I’m going to run a half marathon this year.
— me [naively]
I waited till after the new year to do a retrospective because I disconnected pretty thouroughly for most of the holidays. It was a much welcomed decompression (yet it’s impossible not to be busy with 2 kiddos). I baked bread (and somehow forgot to take pictures of some excellent looking bread) and saw most of my friends and family. Not too bad.
This year was tough though. I struggled with my job position (and just everything) for most of it. I think I’m struggling to transform into whatever the next phase of my career is. And I don’t really know what I want or should be working towards. But, doing nothing about it is probably the worst possible thing.
A More Positive Note
I made three sort of lifestyle changes this year:
- ran a 5k once a week
- quit nicotine
- gave up gluten
Unsurprisingly, I’m feeling a lot better. The part that is surpising to me is that I had imagined the overall effect sizes to be ranked roughly the order I did them in, but it feels like it was the opposite.
I started running mostly cause I’ve become pretty sedentary for the first time. From my early twenties to mid thirties, I probably biked 20-30 miles a day commuting and stayed generally fit as a result. Then remote work started, and the lock down, then kids, and I just don’t move my body like I used to. At some point, I went on a little bike trip and couldn’t climb hills anymore 😱. At my local haunt, a brewery, the running club comes in every wednesday and I drink and chat with them, it just seemed like a good idea.
However, my progress was slow, much slower than I would anticipate. Like I mostly have the muscles, and the unused cardiovascular system probably just needs a reboot. In parallel, I also started getting migraines again in 2024. I used to get them in my youth, presumably from allergies, but I think that just meant they had no idea. These modern headaches started to feel like they were heavily triggered by vaping nicotine. I tried a period of abstinence, and as soon as I started up again, the headache came back. That’s a pretty powerful motiviation to quit.
Immediately I could run faster, I hadn’t known I couldn’t breathe. My head was clearer in the morning, my bpm dropped 20 beats. Oops.
Gluten intolerance runs in my family, both my mom and my sister struggled with it at about the same age. The joints in my hands had been aching and I figured it was worth at least trying to cut out gluten. I tried abstaining for like 6 weeks, but not perfectly. The aching was lessened a bit, but enough, I’d rather suffer a little than give up bread. Then I got a craving for sandwiches and lived off of Tofurky sandwiches for like 2 weeks. (Ok, I had like one or two a day.) My intenstines seized up and I had cramps for 3 days straight.
I still am not perfect about it, if the brewery is out of seltzer, I’m going to have a beer. But woah, I lost an inch of bloat around my waist; I didn’t realize the way my insides felt wasn’t normal. Between gluten and nicotine, I don’t wake up every morning feeling like I’m slowly dying.
From wikipedia:
Many undiagnosed individuals who consider themselves asymptomatic are, in fact, not, but rather have become accustomed to living in a state of chronically compromised health.
So much more happened this year. My sister moved to Sacramento and she’s dating some one with daughters roughly the same age as ours. It’s great. But I’m going to end this now. Here’s a picture of Kewpie:
