Tag: Fitness Journey

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Finally Beat My Running Target Pace After Weeks of Trying

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

I finally beat my running target pace after weeks of trying.

This morning began with a decision. I woke up about an hour earlier than usual and briefly considered taking advantage of the early start. With hotter temperatures expected later in the day, heading out immediately for my run seemed like the responsible choice.

On the other hand, my pillow was there. After careful consideration, the pillow presented the stronger argument. I decided that an extra hour of sleep would probably do me more good and went back to bed.

Fortunately, the weather rewarded my decision. Last night’s storm had left a thick layer of clouds behind, preventing the morning sun from immediately beginning its usual summer campaign against anyone foolish enough to exercise outdoors. By the time I headed out, the temperature was still reasonably comfortable.

And apparently, the extra sleep helped. I finally beat my target pace. It has been several weeks since I last managed to do that, so crossing the finish line ahead of my goal felt particularly satisfying. I’ve had plenty of difficult runs lately; heat, humidity, fatigue, and the occasional thunderstorm have all contributed, so today’s result was a welcome reminder that the progress is still there.

Sometimes improvement doesn’t disappear. It simply waits for better conditions to reveal itself. Today’s run also reinforced something I occasionally need to remember: more effort is not always the answer. When I woke early, I could have sacrificed an hour of sleep in the hope of getting a cooler run. Instead, I chose recovery, waited an hour, and performed better.

I suppose I’ll have to admit that sleeping can occasionally qualify as part of my training program. The morning produced another accomplishment as well. I remembered to call our plumber.

After our recent bathroom adventures, remembering to make that call deserves at least a small place on the list of victories. The plumber is now scheduled to come on Wednesday, moving us one step closer to finally finishing the project.

So, before the morning was even over, I had already accomplished two things I had been waiting for: I beat my running target. And I scheduled the plumber. Athletic achievement and home maintenance may not traditionally belong in the same category, but I’ll happily accept both. After several frustrating weeks, it feels good to begin this one with a few successes. Hopefully, the rest of the week gets the message.

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A Humid Morning Run and the Small Victory of a Strong Finish

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

This morning’s run began with something I am becoming quite accustomed to this summer.

Rain.

When I first woke up, the weather had other plans for my morning, so I postponed my run and went back to sleep for another hour. Sometimes disciplined training requires determination. Sometimes it requires hitting the snooze button.

Fortunately, when I woke again, the rain had paused. I quickly got ready and headed outside before the weather had an opportunity to reconsider. The rain had at least given me one advantage.

Although the humidity was extremely high, the temperature had dropped, making the conditions somewhat more tolerable. After so many hot and humid mornings in Nashville this summer, I’ll happily accept whatever assistance the weather is willing to provide.

Running has been difficult lately. It seems as though we have had one hot day after another, usually accompanied by enough humidity to make the air feel considerably heavier than it has any right to be. Still, unless the weather becomes unsafe, I keep running.

This morning, however, my body wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about the idea. I felt sluggish from the beginning, and the first half of my run was nearly as slow as yesterday’s. At one point, I was about 90 seconds behind my target pace.

That wasn’t exactly encouraging. But a bad first half doesn’t require a bad second half. Instead of accepting the slower pace, I concentrated on pushing harder. Gradually, I began recovering some of the lost time. By the finish, I had reduced my 90-second deficit to 42 seconds.

Technically, I still failed to reach my target. But I don’t consider the run a failure. I managed to recover more than half of the time I had lost during the first portion of the run. More importantly, I finished much stronger than I started.

Sometimes progress isn’t crossing the finish line ahead of your target. Sometimes it is being 90 seconds behind, refusing to surrender the run, and finishing only 42 seconds behind. The stopwatch may not award partial credit.

Fortunately, I can. Next week brings my shorter runs, and today’s stronger finish gives me some reason for optimism. Perhaps the speed is still there. It just needed a little extra time to wake up this morning. Apparently, it wanted to use the snooze button too.

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Preparing for a Power Outage Before the Power Goes Out

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Today, my wife had an important work meeting that kept her away from home for most of the day, and she probably won’t be free until fairly late this evening. Meanwhile, I had my own agenda. After finishing the lawn mowing, I turned my attention to a solar panel and backup battery that we recently acquired from my mother.

There was just one small problem. It didn’t come with instructions. Normally, this would hardly qualify as an emergency. We have the internet, after all, and somewhere online there is almost certainly a manual explaining exactly how everything works.

