Stuff I Learned About Life From Intense Interval Training

Who am I kidding?
Me the queen of marathon-chatting sessions with girlfriends while holding a hot-caffeinated beverage in hand? The gold-medallist of all things sofa - books and movies and writing and cuddles? Me?! Interval training? When in the past, success was if I crawled uninjured after a Zumba class, for seniors?

Actually - yeah!

This happened to be a winter of deep hibernation for me - and those are dangerous!
For someone who already had one serious encounter with a beast called depression, being as much as even lightly brushed by its wicked whip poses a major threat. When depression approaches obstacles start to appear larger than they actually are. Minor everyday problems acquire a long and dark shadow. The appetite dissapears (which - I agree - for the first little while sounds like a welcome gift).
Wickedly, the bed then starts exerting its gravitational pull, the muscles go sluggish and the duvet is right there to conveniently muffle even the softest of cries. Shame moves in. It's so dangerous because it's so easy. It feels like comfort. Sleep is good. I am just tired. Let me put my head down...

I credit an incredible army of people for making sure I didn't get caught into the treacherous spiralling-down depression web that was so eager, so motivated, so applied to suck me in. Left on my own, I would have surely succumbed to it without a fight. Like a fierce giant insect, depression sucks life juice out of you, than effortlessly crushes the shell. Eats your heart. Then rips your head off.

But what if you - somehow - get dragged to take care of that shell first? Well, thankfully, I was.
He did it very much in a cave-man fashion, as - almost literally - he had to drag me there by my pony tail (thank you husband!).

There is this truly punishing gym in our neighbourhood my sole-mate raves about. They have classes called TreadSanity and ROWster and H.I.I.T. and Gravity, and countless others I am yet to try. Fellow-gym goers for the most part look as if they are all training for the friggin' Iron Man. It is intimidating as hell to step inside, but once you do - regardless of the level of ultimate unpreparedness - pure magic happens.

Here is what I learned about life from sprints and burpees and kettlebells and slamballs and shoulder-presses and push-ups and bands and sumo-squats and bosu balls. And buckets of epsom salt afterwards.


1. You do one hard thing as a break from another hard thing

This is also exactly how my grandfather taught me how to study when I was little. Doing what's hardest first (math) then taking a break with another demanding subject (French) than relaxing with the easiest thing (art project) so I can return to the second hardest (history). Without procrastination all was done right after school and the rest of the day was free for play and friends and writing.

The same rule goes for the gym: running on treadmill under an ever increasing incline is abruptly halted so I can enjoy 20 Mountain Climbers or burpees (oh how much I still hate those), or push ups. Who knew I would learn to rest doing a 60 second plank!?


2. Your weight is all yours - unless you drop it, you've got to carry it

Gravity Gear

This is just like life coaching - you can select to drop the baggage and travel light through life or it is all yours to carry forward. My personal twist is that I learned to quickly start loving my baggage at least for the duration that I have to lift and carry it as a burden. Instant gratification rarely exists when what you want is real, long-lasting and meaningful. I tend to joke about my load - it makes it lighter and I sometimes don't even notice when it disappears! Poof!

It is nowhere more obvious that all my weight was mine than in this workout called Gravity - 60 minutes of having my core, arms and legs pull all of the glorious me I managed to acquire under my own skin, especially since my little kids were born! There are no fairies, helpers or marines descending into the gym to help. One must carry one's own weight until the clock says so, no matter what.

3. You can do anything for 60 seconds

I learned this one night between January 23/24 1996. during the marathon no-epidural-available birth of my first son. As fellow women who attempted natural birth know - a contraction, that minute long WTF?! How did we even survive as species?! intense sensation, a contraction is a perfect example of us being wired to survive anything if it is a minute long. I still have the watch I had on my wrist in labour mesmerizingly envisioning the relief I would feel when the second handle passes the moon.

Some wicked gym guru clearly knew this because when we to this H.I.I.T class staying on each station for a minute with 40 sec of insane intensity and 20 seconds recovery time the body is tricked into a relief that really never arrives while the reward is amazing!

4. Angry music makes for great motivation

I admit. Growing up, I was a total new-wave snob with tunes (and mixed tapes and posters) of Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Visage, Ultravox and OMD. I scoffed at people who wore AC/DC and KISS T-shirts while injuring perfectly fine denim jackets by embedding pointy metal beads into them. Listening to heavy metal. Shaking a big head of unwashed hair, tongue sticking out!

