I managed to walk eight miles on Wednesday. I was feeling pretty good about that. I generally do five on Sunday, six on four of the other days, and seven on two days. I find that walking in smaller periods, say, twenty to forty minutes at a time, helps me achieve my goals, so I that’s my plan. Eight miles was an impromptu reach.
That effort changed in my final hour. Somewhere in that time, my left Achilles tendon began expressing second thoughts. I pushed through it. Eventually, when you get old enough, some part of your body has second thoughts about going on. Although they manage to make themselves a vocal minority, I can usually push through. Seeing that they’re not stopping me, they then shut up.
Ah, not this tendon. No. It remained as vocal as a starving cat.
The tendon stiffened overnight. Yesterday was painful, especially up hills and steps. Only five and a half miles were achieved, and a flight less than the ten flights that were my goal.
The tendon remains troubling today. I’ve learned through testing that it’ll stiffen up when I sit for extended period, but flexing it when I first stand loosens it. Then, as I walk, it grows a little looser, although it remains a painful process. With a little grit, I can manage a slower imitation of my usual gait, but sometimes, when I’m first struggling with it, I’m moving like John Wayne in “True Grit,” pilgrim.
I wasn’t satisfied with how things were going last month. I was in a tunnel, that tunnel shaped my life and attitude. There were no lights in my tunnel. Changes were needed to provide me a light to look to at the end of the tunnel. So, on a whim in August, unmentioned to anyone, I sought to make five changes.
I quit drinking mochas every day.
Priorities were re-evaluated and shifted.
I re-balanced myself.
Alcohol intake was reduced.
I began drinking apple cider vinegar every morning.
My decision to stop drinking quad-shot mochas during my writing routine at the coffee shop freaked my barista buddies. I had to assure them, it wasn’t them, it was me. I didn’t explain why, though, just ordering black coffee. I’ve had two mochas since August 27, when I stopped, but they were of the weak Starbucks variety, which is more like mild hot chocolate than anything else, and were accepted when another bought them for me.
To re-evaluated priorities, I had to change how I approached blogging and my Fitbit activities. I’d become almost obsessive compulsive about establishing goals for them and following through. I had to remind myself, they’re not as important as other life matters. I blog far less. My daily Fitbit goals are met, but they’re the last item of focus.
Re-balancing myself required the biggest effort. I posted about it in The Resentful Writer.
I’m not and wasn’t a ‘big’ drinker. I liked having a glass of red wine in the evening. I stopped it. I haven’t had wine, except at one dinner, in three weeks. I reduced my beer intake. I enjoyed a beer when my wife and I went out to eat, so I took a pass a few times, and I forsook my Wednesday evenings spent having a beer with friends.
The apple cider vinegar was last. I think it’s the most drastic step. I’m frustrated with my digestive system. I’d recently read about the Kansas City Chiefs, an American pro football team. They like pickle juice as an electrolyte. A few days later, a friend told me that her late husband loved pickles, so she had a huge stash of pickles of different varieties, and she doesn’t like pickles. I told her about the Chiefs and pickle juice, and she reciprocated by remarking that people often come up with interesting remedies, such as apple cider vinegar. She couldn’t remember what people drink it for. I made a note to look it up later. The results I found enticed me to try it.
I’ve been going under during the last few days, consumed by smoke and heat. Hard hit with a sinus infection that induced impressions that my head and eyeballs were due to burst open with an alien presence, I had no energy and needed rest. Sleep, though, contemptuously dismissed my efforts.
My Fitbit, however, didn’t care.
The Fitbit doesn’t have an atom of empathy. Noticing that I was walking less on Friday, it said, “Come on, let’s step,” in its usual friendly manner that morning. By the late afternoon, its tone shifted to, “Are you going to move, you lazy slob?” On Saturday, it was asking, “Why do I bother to count? You’re not doing anything. Come on, get up.”
Instead of pestering me once every hour, it took to dinging me about every ten minutes. “Are you going to do anything today?” it asked with a sulking cadence.
“I told you, I’m not feeling well,” I answered it.
“So you’re not going to do anything.”
