Duke City Fit 14 Autumn web

Autumn 2014

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Livin’ It and Lovin’ It Around Albuquerque, New Mexico

Bear Canyon Trail

Duke City Fit Autumn 2014 Snowy Range, Wyoming

Fall 2014

3

Bear Canyon Trail isn’t all smooth sailing

From the Publisher

The Quality of Life Report from

The High Desert First, about that cover.

That is a couple of college age kids people, Angel and Dakota, with whom I am acquainted, riding bikes along the Bear Canyon Trail in the Sandia foothills. Bear Canyon intersects Tramway Boulevard just north of Manitoba. Strangely enough, there happens to be a statue of some bears right in there.

There is an actual trailhead parking lot northeast of there… east from Tramway along Spain to the “T” stop, and then north on High Desert St to the trailhead on the east side. The mountain bike trail(s) go east from there up into the Sandias. There is a veritable “web” of trails back there, so keep track of where you turned. If you can. Coming back down in the dusky dusk, as I have done a few times, can really get you turned around so you end up coming out somewhere other than where you went in.

Which is fine if you didn’t leave your vehicle sitting there at the trailhead.

However, the trail runs all the way down the canyon to Tramway, so if you park at the trailhead up on High Desert and set out from there, you will miss the lower end of the trail. I mention this because I absolutely love to come screaming down that lower section on the way back. So, my preference is to park along a side street near Manitoba, or possibly down at the Smiths/McDonalds parking lot down closer to Montgomery, and head out from there. It adds a bunch of uphill, up the canyon, to the aforementioned trailhead, but is well worth it, in my mind for the downhill run coming back, your hair flying.

There is a water pump at the north end of the trailhead parking lot which has incredibly clean, cold water. Perfect for soaking the head after the long ride up from Tramway. And drinking, if you are so inclined. And you should be. Take water bottles and tire repair stuff and your cell phone with you. You can REALLY get back in there. Take a look behind you now and again as you ride east up, because the t-storms will often roll in from the west and sneak up on you if you’re not paying attention. Riding back down in a thunderstorm can be a hazardous proposition, if you know what I mean. And walking a bike with a flat tire can make it even worse. Not that I have ever done that.

Second, about some things that did not make it into this issue.

Ideas, perhaps, for this fall or next summer.

Chatting with a Marmot in Rocky Mountain National Park

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I took a couple very fascinating trips northward this past summer. I head north because when things get HOT down here in the desert, as they did this summer, my heart yearns for the mountains. It is a compulsion. I have to camp along a gurgling stream and see for myself that the Milky Way is still up there. There are some marvelous places to camp to the north, even before one gets one’s sorry butt out of New Mexico. If you can locate the Rio Hondo, there are some tiny little campgrounds, of only a couple tent sites each, along that river that are simply too pretty to believe. And there are about 4 trails, roughly parallel to each other, that run north up the side of the canyon in which that river runs. We hiked up one of them, my wife and I, and we were thrilled with it. It is definitely on the list of places we must visit again. Highly recommended. And a fall hike when the leaves are changing may be even more spectacular yet.

We also backpacked into the Cruces Basin Wilderness area up there in northern New Mexico.

Regular readers of Duke City Fit will have heard of it. Several times. It remains a magical, mystical place. Three creeks merge across a vast rolling meadow into one creek which then plummets into a gorge. That gorge was our playground this time… a playground in the midst of a million waterfalls, each trying to outdo the others. It is said that the sound of the elks bugling in that basin in the latter parts of September is a sound like unto no other. Of course, that would be the season of the rut, and it is also said that the elk can be quite cantankerous at that time of year. Nevertheless, it is on my bucket list to camp there some year in late September.

Further north, I visited several wondrous places in the Rockies of Colorado. Amongst the many: The Conejos River Valley just west and north of Antonito, just across the border from New Mexico.

There are many campgrounds and many hikes. Wilderness areas and even a waterfall or two. Tubing down the Conejos on a hot day is an experience not to be missed.

Rocky Mountain National Park… Trail Ridge Road, which cuts across the main body of the park is one of the great roads of America. Though it can be quite crowded, I have found that I can simply park at a pullout and wander off with a daypack and my camera, and within a half an hour or so I can be totally alone with the grandeur. On this trip I chatted with a marmot while I ate my lunch, and I almost walked right into a group of about 10 bull elks when I came around a ridge and there they were. All of them had big racks of antlers, still covered with velvet, and they walked away calmly as I fiddled with my camera. Later, I latched onto some locals and hiked down what used to be a long run in a ski area called Heavenly. It was.

Even further north, just west of Fort Collins, runs a river favorite of mine… the Cache la Poudre.

(Rhymes with Hooter.) It is a beautiful rushing mountain river in a truly magnificent canyon. I could not begin to count the number of times I have camped and played up along the Poudre, beginning back when I was a youngster and continuing throughout my life. Unfortunately, the canyon has been built up quite a bit over those years, but that just basically means you have to share it with a lot more people than you used to. Raft it, bike it, hike it, tube it… all in the shadow of one of Colorado’s great wonders.

About halfway up the canyon, the Mishawaka Lodge is not to be missed, whether just for a burger and a beer on the patio out over the river, or a concert in their outdoor amphitheater. Rocky Mountain High, indeed.

If you end up going all the way up the Poudre, which you should, you come out the west side in a little town called Walden, self proclaimed Moose Capital of Colorado. From there, you can circle around back south and come through Rocky Mountain National Park again, or more adventurously, you can head north into Wyoming and find yourself the spectacular little mountain range just west of Laramie called The Snowy Range. It is appropriately named. It had plenty of snow still, in late July. It stays all year, I am told. It is reminiscent of Glacier National Park. My intent is to backpack up there next summer. The photo on the inside front cover is from the Snowy Range... a creek tumbling out of Lake Marie. It is VERY cold water in that creek.

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898-3562 SW Corner of 4th & Alameda Enter on 4th, Across from the Church Finally, about the story later in this issue entitled “The Waterfall Hike”.

You may or may not notice that I do not give the location of that hike. This is not an oversight on my part. That hike is a very personal place. And a very isolated place. If you really want to know where it is, you can email me with your request, and I’ll probably give you the directions. Before I do so, however, I’ll want your assurance that you will take care of that trail and that area, as if it were a sacred place. Which it is.

But there is more, that story is not complete. The trail does not “end” where it ends in the story. Truth is, not long ago a buddy and I did some bush-whacking back there and discovered there IS a way to get around the apparent dead-end. And there IS a continuation of that trail. And there IS a big surprise much further back in that wilderness area.

Along the way to finding that surprise, however, we stumbled upon a grizzled old hiker coming down out of the mountains above the trail we hiked. He had a beard and a weathered face that would make John Muir proud.

In fact, he might have been John Muir, for all I know. We chatted with him for a short while, did my buddy and I, in the way one might “chat” with a mountain man like Jeremiah Johnson. Short sentences. Succinct. Say what you want to say and then get the hell out of my way. I am not here, hiking by myself in this wilderness, so that I can have a gentle conversation over tea and crumpets with some citified dandies.

