Don't F'ing Quit! (But Take All the Breaks You Need!)

I was worried about the wrong thing when attempting Mt Watatic again, a small mountain of the NH Wapack range. The last time I climbed it I pegged my heart rate at 135 beats per minute. For someone of my age, it shouldn't get near 145. Any higher and your heart may say, “Alright you asshole...I QUIT!” Last year I was pushing it close to 145 but since I became so damned exhausted, I had to stop various times on the slope to catch my breath. After a bit I finally decided to stop and instead, not only catch my breath but to wait till my heart slowed down as well. I didn't drop dead so there's use of Common Sense for you. That or the fact my body made me stop and take a breather before I hit that maximum limit. What does it feel like? Run your ass off as hard as you can till you want to drop. You've felt that before...going so hard that in the end you want to melt into a puddle.

I didn't have to feel my pulse to count it out then either. All I did was listen for it in my ears. It was banging that hard.

That was last year. This year I am hoping to hit a few of the higher peaks in the White Mountains. Worthier, more stunning views, you know?

Bu, since we couldn't get to the Whites these past few weeks because it's been raining up there so much, we hit Watatic again. I was wondering if my severely cutting down on smoking would have any effect on my cardio. It did. At the near worst of the climb, where the slope is pushing past 40 degrees and there is no path save busted rock, I stopped and checked my pulse.

“Wow...120 beats per minute...That's a hell of an improvement over last year.” I thought. I could routinely get my heart rate to that point when I was biking or hitting the gym. There is no problem with that rate at all. It's not bad if that's the point where I'm really pounding my body hard.

I was still huffing pretty good but I was able to breath a hell of a lot more deeper than the previous climb. Yay for nicotine patches! If I have to live with these things stuck to me instead of inhaling smoke...So.Be.It.

But something else happened instead that beat me to shit.

When I did Watatic last year, it was near the end of a summer's worth of hiking and climbing. My legs were in pretty decent shape to hit it. This year, I thought maybe we could use Watatic as a warm up to the bigger bastards in New Hampshire. This would be my first climb after nine months of hibernation, idleness and sitting in this ratty office chair by the computer.

Before we did this, I warned W., who is half my age and due to such, in much better shape. Yeah, I was. Not cardio mind you, though a few months of working that one would've helped anyway. It was my legs this time around. I didn't have the benefit past training at all.

When we started past the split boulder which sort of marks the beginning of the climb, I could feel my calves starting to burn. “Uh-oh...this is happening way too soon.” I thought to myself but dare not vocalize it. When you hike with others, it's a social event with all it's unsaid rules, rites and rituals. You have to project assuredness and be “cool.” Break that rule and you've automatically occupied a lower rung on that social ladder. Guess what? Anytime you're not alone is when these rules pop up, you generally have a mask on to prove your position in the group. High school never ends.

Fake it till you make it is the Order of the Day, unless your body forces you “out of the closet” and then everyone can tell you're a Screaming Queen of Pain and Weakness.

Look, I admit it, doing this at my age is different now and I WILL stop as many times as I want to recover from whatever it is that pains me. This year year stopping wasn't due to my heart, it was the legs as I have said before.

As we hit the steeper slopes, I realized that doing this hill as a 'warm up” wasn't probably the best idea or the other thought that crossed my mind was more apt, “You shoulda hit the gym to work those legs!” But too late, I'm half way up and I won't quit, not after driving all the way up here, only just to turn around.

The saving grace came when W actually said it first, “Shit, my legs hurt!” That gave the go ahead to announce mine did as well. OK, so I wasn't the only one. But since I'm 55 and he's barely 26, there will be a difference.

When you climb some really bitch slopes and you're hammering it, you don't look up a the rest of the 150 yards of smashed rock to see where you're going. You stare straight at your feet to save you the pain of knowing there's...”Shit....There's still 149 yards to go!.”

Psychologically, it works. Pay attention to the smaller bites and don't try to gulp the whole thing down at once, or you'll give up due to the realization of the sheer size you must accomplish. No joke, take smaller bites. Also it really helps to know where your foot lands and then pick out the next spot to plant your feet, otherwise falling backward fifty yards on rock ain't no fun.

So, there I go, step by step and my legs as a whole are starting to burn and scream. Want to know some other weird feeling? Ever feel your joints and ligaments move around? I felt that a few times. That told me that my legs were certainly soft and unready for it all. Last year at the end of the hiking season, my ligaments were tight and taut as leather. This time around? They were soft and gooshy.

So onward I step. I plant footfall after footfall and I can feel myself starting to falter. My legs are becoming unsteady and then it happens, I feel and see my thighs shudder and shake. The muscles are burning and are quivering under the strain. “Holy Shit...this is BAD.” You know, I had a suspicion as we were driving up something like this might happen but I blew it off.

“OK...That's it...you STOP HERE!” I tell myself. “Stop pushing yourself beyond care, beyond a safe point, is bullshit!” If I lose my balance I'll plunge down 60 feet of rock and brambles and possibly smash out of my mouth that $10,000 worth of dentistry I put in over the decades. I didn't relish using my face as a brake.

