Shallow Panic

“Children, never swim alone. You can drown in a teaspoon of water.”  – My 3^rd grade swim teacher 

A few weeks back our training group was warming up with a descending set on 50s. Four on :50 seconds, four on :45, then :40, and finally four on :35. A set we do multiple times a week; going back many months. I make the effort each time to swim breaststroke the first round, backstroke the second, and then freestyle the last two rounds. The breaststroke is no Sunday stroll – the weakest of the four strokes for me. On this day swimming breaststroke was no different. I went last in the lane, and pushed to make the time send off. Backstroke would be easier. Then freestyle the easiest. Except this time, when I pushed off for the backstroke round there seemed to be a different sensation. Something does not feel right. No air. Each breath just drew in enough oxygen to keep me from passing out. My breathing quickly changed to shallow gasp. Where is the air?!? As if I swam through a pocket of outer space. The vacuum of space has no end. Each gasp seemed to grab less and less air. My throat constricting. I’M SUFFICATING! The lizard snapped his chains. Free at last. He raced to the frontal lobe, claiming marshal law. I lost control of my command center, so void of agency I jumped me out of the pool.

Since beginning swimming at age 12 I have logged over 10 million yards. (Roughly swimming from San Francisco to New York City, and then back.) Of those yards swam, hundreds of thousands have been spent underwater training my lung capacity. Breath control in the water is rudimentary for me. One foot in front of the other. Blinking. Breathing. However, this instance was the first time I fled a pool. Screw woman and children, good luck to the elderly, and forget the dogs and cats -- I had to get out. The grasp of time and space takes on a very finite existence when air alludes. And Death taunts. What the hell is going on!?! You’re dying man. I gotta get it together. It’s too late man, you’re dancing with me now. Breathe. Don’t pass out on the deck man, or you’re mine. Breathe. They’ll have to call 911, and it’ll take too long. Breeeeathe!

I walked around the pool deck to regain my faculties. Breathing in and out. Filling my lungs to the max with every breath. Oddly, no other swimmers seemed affected by the sudden loss of air. Actually, the air was fine. It was entering my lungs in volumes. My lungs were perfect. Then it hit me… panic attack. I quickly recalled my wife describing similar sensations when she had them in her early 20s. She talked of attacks hitting her randomly; struggling to breathe, needing to flee, and the feeling she was dying. Holy crap, my first panic attack. And it would not be my last.

Over the past month a hand full of stimulus have induced panic attacks; the suffocation sensation during swim workouts is one of them. Most of the attacks are coming as a result of amplified responses to my existing proximal anxiety. (If you can imagine experiencing claustrophobia in an open field.) I will detail in a future post my two decades long battle to mentally and physically manage this odd form of anxiety. Most recently, I began detoxing myself from the medication prescribed to me two years hence - in pursuit of nonchemical means. My physician and I felt stepping-back the pharma mercenaries were necessary to combat emerging dark thoughts and dreed. The retreat looks to have backfired in the short term. The lizard prince is no longer sedated. Shackles off, with a dictator’s lust for power consolidation, he is seeking permanent voting rights.  

And on the 5th day he crashed

Quitters fail, winners fail to quit. The hunger for success ain’t quenched with the bitter fruit of failure. It is not failure that makes the man, but what the man makes of failure. Living safe is merely the false walls erected to protect from failure. See yonder mountain? I shall conquer! Yadda, yadda, yadda. Blah, blah, blah. Platitude generator primed. Insert the obligatory flower sprouting out of a dry lake bed. FREEDOM!!! Then the cold hand of reality smacks the sense back into me. I nearly crashed and burned attempting a 10-day cleanse while still training. Failure gave me no options.  Unfortunately, HIPA laws prohibit full disclosure of my health information. What I can share is the experience of failing to complete the 10-day cleanse… two hours short of the halfway mark.

Have you ever seen the poor marathoner who lost all control of bodily form and function feet from the finish line? Poop stained zombie legs, gravity playing tricks on them, and the lights on upstairs while no body is home. The crowd anguishing. Grimacing at every step. Yet, the nonsexual voyeurism is must see -- even capturing the attention of the most squish of onlookers in the audience. Fortunately, that wasn’t me. I just wanted you to soak up that mental picture of poop stained legs. No, I could walk, and did not lose bowel control. The old #2 was taken care of with the morning saltwater cleanse. As your attorney, I advise you to be no more than ten paces from a well-stocked restroom for the next hour.

What I did experience rattled the cage. Cognitive meltdown manifested in difficulty to transfer rudimentary thought from my brain to my mouth. And the meltdown was quick. While collaborating on a presentation my assistant poked fun at me for saying funny things. I usually own funny with exuberance. Except this time, I was struggling to stay focused on simply staying focused. The words coming out of my mouth were not the ones intended, which set off alarm bells. Over the years of endurance training I have occasionally dragged my body into the low blood sugar stages. Not a healthy space to reside in for long, and one to quickly evacuate. I stashed a jar of peanut butter in my desk for this very situation. Three large scoops, and the cleanse was no more. Two hours short of completing the fifth day. The end was only the beginning of the real excitement. A panic attack.