But boy can that 'angry' music make for an amazing trip while running or rowing indoors! I close my eyes and transport myself somewhere Mad Max-like and listen to the machine zip under my vigorous steps and pulls. It's rocket fuel. Who knew?!

5. Pick a great crew: Rocky Balboa, Hurricane Carter & moi

If in need of the initial drive to get one started it was so worth re-watching movies that celebrated a man's turn to physical empowerment as a stepping stone to mental strength. The hidden gift of hibernation is that days are really long and Netflix is really generous.

Those moments when the burn would be excruciating (ahem, only for me - the rest of the gym-goers seem to be immensely enjoying themselves) I got silver screen peeps to join me, make it meaningful and even more fierce. Imagination is an amazing gym prop!

6. Never say never

I ❤️my gym!

I know. The king of all clichés. But if I ever feel that it is true, it is right now.
There is no less likely person to enjoy being on a treadmill than me. How many times have friends tried to lure me into the Running Room group or a 5k run? My excuse was always the same: "Oh, I am not a runner!" Then I pull out the data about knees and ankles and running in filthy city air. Sure, I would do a Hawaii marathon, however... I love running on treadmill. Crave it. Just like I do yoga. Super weird.

The point is not to get as fit as to qualify for the Olympics. Or to match/surpass the number the 'treader' next to me seems to be effortlessly blasting through. The point is to look at each day like a marathon I was chosen to run. Then show up. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Sweat. Hustle. Burn. If I could do it - anyone can do it. And when a whiff of Lysol wipes fills the air, it means 60min expired and it's time to get the equipment ready for the next group of warriors. And that alone feels like gold!

There's No Place[nta] Like Home!

One of the toughest things I ever had to do as an immigrant-single-mother was become a landlord.

 That skill was required if we were to succeed with an arrangement that my son and I can start living independently in our own house five minutes away from the school as well as steps away from my mom - aka Bajce aka day-care aka before&after school program aka ruthless retired-lawyer tutor aka #all-meals-made-from-scratch. Often in my early days of motherhood that coincided with the early days of heartache over my unexpected divorce I would come to the conclusion that no one really needed a husband, if they only had a mom like mine! 

        The tough part about renting the basement of my mother's house was that for 500$/month it was hard to attract a “high quality tenant”. So, burdened by my own story and wanting to save the world one single mother at the time, the first two tenants have both been single moms, each with a little boy in tow. The first one lasted only for a few months. Her beautiful blue sparkly eyes hid a severe mental illness I couldn't have picked up on the interview. Nor would I have deemed it fair to deny her shelter because of it. After all, I am a healthcare professional - stigma stops with me. Unfortunately, the social services picked it up no problem as they came to collect the 4-year-old that she left home alone while she went running on the streets, shouting and hitting cars with a wooden plank she picked up along the way. Naked. 

The second single mom was a child with a child. I should have known there was no way she could afford to be a responsible parent let alone a tenant - there was a venti Starbucks frappuccino in her hand every day coming home while her boy munched on a mummified McNugget, greasy little fingers clutching the happy meal toy. My hope was that by mere proximity to my mother, who was always a mom to any kid we happened to bring home, she would start knowing better, doing better. Once when she hadn't left her apartment for a few days, mom went down with a hot soup and a freshly-baked banana bread, sure they were both down with flu, only to discover they must have moved out overnight, forgetting to lock the door and pay the last three months rent. She had said she was between jobs. I nodded and said I understood. 

        Thankfully an unemployed history teacher turned Riverdale jail guard working the night-shift soon moved in, causing us to relax for a long stretch of time. We appreciated having this interesting and well-read man sleep all day. He appreciated finding a banana bread on his window sill when he came home at dawn. 

       But just before him, we had another tenant - an old lady, Jun… Oh, do I remember! 

        Back in the nineties, it cost me a fortune (36$!) to place an ad in the newspaper hoping to find a renter. Today there is just about a million free ways to search for the right tenant - pages and pages of rental websites can be found in seconds. Between Airbnb, Craigslist, Kijiji, Tripadvisor and a myriad of local rental hubs, it is easy for one to post an ad - the photos, the hood, the price. Right? 

        Who would you want to live in your space, should your work, say, take you abroad for six months of the year? A period too long to just put sheets over the furniture and too short to contemplate selling. 

