Settling In

In SF, I've never turned on the heater. The first night in Sacramento, I borrowed a space heater from the landlord and had it run all night long. Its a little colder in winter and the old building with hardly an insulation didn't help. I don't see staying here too long, though we chose it knowingly because of the midtown location. I don't need the location, but wife who doesn't drive does.

And all that moving didn't help my health. This second story walkup has a narrow and steep stairs in the back and carrying a few stuff on the first day was enough to throw me into a post-exertional sickness for 4 days. It's always the quads -- a few squat used to be enough to trigger the sickness so I stopped it long time ago. Apparently it hasn't improved. And the triceps still ache when quads over-work.

Why is it that the triceps ache when quads over-work and vice-versa? It's as if they are somehow connected. With what, I'm  not sure. One possibility is the inflammation. Though the muscular inflammation is supposed to be local, the inflammation the day after may not. The cleaning up of cellular debris has to be global since the debris are circulating in the blood stream. That global inflammation could trigger the ache in the triceps. And why triceps and quads? They may have gotten sensitized by the years of judo, perhaps by sprouting more inflammation receptors. Anyway, these are all speculations. All I know for now is that use of quads triggers the sickness and quads and triceps are highly sensitive.

Coming back to the walkup, having to go up and down stairs everyday will reduce my margin of error. Managing CFS can only be done statistically -- there are so many unknowns and measurements are imprecise -- and not having enough margin of error will make the post-exertional sickness more frequent if I don't reduce stress elsewhere. I'll have to pace more carefully and keep it below 90 steps per minute all the time. Distance probably won't get effected -- it's always the sustained speed/intensity that  triggers the post-exertional sickness.

Back at Home

The air feels just different here. It's fresher and crisper. That's what I feel every time I come back to the Bay Area. And the blue sky too. Paris was swell, but the air wasn't much better than Korea that constantly suffer from smog blown over from China.

Anyway, I slept 9 hours, then was fed and pooped. Now I feel like a million in bucks, the day after the ordeal of 18 hour flight.  And my pace was up to 98 per second this morning on my way to retrieve the car from the garage. No jet leg for now, it seems. Will I be suffering from the post-trip struggle again? I already paid the price in Paris and this leg of the trip from Paris to SF lasted only one day really. So, I'm thinking I shouldn't get another one. We'll see.