But then I considered the purpose of the equipment. We would most likely need a solar panel and backup battery during a power outage. A power outage is also precisely the sort of situation in which discovering that you don’t know how to operate your emergency power supply becomes somewhat inconvenient. Even better, if the outage also disrupts our internet connection, the online manual would suddenly become considerably less useful.

There is something wonderfully circular about needing electricity and internet access to learn how to use the equipment intended to help you when you don’t have electricity or internet access. So, while everything is working perfectly well, I plan to find the correct manual online and print a copy.

Sometimes preparedness is simply solving tomorrow’s problem while Google is still available. The solar equipment may eventually have another purpose as well. My wife has informed me that she wants to use it to power some sort of outdoor robots she is planning to build. I don’t entirely know what these robots will do.

Knowing her, however, I suspect gardening is involved. For quite some time, she has talked about building something similar to a FarmBot. It is an automated gardening system that can help monitor and care for plants. She even studied Python with that project in mind.

So apparently, while I have been looking at our solar panel and thinking, emergency electricity, my wife has been looking at the same equipment and thinking, robot agriculture.

Both seem perfectly reasonable. For now, my goal is considerably simpler. Find and print the manual. Learn how the equipment works before we actually need it.

The garden robots can come later.

Although, knowing my wife, I probably shouldn’t be surprised if one day I look out the window and discover that the tomatoes have acquired technical support.

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I made my Own Cookies

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Today, a minor household emergency occurred. I ran out of cookies. So, I made my own cookies.

During the summer, I deliberately keep a small supply of calorie-dense snacks around because I have difficulty maintaining my weight when my physical activity increases. Between running, exercise, and mowing our steep lawn, I can burn through more energy than I manage to replace. Cookies have therefore acquired an unusually respectable position in my nutritional strategy.

I don’t eat large quantities at once. Normally, I have one small cookie here and there to add a few extra calories without dramatically increasing the amount of food I need to eat. At least, that is the theory.

With my weekly cookie supply officially depleted, I decided that instead of buying another package, I would try making my own. I found a recipe online for brown butter cookies and modified the batch with both white and semi-sweet chocolate chips, along with walnuts.

They turned out extremely well. Possibly too well. My original plan of eating one small cookie at a time immediately encountered an operational failure when I ate three in rapid succession.

Apparently, quality control required multiple samples. My wife tried one as well and said it was very good. This is a more significant endorsement than it might sound. She enjoys good food, but she isn’t particularly enthusiastic about sweets. So when she compliments a cookie, I take the review seriously.

Now we face the real challenge. Can we make this batch last an entire week? Considering how quickly the first few disappeared, the outlook is uncertain.

Fortunately, we have enough ingredients to make another couple of batches, and the recipe is definitely good enough to keep. The next time the cookie supply reaches dangerously low levels, I know exactly what to do.

Of course, homemade cookies have introduced a slight flaw into my carefully controlled weight-maintenance strategy. Store-bought cookies are easy to ration. Fresh brown butter cookies sitting in the kitchen are considerably more persuasive. If this batch doesn’t survive the week, I suppose I’ll simply have to make another.

For health reasons, naturally.

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Skipping a Rainy 10K and Finding Progress Somewhere Else

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

I find progress somewhere else after skipping a rainy 10K run. This morning was warmer than yesterday, considerably wetter, and apparently determined to make my usual Saturday 10K as unappealing as possible. The humidity was already high when I woke up, but I got dressed and prepared for my run anyway.

Then I reached the front porch. It was raining. Not a pleasant little drizzle, either. It was raining hard enough that I stood there contemplating the prospect of spending nearly two hours running through heat, humidity, and steady rain.

Usually, I can tolerate one or two of those. Today, the weather had apparently purchased the complete package. I decided I simply didn’t want to do it. Some days, perseverance means heading out despite imperfect conditions. Other days, you look at the weather, reconsider your life choices, and walk back inside.

Today belonged to the second category. Once I made the decision, I simply continued my morning as though I had completed the run.

Next came vacuuming, followed by a shower and then breakfast. Admittedly, showering without first becoming completely drenched in sweat was a rather pleasant novelty. Some encouraging news was also waiting for me on the scale. After spending much of the summer struggling to maintain my weight, I have finally gained enough to reach the exact middle of my target range.

Not barely inside it. Not hovering nervously along the lower boundary. Right in the middle. Considering how much my weight has fluctuated with running, lawn mowing, and other summer activities, I am quite happy to see it there. The day’s progress wasn’t limited to my weight, either.

We finished caulking around the bathroom sink vanity, which means that part of our seemingly endless bathroom project is finally ready for the plumber.