        A friend of mine - a smart, honest and meticulous human being - took an analytical approach to advertising her beautiful place downtown. She was looking for a professional (read: pay rent on time) couple (single people can attract all sorts of trouble back home with them), non smokers, no pets (for obvious reasons), no kids (perhaps because she's met my kids?) to leave her sacred space to strangers for six months (in exchange for rent money, of course). As it turned out, she had an amazing choice of couples from which to choose. Guess we always look for something similar to us and something we hold in high regard when making these decisions. That way, although there are no guarantees, at least for the start we feel like we made a safe and reliable choice. So, no wonder, my friend settled, after a series of Skype calls, on a couple that was already on route to the big city: a PhD candidate and his yoga instructor wife. It spelled: responsible. Honest. It radiated: karma-conscious. In subconscious mind: safe. Decent.

       The neighbours said they were quite nice. For the most part - quiet. They kept to themselves. 

       The familiar noise of keys jingling in my friend's hand as she approached her front door six moths later invoked a feeling of anxiety - what would she find walking back into the sacred space she worked so hard for? The recent news-story of an Airbnb condo being trashed beyond recognition as if a rock-band had been holding an after-party and a barfing marathon in it probably sits in minds of anyone who has ever handed the keys of their home to a stranger. 

        So when the door opened and she caught a glimpse of the inside of her home looking familiar and welcoming she relaxed. As agreed, the couple had hired her own cleaning lady to come several times during their stay and clearly they had kept their part of that bargain.

       Kicking off her shoes, she went to her bathroom to refresh. Brand new soap bar. Clean towels. Thank goodness. 

        Nothing feels more like “Home Sweet Home” then stretching out comfortably on your own familiar bed. Your bedding. Your pillow. The scent of your favourite fabric softener. The ultimate comfort we work hard for. 

       She didn’t know whether it was an unfamiliar smell or was it the room’s Feng Shui that seemed odd and all upside-down but for some reason she just couldn't relax. She tossed and turned and became restless as if waiting for some truth to sink in. 

       And what do we do when we feel the pang of unexplained anxiety? We make a trip to the fridge! She was still contemplating which healthy snack would provide both ease and comfort, her hand on the fridge handle when a note under a magnet caught her eye. 

       It was a neighbours’ "welcome to the hood" note. Introducing herself. Listing the best coffee and take out places. Then saying she was excited to meet the little fella soon.

  

       Little fellow? What little fellow? 

Although my friend is a devoted doggy-mom the ad had specified no pets. A vet had recommended that so that her dog would feel like she was home once they returned. 

      Could it be a child? All these calls - they said nothing about bringing a child! 

      As it turned out, the yoga instructor - I’ll call her Rosemary - and her academic hubby were liars. Rosemary was nearly 7 months pregnant when they moved in - easy to disguise on Skype if one wants to. Not so easy to disguise as one waddles down the street and runs into a neighbour. 

      People don’t need to ask landlords for permission to have kids. I get that. How about getting consent to having a home birth? 

     

According to the made-to-sound-cool blog post, one day during the February freeze, my friend’s place became the birthplace of a baby boy. And a make-shift hospital where two midwives practiced their skill, hoping nothing would go wrong. Home births sound great in theory - if nothing goes wrong. Sometimes, however, things do go wrong - a breached baby or a slowed heart beat or a lack of oxygen or inhaled meconium or mom’s blood pressure rising or a placenta previa or a million other things. A famous Serbian ob-gyn got himself in hot water once stating that the woman is closest to death during childbirth, statistics proving him right. In that case your home could become an address on the death certificate?

       My friend’s place was also a training ground - apparently two mid-wives in training attended as well, together with a crowd of family and friends likely holding hands and chanting “Kumbaya” in lieu of an epidural. Or to clear the karma of two parents who conscientiously chose to birth their child in a cloud of deceit - equivalent to having him wrapped into a yoga mat made of lies. How very granola of them!

       I’m an unreasonably-affectionate mother of three. For 823 days of my life I have been an expectant mother, loving my nausea and my swollen feet, nightly leg cramps and even the dreaded finger exams - all this was leading to my motherhood graduation days one January, one July and one October. And with recent public lash-outs on breast-feeding moms or the omnipresent fat-shaming should one not shed all the baby weight in the first few weeks like our Angies, and Jessicas and Giselles effortlessly do - I am extremely protective of new moms. They don’t tell us how hard the first few months of ultimate sleep deprivation are. Or that breast-feeding at the beginning hurts more than the roughest of labour pains. Or that the baby blues is often a cruel downplay on postpartum depression we feel too guilty to admit and get treated. White knuckling those first days and months trying to look as blissful as expected. Reading those damn cards that completely misrepresent the chaos we are trying to get the hold of (Hallmark and I have never been on good terms). No one tells us that it sometimes takes years to get our bodies back in shape or our marriage back to harmony; our jobs back to rewarding. And our self-esteem back at all!

