Tag Archives: swimming

Morning High

24 Saturday Jun 2017

Posted by in Exercise/ Fitness, Health Issues

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It is a morning where I am aware of the fatigue in my body, in my shoulders and lower back.  It is not really painful, more like sore.  I have a little bit of a headache, noticing how the sensation radiates from temples to my neck. 

My first response is that these sensations need “fixing” specifically, be made to disappear. Instead I will be with these feelings a little longer. When I finish this post I will sit back and enjoy them.  This is, I believe, an endorphin high.  It is healthy, a side benefit of swimming distances.

In a perfect world, I would feel my lover’s naked, soft and pliant body next to my nakedness. We would be languid, lazy, lethargic, caught in the afterglow of sex. That is not the case. So this high is mine and mine alone. Oh well. It’s s damn site better than feeling nothing, or worse, nursing regret.

Now It Feels Like Monday Afternoon.

22 Monday May 2017

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I took that nap. It was a pretty good nap, only about an hour or so, but felt like eight hours.  When I awoke I did some minimal chores, read some blogs,  looked at some people looking at houses on HGTV  (Thank The Good Lord, His blessed Mother and all the Angels and Saints we own the house free and clear!) .  Then I decided to go swimming and swam 2500 meters. After the swim, I went to BJ’s, bought a few perishables, and spent less than $40.  Back home, I decided an update was in order.

The Bachelorette starts tonight. I think I will read, whilst my beloved watches that show.   I shall read Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages on recommendation of a fellow blogger.

Stay tuned.

3250 Meters Swimming

22 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by in Exercise/ Fitness, food, Sport

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Uh, fascinating. Really? I had last done 2+ miles four weeks ago. It feels great, that sweet exercise high that beats the pants off dope or booze.

I was busy trying to talk myself out of working out today or taking it easy.  But once in the water and moving, all the negative self-talk disappeared.  I actually felt my mind relax, focusing on the laps.

Last week I swam 10,000 meters and to repeat last week’s totals, I needed the 3250 meter distance today. And it really wasn’t hard. I finished, actually lost count of the laps swum. 3250 Meters is 65 laps in a 25-meter pool or 130 lengths. Putting my brain on auto-pilot and just being mindful of my surgical sites (lumbar spine and right shoulder) was my emphasis.

Mrs CorC? and I went to one of our favorite unpretentious restaurants, with good entrees, costing not too much.  I had a blackened rockfish Caesar salad. She had crabcake sliders with sweet potato waffle fries. 

Richmond is a restaurant town. There are lots of start-ups with new concepts. I can tell you that Bruce Springsteen goes to Mama Zu’s on Oregon Hill when he is in town. It’s owned by a buddy of his.

Now FIOS is bringing me a baseball game, Washington Nationals at the Mets. Good game in extra innings. I am at the point where I don’t care who wins. I just want it to be over. My son mentioned to me tonight that the real value of sport is that it is inconsequential. True that.

Where Have I Been?

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in cooking, Exercise/ Fitness

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It’s been six days since I last posted. Too long.  There are things I want to say, activities I want to recount, dreams I would like to reveal. I need privacy.  I can’t write when my wife, partner, spousal unit is around. I don’t know why.

I have been consistently exercising again, as in 35 days out of the last 49.  Good old discipline. Good old nonkinky discipline. My swimming workout is now 2500 meters free style per day. If I don’t swim, I will walk four miles in my townhouse circuit, resting 2 days per week. It feels great.  Sometimes, while swimming or walking, I let my mind wander.  I fantasize about being in a sort of BDSM “fat camp”, where Trainer/ Dominatrices push out-of-shape males into top physical condition.  Lurid. Silly. But all fantasies are absurd,lurid, and silly to some degree.  Maybe the silly fantasies will find their way here as blogposts.

My cooking has been uninspired,  treading water in the culinary sense.  I imagine fixing a gumbo with chicken, Andouille sausage, red beans and gumbo (aka okra). Okra is verboten around Das alte Haus, but I think within the context of soup I may be able to pull such a daring venture off.

The Verizon door-to-door solicitors came by this afternoon. It is colder here than a well-digger’s toe. These intrepid lads out canvassing deserved some reinforcement. So I finally scheduled a FIOS installation. This means I have to take the lead in sprucing up the old  mini-storage unit we call home in order that the Verizon guys can do their job. MrsCorC? may not like this, but she will get over it. Or she won’t. Worse things can happen.

Life is pretty mundane. No blizzard. It’s been a fairly mild winter with just one decent size snowstorm. But that’s OK. Other than needing roads safe for emergency vehicles to operate, snow removal is waste of time.  It usually melts within a week here in Richmond.  The daffodils, croci, Bradford pear are all blooming or have bloomed.

“Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone”- John Mellencamp

Coming Back

18 Tuesday Oct 2016

Posted by in Health Issues, Sport

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I’m good for only so much despair, before the fun opportunities present themselves and prevail.

The return from the brink began yesterday. I looked in the fridge and said to my self, “Self, we’re fixing dinner!” I got out all the stuff I was planning on using, the onion, garlic, tomato, mushrooms, tuna steak, and left over linguine. I started saute’-ing like a mad man. First the onion and garlic,  a carrot, a tomato, tbyme, basil, and any other herb that struck my fancy. I cut the tuna steak in chunks, added that. After a while the mushrooms entered the skillet, then the cooked linguini. After some simmering, I added a jar of marinated and quartered artichoke hearts, marinade and all. 

Meanwhile, the crab cake, I purchased for Mrs CorC? went in the oven. She loves crab. Alas, I am allergic to it. Her treat. I enjoy watching her eat it.  Finally, the asparagus I purchased were prepped and steamed. She came home to dinner ready to eat. For dessert there was a slice of chocolate babka with mint chocolate chip ice cream for her, a dish of butter pecan ice cream for me.

It gets better. Today I got a swim in. Aware as I am of a tender shoulder, I did a mere 1700 meters. After the swim, a shower with sandalwood soap and a shave. The sandalwood soap takes away the mundane dimension of the YMCA’s burgeoning population of middle-aged fat guys and senior citizen semi-cripples (myself included).  

Funny how very little, simple things can rejuvenate my sense of vitality.

Catch Up and Cursive

07 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by in Depression, Exercise/ Fitness, memoir

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Well it’s been a while. I’d like to say exciting things have happened but mostly I haven’t had the privacy I need to write.  Mrs CorC? has been home with holidays and the like.

The Y had its annual pool maintenance and cleaning so swimming opportunities were limited.  Couple this with some attitude about what I think optimal swim conditions should be and the result is no swimming.  I’m finally working my way back.

Am I the only person out there who has this baseline of sadness, like it’s my factory default setting?  When I picture my mother, her face is always sad. She was the archetypal depressive in my life.  My life is the legacy of her sadness. I know. It’s crazy.  But making it go away ain’t easy.

On the lighter side, my latest obsession is Chinese fountain pens.  Jin Hao is a Chinese pen manufacturer and they are selling their fine products dirt cheap on Amazon and Wish. What bites you in the butt, price-wise, is the ink.  A bottle of Sheaffer Scrip runs $8-9 a bottle. Grant you, a bottle may last forever; it just seems like a lot.

The cool thing about fountain pens is the fun they bring to cursive writing.  It is as if the ideas flow from my brain, down my arm, to my hand, then through my hand to the pen to where the ink puts that idea into words on the paper.  Erotic? Maybe. Sensual? Definitely.  My journal is filling up.

Writing in cursive is very satisfying and, at the same time, daunting for me.  I know I am not alone. I am left-handed. When cursive was introduced into the Third Grade curriculum, it was traumatic, at least to Eight Year Old Me.  Those lessons taught me that I  was different  and that maybe something was wrong with me.  I should have paid more attention to Sandy Koufax, I guess.  My parents, Thank God, never tried to change me to a righty.

When we were kids, the cool item was the cartridge pen.  It was a fountain pen that delivered ink from a plastic cartridge, rather than a refillable ink reservoir. I can imagine, today, a bunch of Third Graders trying to fill ink reservoirs, with spilled ink and ink blots making for a myriad of Rohrschachs all across America.  The cool color was peacock blue.  Every kid had a peacock blue Sheaffer cartridge pen.

Dorothy and I will hit the Y about 1:30. I am looking forward to it. There are some forms the disability people said they didn’t get that I sent them. So I have to re-fax them. Mrs CorC? is working in Williamsburg so dinner is up in the air as to what I fix, if anything. That’s my day.

Hiding

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by in cooking, Exercise/ Fitness, loneliness, Love and stuff, Sexual Identity

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I do all kinds of things to hide out.  Mostly they are “activities”.  I’m being busy, waiting for the chance for something exciting, exotic, or just plain memorable to happen.  This is not unique to me and it’s certainly not a waste of time. Because there’s a lot of time between the exciting, exotic or memorable events of life. There are gaps to be filled.

So I swim. In the water I get lost. In my thoughts. In time. In my workout. I love feeling the water on my body as I swim. I love how my muscles feel.  I don’t care much about my pace or whether I am moving quickly or slowly.  I fantasize that a woman desires me because I swim, that she finds me attractive, that I’m wanted.

And I cook. I love the smells, the sounds of a whirring blender, vegetables frying, the colors of the vegetables and fruits.  I love to see heavy cream turn into whipped cream.  I love sharing what I cook with others.

