5-minute full body strength warm-up
45-minute full body strength, Jess Sims, Peloton Bike+

Wednesday, May 6, 2026

At around the 15 minute mark, I really thought my shoulder was about to give out. The right one, whether I believe my lats and deltoids come together. Years of navigating my computer mouse, twisting awkwardly in my work seats, and general slouching has caused the front part of my shoulder to compensate for the lack of complete toning in the back part of my shoulder.

That makes exercises like the side plank or in the case of what Jess Sims wanted me and the hundreds of other Peloton users to do, the side clam bake plank with a dumbbell needle thread, an absolute pain in the ass.

Like all the sessions before and I’m sure after, the dumbbell didn’t go out and neither did my shoulder. I did feel light-headed for a moment, largely because the air circulation of the den/my wife’s half-time office/our Peloton den gets really hot in the Tucson air and the A/C isn’t on.

Yesterday, it was 79 degrees. Today, it’s about 85. By Monday, it’ll be 105 and spring will be over. There’s a good argument to be made that it never started but the desert, like other arid climates, doesn’t have a spring. Or a fall. It is wet. And dry. Somewhere in the wet season, the wildflowers and the Sahuaro cactus bloom….

….shit, I misspelled Saguaro again. I keep doing that.

I’ve been here in Southern Arizona for four years now and one of its grandest treasures is hard to spell and hard to pronounce. I keep writing Sahuaro. That is incorrect. It’s Saguaro. But the G sounds like a H. That’s one way you know if someone is a local or not. There’s other ways to know and those ways start in mid-May when you have your first 105 day and your body has to decide whether it’s up for a challenge or not.

But I got through the clam bakes and the Renegade Rows and the push-ups and squats and a good AMRAP of snatches and push presses. I sweated more than usual but that’s good because I’m back up to 232 pounds and that is what needs to happen.

It’s not a bad 232 pounds. Well, maybe 20 of it is bad. Let’s go with 25. My lightest, when I ran the Buenos Aires Marathon about 12 years this October, was 172. That was too light. I was at 190 when we left D.C. for our sabbatical to Medellin, Colombia, then about 200 when we settled in Kansas City, Missouri.

My latest marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon of 2019, was amazing. What made it amazing was the joy of running it with Greg, whom married my wife and I in D.C., the place we all met and other than the daily experience of being in Megan’s presence, is the only place that still feels like home. The Nats won the World Series by losing all the home games. It was also amazing because it poured for the first 18 miles, followed by a stiffling heat and humidity that deserved a date in July, not October. My “Hoo-Rah” at the completion of the marathon wasn’t for Semper Fi. It was just for finally stopping forward motion for a bit.

Then COVID hit and I got to 217 and stayed there until we moved to Tucson. Within 90 days of moving here, I contracted COVID, which led to Long COVID and about two years of a daily nerve misfiring that was just overactivity but felt like the chimes of death.

I thought about death a lot then. It didn’t help that the Catholic Cathedral chimes at precisely 11 am Monday through Friday for the day’s funeral. Death at day, weddings at night.

Long COVID got me back down to 195 or so. That wasn’t a good way to lose weight and it showed in my face, chest, and general demeanor. I recovered, got back to 217, then my body gave me a 10-pound buffer for good measure.

Last summer, my body gave me another 10-pound buffer in the form of wonderful hazy IPAs from Pueblo Vida Brewing here in downtown Tucson for surviving one exceptionally hot summer. Sadly, not wet.

And that’s what led to me to yesterday, Another workout, thinking about my fitness journey, when I saw that this blog was renewed for another year.

I haven’t thought about good air for a while. I’ve ran some races and done some events but the road took a turn. It does that when you hit your 40s. Turns. Not detours or sidetracks. Just turns.

So much has happened in 10 years. My Dad has Parkinson’s and Colon Cancer. The prognosis is great but he doesn’t travel anymore. My wife and I lived abroad, in the MIdwest (basically a foreign land), and in the American Southwest. I’ve started my own business, got a dog, babysat my nieces, and kept my honeymoon beard.

And somehow, we are here in the desert. Where it breathes. That’s the most interesting feature of the desert. How it breathes.

It breathes without hunger. Without gasping. It’s adapted to little water by needing even less water. It adapts to heat with optionality. The sky islands are 30 degrees cooler than the valley. About an hour away, they grow wine.

Growing up in church, the desert was portrayed as the place where Jesus was tempted by Satan. That technically was the Judean wilderness but they talked about the desert. You have to go there to BURN. Whatever needs to be burned away, that’s where it happens.

Well, maybe. But for now, let’s start with more calories.

I’m building back my strength routine because I want to try Hyrox at the end of the year. That requires both strength and endurance, so more Peloton workouts and runs throughout the neighborhood.

I’ll get my shoulder looked at. I’ll turn on the A/C. I’ll start writing more here.