My pretty face and a fist.

I have never taken a punch to the face. 


Ever. 


Yet, today, I am putting myself in the way of flying fists.


Why would I do this? In honor of my father, to raise money to put his killer on the ropes. 


My last post spoke about the loss of my father… It was quick: six weeks from diagnosis to death. A sudden infection took this competitive racquetball player down fast.  Before we knew it he had lost 20 lbs and within six weeks he was gone. In those weeks my father, who was 57, went from looking about 40ish, fit and athletic to looking like a withered 80 yr old man-- I still cannot bring myself to look at those final pictures of him. 


In the year and half since his passing I’ve been trying find ways to honor him as best I could.  I simply didn't feel comfortable asking people to contribute money to the usual charity runs, rides and races. These are things I do anyway-- can I really ask people to donate money for doing what I do every day?  Along came Haymakers For Hope, which raises money for the Jimmy Fund and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.   Given my father’s passion for wrestling and his life long devotion to sports, I finally have found a way to raise money and awareness in a way I feel he'd respect and appreciate.


Which brings us back to why my face and a fist have a meeting this evening. I’ve reached the point in my training where it’s time for me to spar! This is something completely new to me, totally outside my comfort zone… a whole new skill to undertake. Sure, in only four weeks, I've learned a lot of punches, a few slips, a lot of technique that I am still struggling to absorb.   But now it’s time to find out what happens under pressure and learn from it. Cause all the technique in the world won’t help me if I just crumble under pressure! I’m really excited… and understandably scared.   While I’m hoping to avoid remodeling the nose my father gave me, I do know that taking a punch is inevitable – and the sooner I do the better I will be at it! 


So here’s to taking down cancer with a solid one two punch!

Poll: Have you ever taken intentionally (or unintentionally!) taken a punch to the face?

http://haymakersforhope.com

A few thoughts that came to me today

So I just read a blog entry by Jody Schoger (http://womenwcancer.blogspot.com) that got me doing some heavy thinking on the ‘blame game.’

He has esophageal cancer. Oh. Did he smoke?

She has skin cancer. Oh. Did she lay out?

We are a society that seeks to assign blame and reason to everything, probably in most cases in hope that by assigning blame to some outside factor we’ll somehow be safe from the indiscriminate heavy hand of cancer, just by avoiding said factor.

About 18 months ago my father died from esophageal cancer. After reading Jody’s article I’ve come to realize whenever I discuss him I often find myself mentioning his risk factors even without being asked. Yes, he had been a smoker. Yes, he was a recovering alcoholic. But he had quit both 5 years before! But he was only 57 years old! But he worked out at least 3-4 days a week, a competitive athlete! Should the tragedy that befell my father really be summed up by what his risk factors were? Should my mind really dwell on those things quite so much? There are enough cautionary tales out there to make clear that no matter what the risk factors, good people who do all the right things fall to cancer every day.

By keeping our eyes focused on risk factors, we marginalize the tragedy… My father was a healthy, vital man who up until 6 weeks before he died no one would have ever thought he was sick. He was a doting grandfather, a racquetball player extraordinaire, the smartest computer engineer I knew. We all make mistakes over the course of our lives… let these not be the things that define our mortality, but instead focus on the humanity.

Even if we don’t seek to assign blame but rather to understand, be aware of how asking these questions can cause us to trivialize cancer… and cancer will never be trivial! 

Do you ever find yourself to focussed on the how and why?

training for the coming week 3.27.2011

It’s Sunday evening. My legs are suitably tired from a 90 minute session with Pia over at Redline Fight Sports. My belly is making small murmurings of happiness around the blue burger from All Star Sandwich Bar. (That first bite post Pia’s session was ORGASMIC – perfectly rare, tender beef slathered in buffalo sauce and blue cheese… mrrrow.) Ten quarts of chicken chili are simmering on the stove. (Two weeks’ worth of protein powerhouse meals.) I have a bottle of Original Sin hard cider in my hand and the world is good. Guess that means it’s time to write a post about the week in review. J Flo Rida’s ‘Club Can’t Handle Me’ which seems an appropriate sound track – I did get yelled at for dancing TOO much last week! J

Last Sunday I posted a training schedule, and I have to say, for better or worse, what actually happened was drastically different. Here’s what actually happened and why.