And I try not to think about the void in Passion. The Love is there. Good old Love. Old Love, soon-to-be geriatric Love.  Selfless Christian Sunday School Love. But I need Passion, too. Passion that can flower because that Love is there.  Put all the chips on Passion.  Tattoo your name inside a heart on my bicep Passion.  Staying awake after one fuck, just so we can have another go Passion.   No “good” manners, dirty-talkin’ Passion that would make your friends blush on the outside, while they die of envy.

“Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.”– John Mellencamp

Rest Day

20 Wednesday Jul 2016

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Back in high school, fifty years ago this fall, I went out for cross country, then track.   I got used to working out five days a week.  Five workouts a week mean I’m serious about the program. I like the self-discipline it fosters. Yesterday I finished my five workouts (lap swim 2050 meters 82 lengths of a 25 meter pool) I started Friday. By then my body was feeling the fatigue and the work I had put my body through.

Workout #5 was not without drama, all internally generated.  The mental fatigue wanted me to just skip it, wait till the next day or the next. I left the house, did some errands first, and  got to  the Y around four P M.  Looking at the sky, I saw dark and ominous storm clouds in the northwest sky.  Usually the storms come out of the west so I thought we might miss this batch of nasty. No such luck. The pool closed just as I was ready to go in. So I got dressed, went home, resolute to return. I had time to go online, and take a nap before I ventured to return . When I got back the lifeguard was outside and he told me the pool would reopen in about 25 minutes. OK.

I get in the pool and start. Every little tweak and funny feeling I magnify into a re-injury of my shoulder or my back.  I find that groove that distance athletes can find, where I feel I can go on forever. I finish my distance.  It was faster than yesterday.  The feeling of accomplishment and being on “purpose” is great.

Home again. Mrs C or C? had already texted that she was tired and hungry. Fortunately I had brought some steaks down from the freezer to thaw that I would fix on the George Foreman grill. Paired with the fresh local tomatoes, we enjoyed a delightful supper, with minimal effort.

Today, on the rest day, I had a nap that was more a continuation of the night’s sleep. I’m enjoying the luxury of doing what I wish to do, write. Then I will read,starting a novella by James Baldwin Giovanni’s Room. It is a gay-themed story, from a major American writer of the Twentieth Century. I read some essays by him in high school,  Notes of a Native Son.  After I finish reading Baldwin, I’m moving on to Nelson Algren.

Retirement. It’s about creating your own world. Cool

The Doctor Visit & The Pool

14 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by in Health Issues, Sport

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Monday, I had an appointment with my internist, whom I had not seen since my pre-surgery physical last September. I am feeling pretty good but certain things need to be looked at. Twinkle The Nurse checked my weight, 204 pounds (92.5 kg/ 14 stone 8 lb), down from 222 lbs (100.69 kg / 15 stone 12 pound). Then the blood pressure 120/80. Perfecto. September’s was 152/90. So I’m starting the visit with two big wins. Next, the doctor comes in. He is old enough to be my son, so I already feel old. He checks my heart. It is there and it beats the way it’s supposed to. When I ask about a digital prostate exam, he tells me that unless I’m showing any symptoms of prostate enlargement or the PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) enzyme is elevated as shown by the blood test, they don’t bother with a digital exam, unless I request it. After my surgeries, a finger in my rectum is not a big deal, but I would just as soon not have a digital exam, even though I wore clean underwear that day. I get a referral for a gastroenterologist to do an endoscopy since it’s been ten years since the last one of those. I go to the lab collection area to get the blood drawn. The doctor visit is over. The next day, Twinkle The Nurse calls to tell me all is well on the lab values, PSA is normal and the prediabetic condition of September’s visit has disappeared.

I celebrate the successful doctor visit by sleeping three hours when I get home.I have a counseling session that afternoon. I began some counseling (psychotherapy) after some unresolved issues came up after my brother’s death in December, 2014. The therapist and I worked through those issues in the next eighteen or so months. Another win. I celebrate this visit with lunch at Silver Diner, a nice restaurant, based out of the Washington, DC area. I get the mango vegetarian stir-fry. and am happy with the choice. it has edamame mixed in with the bits of fresh mango and is served over quinoa pasta.

Now, the pool. Although I’ve been swimming regularly for almost 42 years, I still get antsy before almost every visit to the pool. I don’t know why, but I do. I get to the Y, start the swim and all is well after I finish the first 50 meters. I set a goal to swim five days in a row, swimming 2050 meters each day. I have a little trepidation because of my rotator cuff repair as well as the fusion. Climbing into the pool is a big deal. The fusion doesn’t allow me to gracefully slip into the water at the shallow end. I now have to use a ladder. but that’s no big deal. The flip turn, on the other hand, is now a thing of the past, unless I miraculously get some flexibility back as my recovery progresses. Yesterday I finished the five day consecutive swims goal I set last Saturday. The feeling of meeting a goal like that is unbeatable. I was contemplating a swim today, but I know I need a rest day.

Yes. I am happy and satisfied.