I wait till my legs stop burning and plunge forward and up again, then stop to calm the legs, and then again go up..and stop..and up. I think I was making 20 foot verticals each time before my legs screamed STOP! I kept at this till were made the top and cliff outlooks.

Going down is easier but for one thing, it's all knee and calve work. You are constantly having to work those muscles and it doesn't stop. till you reach the bottom.

The final analysis? Gym. That was what was needed. Second analysis, I'm old. But so f'ing what, I'll keep at it. 

 

Never Trust Anyone Over 30

I live on a quiet street, dead quiet. In fact, if you even live in Pawtucket, chances are high you've never heard of nor could find my street w/o Google Maps.

That's OK. I've come to love the peace and partial seclusion.

This neighborhood used to have the familiarity and the loose association of Eisenhower middle class. That was all shot to shit by the 70's when everyone turned inward to do “their own thing” and it became harder to identify the neighbor down the street. Since no one was talking much anymore, it was challenging to know just who lived on that corner lot. We all adopted that attitude and no one cared anyways by then.

Bill and I are the last of the original “settlers” of this tract that was built in the housing boom after WW2. Hell, we aren't even that, we were the children of said veterans who bought up these Capes. Even so, we're still that last vestiges of that era. We are probably the oldest people living here as far as I know because you don't often see 78 year olds leaving the house much at all, unless it's by Pawtucket EMT. And I haven't seen any ambulances taking anyone away lately.

Bill and I are it...we have to be that last by now.

I know now how I'm regarded now by the kids on this street. When I was a kid, there was Mr Wrynn, a white, shaggy haired old guy who lived around the corner from us. He was friendly enough but had a bit of a limp, told fantastical stories about some era called the “30's” and for all I know could've fought at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. He looked like he could've because he looked that old. I've said this before because it's sort of true. Anything that happened before the year you were born is a rumor, a grainy black and white photo or a story that seems a bit dubious. So as a kid, when I looked and talked to Mr. Wrynn, I had some skepticism.

“All these houses weren't here back then, it was all corn fields here. The Morrisettes live in the first house built here by an Italian family who also ran a store out back in a smaller building.” Wrynn once told us.

I thought, No...that's wrong...these houses have always been here. They have been here ALL my life. And there was NO store in that garage behind Morrisettes, it houses two cars now!

My entire life of 9 years told me this so.

You get the point...

But, I know that today, I am now the current Mr Wrynn. I have the white hair and I favor my left leg and can tell stories from 50 years ago.

“1969? Isn't that when they invented the light bulb?”

**

This neighborhood has changed quite a bit since then. The influx of black and hispanic families have slowly dribbled in. But the quietness hasn't changed at all still. Geography and street layout still rules. You cannot ram 40 cars a minute down any street here really and this area is no good as a short cut to anywhere else either. This area is a maze and we're happily ignored.

Last night, a hispanic neighbor threw a summer party and when I started hearing the noise, I thought, “Oh shit, there's gonna be high energy Mariachi music all night long, with pigs and chickens roaming freely in everyone's yard and gunfire!”

But that didn't happen at all, the following did happen and it brought home the fact I'm Mr Wrynn.

There were about 15 kids at that party, a mixture of latino, black and white and they decided to have a soccer game on the street. You can do that here, as the street rarely sees a car going down it.

I tend to sit on my front steps in good weather while I talk on the phone and I watched as this gaggle of kids ran up and down the street kicking and passing the ball. I swear there must've been about 32 red card violations as they played this. Ain't that amazing? As an old white guy I now know some of the rules of that strange, foreign game.

Anyways, as kids do, they become more an more excited and forget themselves as they charge all over the street. One kicks the ball and it lands on my front lawn and they all come barreling in after it, falling ontop of one another as they try to wrest the ball away. They were happy, loud and boisterous until that final moment when they realize where they were.

That pile of kids got dead quiet, and slowly and respectfully stood up, staring at me like I was a feared predator who you NEVER take your eyes off of. One snatched the ball, in the fear I was going to take it away. I never moved off my steps though.

“Hey, it's alright. I don't care...and the score is STILL South 1, North 0.” I said. I was actually paying attention to that score as I spoke to my friend on the phone.

They remained silent as they backed away. They didn't trust this old guy at all.

Once they returned to the street, that game started up again and the boisterousness came back and I sat there, realizing that to them, I am that old. There is that huge gulf between us. I am that guy who I knew as a kid. To them, I could have been Clint Eastwood with the M1 Garand rifle , aimed at the kids, telling them to “Get off my lawn!”

I don't care about my lawn...in fact it's made of zoysia grass. It's like a shag rug and IT is an invasive plant that will cover up anything in it's path. The grass, not you, is the aggressor.

Mr Wrynn, back then, spent his time piddling around his garden, yard. I haven't reached retirement yet but piddling around don't seem like a bad way to spend my days at times.