Brian’s fitness journal after brain stroke
Written September 20, 2025
Hello Dear Readers,
Saturday morning in my household is a delicate dance between errands, exercise, and the eternal quest for puff pastry sheets. This week’s adventure began at the local Asian grocery store, because, well—running out of rice in an Asian household is basically the culinary equivalent of running out of oxygen. My wife needed vegetables, too, which meant the trip was officially sanctioned. So today, we went Asian grocery shopping.
Now, a trip to the Asian grocery shopping isn’t just a “pop in, pop out” operation. It’s a small expedition. The store recently started opening at 8 a.m., but let’s be honest: that’s early enough to threaten my carefully choreographed Saturday 10k schedule. My wife doesn’t mind—she has her own routines to juggle. But me? I get twitchy when my long run collides with cabbage shopping.
Back home, my wife immediately switched into surgeon mode, chopping vegetables with precision, bagging them up, and sealing them tighter than Fort Knox. Freezer prep is her art form. She even went bold this week, sneaking tofu into the vegetable bags. This was a first—frozen tofu. The great experiment. She worried about texture changes, but she sealed everything like she was shipping supplies to the International Space Station.
And here’s the thing: Asian groceries are magical, but they’re also heartbreakers. Prices are climbing faster than I can sprint a downhill kilometer. Bean sprouts—bean sprouts!—cost more than they have any right to. Tofu leapt from $1.69 to $2.33, and cabbage is flirting with the one-dollar-per-pound mark. My wife, ever the philosopher-economist, shrugged it off: “Vegetables are cheaper than getting sick.” She calls it an investment in future health, which is hard to argue with—even if I did want to whine about my wallet.
Meanwhile, my run schedule was wobbling. By the time we’d sorted rice, veggies, and freezer logistics, the Nashville sun was already plotting against me. I laced up for the 10k, determined to salvage the morning. The first half went fine—better than fine, actually—but by the second half, the temperature had risen to “why am I doing this again?” levels. Let’s just say I did not become the hero of my own running story that day. Half a run, half a victory.
Of course, I promised myself I’d make up the distance on Monday. I even checked the week’s forecast like it was my personal redemption arc. But life, as always, threw a curveball: mowing season isn’t done yet. And yes, I had to factor in pastry bites, because apparently, my errands also involve making sure puff pastry sheets are in stock for the week ahead. (Don’t ask how pastry became part of my training diet—it’s a long story involving taste buds and denial.)
Here’s the truth: seasonal transitions don’t happen in a neat, dramatic shift. They creep up on you. The weather hasn’t bullied me into full winter running mode yet, so I’m keeping things flexible. Saturday schedules will shift. Runs may be cut short. Puff pastry will mysteriously appear in the cart. But patience—and maybe a little tofu experiment—will get us through.
And in the meantime, there’s rice in the pantry, vegetables in the freezer, and a 10k penciled into my calendar with suspicious optimism. That’s what I call balance.