Citified dandies?

When he discovered that I was associated with a newspaper, he wrenched a promise out of me that I would not reveal the location of this trail in my paper. It is too sacred of a place, he decried, to reveal to the masses. When I was toying over the possibilities in my mind of actually making said promise, a vision came to me of another character in Jeremiah Johnson’s tale… a character who ended up buried up to his neck in the sand by the native peoples of the area he had invaded. They didn’t actually kill him, they just made it very difficult for him to get back out.

I made the promise to the old geezer, and he moseyed on down the trail without further incident. We watched him go, silently, and then we looked up that steep-walled canyon down which he had evidently come, and we shook our heads. How could anything but a mountain goat come down that? Perhaps he was an apparition. John Muir. I have kept my promise.

Duke City Fit Editor: Ken Orth

Copy Editor: P Joan Orth, RN

Editor@dukecityfit.com (505) 291-0070

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A creek that feeds into the Conejos River

Duke City Fit, 3801 Big Bend NE, Albuquerque, NM 87111

Fall 2014

5

I Think That I Shall Never See ...

ASPEN VISTA TRAIL Isabel Bearman Bucher

I love trees.

The first song my father ever taught me to sing was “Trees,” by Joyce Kilmer.

I was five then, standing beside our piano, while he nodded and gave me the intro. We’d read the poem many times together, discussed it, and I’d memorized it. I still remember the words ...

I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast.

A tree that looks at God all day And lifts her leafy arms to pray

A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair Upon whose bosom snow has lain Who intimately lives with rain

Poems are made by fools like me But only God can make a tree

Kilmer was a very loved man, a lieutenant, who was killed in France in 1918.

In 1936, his friends, some Vets of the Foreign Wars, gathered to honor his memory by establishing a 3,000 plus acre forest, paying twenty-eight bucks an acre, choosing a tree in his honor. There, many were 400 years old, reaching a height of over 150 feet.

Many years later, ready for a week long backpack into the Kilmer/Slickrock Wilderness, my Mountain Woman buds of the trail surrounded me when I put my arms around that magnificent tree and sang that song softly into its bark. I’d lost Dad a few weeks before.

Now, in my today world, on hikes, when I look up into the great patriarchs of New Mexico - the spruce, the ponderosa, and fir and aspen, and feel surrounded by friends; I worry about the blight and the budworm that have claimed so many of them. At times, lying under their boughs, singing “Trees” softly, I feel they are listening.

I drift into Tolkin’s Lord of the Rings, remembering the great tree Ents, the ancient Anglo Saxon word for giant, and Tree Beard, as they went after evil ones. Or maybe I become the free spirit, Tom Bombadil, who roamed free and happy amongst them.

When the great aspens in our world blaze in their last weeks of glory, my heart is tugged as it has always been. I must bid goodbye to the long days of summer that have drifted past, oh so quickly.

Fall is a time of remembering things past; accepting change; letting go, understanding a leaf-bearing tree’s journey, and now mine, from vibrant to bare.

The ducats of gold, as the aspens are called by me and others, let go slowly as the sun wanes into winter light, knowing that it’s time. Its sugar production slows, so they go but not without a beautiful last hurrah; sometimes becoming brilliant yellow, fireworks

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without the sounds, sometimes rust yellow; sometimes certain leaves become splotched black with mold, yellow with resignation and stubborn green, as if some of its cells refuse to let go of their personal memory of summer. Perhaps it’s a cellular communication problem. I chuckle likening this to marriage and raising kids! It reminds me of the journey some of my friends have chosen when they move towards life’s end - all recorded in the splotched leaf I hold in my hand. But then, comes the killing frost, and all, but the great pines, become bare branches, completely beautiful in their winter sleep.

Trees show me many things - they show me how life moves in cycles.

They show me the meaning of hope: how even through terrible holocausts they refuse to give in, until they must, then they leave seeds and tiny new ones sprout between the felled branches.

This meaning of hope showed itself to me years back, in Taos Ski Valley, on the way to Williams Lake. A horrendous avalanche in the mountainous V of both the Wheeler Peak Cirque and Kachina Peak Valley took out almost all the trees growing up their sides. It also took the owner of Stray Dog Dan’s, the most popular, down home eatery in TSV, who was cross country skiing on the Bull of the Woods Trail. He went the way of the trees, and the TSV Avalanche Patrol with their trained Avalanche dogs, searched for him. It was years before anyone could get through on the old Williams Lake Trail. One year, I defied the wreckage and bushwhacked for miles on the Kachina Peak side, finally catapulting out on the once trail.

Continued on Page 9, After the Map

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But, in the twisting and falling and crawling under, over and around, I came face to face with all the tiny seedlings pushing through the chaos, reaching for their moment of time offering renewal. I held and kissed many. The memory of those little trees, tall, healthy and elegant, now into their tenth year of growth, showed me the twists and turns of living, branches enduring and forming another plan or path. And grow they/ we must; change they/we must; live with half of us gone, they/we must. And, trees give me the knowledge that long after I’m gone, perhaps people’s memories of me will do the same amongst my circle through memories of me or through my penned words.

Maybe this article will be the verdant pine cone that grows once again into another time.

Trees are life. So come along and consider a great fall at about 3.6 miles, where stands a huge hike, one of the best New Mexico has to offer bristlecone pine. because of its views of the great aspen stands: “This one’s seen a few years, “ my partner The Aspen Vista Trail, in the Santa Fe Forest. comments We move further up the trail to the RIDGE Trail Thoughts VIEW at 4.0 miles. Another trail leads two I love it when somebody else drives. I zone more miles to the top, making the whole hike out and check mentally to see if I’m“safe.” a 12 miler. We don’t do this end game, but That translates to “bills are all paid,” “to do I put a book mark here for someday soon. list sort-of ‘almost;’” “my kids love me even We eat our lunch, wander the ridge, enjoy with all my mistakes” - you know - safe.

Tesuque Peak, then head down.

We streak north on 1-25 to Santa Fe, taking Afternoon brings the forest to high tide. the Old Pecos Trail onto Paseo de Peralta It’s bursting with life, rich with life, one and I’m contented, as always, with New last chance - the aspens and their fluttering Mexico’s love affair with rusty mud soft ducats of gold, sing like a great organ chord adobe architecture. in the middle of rich, deep green. Their white, A right turn takes us to Washington Avenue straight trunks, touched with charcoal lines just before the pink Masonic Temple. We’re are ingeminated a thousand times, all in going up Washington, onto Artist Road, perfect balance all kitting into their perfect which becomes Hyde Park Road. We zip past places. I think that when nature loves what the Big Tesuque campground.“Tesuque” goes it has done, it repeats itself - again, again, back to the Pueblo word “Tsuga” meaning again. hemlock fir or spruce.

“Well, life’s not over yet,” I say to my We park and are greeted by the “Ent” , partner on this trail. “Got a hurrah left or two. the large Forest Service sign displaying our Right?” hike: ASPEN VISTA. Packs strapped, water We find one of the streams for another checked, keys stashed, sticks tapping, we’re adventure and take it down, covered now in on the up, passing by the nearby campsites a mothering shawl of green. Our rains have where I dearly wish I had my tent up. Then turned stream sides lush, bedecked with it’s onto the wide sturdy, brilliant fall flowers.

