learn to swim, you’re a bad parent.

Drowning is the second leading cause of accidental death in the United States among children younger than 14 and the leading cause of accidental death for children 5 and under, according to the American Institute for Preventive Medicine. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 10 people die every day from drowning. While some parents go into hysterics about “stranger danger,” only about two kids a week are involved in stereotypical non-family abductions, according to CNN.

A child abduction is a terrible thing, but my point is if you’re teaching your child not to talk to strangers but you’re not taking them to swimming lessons, you’re worrying about the wrong thing.

People drown for a lot of reasons besides a lack of ability to swim — like lack of parental supervision, undertow and consuming alcohol — but the CDC states, “Taking part in formal swimming lessons reduces the risk of drowning among children aged 1 to 4 years.”

To be clear, I didn’t teach 5-year-olds how to swim in the two weeks they bobbed and blew bubbles for a half and hour a day in my classes, but it was a start with the goal being how to breathe in water and float, maybe dog paddle. Nowadays, parents can find swimming lessons for kids a lot younger than 5. A kid really ought to go to swimming lessons for a couple of weeks a year for years in order to learn to swim.

In fact, a kid really ought to wear a swimsuit so much every summer, it fades to white and loses all elasticity because they spend four hours a day at the pool (under the supervision of a parent or at least a lifeguard). That’s how I learned to swim (and eventually teach others to swim) while living in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

If you’re an adult who doesn’t know how to swim, you can get lessons, too. Splashing around in water is great exercise no matter what your physical condition.

Summer is one-third over, but there’s still time. Enroll your kids in swimming lessons and they may learn skills to save their lives.

If living longer is the prize, turtles win

Everything in moderation, it’s said. Even running.

Researchers at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health and other institutions, I read in today’s Star Tribune, combed through the records of more than 50,000 U.S. adults and determined joggers who ran fewer than 20 miles a week live longer than:

• Non-runners (aka couch potatoes — no news here).
• Runners who go farther than 20 miles a week (those crazy lunatics).
• Runners who run faster than 7 miles per hour (hares, do you hear this?).

Nah-nah-naboo-boo.

OK, you can find (or manufacture) research to justify just about anything (including drinking more than six cups of coffee a day, fathering children late in life and eating Subway sandwiches twice a day), but this is the kind of research I love. Because I run really ridiculously slow.

The researchers defined joggers as those who ran 10 or 11 minutes per mile. Lately, 11-minute miles on my morning jog have been impressive.

Holy cowloney, it’s been hot. That’s my excuse. Age has nothing to do with it.

In any case, slow going will keep me alive longer.

Good thing. Moving so slowly means my runs are longer. So I’ll take all the time I can get.

Minnesota Transplant blog tries on a new ‘hat’

Check out the new image at the top of my blog (email subscribers, you’ll have to click on the headline to jump to the blog and see it).

You’ll look sweet upon a seat of a bicycle built for two at Baker Park Reserve.

I snapped this picture during a bike ride this afternoon at Baker Park Reserve, west of the Twin Cities. This Hennepin County Park is not only beautiful but offers tons of activities for campers and visitors. My Beloved and I rented a tandem bike to supplement the bikes we brought along in order to accommodate my stepson and his friends; not having a decent bike is no excuse for not visiting this lush and well-manicured park. June is the perfect time for a nice bike ride.

I tend to favor Minnesota geography (usually with a lake to evoke the state’s motto: “Land of 10,000 Lakes) for my blog imagery, and I’ve come to love the Coraline theme for its clean look and emphasis on my words instead of the background. Using WordPress for my blog has its drawbacks (especially as it pertains to advertising), but it’s so easy to use!

I’ve noticed Coraline has been updated to allow for deeper images at the top (rather than the inordinately short and wide image that is the default).

I’m using the Quintus theme on my Clickago Storywerks blog (about organizing and enjoying family photos), and it’s pretty but not quite as clean as Coraline.

I’m not entirely happy with the Wu Wei theme by Jeff Ngan that I’m using on my author blog. The side-saddle headlines are a little confusing, I think, and it’s a little tricky seeing old posts. I need to shop around a bit, I think, among WordPress 202 theme options.

But not on a beautiful sunny June day like this one.

Ramblers are death traps

OK, my headline my be overstating my case, but I got your attention.

People who sit all day and watch TV all night — even ones who run 35 miles a week — have a higher risk of heart disease than people who move around all day. Mayo Clinic cardiologist Martha Grogan told the radio program “Here & Now” that sitting for more than four hours a day gives you the same risk of a heart attack as smoking. (Click here for the story.)

Today’s news comes on the heels of yesterday’s “Fresh Air” interview with author and fitness expert Gretchen Reynolds who said just standing for 2 minutes every 20 minutes can improve your health.

“Sitting for long periods of time — when you don’t stand up, don’t move at all — tends to cause changes physiologically within your muscles,” Reynolds told “Fresh Air’s” Terry Gross. “You stop breaking up fat in your bloodstream, you start getting accumulations of fat … in your liver, your heart and your brain. You get sleepy. You gain weight. You basically are much less healthy than if you’re moving. … If you can stand up every 20 minutes — even if you do nothing else — you change how your body responds physiologically.” (Click here for the full story.)

Which leads to me to this unscientific, self-serving conclusion: Two-story houses — with lots of steps — have healthier occupants than residents of ramblers.

I prefer the appearance of two-story houses, and all the houses I’ve owned have had two stories. (Heck, I think three- or four-story houses are impressive — I just could never afford one of those.)

But presentation aside, two-story houses win on function, too. To my way of thinking, single-story ramblers are a sign of resignation to being lazy or getting old. I’m going  into old age kicking and screaming, and all that kicking and screaming turns out to be very good for my health.

With my Beloved now working from his home office in the basement and me working in a bedroom on the second floor (alternatively known on some of our address labels as Suite 4 and Suite 2), I take the steps many times a day. Sometimes, I take the steps just to take a break. Usually the break involves a snack (sometimes a lower-calorie hug), but still, I’m moving. Our little 8-pound schnauzer is in good shape, too, what with all the to-ing and fro-ing.

I’m not ready for a stand-up desk or a treadmill desk, but the news that even a little movement is better than none is compelling. Compelling me to stand up and take a walk.

What are you looking at? Get moving!