The Colon Club

XC ski outing yesterday. Another one today. Chemo tomorrow. Off to Wisconsin on Tuesday to unfreeze my mom's underground pipes, get the wood boiler going and cut and split enough wood for her to get through the rest of the winter. And, of course, do a little skiing and time and conditions permit. I don't have my fancy new smart phone yet, but I'll try to take some pics to post--of the skiing and woodcutting parts. You probably don't want to know about the plumbing.

BrownBagger wrote:XC ski outing yesterday. Another one today. Chemo tomorrow. Off to Wisconsin on Tuesday to unfreeze my mom's underground pipes, get the wood boiler going and cut and split enough wood for her to get through the rest of the winter. And, of course, do a little skiing and time and conditions permit. I don't have my fancy new smart phone yet, but I'll try to take some pics to post--of the skiing and woodcutting parts. You probably don't want to know about the plumbing.

Only if the plumbing involves a good disaster story

raym wrote: a good disaster story

120 feet of frozen, underground plastic pipe. What do you think?

BrownBagger wrote:

raym wrote: a good disaster story

120 feet of frozen, underground plastic pipe. What do you think?

For your sake, wishing only for the best. Most of my plumbing adventures go bad at some point in the process.

For some reason I seem to be becoming fitter with active cancer than I ever was before %-)

Saturday I went Skiing for three hours - Only in an indoor "snowdome", but as I haven't been on skis for years I impressed myself by not making myself look a complete fool and being fitter than I thought I was. It is a bit like riding a bike - you never really completely forget the technique.

Im sure the fitness part (we are talking relative here - I am still horribly unfit, but its getting better) is partly to do with the spinning classes I am doing - did one last night and noticed a considerable improvement. I'm still only doing about 75% of the exercises properly, but its up from about 30% when I started.

I would have cycled to work today, but had to transport my daughter to a class. Tomorrow!

Oh, and Ive lost weight too

Pog--You don't forget how to ski. And that's a good thing!

Ray--got the underground pipes cleared in about 3 hours. All I did was insert a smaller-diameter piece of PEX pipe into the bigger pipe and connected it to the hot water faucet. It took about 2.5 hours to snake it through one line; 30 minutes for the other. We were back to heating with wood that evening. So, it went well. The rest of the time, I skied and cut firewood. Can't get enough of either one.

eNJOY!

BB,
Glad you posted that I was wondering how you were going to unfreeze it and shows that those of you that live in tougher climates have a lot more tricks.

Pog,
Funny how cancer makes you much more aware of your body and your health than before dx. I exercised pre dx but not anywhere near the extent that I do now. More of a pottering around the edges sort of exercise as I dropped off from larger amounts of exercise once I hit 30.

Went for a 10 KM run today, and did it nice and slow. Was suprised to see that my nice and slow run was still at about 5.30 km/h.
A friend of mine has invited me to go for an 11 km fun run in July and he does a lot of 1/2 marathons so I'll need to be faster to keep near him as he seems to run about 1 min / k faster than I do (4.30 km/h). I'm hoping we can split the difference and aim for 5.00 km/h but will be putting in a lot more training before that.

My wife has been having problems with her knees, and has had a cold so she has been doing no running for a while and the only thing that keeps her going is her determination not to stop. I think she does that more for me than anything else. Pretty lucky to have such a good wife.

Weighed myself as my pants have been getting fairly loose, and it would appear that I have lost more weight and am down to 120 lbs. Glad I bought some new smaller pants on the weekend but I am going to have to increase my calorie intake as I seem to be in calorie deficit. I eat like a horse but still mostly vegetables and I have not much protein so will need to change that.

Kiwi

BrownBagger wrote:I'll try to take some pics to post--of the skiing and woodcutting parts.

YES!

kiwiinoz wrote:Weighed myself as my pants have been getting fairly loose, and it would appear that I have lost more weight and am down to 120 lbs. Glad I bought some new smaller pants on the weekend but I am going to have to increase my calorie intake as I seem to be in calorie deficit. I eat like a horse but still mostly vegetables and I have not much protein so will need to change that.

Kiwi, keep an eye on your protein intake. You don't want to be losing muscle mass. I also can get too lean (usually in the summer when I'm living on salads and fruit) and eventually I hit the wall on long distance runs. I just don't have the stamina that I need without increasing my protein intake.

Went out for a shorter run last night, and the longer I run for my longer runs, the quicker I get on my shorter runs.
Did 6 KM in 28:58 and felt great. I would love to do the pulmonary function test now as even after the VATS in Feb 2013 I reckon my lung function must have improved.
I really enjoy the feeling of being pumped when running and I think a lot, but find it hard to concentrate on evil cancer when I feel so good which is perhaps one of the attractions of running for me.

BrownBagger wrote:The rest of the time, I skied and cut firewood. Can't get enough of either one.

I've only split wood once for any length of time and I absolutely loved it. What great exercise. Wish I could do more, but being in the suburbs of Cali with lots of spare the air days we don't get to burn much.

I've yet to x-country ski, but it's also on my list. I've got the snow shoes which are great, but it would be nice to go further with less energy. As a downhill skier I've tossed around both Tele and AT/Randonee, but have yet to pull the trigger. Maybe next year I'll try it out as the snow here in Cali leaves some to be desired currently

nkoske wrote:I've yet to x-country ski, but it's also on my list. I've got the snow shoes which are great, but it would be nice to go further with less energy. As a downhill skier I've tossed around both Tele and AT/Randonee, but have yet to pull the trigger. Maybe next year I'll try it out as the snow here in Cali leaves some to be desired currently

I have some AT skis, but have yet to do it. It's a neat concept with the two-position bindings. My skis are all metal-edge, tele-style skis, AKA "backcountry." Unlike in the West where "backcountry" is more like downhill or AT, out here it just means crashing around out in the woods. Don't like groomed tracks, so they work good to break (and maintain) a trail. In a good year, this time of the season is when it's really great to ski out to some lake or mountain and just spend the day outside. Today would be perfect, in fact, but lamentably, I have to earn a living.

Got up and went for a 10 km run this morning and found it hard to start. The first km my right hamstring was tight, and when then finally got warm my left calf hurt for the next km. Then hit the sweet spot and had a really enjoyable run in the slightly chillier morning 66 degree morning air. Ran along a bridge by a golf course and was impressed at all the bird life.
It occurred to me that life is somewhat like running, sometimes fun, sometimes painful, essentially what you make of it and full of twists and turns you never anticipated.

Going to get cooler from now on so there will be less people I see in the morning I'm sure
Already all the new people at the gym in Jan & Feb are no longer there and it is the group of people that I see there all the time.

kiwiinoz wrote:Already all the new people at the gym in Jan & Feb are no longer there and it is the group of people that I see there all the time.

Same here. Every January I forget what is coming and do a "What the hell?" when I see a packed gym. By March things are back to normal.

Trying to stay in the game ....

Deadlift: Did my post diagnosis PR of 165 Kilos 10 days ago. Going for 185 Kilos this year.
Squat: 105 Kilos 10x3
Bench: Not pushing myself on bench because of shoulder joint pain. Going lower with 90 Kilos

Still pushing the Prowler and doing my rope exercises. Trying to get rid of the extra 8 pounds that I added about a month ago. I don't know why it stays on. Crazy!

Blessings,

Tom