Big Tesuque Trail 152, beginning at 10,000 All is well. Life is good. Peace on Earth. feet. We’ll be going up to about 11,400 maybe eight plus. When I tell my North Carolina family New Mexico hike altitudes, Statistics: they just shake their heads and pause for • Aspen Vista Trail - 8 miles breath. Two merry streams are on each side of • 1465 altitude gain us. A bit up, we go onto Trail #150, walking • 10% easy grade up and down the rocky road, three abreast, and chat, while • Hiking time: 4 + hours stunning views of the whole valley appear • Drive time one way: 1:30 and disappear through the pines and aspens.

• Cautions: bring rain and warm gear The fragrance of fall drifts like a - weather changes QUICKLY transparent woven scarf under my nose Directions: orange flavoring, rich ochre peat and loam, • Santa Fe National Forest: rust fallen log - yellow aspen leaves and www.fs.usda.gov/santafe Christmas tree bouquet.

• I-25 north I pull memories of my decorated ones, • Exit Old Pecos Trail - #284 thinking of holidays that have passed with • Paseo de Peralta to Washington little daughters - it’s the scent of life, this beside the Pink Masonic Temple time of autumn, so poignant - knowing what • North on Washington; east on is coming. I whisper, “if winter comes, can Artist Road to Hyde Park Road spring be far behind?” and am soothed, just • Go past the Big Tesuque Campground letting go, becoming completely immersed in to ASPEN VISTA the moment.

• Parking is iffy We break out onto an immense view

Fall 2014

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Duke City Fit

There’s Pointy Things Out There Ken Orth with Dr Michael James

Those of us who have lived in the high desert for any length of time … who have walked the graveled arroyos in the foothills, or hiked the winding trails into the heights, we have learned something about our special land. It can hurt you.

It will hurt you, eventually, one way or another.

Or both. Maybe. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right place at the wrong time. Or… aw heck… you know what I mean.

Sooner or later it’s going to take a toll.

It probably has nothing to do with right or wrong, for the most part. It is not malevolence or vengeance. You get stuck by that cactus because it was there first and you invaded its space, not because that spine had your name on it. You’re pulling that goathead out of your flat bicycle tire because goatheads have figured out a way to get from here to there, and they figured it out long ago, before there were bicycles, or hiking boots, or even dearskin moccasins.

But they’ll poke you if you can, those goatheads. You and your pretty little dog. They are just part of a land that will poke you, sting you, scrape you, bite you. Twist your ankle or break your neck. Burn your skin and burn your brain.

It’ll try to suck you dry.

And then, as you walk out, after it has tried to lay you out in any way that it can, it will politely say, “Thanks for visiting. Please come again. But next time, maybe you could leave the water bottle at home? And, uh, while you’re at it, maybe wear flip-flops instead of hiking boots? We like flip-flops, don’t we boys?”

The yuccas and the chollas nod in agreement, like a bunch of seedy cowboys standing around picking their teeth outside the saloon in an old spaghetti western.

“Oh yeah, we like flip-flops.”

Ahem.

Of the variety of ways that the high desert can hurt you, many involve pointy objects. Pointy and sharp. Amongst those pointy things is a little one, even smaller than the goathead, which you may overlook. It is an insidious little sucker who will go after you right where it hurts… in your eyes, in your nose, in the very depths of your lungs. He’ll get in there, he and his buddies, and they’ll latch on and not let go.

Pollen.

You little devil.

They put so many points on some of those microscopic pollen grains, that they make a goathead look like a kiddy toy.

They’re ancient, too, those pollen grains. Them and spores. They came along back when going airborne was a totally new concept. Heck, seeds were a new concept. They came out with the plan to put all the materials they needed to reproduce themselves into a little capsule and pushed it out into the world. Good idea.

Push a bunch of ‘em out. Dozens. Thousands. Millions. The more the merrier. They saturated the world.

Then something, somewhere along the way said, “Hey, I got an idea. How ‘bout we make ‘em pointy? So they stick better. When they get to where

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they’re going, they’ll stick there, by golly.”

Old Man Evolution, in his slow, determined way, thought about it all for a few billion years and finally said, “Okay, let’s give that pointy thing a shot.”

And it worked. They stuck better.

Good call.

The thing is, they are not real particular about where they stick. Stamens are good. So is dinosaur scat. So are nose hairs. They just really don’t care a whole lot. That’s why there are so many of them. Like cockroaches. Once evolution learns a trick, it tends to stick with it. Overdo it, even. Like a comedian using the same old joke over and over… “Well, it worked back there in Cincinnati..”

So, pointy pollen grains became the big thing. They poured out by the billions. And they still pour out, spiky and stupid.

Some of those billions end up getting sucked up into your schnoz where they become entangled in the resident hairs. Nose hairs.

The nose hairs, by the way, were actually put there by the same old codger who brought you the spiky pollens a few billion years earlier… Old Man Evolution. He came up with nose hairs as a way of keeping pointy things, like pollen for example, from getting into the soft tissue of the lungs. The old guy is perfectly willing to play both sides. All sides. He’s an equal opportunity evolver.

Of course, once those pollen grains are lodged in your olfactory appendage, the nervous system tends to take notice. It makes it nervous, you might say.

Once it notices the pollen there, the nervous system, as directed from somewhere deep within the cerebellum, makes the decision to expel said pollen. It does not ask your permission. It is kinda on automatic pilot. “That durn thing is pointy and stupid,” it says, “And I don’t want it hanging out in here with my mucus membranes.”

“Sneeze, dang you, sneeze!” the brain yells, like a wagon-master in that same old bad western movie, whipping the mules.

And like the mules obediently pulling, you obediently sneeze.

Again and again. But them pollen nardules are persistent. And pointy. They don’t wanna leave.

So, the brain, with another assist from Old Man E, has a backup plan. A firehose. If we can’t blow the buggers out, we’ll flush ‘em out. “Turn on the firehoses.”

Histamines, are actually what they are called. In Human Physiology 201.

But that class was way too boring for me so I took Culinary Arts instead. I only bring histamines up because that is where the drug companies came up with the name for their allergy-fighting compounds called “antihistamines”.

Antihistamines are drugs that attempt to stop the flow through the firehose. By putting a kink in it. Or stepping on it. Or plugging up the nozzle.

All of which are iffy at best. And quite likely to cause other problems, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, them nasty pollen nardules only get into your nose if’n you breathe them in through your nose. However, if you are not breathing through that appropriate appendage… as in, it is plugged up due to excess firehose activity… well, then, you might just suck them pointy little devils

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through your mouth and right down into your lungs.

“Ew,” says that touchy little spot in your brain, “I am really not liking this.”

“Cough, dang you, cough!” that psychotic old wagon-master screams, and cracks his whip.

You cough.

