Fearless Joy

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been struggling with fear. Fear of mountain bike trail obstacles. Fear of never being able to regain the fitness level of my youth. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of losing my athletic identity as a cyclist. I have been trying to relearn mountain biking, but trying to do it the right way this time. When I first learned to ride 20 years ago (yes, I learned to ride a bike as an adult, which was difficult enough to say the least), I think in my eagerness to catch up for not biking as a kid, I rushed things and tried to do too much too soon. That ended up creating massive levels of fear in me about every aspect of the trail, not to mention never allowing me to get truly comfortable handling a bicycle. Yes, I got to do a lot of races, rode a lot of trails and had a lot of fun in a terrifying kind of way. But there was always that knowledge in the back of my mind that I really didn't know what I was doing because I had never taken the time to actually learn how to ride, so I bluffed my way through the trails for 20 years - I rode, but was always limited by intense unreasonable fear.

So with Steve's help, after taking time off from any kind of significant biking for a long while, I'm relearning the sport, but trying to do it the right way this time and taking things slowly. And even though I'm not naive enough to think I'll ever reach a competitive racer level, if I can simply get comfortable and confident enough this time to manage the non-double-black-diamond trails, that's plenty good enough for me at this stage in my life. In order to gain that confidence, I'm limiting my riding for the time being to trails where the technical sections and challenges have a lower penalty for failure to help me regain fitness and learn to trust myself and my bike before moving to scarier trails.

This past weekend, on the way home from Asheville where Steve raced the final event of the Southern Super D Series, we took a detour to try out the trails at Lake Norman State Park. This turned out to be a superb decision. We only rode three of the easier loops out there, but I discovered that my current bike, a Salsa Spearfish, seemed to be absolutely made for the Monbo Loop. I don't recall having that much fun or having ridden a singletrack trail that fast ever in my life, yet I never felt out of control or scared like I had gotten so used to feeling every time I rode. This hand built trail was the most fun I've had on a mountain bike since I don't know when, and it's been a long time - too long - since I finished a 10 mile mountain bike ride with such a great big grin on my face.

Yeah, I had a couple of close calls. I almost wrapped the bike around a tree when I took a corner with a bit too much speed. Luckily, I was able to steer clear, and thankfully slowing enough to do so helped me narrowly avoid flying off the edge of little curvy rock bridge just after the tree. And there was one small rocky climb where I had to walk the very top few feet due to being out of shape. But I was delighted to find I was able to easily ride the rooty sections, other climbs, descents and rocky stretches. And even with the minor errors noted above, I didn't feel that old familiar gut-wrenching fear I've carried with me for so long, so maybe this plan of taking baby steps with my biking is going to work. I certainly hope so, because I definitely want to go back to LNSP soon, and look forward to finding fearless joy in mountain biking soon.

Been a While

Yeah, I know I kind of left things hanging since my last blog post several weeks ago. I did end up having a nuclear stress test which showed somewhat abnormal results so underwent a cardiac catheterization the other week. Despite all my worries about the procedure being painful, I actually slept through the entire thing and was awakened by the staff letting me know everything went well and my coronary arteries looked very good. Apparently there was no sign of any coronary artery disease, not even any plaque according to the cardiologist! So my heart appears to be healthy; great news in that it means I can continue on with my weight loss and exercise plans. The only negatives include some temporary wrist soreness where the wire was inserted (which has since resolved) and the massive pile of co-payment bills now having to be addressed. But it is good to know my heart is apparently in great shape. We still don’t know the cause of the EKG abnormalities, but I guess they aren’t harmful; erosive esophagitis and reflux disease are the current primary suspects for my symptomatology. So we’re working on addressing that at present, and it seems to be improving.

Now comes the really hard part – getting back into a regular exercise routine. When you’re overweight, getting older and trying to regain lost fitness, well, let’s just say it’s tough. And discouraging - less than 10 years ago I was easily riding my bike for as much as 22 hours straight during endurance events on challenging trails, and now managing one hour on a beginner loop is exhausting and harder than I remember. I’m doing what I can, but it’s a balancing act between exercising hard enough to make gains in fitness and keeping things at a level where it isn’t so awful that I can’t force myself to get back out there the next time. I get frustrated when I can’t do the things I used to do with ease, and at times it feels like I’m carrying a toddler on my back due to the extra body weight, especially on climbs, but I’m taking baby steps to try and improve. Right now my focus is on more saddle time to get comfortable on the bike again, and I’ll worry about adding increasing speed and tackling the scarier more technical trail sections bit by bit so as not to get too overwhelmed with everything at once.

The weirdest part about it, though, is that my fear of obstacles seems to be the biggest roadblock to my progress; I still seem to have a fair amount of strength for biking, and can even go a little bit fast (for me) on short stretches, especially considering my current lack of fitness. But riding a sketchy descent or crossing a log or rock garden just freezes me psychologically, and if we’re heading to a difficult trail, I find that I am sick to the point of nausea, trembling and cold sweats before I even take to the saddle. Not sure what’s going on with that, especially since I know I can always walk the sketchy sections, but it’s something I’d really like to understand and correct because I desperately want to find the joy in biking again. I feel like I already lost the first 33 years of myself as an equestrian when my horse died 20 years ago and I couldn’t bring myself to face that grief. And I don’t want to lose these last 20 years of my identity as a mountain biker as well due to fear of re-learning how to ride. I suppose I need to just keep pressing onward and hopefully things will work themselves out.

