Sometimes, in our quest to push a little, we do something stupid. That's what I did a couple of weeks ago. A while back, I injured my left shoulder, and have struggled to rehabilitate it. I've tried to work on building up some of those muscles, but it's still been problematic for me. You'd think that would mean I'd be cautious about doing anything that might make it worse, right?
Alas. I pushed myself and did a shoulder-stressing pose in yoga, and it felt alright at the time - challenging, but not painful. But then that night, I woke up to this situation (skip to 2:35, the link is fighting me!):
Yes, that's right, if you do too many planks in one yoga session, a Ringwraith will show up at your house and stab you in the shoulder with a Morgul blade. HARSH. And the further bummer about all of this is that Sam and Aragorn haven't been able to find any Kingsfoil for me, and I can't get to Rivendell to see Elrond until the 10th. I have to just ice it and live with it until then, and hope I don't turn into a Ringwraith in the meantime.
Obviously, the lesson here is to make wise, mindful choices about how much I push myself. It's one thing to say, "I can and will get up and move around more." It's another thing entirely to subject an already-tender joint to something I am clever enough to realize will cause it further pain.
Yoga has done so much good in my overall health, and I have no intention of giving it up. But clearly, for now, there are some things that are simply not options for me. Plank is one of them. Putting on the Ring is another.
Lesson learned.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
On Defeating Balrogs
It's been an eventful spring and summer for me. Where to begin?
Oh, for starters... I did really well on the 10k MN AIDS Walk. I was the team's top fundraiser, bringing in something over $400. Our Geek Physique team ended up raising over $1300 for the Minnesota AIDS Project. Wow! We seriously rock.
In the months of training to prepare for it, I'd set a goal for myself, to maintain a 20-minute mile (or better) pace. The day of the big walk, I actually managed something closer to a 17-minute mile, despite really terrible weather that day. Several other Geek Physique members walked with me at various times throughout the walk, providing encouragement to keep going. Crossing the final bridge merited a bit of the music - and dialogue - from the "Bridge of Khazad-Dum" scene in LOTR, which was surprisingly (and ridiculously) inspirational. Kind of like this:
As I approached the finish line, with my sister encouraging me every step of the way, I found my eyes welling with tears, my throat tight with emotion. A couple of years ago, I would never have been able to do a walk like this. And yet here I was, near the very front of the pack for the walk, having pushed and worked really, really hard. What a tremendous moment for me, and for those walking with me. They have been an invaluable support system for me, and I'm so grateful.
Geek Physique and YogaQuest were participants in CONvergence, the local nerd convention celebrating sci-fi and fantasy, July 5-8. We put posters up everywhere, and offered a well-attended and well-received YogaQuest class celebrating the "Women of the Whedonverse" that Friday evening. We also hosted a Geek Physique "Pre-Party Preparedness Training" party in the Geek Partnership Society cabana room that Saturday evening. It gave us a great opportunity to chat with a variety of CON-goers, and being planted in one spot for a while allowed me to scope out some really awesome cosplay. I'm still geeking out over the Bill Nye cosplayer we met. Ha! I do love me some creative geekery. And I'm already looking forward to CONvergence 2013, and a variety of smaller cons between now and then. (And don't get me started on RenFest...)
Since CON ended, we've achieved a couple of amazing milestones. For starters, in the wake of our participation at CON, we've passed the 300 member mark on Meetup. On top of that, we had our 100th Meetup event this week. And the kicker? That event coincided with our first Xena-inspired YogaQuest event. It was also the record-setter for RSVPs and attendance! We'd bumped up the cap on the class to 40 RSVPs, figuring there's always a few people who don't show up. We ended up with 36 of us in that room. It was wall to wall geeks doing the Xena battle cry! I have never been so proud. I love writing the scripts for YQ, but writing the Xena scripts is near and dear to my heart, and seeing this particular script meet with such approval was deeply gratifying to this Warrior Princess.
Earlier this spring, when I went in for my annual physical, my doctor and I had a conversation about the "numbers" we're looking at for me... blood glucose, blood pressure, lipid panel, and so forth. We looked at the comparison of where I was at two years ago, and last year, versus this year, and frankly, it's amazing to see how far I've come. Compared with my more sedentary past, I'm not borderline diabetic, I'm not on the verge of needing high blood pressure medication, and my cholesterol and triglycerides have responded beautifully to the changes in diet and activity levels.
After reviewing all that, my doctor's response was simple. "Whatever you're doing to accomplish this, keep doing it. It's working." And really, I didn't need to hear that to know it was working. I feel better, being active. I sleep better. My asthma is in better control. And I have such fun with the things I'm doing. But it is tremendously encouraging to get that kind of feedback from a health professional. I used to hate going to the doctor for my exams, but I've reached a point of making peace with the whole process, because if nothing else, it's an opportunity for me to go in and brag about the awesome things I'm doing with Geek Physique and YogaQuest.