“Turn on the firehoses in Section 2!” somebody yells from somewhere in the brain. Nobody is quite sure who made the call, particularly those clowns in Culinary Arts, but your body responds in the way it has been brought up by Old Man E (not him again!), and it turns on the hoses in Section 2. The lungs. Full bore. “Get that stuff outta here.”

And it may well work. You may cough that stuff up outta there, like a belligerent mule.

Cough, cough. Or run it out of your nose. Or cry it out of your eyeballs.

And that would be that. Over and done.

Or it would be, if the darn system would shut itself off afterwards. Or not fire up so darn hard in the first place. Who in the heck opened up the spigot so wide? And gave the whip to the mad man?

Who is supposed to shut the whole thing off?

Well, I don’t know that, but I do know how to make a good soufflé.

The point is, the “off” switch is where the problem lies. The driver keeps on whippin’ and the firehose keeps on drippin’. The system is too beat up and tired to shut itself off.

Allergies.

That is what we call this situation.

Fall 2014

Allergies are not normal or natural.

Your body was designed to handle them pointy pollen things, and it is trying to do what it is supposed to do, but it is malfunctioning. And why?

“It is undernourished,” is what Dr. Michael James tells me, my natural health guru.

“Quite simply, your body is not getting the nutrients it needs to run properly. In the case of allergies, it is the immune system and the upper respiratory systems that are undernourished.”

This is due, in large part, to our diets. As they used to say in the computer business… “garbage in, garbage out”.

Or, “you are what you eat”.

In our modern American case, what we eat is way too much sugar and refined carbs, like white bread, pasta, white rice, and bakery goods. These foods all contribute to the allergy symptoms in various ways. So a very good place to start if you are suffering from allergies, is to cut back, cut down, cut out the refined white foods. That ain’t easy.

Our food manufacturers put sugar in almost everything, from spaghetti sauce to salad dressing. How much refined flour are you consuming? Too much.

Look, our immune system has developed and evolved over millions of years. It depends upon certain combinations of nutrients, nutrients that it is not getting.

And refined sugar… well… it flat out didn’t exist back when the human body and Old Man Evolution finally figured out how to deal with pollen. Nor did refined flour. The refining process substantially changes the

makeup of these foods and turns them into something our bodies have a difficult time utilizing.

In fact, not only can our bodies not use them properly, their presence in excess actually poisons the system. That crazy driver with the whip… he’s doubly crazy.

Not only is he not being fed, but he’s being poisoned as well. Refined carbs, they’re doing the business on him.

Change it up, switch out the refined and processed foods for more fruits and vegetables. It’ll help. The mule driver will love you.

Additionally, a sedentary lifestyle contributes to allergy symptoms.

“We’ve become cave dwellers,” Dr James says. “Indoors WAY too much. Our lives have become artificial, unhealthy, inactive.”

“The idea that you should remain inside during allergy season is absolute nonsense.”

Being active gets your circulation going, and that in turn improves the nutrient uptake. It also aids in toxin elimination.

And you need sunshine, too. Sunshine + cholesterol = Vitamin D. Get out there.

The fact of the matter is that your system may be so depleted of nutrients and run down, that these changes are not enough.

Dr James is an herbologist who created an herbal supplement formula back in the 1970’s to help supply the nutrients, and help the respiratory system access those nutrients. Back then, these pollen allergies were referred to as “Hay Fever” and they caused asthma… that is where he got the

name for his herbal supplement… HayAsz. Truth be told, HayAsz is the reason I have written this long-winded, pointed treatise.

Beginning about 8 years ago, when I was introduced to Dr James and HayAsz, his formula came to my rescue when I was suffering terribly from allergies. Debilitating allergies. Our family switched to HayAsz and got all of our allergies under control.

Our oldest son had been diagnosed with asthma, and even that disappeared. Over the years since then, we have continued to use HayAsz, but in lessening and lessening amounts. Allergies and asthma are no longer a factor in our lives.

“HayAsz actually helps get nutrients to the upper respiratory system,” Dr James told me. “It doesn’t just treat the symptoms, like the pharmaceutical drugs do. It actually helps the system revitalize itself. As a result, as time goes by, you will find that you use less and less of it.”

So, if you really want to get rid of those allergies, it CAN be done. Stop the sodas and the snack cakes and crackers. Get outside and get some exercise. Get yourself some HayAsz. That’ll do it.

HayAsz can be found in only a couple of locations in Albuquerque. One is at Dr James’ clinic on McLeod. See the ad above for info on that.

The other store that carries a full line of Dr James’ herbal formulas is TJ’s Evergreen Herbal Market in Rio Rancho just off of Coors at 1520-B Deborah Rd. The phone number is 892-5243. If you mention this story, they’ll give you 15% off on HayAsz.

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: r e f o w T n A Co a c h J a s o 1)

CRAMPS When I was in high school, I ran a cross country race in which I was leading the race, with a pack of runners from another school right off my shoulder. I was feeling very confident, like I was dictating the pace.

With about half a mile to go, once we turned onto a different section of the course, I felt a cramp in my calf. I stuttered for a few steps, and the entire pack of runners went by me as if I were standing still. By the time I had realized what had happened and regained my composure, it was too late for me to respond to their move. They were too far ahead of me for me to catch them before the finish line. That’s one race I wish I could run again.

Have you ever been running along a trail, enjoying the scenery, the smell of tall pines or eucalyptus, and BAM—you get a nasty cramp?

Whether it’s a sharp stitch in the side of your abdomen or a sudden, piercing tightness in your calf or hamstring muscle, cramps can downright destroy an otherwise great run. But, they don’t have to if you understand how to deal with them when they occur.

Why Do You Get Cramps?

Despite the common occurrence of cramps, why they occur is still somewhat of a mystery to many physiologists and doctors. Scientists believe that side stitches, which they’ve given the fancy name of exercise-related transient abdominal pain (ETAP), results from either eating or drinking too close to running, especially food and drink that has a high sugar content, or from the movement of internal organs inside the abdominal walls, causing their connective tissue to pull on the diaphragm, which moves with breathing. Side stitches affect nearly 70 percent of runners, typically occur on the right side of the upper abdomen, and are less prevalent in older runners and in those more fit.

While many runners think that muscle cramps are caused by dehydration and/or an imbalance in electrolytes, which could theoretically affect the ability of a muscle to contract, research has shown that dehydration and electrolyte imbalances are not the cause.

Drinking a sports drink on your long trail runs, while important to maintain hydration, won’t prevent you from cramping. It is currently believed that muscle cramps are caused by an increase in running pace and premature muscle fatigue, which affects the nervous system’s ability to relax a muscle after it has contracted. Trail running in particular can cause local muscle cramping since there is more stress on the muscles of the lower leg, as they navigate the uneven terrain of trails. Cramps tend to occur when runners run farther or faster than they are used to and occur more often in muscles that cross more than one joint, such as the gastrocnemius muscle in the calf (which crosses the ankle and knee) and the biceps femoris (one of the hamstring muscles, which crosses the hip and knee).