I’ll call on Monday and hopefully arrange for someone to come early next week. So far, our plumbing company has usually managed to send someone within a day, so this stage of the project may move quickly.

I have learned not to say that too confidently. Home renovation projects can be optimistic. So, no 10K today. Still, my chores are done, my weight is exactly where I want it, and another part of the bathroom project is ready to move forward. Sometimes sticking to the plan is important. Other times, success is knowing when the plan deserves a rain check.

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Balancing A Busy Schedule With Family Time

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Today required a little more attention to the clock than my usual Saturday. Naturally, Saturday morning also meant my regular run, but I expected a busy schedule.

We had arranged to visit my sister’s house to celebrate both my wife’s and my mother’s birthdays, which meant I needed to finish my normal morning routine before it was time to leave.

So, as soon as I woke up, I put on my running clothes and headed outside. Unfortunately, the run itself was difficult.

Once again, my pace was disappointingly slow. I have been working hard to improve my speed, so seeing another slower result wasn’t exactly the encouraging start to the morning I had hoped for.

Fortunately, I wasn’t running against only one clock. I may have lost to my target pace, but I was still comfortably ahead of our departure time. I’ll count that as a different category of victory.

Once I got home, I didn’t have much time to contemplate my running performance. Saturday’s next contestant was waiting for me: the vacuum cleaner.

I finished vacuuming, took a shower, and finally made my way to my desk for breakfast. I still needed to fit in my planking and stretching exercises before we left, so the morning became a carefully choreographed sequence of running, cleaning, eating, exercising, and occasionally checking the clock.

Some Saturday mornings are relaxing. Others apparently require project management. Despite the full schedule, everything worked. We left on time and arrived at my sister’s house exactly as planned. Once there, the stopwatch could finally retire for the day.

We had a wonderful time catching up with everyone and celebrating the birthdays together. My brother-in-law made tacos for the occasion, and after a morning filled with running and exercise, I was more than prepared to participate enthusiastically in that part of the celebration.

My running pace may not have been what I wanted today, but the rest of the day went beautifully. That is worth remembering.

Not every successful day needs to include a personal best. Sometimes success means finishing the run, completing the chores, arriving on time, spending an afternoon with family…

and being rewarded with tacos.

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Birthday Celebrations, Lawn Mowing, and the Mystery of Four Pounds

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Yesterday was my wife’s birthday.

She isn’t normally someone who makes a great production out of birthdays, so I was especially pleased that she was genuinely excited about the gift I chose for her. I bought her a collection of glow-in-the-dark acrylic paints. Apparently, I chose well.

She has already started experimenting with them and, judging from the number of ideas she has mentioned, the paints have acquired a rather ambitious project schedule. I suspect various objects around our house may soon begin glowing after the lights go out.

While my wife was happily experimenting with her birthday present, I was occupied with a rather different project.

I was trying to regain four pounds.

Apparently, my body had decided yesterday’s disappearance was merely temporary. I was so busy last week that my body couldn’t maintain the weight.

We also plan to try a new restaurant as a belated celebration of my wife’s birthday. Under ordinary circumstances, a calorie-dense restaurant meal might inspire a little nutritional guilt. At the moment, I am looking at it more as strategic replenishment. After today’s mowing session, those calories already have an assignment. Hopefully, they’ll help prevent another dramatic drop on tomorrow morning’s scale.

In the meantime, my wife has new paints to experiment with, I have regained my missing weight, and we have a birthday dinner to enjoy. All things considered, that sounds like a successful celebration. And if tomorrow’s scale disagrees, perhaps we will simply have to celebrate her birthday again.

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Building Muscle With Kidney Disease: A Recovery Story

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

After this morning’s mowing session, my garden’s cardio equivalent, I discovered something wonderful: I’ve finally hit the exact middle of my target weight range. After months of struggling to keep weight up, this feels like winning the wellness lottery.

Here’s the thing about recovery: it’s not linear. Three years ago, I couldn’t ask my brain to move my legs. My brain wasn’t taking calls. Stroke will do that to you. For months, I relearned how to walk with a walker, then without it. Eventually, I progressed from walking to running to jogging—each milestone a small revolution. Over the last 2-3 years, I’ve poured intentional energy into rebuilding muscle through resistance training, something my body desperately needed.

But here’s where it gets tricky: kidney problems and muscle-building are locked in a standoff. Building muscle demands protein; kidney disease demands I restrict it. Add summer yard chores—the kind that demand serious physical output—and weight maintenance becomes a high-wire act. I cycle through foods, strategically balancing activity, intake, and the restrictions my kidneys kindly insist upon. Ironically, resistance training actually helps my kidneys, yet the muscle I gain makes weight maintenance exponentially harder.

