Not Dead Yet !: health and fitness

First up: I'm healthy. Sure, my cancer will be back -- but not right now. Meanwhile: no treatment, no obvious symptoms, no worries. Which leads to an interesting observation:

For years I had practical experience of how difficult it is to gain fitness. Now I realise that it is even harder to *re*gain fitness.

Deb and I are back on a running training plan. We get out every couple of days to do some running (jogging) or some interval training (aka fartlek, but not in a polite blog). Running is running but the intervals take us back to well-remembered training of several years ago. Hills, for example:

We jog round to warm up, do some "dynamic stretching", then tackle the hill. It's just 30 seconds up, jog down, repeat 15 times. We've done it all before.

I jog up for 30 seconds and can see the point on the hill that I would aim for in the past -- and am 5 or more metres short.

That's the problem with *re*training: I can see just how less fit I am, this time round.

I remind myself: it took 25 years to get from desk jockey to marathon runner. Under the effects of treatment I slipped back to -- so it seems -- as unfit as I was as an unexercised desk jockey. I'm regaining fitness faster than I gained it, first time round.

But I can still see that mark -- still further up the hill -- that I could reach, just a few years ago.

Oh well. My target is still to run Cradle Mountain. Meanwhile I have a new, intermediate goal: to consistently reach that mark on the hill. The one which was attainable just three years ago. Onward and, hopefully, upward :-)

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On a less promising note: I do seem to have a nervous rash. A localised itch which comes and -- quite quickly -- goes. Usually I just scratch it then ignore it. Though I have applied anti-fungal cream and, before running, vaseline. The itch is mostly gone. Except:

After a social dinner with 100 or so nice people, I come home and start itching. I look and the itchy area and it is red. Within ten minutes the red has trebled in area -- and minor bumps, blister-like bumps, have joined the red. Within twenty minutes the whole lot is gone.

The dinner was fine, the company is pleasant, I just don't enjoy crowds. I blame the itch on after-effects of chemo. But I now add, exacerbated by stress, to the cause. Which is really disappointing, since I refuse to stress.

I need to practice my stress avoidance. When that is not possible, I'll simply stop stressing. It's worked in the past. Time to brush up on my current non-stressing.