Research comparing athletes who experience muscle cramping to those who don’t has shown that cramping is associated with running at a faster pace that may result in premature muscle fatigue, a family history of muscle cramps, and a personal history of cramping and tendon and/or ligament injuries.

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Jason Karp, PhD How Can You Get Rid of Cramps?

If you do get a side stitch while running on trails, slow the pace down a little and take some deep, even breaths. Try bending forward while tightening your abdominal muscles and massage the area with your fingers. For muscle cramps, stop and passively stretch the muscle. Since muscle groups work in opposing pairs, with one muscle group relaxing while its opposing muscle group contracts, you can also try to relax the cramp by voluntarily contracting the muscle group opposing the cramped muscle. For example, if you get a cramp in your hamstrings, try contracting your quadriceps, which should help the hamstrings to relax.

Next time you get a cramp on the trails, don’t panic. Just follow this simple advice. And make sure no other runners run past you.

S P M A R C T N E V E PR

• No runner likes getting a cramp, whether it’s a stitch in your side or a muscle in your leg. Here’s some things you can do to prevent stitches and cramps: • Warm-up adequately.

• Don’t make abrupt changes to your running pace.

• Strengthen the muscle that is vulnerable to cramping.

• Stretch the muscle that is vulnerable to cramping.

• Strengthen your core muscles to support the abdominal contents.

• Don’t eat within a couple of hours of hitting the trails.

A full, distended stomach can place greater stress in the abdominal area.

• Train more to improve your fitness, which can prevent premature muscle fatigue.

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2) CARDIO

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After a thorough warm-up, crank up the treadmill incline to 20% and sprint for 20 seconds. Rest for 2 minutes and repeat 5 to 7 times. Lean forward slightly into the hill, grab the treadmill belt with the balls of your feet and push the belt behind you.

2. The elliptical trainer is a fun alternative to treadmill running for butt-sculpting cardio. For maximum butt blasting on the elliptical, increase the intensity by letting go of the arm poles and increasing the resistance to as high as you can handle for 2-minute intervals, pushing down with your heels. Take 2 minutes to recover and repeat five more times.

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3. Exercising on the StepMill is terrific for your buns, but take those stairs two at a time and you’ll get smoking hot buns! Taking larger steps increases your hip range of motion, which means more muscle activity. After warming up, alternate 1-minute periods of walking two stairs and 1 stair at a time for 30 minutes. Avoid using the handrails so your legs do the work. After this workout, your butt will be so toned you’ll be able to drop your dinner napkin on the floor so you can bend over to pick it up in front of your date!

4. Rowing is a great whole-body cardiovascular workout that can leave your glutes screaming at you for hours afterward. For an even greater glute burn, add some sprints to your next rowing workout: row for 30 minutes, increasing your stroke rate by 20 strokes per minute for 10- to 20-second bursts. Do at least 10 bursts and return to your normal stroke rate to recover for a couple minutes between each burst. After this workout, you’ll have a butt that looks as if it’s been sculpted by Rodin!

5. Swimming is great for non-impact cardio. To increase the buttsculpting effect, forget about freestyle! Since the glutes work the most when moving from a bent hip position to a straight leg and hip position, breaststroke is the best swimming stroke for your butt.

After warming up, do 5 to 10 x 50-meter breaststroke sprints (one length of an Olympic-size pool), with one pool length of freestyle swimming to recover.

Dr. Jason Karp is a nationally-recognized running and fitness expert, 2011 IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year, and owner of Run-Fit. He holds a Ph.D. in exercise physiology. A prolific writer, he has more than 200 articles published in international running, coaching, and fitness magazines, is the author of five books, including Running for Women and Running a Marathon For Dummies, is a frequent speaker at international fitness and coaching conferences, and is the creator of the Run-Fit SpecialistTM certification. For his popular training programs and an autographed copy of his books, go to Run-Fit.com.

Fall 2014

11

Events in Red Require Registration Ongoing Farmers Markets: Downtown Farmers Market, Saturdays 8am-1pm, Robinson Park 8th & Central, Gina Meyers 243-2230 Downtown Satellite Farmers Market, Wednesdays 11am-2pm, ABQ Civic Plaza, Gina Meyers 243-2230 Nob Hill Growers Market, Every Thursdays 3-6:30pm, Morningside Park at Lead & Morningside SE Catherine Gordon, 934-8960 ABQ Uptown Growers Market, Saturdays 7am-noon at Louisiana & Indian School (NE parking lot) Nancy Erickson, 865-3533 Northeast Farmers Market, Tuesdays, 3-7 pm , West side of ABQ Academy, 6400 Wyoming Blvd. Enter campus at Burlison go right (south) and the market will be on the right hand side Jedrek Lamb 369-6549 Presbyterian Farmers Market, Tuesdays, 7am-noon , at Presbyterian Hospital parking lot at 1300 Central SE Nancy Erickson 865-3533 Corrales Growers Market, Sundays 9am-noon , Wednesdays 3-6pm, Recreation Center 500 Jones Rd & Corrales Rd, Mary Jane 898-7927

September 11 Twilight Hike on a Full Moon Night, $3 Parking fee, dusk, Pre-register required, RioGrande Nature Center 2901 Candelaria NW, Call for exact start time, 344-7240 Full Moon Run by Heart n Sole Sports, Free, TENTATIVE DATE - Call HnS first 7:45pm, Kit Carson Park 1744 Kit Carson Ave NW HnS info: 884-7653

September 13 Rio Grande Nature Center Nature Walks, $3 parking, 10:30am , an insightful nature tour of the bosque, preregister, 344-7240

September 20 Sandia Scoot 5K/10K, 7am, a paved out course start & finish at Eclipse Aerospace out & around Mesa Del Sol, www.abilityconnectionnewmexico.org

September 14 Santa Fe to Buffalo Thunder Half Marathon, 8am, Pre-registration required, from the heart of Santa Fe down old Taos Highway to Buffalo Thunder Resort www.santafethunder.com

Pinch Pot Workshop, $30, Noon-4pm, Open Space Visitor Center, 6500 Coors NW, Michael Kanteena will teach you how to make these ancient vessels and then fire them for you, Preregister required Kim 897-8831

Chips n Salsa Half Marathon, 7am, Pre-registration required, Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute, ww.IRUNFIT.org 6th Annual Open Space Urban Farm & Harvest Festival, Free, 10am-4pm, Open Space Visitor Center 6500 Coors NW, A celebration of Urban Agriculture / Local food / Community Jodi 897-8831

September 21 Tour De Acoma Bicycle Race, Pre-Register, 100-50-25 mile race, unique chance to bike on the beautiful pueblo lands, See Ad here Melvin 505-552-7869 www.tourdeacoma.com 2014 Komen Race for the Cure, 7am, Pre-registration required, www.komencnm.org September 27 Mt Taylor 50K, forested trails & trails through open high mountain meadows and the 360 degree view from the summit of Mt Taylor, www.mttaylor50k.com Born to Run 2014, 9am, Sagebrush Church - 6440 Coors Blvd NW, 881-4563 www.borntorunnm.org Training for Trail Watch and Adopt-an-Open Space, Free, 10am-12:30pm, Open Space Visitor Center, 6500 Coors NW, volunteers patrol areas of their choice and record observations, report problems and needs, and educate the public Pre-register required Jolynn Maestas 452-5207