Tomorrow’s weigh-in will be telling. History says the day after heavy yard work, the scale drops significantly. But for once, I have a buffer. For once, I don’t have to panic about dropping below my range. Recovery isn’t just physical. It’s learning to celebrate the small wins, building strength within constraints, and finding your rhythm when your body keeps changing the rules.

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A Slow 10K Run and the Importance of Looking at the Long Term

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

Today’s 10-kilometer run was… let’s just say it wasn’t destined to become a personal record. It was a slow 10k run.

The morning actually started quite well. There wasn’t much rain, the temperature felt reasonable, and I headed out thinking it might be a comfortable run. Then the sun woke up. By the time I finished my first five kilometers, it seemed determined to remind everyone that it was still July in Tennessee. The temperature climbed, the humidity rose with it, and before long the entire route felt like a giant steam room.

With every kilometer, I could feel the heat draining my energy. My pace gradually slowed as if someone had quietly turned down the power on my legs. After several cooler mornings following the Independence Day heat wave, my body had become accustomed to more pleasant conditions. Returning to hot, humid weather felt like an unpleasant surprise. Running through that humidity was like jogging inside a sauna without the relaxing music. So, I briefly considered cutting the run short.

Yesterday’s run, however, had already been interrupted by a thunderstorm. I didn’t want to make a habit of stopping whenever conditions became difficult. There are certainly times when stopping is the right decision; lightning is one of them, but today’s challenge was simply uncomfortable, not unsafe.

So I kept going. I tried pushing harder. The weather responded by pushing back. In the end, I never found the extra speed I was hoping for.

What I did find was the finish line. Sometimes that is enough. One lesson running keeps teaching me is that improvement is rarely linear. Some days everything seems effortless. Other days every stride feels heavier than the last.

If I judged my progress by today’s run alone, I might conclude I wasn’t improving at all. Fortunately, one run tells only a tiny part of the story.

See The Improvement in a Long Period

When I compare where I am today with where I was a year ago, the difference is unmistakable. My endurance has improved. My consistency has improved. Even my recovery has improved.

The daily fluctuations matter far less than the long-term trend. That thought makes difficult days much easier to accept. Tomorrow is my scheduled rest day before beginning another week of training. The stopwatch will have another opportunity to challenge me.

And I’ll have another opportunity to prove that showing up consistently matters more than having one perfect run.

Hopefully…

the weather cooperates next time.

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A Cooler Morning and a Faster Run: Progress After the Heat Wave

Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke

This morning began with a small mistake. In my enthusiasm to get out the door, I completely forgot to put on my running headband. It wasn’t a disaster, but sweat kept trying to find its way into my eyes. A headband is one of those things you hardly notice, well, until you forget it.

The good news was that the weather more than made up for my oversight. After the intense heat around Independence Day, temperatures finally dropped. The heat wave wasn’t limited to the South, either. My wife mentioned that one of her colleagues in New York had been dealing with similarly extreme temperatures. For me, the cooler weather felt like a gift.

I don’t take holidays off from running, so I still completed my regular 10-kilometer run on the Fourth of July. Unfortunately, I ran in oppressive heat and humidity. Every kilometer felt like a negotiation with the weather, and it was one of the most difficult runs I had experienced in quite some time.

Today’s conditions were completely different. The cooler air made running noticeably more comfortable, and my pace improved immediately. I still didn’t reach my target pace, but I was faster than in every run I completed during last week’s heat wave. That counts as progress.

Weather affects every runner, but it hits me even harder because of my medical history.

Several years ago, I experienced a hemorrhagic stroke affecting my cerebellum. Since then, my body has struggled to regulate temperature as effectively as it once did. Hot, humid conditions are much more physically demanding for me than they used to be, so dramatic weather changes can significantly affect how I perform.

Knowing that helps me keep my expectations realistic. Some days, I am competing against the stopwatch. Other days, I am competing against the weather. The important thing is recognizing the difference.

Today’s run reminded me that last week’s slower times were not necessarily a sign that I was losing fitness. Sometimes your environment limits what your body can do, and the wisest response isn’t frustration but patience.

The cooler morning proved that the work I have been putting in is still paying off. I wasn’t as fast as I ultimately want to be. But I was faster than I was last week. And sometimes, that is exactly the evidence you need to know you are moving in the right direction. Tomorrow will bring another opportunity.

I’ll just try to remember one important piece of equipment before I leave the house.

The headband.

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