       And with all my love and understanding of new moms I can’t fathom any place but the hospital for me to leave my sweat and tears and many other bodily fluids coming out of me and my baby. Leaving it in someone else’s home is just plain gross and irresponsible. And a biohazard.

     

Internet - the oasis of quotes! 

 I visited my friend the other day giving her a hug after her exciting time abroad. And as we chatted and laughed I casually disappeared to the kitchen and silently opened her freezer. I scanned the few boxes - some packages of edamame and a frozen yoghurt desert. Phew, no umbilical cord stored -- they dodged the hospital, but what about the cord blood banking? It’s now up to Bella*, her poodle to check the backyard for anything else.

       You see, that old lady Jun - my last horrible tenant - was a hoarder. As seen on TV. The worst find during the clean-up after a long-fought eviction: fish insides, guts and intestines, bagless in the fridge and freezer. Although we had to replace the fridge I was so relieved the bloody fragments actually belonged to a fish. It could've been worse. That fall as we prepared to plant bulbs in the flower beds, we discovered that Jun buried about 3 dozen fish heads. The rotting smell scarred me for life. Gave up gardening - forever. 

But still better than finding Rosemary’s placenta stashed somewhere! 

       *not her real name 

The importance of being "gypsy"

There is a very good reason why I didn't study medicine.  I excel in faking I am super cool and composed while mending minor scrapes or pulling splinters out of a screaming child’s finger with tweezers - wielding the triple action Polysporin as if it was a magic wand. However this only stems from the fact that the accountant in the family would have handled it worse than I. Far worse. Forget the Discovery Channel's Shark week - I can't even watch a tooth extraction on close circuit TV let alone be close to an open wound, blood or layers of skin stretched open. And speaking of stretched open, that moment when I was told to push and was politely offered a mirror to actually see the baby's birth: "If I was supposed to see that, I would have been a giraffe. No. Please. Thank you!" is what my skilled Mt.Sinai Hospital team heard back. "Never ask me again!” Although, two years later - they did.  So when a young gypsy boy entered my pharmacy for the fifth time that week, limping on little crutches, I felt uneasy.  I knew this kid. He was about 10 years old and I saw him every morning as I walked to work. He would be sleeping on the street on a flattened cardboard box covered with a dirty blanket next to his mother, who would, with a baby in her arms, set up her post at about 6:30 a.m., right at the entrance to Belgrade's main hospital complex. The sight of her 'coming to work' always bothered me, as I had heard many stories of how these women are just exploited peons in one stream of organized crime, having the pimp-like characters who would 'protect' them take all the money they collected sitting endlessly on a dirty street. With their kids. Breastfeeding.  Each time the boy entered the pharmacy I would tense as I wasn't allowed to let him stay and linger due to the threat of him stealing something or robbing one of the waiting patients. He certainly wasn't buying anything. But then, he was just a kid and I felt that possibly I might be that one person who would always be kind to him. Besides being a brand-new pharmacist, I was also a brand-new wife and I didn't have a child of my own yet. So what I tried to offer, as I walked past the little family each morning was a banana, or a granola bar, a silent blessing and sometimes spare change.  When his turn came to approach the window, he signalled that he couldn't speak, his one leg lifted up so high that only his dirty bare toes with their black toenails peeked out of his trousers. Was he really disabled? I tried to recollect whether he was the one I saw playing with a tennis ball, accidentally hitting me in the back one afternoon when I was walking home from work? I wasn't sure. Trouble is, Belgrade has a family of gypsies lining all major corners; begging is a career. I tried to envision what these slender, swift, dark-eyed children would look like should they have a chance to belong to a normal family. One that owned a bed. And a shower.  "How can I help you?" - I forced myself to address him as I would every other patient.  Instead of replying, he signalled again that he could not speak, pointing to his throat. "Do you have a sore throat?" - I attempted to see what he was looking for, suspecting that he just wanted a few dinars.  He shook his head and slapped his forehead. "Does your head hurt?" He shook his head more vigorously, clearly getting annoyed with me, pointing again to his throat as if to say "woman, I told you already I cannot speak" and stretching one of his arms as if asking for money, his unwashed little palm open in front of me. "I am sorry, I can not give you money from the cash register. Is there anything else I can help you with?" He pointed back to his throat. Then moved even closer on his little crutches to the glass that divided us.  Some people in the line behind him started getting impatient. A few coughs and a loud sigh were urging me to end his visit. In Serbia, many things seem to be 'behind' the advancements of the modern world. I won't argue that. But not the pharmacies. From what I have witnessed in my time as a pharmacist in North America, they have yet to learn what a pharmacy should be like, feel like and smell like. It is a place of individual care and education. It is a temple of sophisticated smells of compounded preparations made according to the unique prescription. The lab behind the row of shelves only staff can access houses both prescription medications and OTC's (yes, teens can't actually buy six bottles of pain killers, at least not at the same place). Behind that wall is an orderly, white and well-lit lab where we mix our knowledge into creams and lotions. And suppositories. The dark glass storage containers are lined up in divine order, their Latin names whispering secrets to us, the pharmacists, in crisp white, starched and meticulously-ironed coats. We are that chosen extended hand of not only the doctor who saw the patient last; we are channeling Panacea and Hygeia and of course Hippocrates. We are chanting his oath with everything we do.