On-going Enchanted Lands, Free, 9am-5pm everyday, Open Space Visitor Center 6500 Coors NW, an Art exhibit featuring plein-air paintings of New Mexico public lands Josh 897-8831

Solar Telescopes, Free, 11am-2pm, Open Space Visitor Center, 6500 Coors NW, With special filtered telescopes you can observe the sun safely without hurting your eyes. . See for yourself what the sun’s surface look like Kim 897-8831

Qigong in the Park, Free, Saturdays 9-10am: Altura Park at Hannett and Morningside NE, Qigong practice for all, Loretta 681-1924 www. qigonginthepark.com

September 27-28 Corrales Harvest Festival, 9am-5pm, Kids $2 Adults $5, throughout the Village of Corrales A beautiful fall weekend full of activities, art, food, shopping, pets and tractor rides! info: 349-3809 www.corralesharvestfestival.com

New Mexico Volunteers for the Outdoors, Save trails, learn new skills with cool tools, and “rub shoulders” with forest rangers helping to build and maintain a wide variety of trails. 884-1991 www.nmvfo.org Water Exercise Classes, Weekdays, $2.50, City of Albuquerque Indoor Pools at Los Altos Pool 2916291; Valley Pool 761-4086; West Mesa Aquatic Center 836-8718, Morning & evening classes Rio Grande Nature Center Bird Walks, $3 parking, 8:30am, Saturdays & Sundays, join a naturalist for a quiet bird walk, preregister, 344-7240

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September 28 4th annual Cross Country Courage Classic, 7am, The cross country course is great for beginners and elite athletes alike, Pre-registration required, www.kellydunbar.wix.com/crosscountry Corrida de Corrales 2014, 29th annual, run the flat, shady, dirt trail along the tree-lined acequia through the heart of beautiful Corrales, www.active.com

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Sunday 11am-4pm, info about selling & buying gear: www.nmskiswap.org Fractal Maze in the Maize, $5 kids / $8 adults, Fri 3-8pm Sat 11am-8pm Sun 11am-6pm, weekends thru Nov 2, Los Poblanos Fields Open Space 701 Montaño Road NW, The iconic cornfield maze returns for 2014!, Info: 345-4580

October 3 - 5 Fractal Maze in the Maize, $5 kids / $8 adults, Fri 3-8pm Sat 11am-8pm Sun 11am-6pm, weekends thru Nov 2, Los Poblanos Fields Open Space October 26 701 Montaño Road NW, The iconic cornfield maze Day of the Tread, Pre-register required, Biking or Running or Walking on pumpkin-lined courses to returns for 2014!, Info: 345-4580 benefit Tingley Hospital , See Ad in calendar, www.dayofthetread.com October 4 2014 Wounded Warrior Half Marathon and 5 K, Kirtland Air Force Base, Pre-registration required, www.active.com October 4 - 12 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, Balloon Fiesta Park, ride your bike - free valet parking www.balloonfiesta.com 1-888-422-7277 October 5 Sandia Shadows Trail Run, 8am, Pre-registration required, www.IRUNFIT.org Bosque Wild Sunday Morning Hike, Free, 9am, First Sunday of the month from the Open Space Visitor Center, 6500 Coors NW, 1.5 hour guided walk in Bosque, max 20 people, Pre-register suggested 897-8831 October 8 Full Moon Run by Heart n Sole Sports, Free, 7:30pm, Call for Location, HnS info: 884-7653 October 9 Twilight Hike on a Full Moon Night, $3 Parking fee, dusk, Pre-register required, RioGrande Nature Center 2901 Candelaria NW, Call for exact start time, 344-7240 October 10-12 Fractal Maze in the Maize, $5 kids / $8 adults, Fri 3-8pm Sat 11am-8pm Sun 11am-6pm, weekends thru Nov 2, Los Poblanos Fields Open Space 701 Montaño Road NW, The iconic cornfield maze returns for 2014!, Info: 345-4580 October 11 5K at the Farm, Participants in the run experience the annual Maize Maze in a unique way, as the course is run through parts of the Maze field and runners navigate their way through the labyrinth along a marked rout Pre-registration required, www.riograndefarm.org Rio Grande Nature Center Nature Walks, $3 parking,, 10:30am, an insightful nature tour of the bosque, preregister, 344-7240 October 12 Run to Break the Silence, 5K/10K run/walk & 10K run, at Albuquerque Academy, benefits Presbyterian Ear Institute www.presbyterianearinstitute.org

Monsters on the Mesa 1K/5K/10K, 7am, at Mesa Del Sol, Pre-registration required, www.ultrasignup.com November 27 Great Pumpkin Chase, 8am, ABQ Country Club, www.IRUNFIT.org October 31 - Nov 2 Fractal Maze in the Maize, $5 kids / $8 adults, Fri 3-8pm Sat 11am-8pm Sun 11am-6pm, Los Poblanos Fields Open Space 701 Montaño Road NW, The iconic cornfield maze returns for 2014!, Info: 345-4580

November 2 Daylight Saving Time Ends, set your clock back 1 hour 2014 Doggie Dash and Dawdle, 8am-2pm, Balloon Fiesta Park, NM Humane Society fundraiser to benefit homeless pets, 5K run or 2 mile dawdle, rent a dog for $10 if you don’t have one of your own, www.animalhumanenm.org November 6 Twilight Hike on a Full Moon Night, $3 Parking fee, dusk, Pre-register required, RioGrande Nature Center 2901 Candelaria NW, Call for exact start time, 344-7240 November 8 Rio Grande Nature Center Nature Walks, $3 parking, 10:30am , an insightful nature tour of the bosque, preregister, 344-7240 Full Moon Run by Heart n Sole Sports, Free, 7:15pm, Call for Location, HnS info: 884-7653 November 9 Bosque Wild Sunday Morning Hike, Free, 9am, from the Open Space Visitor Center, 6500 Coors NW, 1.5 hour guided walk in Bosque, max 20 people, Pre-register suggested 897-8831 November 16 2nd Annual Rebel Run, 10am, run will support the UNM Children’s Hospital’s Cancer Unit. Preregistration required, www.riogranderebels4-hclub.com

October 17 - 19 Fractal Maze in the Maize, $5 kids / $8 adults, Fri 3-8pm Sat 11am-8pm Sun 11am-6pm, weekends thru Nov 2, Los Poblanos Fields Open Space November 18- 23 701 Montaño Road NW, The iconic cornfield maze Festival of the Cranes, Free, Bosque Del Apache Visitor Center, San Antonio NM, Cranes!, All day returns for 2014!, Info: 345-4580 everyday 575-838-2120 www.festivalofthecranes.com October 19 The 20th Annual Día del Río: A Celebration of the Rio Grande, Free, 9am-1pm, Durand Open SPace 4812 Isleta SW 87105, variety of conservation activities such as revegetation, trail work, and trash pickup Call REI at 247-1191 to register Kent Swanson 452-5200

November 27 Hobbler Gobbler Thanksgiving Day Run, 9am, Rio Rancho Aquatic Center, www.IRUNFIT.org

31st Annual Duke City Marathon, Downtown - 3rd & Tijeras, 7am, 505-880-1414 dukecitymarathon.com

December 4 Twilight Hike on a Full Moon Night, $3 Parking fee, dusk, Pre-register required, RioGrande Nature Center 2901 Candelaria NW, Call for exact start time, 344-7240

October 24 - 26 NM Ski Swap, $2, presented by Sandia Peak Ski Patrol at Expo New Mexico, Saturday 9am-4pm,

December 6 Full Moon Run by Heart n Sole Sports, Free, 7pm, Call for Location, HnS info: 884-7653

Fall 2014

13

The

Waterfall Hike

Ken Orth

When we first started hiking it a dozen years ago or more, my family christened it “The Waterfall Hike”. It was the only waterfall hike that we knew of in the Sandia Mountains.