A Worrisome Weekend

Well, we had quite the scare Thursday evening. I began experiencing increasingly severe pain in my left chest with breathing difficulties Thursday afternoon, to the point that I had to had Steve come pick me up from the office and take me to the doctor. The nurse practitioner who saw me was concerned by the pain and associated fatigue and shortness of breath, so on the advice of the internist ran an EKG which showed some abnormalities. So they faxed the EKG over to a cardiologist who apparently "didn't like the looks" of the EKG and said to send me to the emergency room at the hospital. After more chest studies and laboratory testing in the ER, it was fortunately determined that I was not having a heart attack. However, there was severe inflammation around the chest wall, so they sent me home with pain medications and instructions to rest and avoid strenuous activity for the next several days, and to follow up with the cardiologist in a couple of days.

This really came on at a terrible time. I'm right in the middle of trying to prepare for a mountain bike endurance race series, and the first race is in four weeks! Not only that, but I'm also attempting to shed this excess 65 pounds, an endeavor that absolutely requires maintenance of an intensive exercise program. And the doctors gave me even worse news: restarting my biking program may have contributed to, or at least exacerbated, this chest wall inflammation. Additionally, apparently now that this has happened once, I will be at increased risk of it happening again in the future. Crud.

I did try to "plein air" sketch some, but just out in the back yard since that way I would at least be at home should breathing become too difficult and require me to return to bed.

© 2015 Tammy Kaufman - Backyard Spring Study - soft pastels on UArt 600, 9" x 7"

I was able to complete several sketches, but unfortunately, for whatever reason, my drawing and painting seem to have taken a setback over these past few days, and I've been having difficulty getting my drawings and paintings to turn out the way I want.

I'm not sure if it's due to the pain and fatigue, the stress of worrying about this health issue, or just a normal cycle in an artist's life, or possibly all, or something else. But I'm still trying to get my drawing practice in as often as I can - trying for daily - even though the results have not always been quite as successful as I would like.

Also this afternoon I felt well enough to go for an easy slow hike with Steve and Fry on one of the local bike trails and was able to walk for almost a mile! The best part, though, is that I actually feel somewhat better and am finding it a little easier to breathe after the walk, so I may try riding the indoor bike this evening or tomorrow to see how that feels. Hopefully my training won't have to come to a complete halt and I can continue on with the race series, even if my goal has to change from "racing" to simply completing the course. And all the better if my painting muse would happen to come back soon as well.  :-)

To My Prince Charming

Fifteen years ago today, you made me feel like a princess.

You were my Prince Charming then, and you remain so today. As the years have passed, my love for you has only grown stronger and every day we're together is another day more in love with my Soulmate.

Happy 15th Anniversary - I love you!

Frylie's Five!

Our little boy is growing up - Frylie is five years old today!

Happy Birthday little man - we love you!

Snow Day!

Fry was loving the wintry weather this week, especially since his body was kept warm with his winter jacket and his paws were protected with his favorite paw wax from Musher's Secret. I hate to sound like an advertisement, but that stuff really works.

That's my boy!

Juggling

With my thoughts and actions racing around in so many different directions over the past month or so, I feel like I've started this year off juggling my entire life! While it's a good thing to have so much going on, sometimes I wonder if there really can be too much of a good thing. I have paintings on exhibit in a variety of venues in Raleigh and Cary and am happy about that, but I've had to start a spreadsheet so I can keep track of just what is hanging where and when it needs to be picked up. I'm not generally much of a spreadsheet kind of person, but out of necessity, I'm quickly learning to become one.

Also, I've begun taking pastel classes with Addren Doss out of Greensboro. We're starting out with values and in that vein, I've been painting nothing but still lifes for the past two weeks.

Still Life Homework Assignments in Greyscale and Color

While I think (hope?) that's helping me better understand value and temperature in color theory, I have to admit I'm looking forward to eventually getting back to painting my beloved landscapes and animals!

And speaking of animals, Frylie was quite ill over this past weekend with some kind of stomach upset. Fortunately, he appears to be well on the road to recovery now, but he gave us quite a scare when he went off his food and suffered nausea, vomiting and lack of energy or interest in anything for those few days.

Lastly, but certainly not least, the handwriting on the wall has reached massive proportions such that I can no longer pretend that my weight gain and lack of fitness don't need to be addressed. In light of that, I'm easing back into a regular exercise regimen of brisk walking/hiking and bicycling. With the cold and rainy weather this winter has brought, I've been limited to the indoor exercise bike, hand weights and yoga most days, but I suppose that's better than nothing. And I can still dream, while I'm pedaling away in the house, of warmer drier days in the coming spring when a hopefully slimmer and fitter me can get back outside on actual mountain bike trails...