In stark contrast with North America, there is no fridge with Coca-Cola. There are no Nachos. Or Doritos. Or isles of junky chocolate bars. There is no mascara either. And for sure there are no cigarettes. There is only a counter and shelves behind it. And if you need a heart medication or an antibiotic, I will check your prescription for the dose and contraindications, and hand you your medicine with counselling not obtained while reading the computer screen. In an unrushed minute. Or five. Whatever it takes other than a 16 page print-out set to spook you and confuse you with it's dire legal warnings. No you don't have to roam around the store for the next half hour hopefully remembering you also needed a greeting card, a toilet cleaner and a TV dinner. It is not a convenience store. Or a local grocer. It is a pharmacy.  The hand of the gypsy boy now entered the little opening in the glass divider where we usually exchange prescriptions and payments.  "I don't have anything to give you." - I was starting to sound desperate as the line-up stretched behind him.  With one hand, he now lifted his shirt, attempting to show me a wide yet old scar of what was likely an accident with boiling water. I cringed. Closed my eyes. Then in total panic blurted out loud:  "You are not sick, I saw you playing with your sister this morning!"  Hearing that, the gypsy boy promptly stood on his feet, tucked both crutches under his right arm and feistily marched towards the door. Right before he kicked it to exit he turned around and in front of all of my other patients snarled, spitting on the floor first: "Pu, apotekarice, 'lebac ti jebem!" which can be only translated, for sure losing some of its original charm, as: "I f*ck your bread, pharmacist-lady!" I don't remember ever having laughed so hard while at work. A few patients whose ailments did not tamper with their sense of humour also giggled. The others just moved closer in line as I continued with my regular work, pursing my lips yet still laughing.  One of my favourite movies What was so funny to me? I laughed feeling the relief that he was gone but healthy - his leg wasn't injured. And he wasn't mute. Or crazy even though he kept pointing to his head. He just grew frustrated that his gig didn't work this time, knowing exactly what to curse - not me, but the way I earned my living.  Twenty-one years later I still laugh at this. This time, I laugh more because it strikes me how much I learned over the years from the gypsies. Not only from my young friend who spat on the floor of my pharmacy, but from all I came across, all I met over the years. They packed lightly, moving swiftly.  There was an importance to setting up a home even if it were only for a day spent on a cardboard box.  And they often lived more joyously than those who had everything. This benignly profane line when said in Serbian is what works for me when seeking refuge from stress. It gives instant relief while I long to let something I cannot control go. And it does it completely and swiftly. Both crutches under my arms, slam the door, I'm done with this! It doesn't have to be smart. Or sophisticated. I just want it to work. This one works for me.  Realized I lost my favourite wrist watch. Pu 'lebac ti jebem!  Husband gave kids' large school photos to his mother leaving me only the wallet-sized ones. Yes, she already framed them. Pu 'lebac ti jebem!  It's -19 C outside. Pu 'lebac ti jebem!  It's gonna be -19 C for the next four months, if we are lucky. Pu 'lebac ti jebem! It might sound very un-sage like for me to suggest you find your own relief profanity. But if you can create a shortcut out of some daily crap not spending too long simmering in what you cannot change? What the heck, be a gypsy!