The boys were young then, just learning the ropes of hiking in the desert. This was particularly true of the younger one who was about 5 at the time. He was becoming rudely and quickly acquainted with the various dangerous aspects of our locale... the dry heat, the pricklies and the spines, the slippery slopes, and jagged edges of fractured granite.

The trails were fraught with danger, or so it seemed, and there was often very little in the way of a “payoff” for having endured the trials and tribulations of a given trail. Perhaps there might be a deer or two. Or maybe a massive granite boulder to conquer and claim from atop its lofty heights. A bear, a snake, a majestic view. Not much, ‘tis true, from a 5-year-old’s point of view.

So, when I discovered that there was a trail to a waterfall, that definitely upped the appeal.

A little.

“How long is the trail?”

“How big is the waterfall?”

“Can we get under it?”

“I don’t know...” I had to tell them. “I don’t know. All I know is there is a waterfall back there and we’re going to hike to it.”

“To a waterfall?” the older one asked, incredulously. He was about 9 and had been hiking the Sandias his entire life and had never seen anything even remotely resembling a waterfall.

“Yeah, a waterfall!” the younger one chirped. “And I’m gonna get in it.”

I couldn’t help but smile and admire his cheery world view. And then feel a good healthy dose of recrimination. The waterfall was actually a big unknown. All I knew was there was “supposedly” a waterfall back there. So I was told. By a guy with a name I couldn’t remember. And a little map drawn out on a napkin. Oh boy, I may have gotten myself into a pickle this time.

My wife believed. She always did. She had an unbounded faith in my abilities to find great places when it came to the outdoorsy things like hiking and camping. He’s my Eagle Scout husband, and if he says we’re hiking to a waterfall, then we’ll darn well find a waterfall. Period. I didn’t even think of sharing my little bit of misgivings about the possibility of failure. A map on a napkin indeed.

So, there were two partial skeptics and two avid believers and a dusty trail up a dry arroyo in late June. It was a side trail. An unmaintained trail. A trail that is not in the guidebooks and ain’t on the map. A trail that appeared and disappeared and played hide and seek with the exuberant 5-year-old who wanted to lead the way.

“Just follow the arroyo,” I told them. As I had been told.

I hoped, beyond hope, that it was the right frigging arroyo.

Somewhere along the way I scuffed the heel of my boot into the gravelly arroyo bottom, digging out a little hole. I found good moist soil just underneath the crusty, dusty surface.

That was a good sign, I thought, trying to find something positive. Water had run here not that long ago. I felt like Tonto putting his ear to the ground and saying “They’re coming, Kimosabe.”

The moisture under there had something to do with what is called an “intermittent stream”. Which is what this was supposed to be. On maps of the Sandias, it is marked with a blue, dashed line. Intermittent.

However, where I come from, Nebraska, and where I learned my Boy Scout ways, an “intermittent stream” basically means the same as a “seasonal” stream. It runs some times of the year and not others. Usually that means it runs in the spring and dries up by midsummer.

But that is NOT what intermittent means here in the Watermelons. That blue dashed line, which may or may not have an entry in the map legend, has a much more literal meaning of

14

The “Meadow”

Dad sits by the Waterfall

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32 nd Annual Mt Taylor Quadrathlon

New Mexico’s Premier Winter Event February 14, 2015

Grants, NM

MtTaylorQuadrathlon

www.mttaylorquad.org

“The Quad” is a 43-mile race to the top and back down of 11,301 foot Mt Taylor. Start out at 6,500 feet biking 13 miles out of town and up into the ponderosa pines. Run 5 miles on gravel turning to snowpack.

Cross-country ski 2 miles, including the infamous “heartbreak hill”.

Top it out with 1 mile to the top on snowshoes. The race is only half over. Now reverse the events and make the 21 miles back down!

Do it solo. Do it as a team.

Do it because you can. the word intermittent. The stream comes and goes. It is there for a while, running clear and fresh, and then it is not there. It disappears, suddenly and completely, into the sandy soil or gurgling into nothingness under a rocky scree. Gone, gone, gone.

Then, almost magically, it will reappear again... fifty feet or fifty yards downstream.

Out from under a rock, gurgling and fresh as if nothing had ever happened to it. Still working its watery way downhill.

It can do this again and again. Disappear and reappear. It’s a little disconcerting, really.

Strange. Here today, gone today... be you an aging Boy Scout or an inquisitive 5-year-old.

“Listen... dad!... I hear water!”

“It’s over here, under these bushes. It’s a stream! Look, it’s a stream, coming down over here!”

Cool! I was as excited as my boys.

Running water! Maybe this IS the right arroyo and maybe there IS a waterfall back here.

The boys scrambled ahead, splashing and laughing in total wonderment at this miracle in the desert.

“Maybe there is a waterfall back here,” the skeptical oldest son opines, allowing himself a bit of enthusiasm and glancing at me with the slightest modicum of reluctant admiration. A raised eyebrow. From a nineyear-old. Amazing.

But the euphoria is short-lived. Shortly thereafter, we hear the youngest’s dismayed yell from a little ways ahead, “It’s gone. The stream is gone.”

Oh please God, don’t do this to me.

But it is true. The stream is gone. We find the place where it comes out from under

Fall 2014

some rocks. Say what?

“It must be a spring,” I say, like I know what I am talking about.

I am not yet fully acquainted with the intermittent stream concept. In my history, if water bubbles up out of the ground, it is a spring.

“Well how in the heck can there be a waterfall if there’s no water?”

The look in his eye had reverted back to something like “what have you done to us this time?”

But we persevered. Dryly. Uphill. I try to salvage something from our dried up arroyo and dried up emotions by cheerfully speculating out loud about something I had heard about intermittent streams and how they might disappear and then reappear.

But nobody buys it. They remember how I would sometimes say similar things like “it’s probably just over this next hill” when we were dragging ourselves up some long, steep trail in the Rockies. And it wasn’t just over that next hill.

We trudge along in silence.

“Hey... hey... hey.. “ the little one yells abruptly. “I hear water. Here it is. Dad was right. Here’s the stream.”