Retracing the final hours of the cleanse has brought me to the conclusion that my body begun to go into caloric shock; and my brain, depleted of nutrition because the Master Cleanse drink was no match against five hard swim work outs, sent the brain into survival mode. Within minutes, the tunnel began to close. I struggled to break a $5 bill for the vending machine. I need granola bars, Sprite, and to calm the freak down! We all know there is no shame in having a medical emergency at work. But all hell would break loose if first responders were needed as a result of an ill-fated stunt. The lizard escaped and took the frontal cortex hostage.

After two hours of scarfing down vending machine treats, and some not so silent prayers to the Maker, I exited the panic highway. There is no doubt in my mind the peanut butter saved the day. This here bravado boy was heading down a steep slope toward zombie limbs and fecal leg-warmers if I had not quickly ate those three scoops of peanut butter. So, the next time I cleanse it will be cut to four days max… no work outs… and emergency peanut butter on my person at all times.   

Challenge Two: 20! Valley of Death (revisited)

The human form allows for a push-up to be a primary function of working out. Nearly all upper body exercises trace their lineage to push-ups. Raw as physics, elegant as creation. Body weight and gravity -- push the body away from the Earth’s gravitational pull as many times as possible. The simplicity. The beauty. The agony.

Revisiting the fractional push-up challenge excited me. Focusing on push-up training taps into my love for exercises that take me on a walk down the lonely road. Work has to be done, and on my own. The work Jaron assigned was a basic high rep, long rest set of push-ups. Twice a week for six weeks I did five rounds of forty push-ups on five minute intervals. Warm up the shoulders with a few sets of ten, then get it on! Two hundred push-ups across twenty minutes is middle of the pain spectrum for workouts. But two days later the soreness grenade explodes. Overnight, the sternum’s anger draws in the pectoral muscles, causing the shoulders to roll and the back to hunch. The toes hurt too. After being a fulcrum for all the push-ups, a slight drag to the step can be seen by the villagers. Envy not Quasimodo, the bells of my cathedral will ring once I can raise the hands above my belt.

The challenge goes as follows: Start with 20 push-ups, rest :30 seconds. Then proceed to remove one rep every round on :30 seconds rest, down to 1 rep. The Valley of Death version calls for going back up to 20 after hitting 1. Adding one rep each round. When all is said and done, it is a 420 push-up workout. This go around I decided near the bottom to revise the rest from :30 seconds to :20. Twenty-five minutes later the sweat poured and life was still grand.

Next challenge: Spartan 300

Hula-hoop ain't no punk

A few years back my ole swim sister from another mister, Tracy began diversifying her fitness plan with a hula hoop. I snickered at her assertion hula hooping is a legitimate form of exercise -- in the same pantheon of running, crunching, pushing up, pulling up, and so on and so forth. Yeah right! The water buffalo colony bobbing in the pool’s shallow end, and grooving to Jazzercise hits of the 80’s have a better argument for calling their social hour a work out than does Tracy. Keeping a plastic tube spinning is bygone child’s play. Maybe if you were a ten year old in 1952 hula hooping could be considered exercise. Interestingly enough, that era’s logic pool promoted smoking as a vacation for one’s throat. Kids, do your patriotic duty for the country. Hula hooping and smoking Camels keeps you relaxed and physically fit to fight those Commies. For Pete’s sake, Tracy watches television, responds to text messages, and reads academic publications during her forty-five minute “work outs.” This propaganda is brought to you in part by the generous donation by The Foundation for A Sucker is Born Every Minute. Got any Nigerian Princes who need support? I refused to buy her crap for years. Until I gave it a go last week. SON OF A MOTHERLESS GOAT HERDER!!!

Karma has my number on speed dial. When I sarcastically informed Tracy of plans to give her hula hoop work out a try, I had no reference point to begin from. And who would have thought I needed one? It’s a freaking hula hoop. A plastic tub, spun around my hips, while squandering precious work out time. Things quickly turned ill once the realization set in that I had never successfully hula hooped before. With the help of my wife, being laughed at (not laughing with) by my kids, many YouTube videos, and three days of failed attempts to get the dang tube of torture to stay spinning around my hips, I finally got the hang of it. That is if the home audience considers getting the “hang of it,” as an all-out :30 second burst of frantic sweaty hip convulsions. If so, then I am hula hooping. Repeated for twenty minutes constituted a quasi work out. The ribs, gut, and hip bruising will fade with time. The pride… that could take a while to heal.

Can I get extra addiction with my cheese?

The month long vegan experiment comes to a close. No fanfare. No physical ah ha moments. No food rage. No honorary membership into PETA. I ate animal free one last meal, then the next meal animals were back. The mystique of living beast free piqued my interest. I enjoyed exploring a growing culinary culture and their fans. Even after losing ten pounds during the month, vegan ain’t my bag, baby. These teeth are meant for gnawing on meat and chewing on cheesy cheese. Oh yeah, cheese! 