Monday:  Woke up with my belly sour and very unhappy. Took an extra  hour or 2 of sleep, which really didn’t help. Despite feeling like crap and tired all day the session at SBC wasn’t so bad but legs were very heavy – not a promising way to return after 3 days rest! (Maybe the Saturday dancing storm WAS a bit much. )

Tuesday: Slept in, felt a bit more rested but nowhere near a ‘catch up.’ Strange muscle twitch all day in my left forearm. Double session at SBC followed by Redline (6 to 10pm)– double the plyo’s! was probably a total of 40 minutes of plyo’s not even sure how I was moving at the end of the session at Redline – but I was! I really enjoyed w’s teaching style, definitely going to try to see him more. He has a Wednesday morning session @ 7:15… it’s a thought… but not sure how I will handle being at Redline only 9 sparse hours after leaving!

Wednesday: Slept in. Missed yoga, no thanks to work. Did a 30 minute stretching session at home. Caught up on groceries and home stuff.

Thursday: Woke up EXHAUSTED. Is there no end to this week? Can’t I get enough sleep? Double session went surprisingly well. I showed up feeling tired and unmotivated but at the end of the circuit Dan had us running lines like mad, which left me feeling great! Apparently if I’m feeling down it’s time for a run!! My mental tiredness showed through on mitt work with Jeff but legs still felt awesome as I made the trip over to Redline. Lyle put me through my paces, was definitely tired at the end of it all! By 10pm I was ready to just lay down but stuck around to get some slip drills to work on/visualize on my own.

Friday: Interview in the morning and meeting Andrew in the evening! I knew I was going to have a nutty morning, was up at 7 feeling pretty rested. No real workout for the day but ~5 miles of walking around and about. A good active rest day.

Saturday: Rest day!!! Woke up at 10 am already feeling a ton more rested. Other than walking the dogs kept mostly off my feet and made it a real rest day.

Sunday: Slept until 10am, first day in a while woke up feeling RESTED. Let’s see if I can hold that feeling more than 23 hrs this week. Decided since Saturday became a rest day to ease into things with Pia’s women’s only class at redline, having heard good things. Given it was at 5pm, seemed a great way to ease into the week of training. Was well worth it! Pia gave a great cardio session with a great amount of technique worked in. I finished it off with an AWESOME well earned burger at the all star sandwich bar. Orgasmic. Amazing. I’m gonna do this every Sunday. What a way to start the training week.

So where do we go from here? What is the plan for next week? Well I think it’s become obvious the lifting schedule is benefiting no one. I need to work my running back into the schedule and for the most part retire most of the lifting, except for shoulders and upper back. So let’s try to put something together, shall we?

Goals for next week: Start ramping up the running schedule again. Work in a shoulder/upper back lift. DO NOT MISS YOGA.  Here’s a schedule to accomplish that.

Monday: 

am: run. Relatively short. 2-3 miles.

pm: mitt and class at SBC.

Tuesday:

am: rest.

pm: double session! SBC circuit training followed by skills class and sparring at Redline with Lyle

Wednesday:

am: short run, just 2-3 miles focus on intervals

pm: vinyasa with whitney

Thursday:

am: rest.

pm: double session! SBC circuit training followed by skills class and sparring at Redline with Lyle

Friday:

am:  short run, just 2-3 miles focus on intervals

pm: rest

Saturday:

am: rest

pm: rest

Sunday:

am: rest

pm: women’s class at redline with Pia

Here’s hoping this is a realistic schedule, opinions anyone? What exercises would you recommend for my shoulders and upper back?

Week of 21 March 2011 Training Schedule

This is a plan in motion, so fully expect there to be additions and deletions as I monitor my individual reaction to workouts. As the week progresses I will flesh these out!

Monday:

                AM: Lifting shoulders and legs (missed sessions from Friday/Saturday rest.)

                PM: Sommerville Boxing Club, womens class and hopefully mitt work. Possibly a stop by Redline after.