I popped Advil, and then gargled with warm salt water before answering. “I’m going to try to do something, just not right now. I’m having some tea first.”
“Malingerer,” it muttered back. “I want to go out.”
I put it on the cat. “There you go.”
“Hey,” the Fitbit said. The cat shook it off its paw with an angry, offended look. Neither of them were happy with me.
At three thirty that afternoon, I left the house to walk to a friend’s place to assist them with a computer problem. The weather was remarkably cool, and the smoke had dispersed enough to clearly see the Grizzly Peak across the valley. We experienced a temp spike while I was there. Coming home, it was much hotter, and I was much sweatier.
“Oh, you’ve at four miles,” my Fitbit said. “Why, you’re an Olympic athlete.”
There were no fireworks from the Fitbit that night. It settled into a sullen silence. Finally getting a few hours of sleep, I renewed my determination to reach my goals today. I noticed that the Fitbit hadn’t said anything.
“What’s the matter?” I asked it.
“I’m feeling a little under the weather,” it replied. “Do you mind if we just stay in today?”
I caught myself in a neat trap. I set it, and walked myself into it. I’d been trapped in it for a few weeks before I realized what had happened.
To step back, I bought a Fitbit last January. I like it. I enjoy walking. Walking, like writing, helps me think. The Fitbit tracked my walking and gave me quantified results. That was beautiful. I had goals, and could stretch myself against those goals. Great.
Similar to playing video games, walking and measuring my progress and activities sucked me in. I play video games every day. They’re small, online games; I don’t let myself buy or enroll in more, because I know I’ll get sucked into them. It happened a long time ago with a computer game called “Empire.” The game with its attendant strategies and tactics sucked me in. Huge swaths of time and energy were lost to playing that game. It was an ugly lesson learned.
It was also an insight into myself. Like many people, I hunt validation about who I am, and my relative merits. They’re hard to come by in the modern world, especially when you’re in the military or working for a corporation. They like to give you “Atta-boys.” That’s a reward where they beam at you, and say, “Thanks. Well done!” Yes, it worked for a while, but as I realized the emptiness of those rewards, and the challenges became easier and easier, the rewards became meaningless for me. Winning video games became more rewarding in my schema, thus validating me.
Coping with myself and my tendencies, I began seeking things that can be tangibly measured to reward me. In turning to writing, I discovered, hey, I can achieve the same sort of satisfaction by writing one to two thousand words a day. That made me feel good about myself. Finishing a story made me feel better. Selling one made me feel great.
In the cascading process, I then went after another prize: writing a novel. Each step in the process was again a tangible reward, an objective achieved. From finishing a chapter to finishing a novel was a wonderful experience.
Selling it, however, was not easy. Dejected with the publishing process, I went the Amazon publishing route. The rewards fall miles short of my hopes and dreams. So….
Writing became less rewarding. Well, writing remains rewarding. I find writing novels to be akin to solving logic problems. They hold an inherent challenge and reward. But writing doesn’t provide me the validation from outside myself that I know I need. Being thin-skinned and insecure, I need huge quantities of validation.
Enter the Fitbit.
Just like that, I started increasing my goals and exceeding them. I stretched goals from ten thousand steps to fourteen thousand steps, from five miles to six, to seven, to eight.
Naturally, these goals absorbed time and energy, especially in these summer months when it’s ninety degrees or more. Reluctantly, I realized, I needed to draw back from the Fitbit and the walking goals, because they were distracting me from my writing goals and activities. Why, of course, was obvious: the Fitbit goals were tangible and reachable. Writing goals of writing novels, publishing them, and selling novels were tangible, but not easy reached. Not reaching them despite the efforts made became a depressing effort. Mad sequences of Peggy Lee singing, “Is that all there is, my friends, then let’s keep dancing,” kept streaming into my head. “Let’s break out the booze, and have a ball. If that’s all. There is.”
So, seizing myself by my metaphysical scruff, I drag myself away from Fitbit goals and re-prioritized. Whereas I had been targeting six to ten thousand steps before writing, I now write first, and then hunt the steps and miles.
Someday, I believe, or hope, that I’ll find something more, something that will finally quiet the desperation and disillusionment in me. Meanwhile, I’m going to avoid boozing, except for a few beers and wine, reduce my Fitbit goals, and keep on writing.
In a day of routines dribbling into a week of routines which flow into months and years of routines, I hunt variations.
Most of these come through my daily walks. I wear a Fitbit. My goal before sitting down to write each day is to achieve six thousand steps. Six thousand steps will provide me a comfortable start to the day’s walking goals. The steps, while a carrot, aren’t the day’s goal. I strive for seven miles plus.
Walking to the coffee shop where I write would help me with my walking goals. It’s two miles in either direction. I’ve walked it, and therein found why I don’t like it: it’s a boring, tedious, mundane walk. It’s literally a straight walk. To reach the coffee shop, I make two turns before walking one point nine six miles. Then I make another turn to enter the coffee shop. It’s a slight downward grade on the way into town, and an uphill walk in the other way. The monotony of this route throttles my senses.
To counter this, I drive three quarters of the way. Then I park and walk the downtown areas of Ashland. In this way, I can change routines on whim, and see variations that I’d not otherwise encounter. The variations stimulate my imagination, creativity and productivity.
That’s more critical now. I’m cop- editing a completed novel and just finished publishing a paperback edition of one of my previously published novels. These are not creative outlets. I invent stories as I walk, stories lost to the mind stream by the time I sit down and embrace the business of novel editing and publishing.
Sometimes my need and desire for routines sicken me. It seems seem unhealthy. On the other hand, the routines keep me on a sane path, pushing toward my goals.
Now, with my regular quad shot mocha in hand, sitting at the table and my documents open, it’s time to edit like crazy, at least one more time. It’ a grind, but it must be done.
I usually walk a bit of Ashland before my writing session. Walking frees my thinking. Thinking is often useful when I’m trying to write. You can probably find some critics who claim that my writing is mindless, so they’re probably surprised to find that I actually think…sometimes.
This morning, I walked down Main Street to Lithia Park, and then crossed over and took Water Street to B Street. B Street was followed to Pioneer, where I turned left and went down to A Street. From there, it was easy; I walked A Street to 8th Street, then took 8th Street to B Street. I went down one side of B Street to Mountain, crossed B, and then walked the other side back down to Pioneer. At Pioneer, I returned to Lithia, turned left onto it, and then went up until I picked up C Street. C Street was then followed to 8th street. By then, it was warm and sunny, and I was sweaty, so I headed for the Boulevard Cafe on Siskiyou Boulevard.
See that? A, B, and C Streets.
It’s a pleasant walk in the morning. Predominantly residential areas, sidewalks shaded with trees keep it cool and comfortable. Grizzly Peak, other mountains, and the vineyards on the other side of the valley are frequently visible. Crosswalks are at most corners, and all the drivers encountered today acknowledged me crossing in the crosswalks, so my blood pressure stayed down.
The walk took an hour, and gained me three miles and fourteen flights of stairs, with the elevation changes. Those miles add up. My daily average for the last week is up to eight point zero four miles. Sweet.
My monthly average has increased to seven point five six miles, and my three month average has gone over six.
The latest weekly average (steps and miles): 15,611 / 6.99
The three month averages are lower, eaten by travel and then sickness: 12,310 / 5.78
But those weekly averages please me. Buoyed by the fine weather, I’d increased my target miles to six per day in the second half of May. This week, I increased the target to seven miles per day. We’ll see how it progresses.
Eight of us were in attendance at the weekly BoBs to toast Q (our late founder) and Harold Schlumberg. Of those eight, three were drinkers on the dark side. On that day, we were partaking of Caldera’s award winning Pilot Rock Porter. It’s great to be able to support a local business.
The three dark drinkers were arrayed together on one side, not by plan to sit with the other dark drinkers, but by choice about where we preferred to sit. Then, it was noticed that the dark drinkers all wore Fitbits. No one else had one. Further, all the Fitbits were the Charge 2 models.
Coincidence? What is the probability of the three dark drinkers sitting side by side wearing Fitbit Charge 2s while the five light drinkers, imbibing the Amber Ale, did not wear Fitbits?
Michael Seidel, writer 