Throughout the experiment I craved cheese on a visceral level. As would the ancient warrior reach in the still wee hours of the morning to itch a long severed limb, I found myself sprinkling imaginary graded cheese over food in a quiet desperation. I know the cheese is imaginary!... Walmart does not carry my favorite pretend blend. When coagulated cow utter juice is always available the thought of life without does not cause pause. Nor should the concern be there. Until my voluntary animal restriction removes a foundational source of pleasure. It’s only a month. Four weeks. Wisconsin is still in business. Cheese fuels my chi, and evidence points to ancient aliens using a technique to float blocks across rivers of molten cheese whiz while constructing my food pyramid. Thank goodness tofu stepped up and brought the comfort consistency!

In years past, this bean curd cousin of Jell-O only saw action from the culinary JV team. I occasionally sucked down tofu infused miso soup during a pregame throat lubing before a gut busting all-you-can-eat sushi main event. Tofu, you put the time in and stayed true to form. We’re calling you up from the practice squad. Once Destination 195 concludes in December tofu has a strong possibility of making the maintenance diet traveling squad. I'll dress the tofu in cheddar, Monterey Jack, Kraft singles, Swiss, or gubment cheese. The addiction has variety.

Zeal with Your Meal

The transition to vegan consisted of me eating animal flesh and animal by-products one meal, and then not eating animal flesh and animal by-products the next meal. Flipping the switch took as long as it took me to write the first sentence. No weeping, wailing, or gnashing of teeth. However, I am nowhere near receiving a PETA endorsement for No Fat Jokes Please. The sins of bacon past won’t be atoned in one month. A vacation to a country don’t make a local. And not to mention kicking my cowhide dress shoes up on the table soiled the immigration hearing for my temporary asylum request into PETA land. 

Vegan is a phase for me, not a conversion. Merely a sabbatical into the dietary component of a broader subculture, which I hope to infiltrate and gain favor. One week into eating food my food eats, I am blown away by all the suspicious looks shot my direction when people hear “vegan.” (I only sit at the carnivore kid's table during lunch.) Even after they claim reassurance that my buoyant faculties have not sprung a leak, the disdain lingers in the air like an insipid flatulent. Didn’t yo mama learn you nothing? If you keep making that face it will stick.   

I tip my free-range hat to real vegans. Especially the ones who wear the lifestyle on their sleeve. DNA testing is conclusive that they are dietary cousins to multilevel marketers, life coaches, and life insurance salesmen. Most straights, myself included, become fleeing cockroaches when their zealot light enters the room. I have faked more incoming phone calls and conjured up countless fictitious appointments to escape the zealot’s gravitational pull. Until now! I am zeal without cause. I am the leaf eater at the butcher’s shop. The house cats have the same rights as the kids.

For the remainder of my vegan exodus my canned response to the most aggravating one-word question, “Why?” will be answered by an equally annoying one-word retort, “Because.” Then I’ll draw in close with the countenance of a skilled CIA operative sent by the top brace in Langley to recruit double agents. Trusting no one except for my table mates. “I am looking for…” nervously glancing left, then right, upward toward the ceiling, then below the table, “…for a few good partners to build a vegan based revolution. Can I count on you?” If they get cold feet and deny my offer, I will quickly leap from my chair, leaving them to settle the check and gratuity, as I race toward the maître d' yelling Viva les Légumes!!!

Challenge One: Solo hike to Mt Charleston Peak (revisited)

The 2012 Destination 195 program that Jaron designed focused on workouts, with the dietary component being a simple 1800 calorie max. I added in “challenges” during that program to keep blog content fresh. The first challenge came in week three – a solo hike to Mt Charleston peak. (2012 Mt Charleston) Six years later I am in far better shape for the hike, and still attempting to keep the blog content fresh. I began at the same time as 2012, 6:00 a.m. I reached the peak at 9:50, which crushed the last mark by an hour. The final round trip time beat 2012 by an hour as well.

Hiking is way, way down on my desirability list of physical activities, especially in the mountains of Southern Nevada. Even though the views are spectacular, it is hard to walk and enjoy the sites because of the rugged terrain. Every foot placement of the 17 mile round trip is stepping on or around rugged rocks, ranging in size from pinballs to microwaves. The smaller ones are precocious and surly. Once out of the tree line footing becomes a cross between drunken pack mule and giraffe ice skating on the smooth slate leading up to the exposed peak.

Walking with my head down and eyes scanning the path immediately in front for ankle killers provided an interesting perspective. At one point I stopped using the hiking poles to see if my mind could become lost in the moment. Left was only the sound of my footsteps creating a low repetitive clanging of decomposing granite. The pain, the world, and pretty much any voluntary thought slipped away. The walking mediation worked until the ascent to the peak began. I need something more powerful to pass the time and distance. Boredom is worse than the elevation or middle-aged knees. Surprisingly, an interval exercise did the trick -- counting each time my hiking poles touched the ground up to fifty and then looking at the peak. Repeating the interval made the twenty minute trudge endurable.

At the peak I enjoyed the vistas for a few moments before descending. As I passed fellow hikers on their way up they commented, “The hard part is done for you.” So says they. The heart pounding slog up is brutally replaced by the knee pounding slog down. But once home… a shower, a bowl of soup, and ibuprofen make the world right again. Now, where is the celery? Vegan for a month is the next challenging mountain.