In the months of training to prepare for it, I'd set a goal for myself, to maintain a 20-minute mile (or better) pace. The day of the big walk, I actually managed something closer to a 17-minute mile, despite really terrible weather that day. Several other Geek Physique members walked with me at various times throughout the walk, providing encouragement to keep going. Crossing the final bridge merited a bit of the music - and dialogue - from the "Bridge of Khazad-Dum" scene in LOTR, which was surprisingly (and ridiculously) inspirational. Kind of like this:
As I approached the finish line, with my sister encouraging me every step of the way, I found my eyes welling with tears, my throat tight with emotion. A couple of years ago, I would never have been able to do a walk like this. And yet here I was, near the very front of the pack for the walk, having pushed and worked really, really hard. What a tremendous moment for me, and for those walking with me. They have been an invaluable support system for me, and I'm so grateful.
Geek Physique and YogaQuest were participants in CONvergence, the local nerd convention celebrating sci-fi and fantasy, July 5-8. We put posters up everywhere, and offered a well-attended and well-received YogaQuest class celebrating the "Women of the Whedonverse" that Friday evening. We also hosted a Geek Physique "Pre-Party Preparedness Training" party in the Geek Partnership Society cabana room that Saturday evening. It gave us a great opportunity to chat with a variety of CON-goers, and being planted in one spot for a while allowed me to scope out some really awesome cosplay. I'm still geeking out over the Bill Nye cosplayer we met. Ha! I do love me some creative geekery. And I'm already looking forward to CONvergence 2013, and a variety of smaller cons between now and then. (And don't get me started on RenFest...)
Since CON ended, we've achieved a couple of amazing milestones. For starters, in the wake of our participation at CON, we've passed the 300 member mark on Meetup. On top of that, we had our 100th Meetup event this week. And the kicker? That event coincided with our first Xena-inspired YogaQuest event. It was also the record-setter for RSVPs and attendance! We'd bumped up the cap on the class to 40 RSVPs, figuring there's always a few people who don't show up. We ended up with 36 of us in that room. It was wall to wall geeks doing the Xena battle cry! I have never been so proud. I love writing the scripts for YQ, but writing the Xena scripts is near and dear to my heart, and seeing this particular script meet with such approval was deeply gratifying to this Warrior Princess.
Earlier this spring, when I went in for my annual physical, my doctor and I had a conversation about the "numbers" we're looking at for me... blood glucose, blood pressure, lipid panel, and so forth. We looked at the comparison of where I was at two years ago, and last year, versus this year, and frankly, it's amazing to see how far I've come. Compared with my more sedentary past, I'm not borderline diabetic, I'm not on the verge of needing high blood pressure medication, and my cholesterol and triglycerides have responded beautifully to the changes in diet and activity levels.
After reviewing all that, my doctor's response was simple. "Whatever you're doing to accomplish this, keep doing it. It's working." And really, I didn't need to hear that to know it was working. I feel better, being active. I sleep better. My asthma is in better control. And I have such fun with the things I'm doing. But it is tremendously encouraging to get that kind of feedback from a health professional. I used to hate going to the doctor for my exams, but I've reached a point of making peace with the whole process, because if nothing else, it's an opportunity for me to go in and brag about the awesome things I'm doing with Geek Physique and YogaQuest.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Still Alive...
(Sorry, I had to do it. And yes, I had to go with a kids' choir cover of it, because I like the idea of little kids singing a song from the perspective of a murderous computer. They should do it more often, honestly.)
It's been a while since I posted here, but I'm still plugging away. Geek Physique continues to grow and establish itself as an amazing place for people like me to get their geek on while doing something other than couch surfing. I've been writing the scripts for YogaQuest since sometime last year, and love it. We took YQ to MarsCon last month, and will be at CONvergence in July - I am incredibly excited about that, and look forward to sharing the silliness with folks there.
I'm so moved by the generosity of spirit demonstrated by the people involved with Geek Physique these days. Last fall, we did a Geek Physique/YQ fundraising event for the Aliveness Project. Then in December, a group of us got together to sew stockings for the Aliveness Project's holiday stocking program. We made some truly silly stockings, and got some great feedback from them. We have a lot of other charitable opportunities available to us - a nice reminder that while we work on our physical fitness, it's just as important to flex our "deltoids of compassion" and our "abs of being kind" (thanks, Captain Hammer!). Wellness is an all-encompassing concept, and doing something decent for other human beings is very much a part of that concept.
In that spirit, I've been training these last couple of months for the MN AIDS Walk on May 20th. (Yes, the picture there is from when I was a little kid - I was on a community track team, and have the blue ribbons to prove it!) It will be my first 10k! I'll be walking with a team of folks from Geek Physique. I was already feeling really motivated to try to improve my time over the charity 5ks I did last year, but recently I've been inspired by some of the support I'm getting from friends and family. When I walk on the 20th, I will be wearing reminders of some of my supporters' loved ones who've lost their lives to HIV/AIDS. It's a really important cause, and I'm proud to be doing something to help out.
I'll have more to share soon. My training has kept me really busy, but it's having tremendous results in terms of my continuing journey toward a healthier me, so I'm happy. Hope you are too!
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