Tuesday:

                AM: rest

                PM: double session! SBC circuit training followed by skills class and sparring at Redline with Lyle

Wednesday:

                AM: lifting, chest and triceps

                PM: vinyasa yoga with whitney

Thursday:

                AM: rest

                PM: double session! SBC circuit training followed by skills class and sparring with Lyle at Redline

Friday:

                AM: lifting, back and biceps

                PM: session at SBC, mitt work with Jeff

Saturday:

                AM: either lifting shoulders, rest and/or a run depending on how I am feeling.

Sunday: REST!!!!

What are your favorite lifts? 

Loving boxing. Just maybe a bit too much, too soon. :)

When introducing one’s self to a new sport it’s easy to become so enthusiastic/involved that you try to do everything as quickly and as fast as possible. I want to learn EVERYTHING. NOW. I'm LOVING boxing. It's challenging, it's new, a total body workout. But quick changes and/or increases to your workload set up the perfect scenario for overtraining. You've been there right? You try so hard - and then you hit a wall… you just can’t seem to get your heart rate over 120 and lift even your dinner from the table. So how to prevent that wall from sending you straight back to go?

First one must understand. What is overtraining? Quite simply you body says enough. Hits the wall. Reaches the limit. It can’t heal the tiny microtears/trauma you are creating quickly enough, can’t load glycogen fast enough, and therefore your muscles can no longer respond. In fact they are probably getting weaker! But it’s more than that. It’s a mental and emotional battle! You don’t want to appear weak, you don’t want to give up! So what are you to do? There is only one solution: rest. You have to be honest with yourself. If you are aware, honest and smart about it to catch the symptoms early, you can make it just one skipped workout, maybe a day, max two’s rest instead of possible injury and a week or two setting yourself very far back.

So what are the symptoms? There are a lot of articles out there but here is a quick overview of what I find most easy to track and the earliest symptoms. Track your heart rate on a daily basis, both resting and during workouts. Heart rate elevated in the morning? You’re probably worn down. This is a sure fire signal you are worn down, though can also signal an oncoming cold. As you progress further without enough rest your heart rate becomes slow to respond… you try to sprint but it doesn’t budge. Finally you just won’t be able to keep yourself moving – when it gets to its worst you’ll feel like your heart is about to explode out of your chest even at a normally easy pace! By that time it’s gone too far… you’re going to need a few days rest.

A great test using orthostatic heart rate, developed by Heikki Rusko:

· Lay down and rest comfortably for 10 minutes the same time each day (morning is best).

· At the end of 10 minutes, record your heart rate in beats per minute.

· Then stand up

· After 15 seconds, take a second heart rate in beats per minute.

· After 90 seconds, take a third heart rate in beats per minute.

· After 120 seconds, take a fourth heart rate in beats per minute.

Well rested athletes will show a consistent heart rate between measurements, but Rusko found a marked increase (10 beats/minutes or more) in the 120 second-post-standing measurement of athletes on the verge of overtraining. Such a change may indicate that you have not recovered from a previous workout, are fatigued, or otherwise stressed and it may be helpful to reduce training or rest another day before performing another workout.

So you know the symptoms. So what’s the hardest part? Accepting its time and acknowledging them! I don’t claim to be an expert. Where am I right now? Somewhere between complete failure and possible injury. My load right now is between 1-3 workouts a day… while not an increase in load for me, the introduction of new movements and recruitment of previouslyuntrained muscles requires more rest! I was so excited to keep learning new skills in boxing that even when I saw my heart rate becoming slow to respond earlier this week I told myself I could go a few more days before rest – don’t want to miss a training session! But instead by this evening my hip was tweaking at the slightest stress and despite being able to get my heart rate up, it wasn’t coming back down and while I could start an exercise strong, 15s in I could barely lift a weight. Time for at least a solid day of rest. At least the weekend is nearly here!

I highly recommend reading Gray Cook’s book Athletic Body in Balance (http://www.amazon.com/Athletic-Body-Balance-Gray-Cook/dp/0736042288) There’s a great article he wrote describing it’s premise here: http://www.newliving.com/issues/nov_2003/articles/athleticbalance.html

What signals overtraining to you? How do you convince yourself to take a day off?

Cancer is on the ropes... going to raise money to take it down for the count!

This is my first post and will most likely be edited.