This post is about a path, my own path, and a question. The path was set by dreams and questions of the things I want to do in this latter part (third? is that too much of a wish?) of my life. The question also.
At the beginning of the year, in my first post of 2019 in fact, I wrote that I was returning to the gym and walking on the treadmill, focusing on health not fitness. I did write about walking slowly, deliberately, about focusing on proper breathing, and proper hip motion. I wrote about some of the background, about why I now needed to focus on these things, the natural breathing and moving that most of us take for granted, and which somehow I had lost. Not lost motion. Nor lost breathing. I managed both of those, but did I manage them well or had I somehow lost something that should come naturally?
In January I managed to avoid admitting was how difficult this was, and what a tenuous, perhaps even questionable process I was undertaking. I avoided mentioning that I fretted about whether I was pursing a pipe-dream, fretted about risks (mostly in my head) and whether the gains would be worth it (they may well be). The goal was to walk slowly, breathing solely through my mouth (hence no talking), to walk slowly enough that my pulse stayed only in the aerobic zone, and did not cross the anaerobic threshold, even for a moment. The goal was to learn how to breathe again. The goal was to build basic aerobic capacity, which will lead to stamina, not necessarily for fitness, at least not in the short term. At this slower aerobic pace, breathing through my nose should help strengthen lung perfusion and build capacity, at least as much as can be done given my structural fault-lines.
What I didn't say was how slowly I had to walk, and how difficult that was, not so much physically, although it took concentration, but emotionally and psychologically. I was a person who put in my 10,000 steps every day. Who lifted things and walked and who considered myself basically healthy if not fit. I knew I had a long way to go, that I had become soft and sluggish, and I did not like my sluggish self. But I was not prepared. I was not prepared for how little I could do, for how long it would take to improve, and for the way the process would trigger my inner demon, the inner voice telling myself that I can never be enough.
When I started in December I was walking so slowly that the act of walking itself had to practically become a meditative action. I had to hold on to the treadmill firmly with both hands, I had to take agonizingly slow, long deliberate steps, purposefully rolling through my stride. Eventually I worked up to a speed of 0.8 miles-per-hour, which although still horribly slow, would allow me to read on an iPad. I worked through all my back issues of the New Yorker. I walked for 1 hour, eventually working up to 2 hours, less than 2 miles, deliberately choosing times that the gym was fairly empty because I was embarrassed. But I couldn't increase the speed. Even at this pace my pulse stayed just below the aerobic/anerobic threshold. I knew it had to get better. I doubted it would ever get better. I would leave the gym and walk across the parking lot in the cold air, walk up the stairs to my apartment, and my pulse would rush across that line, and I would fret. MY team — doctor/trainer — told me that I was supposed to avoid high pulses, although they also told me that this would just slow the process and I would get there. I remembered back, when we found out I had a hole in my heart, in my late 30s, when just getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom put my pulse somewhere in the 80% of max range and my doctors muttered about how I did any of the things I did. I remember that I survived and I recovered. I could survive this too.
But for months nothing happened. I stayed mired there. I eventually got my speed up to 1.2 mph. But I couldn't go any faster. If speed was worth, I was worthless. I knew this wasn't true, but my inner demon continued to chip away. I needed an incredibly long, slower, almost stretching walk to move from a junctional rhythm into a normal rhythm, but even that was nothing new. I had always needed that, and it wasn't until I was older that I learned it wasn't "normal". But what is normal anyway. And does one have to be normal to be healthy? Chalk it up my scoliosis, to that previous atrial septal defect and repair; I will never be normal.
In my previous life, when I was fit, I would warm up on a stationary bike, which always seemed to stabilize me and allow me to push harder than anything else. But I couldn't pedal a bike, even at no resistance, without my pulse racing. I missed the ignorance of those days, the way I took for granted that I could do anything I wanted to do. I wanted some of that blissful assurance back.
And then there were the setbacks. I had a couple of colds. I discovered I am allergic to cats, and forced confinement in an apartment with a cat meant I couldn't breathe. I got a sinus infection. I got the flu. In May I stopped trying altogether. I was packing and preparing to move.
After I moved I decided to start again. I found a gym buddy. I went to the gym 6 days a week, occasionally 5. I still do. Immediately I learned I could walk at 1.6 mph. Such a simple thing but I was euphoric. Breathing through my nose is easier. I do it most of the time now, and can tell I take deeper, longer breaths. I was able to use a recumbent bicycle, granted only at level one, but that in and of itself was a huge motivation. I can actually get better. I am actually getting better.
I can now ride the bike at level two occasionally, I can increase my speed or resistance for short bursts before my pulse rises too high. I can walk at about 2 to 2.2 mph holding on, but only 1.8 if I allow my arms to swing freely. In fact I really can't do that last thing yet, walk on a treadmill with my arms at my side. What happens is that the pace is too slow and I want to walk faster, as soon as I walk faster I stop rolling my hips and my gait becomes more marionette-like. As I speed up and my gate changes my pulse changes as well. I don't feel bad, if anything, psychologically, I want to push harder. But the goal is not pushing harder, not yet. I know pushing harder will actually push me back, and I will have to slow down.
Now that I am finally progressing I can see that there are benefits and I want to be the best, healthiest me I can be. I know that although I have trained myself, without even really meaning to do so, into believing that doing more faster is the way things are supposed to be, this is a myth. It is one of the myths of the culture I live in, like the myth of fitness. Fitness is good, but it is not health. I want both, or as close to both as I can achieve, but of the two health is more important, and it is a somewhat fluid state. I need to start with health.
Does this seem like a project? a long term-goal? I suppose it is. But it is not. Sometimes it feels more like an anti-project. Don't push, keep those goals flexible and even wishy-washy, accept that some days will be slow and others surprisingly fast. I still have to work on keeping myself from pushing. But the effort is paying off — in my breathing, in my stamina and long term energy, which still has a way to go but which is increasing, and even in an increasing sense of calmness and a willingness to just sit back. Sometimes we think we are moving forward when are really digging a hole. Sometimes just moving is enough.