Abe Williams

I used to be afraid of rain sticks.
Just bumping them seemed to cause a storm.
Now the creeks are dry and I heard
it said no more sierra snow by
end of century.
Who really knows about that?
I always figured I would move north
as the north would become more and more
like the south over time.
I like this time now though, even with
the drought of water and money.
The basics are more of concern than luxuries.
Even so, what we consider basics are luxury to many.
But now, more rain would be good.
A nice cold rain for a long time.
We’ve been turning our rain sticks
and hoping for more rain.

I talked with my mother two days ago. Her CT scan shows no evidence of cancer. She is done with this session of chemo. She is in remission.

Beautiful morning in San Francisco right now. Sky is pink to purple to dark blue. It’s still quiet even though it’s almost seven. Tuesday seems to be quieter than other days of the week. I expect it’s probably second only to Sunday.

Early morning and late evening are my favorite times of the day. It’s the quiet time in the city. Although, you have to wait until 3am sometimes for the quiet on the weekend. Still, San Francisco has its quiet moments. I recommend those times for anyone interested.

Hey! I mean Long Slow Distance exercise! I’m talking about running.

I spent quite a few years running. I did it for most of my late twenties. I loved it, especially trail running. I believed it kept me fit. I ate and drank whatever I wanted and just ran the miles to keep any sign of fat off. Things seemed to be just grand.

As time went on (about 5 years of this), I started to wonder why my back was hurting. Also, I found I had knee pain…every time I would kneel to pick up kid’s toys and especially when I ran.

In about Aug 2000, after I had finished a solo bike trip through Alaska, my back was in terrible shape. I ran when I could, but ended up having back surgery in 2002. I generally held off on the running until about 2 years after the surgery. As my back problems persisted, my frustration led me to learn how to train better.

While in Personal Training school, I got deep into the mainstream thinking on endurance exercise. While my “cardio” time was only about 20 min 4 days a week (of mostly interval type) and my weight lifting was varied, my body weight stayed the same except my body fat percentage was decreasing. I was quite happy with that as it meant lean tissue was replacing fat. I was building muscle and didn’t have any pain.

I thought I’d kick it up a notch and really drop the fat and get back into running. Bodybuilders would do cardio for longer periods and sometimes twice a day to shed the fat. So, I figured I’d start doing long runs (just doing the cardio longer). I had a period of about a month of running 8 miles at a time. I dreamed of running the Western Endurance 100. I kept my diet and weight routine the same.

There was a problem though. Actually, more than one. Luckily my back didn’t bother me as I had that figured out, but my knees started to hurt again. My calcaneal tendon (Achilies heal) started to bother me. And, to top it off, I was losing muscle! I regained 2% of body fat and lost weight! I got fatter! I had to do this measurement quite a few times to make sure it was correct. It was.

I have since dropped the LSD and moved into sprints (barefooted!) and brief but intense strength sessions. I have regained my gains in the body fat department. In short, all of this added up to a conclusion that LSD wasn’t for me.

Now I should state that walking long distances is a different story altogether.