Are you kidding me? Roller coasters. I hate roller coasters. Well, really, I don’t mind them, as long as you know you’re on one. I don’t remember buying a ticket for this one.

“Well that’s cool,” the older boy says as he scrambles up along the stream with his brother.

“It IS cool,” my wife says lovingly as she hikes on up after the boys, meaning “I never doubted you for a minute”, and leaving me standing there, contemplating the world and

my place in it. What next?

It’s a meadow. A small grassy meadow no bigger than our backyard with steep-walled granite sides all the way around save for the way we just came up and into it. How a meadow got here in this unlikely place is anybody’s guess. Through the meadow, the stream meanders. And I mean “meanders”. It curves this way and that in snaking “S” curves, reminiscent of the old Nebraska creeks back in the flatlands. Creeks that could never, it seemed, figure out where they really wanted to go.

At the end where we come into the meadow, there a little 10” waterfall over some rocks and into a little pool.

The older son eyes it questioningly and looks at me. But he doesn’t say anything. Me neither.

We eat lunch in the surprisingly delightful meadow, and the boys create a “racing cans” game with their empty Dr Pepper cans... dropping them in the stream with their father’s “Go” at the upper end of the meadow, and then racing alongside them giggling and laughing and encouraging them until they drop over the little falls at the finish. Then again. It could go on indefinitely. Which would be alright with me. Laughing kids and laughing streams and magical meadows... there are certainly worse places to be.

But move on we must. There’s a waterfall up here somewhere.

Through the briars and the brambles and a narrow little slot in the rocks where we share the passageway with the stream and a downed tree and thorny, wild roses intent on great bodily harm.

“Are you sure this is the way?” Mr Upbeat

asks, wiping a little smear of rose thorn blood from his arm.

“Gotta be” I mumble, hoping it’s true.

It IS true. There is a waterfall. Over a granite outcrop, across the stream, and up a soggy trail heavy with undergrowth and there it is, splashing down and sparkling in the sunlight, coming out of a cleft in the sheer granite wall.

“Wow,” my wife speaks for us all.

It is not big. It is not thundering. It is a waterfall, though. And it is taller than me.

The water surges out and dances downward and splashes rainbows on the solid granite below it. Butterflies pirouette in the mists. A shaft of sunlight penetrates the forest cover and highlights the scene. It is a painting waiting to be painted.

The boys are in it, on it, around it before the grandeur of what we have found can fully register in my mind. Their reactions actually add to the grandeur... the laughing, shouting, splashing... what is a waterfall like this for, if not for children? If not for the pure joy of its discovery? The exaltation in its existence.

Life seems eminently grander for a while.

Sliding on the slick rocks and cavorting with the butterflies. It is a misty little oasis in a dangerous world. What has happened before and what will happen later... they do not exist, not here. There is nothing in the entire world right now but a little waterfall and some little boys, and a smiling, happy mother.

And an Eagle Scout. A grateful Eagle Scout.

15

Before the T ime of White Isabel Bearm

an Bucher

There’s a rich ness of scen Hint of oran t ge, apple, so il, grass, rock Sweetness o f mountain ai Feathery spru r ce fuse their The whole so Christmas tr ace ars in beauty all around an d in you One last gre at effort One last gre at organ cho rd Fluttering am Reaching all idst sunlit go that it is – pre ld ssing upward against New Mexico ceru B ef o re th The heart pu lean blue lse beats in fo e time of white ur-four time gone by - yo It reaches in u elegize this side you Calling bac k a lasting jo y before One young as the time of white pen Innocent in it s y outh Stands solita ry in naive g And we, wh lory o have walk Mirror our li ed long trails ves to match One thrust, d this majesty, renched in th and give is youth, this effort, this b eautiful mom We reach up ent in time , And live com pletely Before the se ason of whit e

Dr Elaine Adams

The Brain and Body

Connection I care for my eighty year old mother who suffers from advancing developed serious heart issues. She required surgeries and nearly dementia/Alzheimer’s disease. The disease runs in my mother’s died from heart related issues. When she returned to health her side of the family. My grandfather and my mother’s oldest sister personality had changed and she remained a different woman for suffered from the condition and lived to be ninety. They were the rest of her life. healthy in body but gradually lost the whole world. My husband Studies of donated brain tissue provide additional evidence for and I are some of the millions of Americans who are trying to the heart-head connection. These studies suggest that plaques figure out how to help a person with this condition as well as how and tangles are more likely to cause Alzheimer’s symptoms if to keep me from developing the disease. strokes or damage to the brain’s blood vessels are also present.

We are facing a huge epidemic in the spread of Alzheimer’s Other lines of evidence suggest that strategies for overall disease and there is evidence that what we feed our brain and healthy aging may help keep your brain as well as your body how we care for our body may make a difference in whether or fit. These strategies may even offer some protection against not we remember our “golden years.” According to the National developing Alzheimer’s or related disorders. Try to keep your Alzheimer’s Association there are currently more than five million weight within recommended guidelines, avoid tobacco and Americans living with Alzheimer’s and one in three seniors dies with the disease or some other form of dementia. A woman in her sixties is estimated to have a 1 in 6 chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease. It is 1 in 11 for developing breast cancer.

Most experts believe that the majority of Alzheimer’s disease occurs as a result of complex interactions among genes and other risk factors. Age, family history and heredity are all risk factors we can’t change. Now, research is beginning to reveal clues about other risk factors we may be able to influence through general lifestyle and wellness choices and effective management of other health conditions.

There may be a strong link between serious head injury and future risk of Alzheimer’s, especially when trauma occurs repeatedly or involves loss of consciousness.

Protect your brain by buckling your seat belt, wearing your helmet when participating in sports, and “fall-proofing” your home. Learn more about traumatic brain injury. The current concerns of the NFL about brain injury developed in part because so many of the players were developing dementia and other brain conditions later in life. Protect Our offices offer - Full Exercise Rehabilitation Programs, that brain if you can.

Growing evidence links brain health to heart health. Your Nutritional Counseling, Massage Therapy, brain is nourished by one of your body’s richest networks and Homeopathic Trigger-Point Injections. of blood vessels. Every heartbeat pumps about 20 to 25 percent of your blood to your head, where brain cells use 24 Hour Emergency Care at least 20 percent of the food and oxygen your blood Appointments Available! carries. The risk of developing Alzheimer’s or vascular dementia appears to be increased by many conditions Most Insurance Accepted • We do the Paperwork that damage the heart or blood vessels. These include high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and Dr. Elaine Adams Dr. Lonnie Peets high cholesterol. Work with your doctor to monitor your (505) 822-0306 Albuquerque Serving Albuquerque and heart health and treat any problems that arise. There are Rio Rancho for nearly 25 years!

(505) 891-3111 Rio Rancho some indications that there are emotional and personalitiy changes as well when the heart becomes involved in the www.lifetimechiropractic.com illness cycle. These could be precursors to Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. One of my mother’s sisters The Lifetime TEAM of Professionals are ready to help you feel great again!

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excess alcohol, stay socially connected, and exercise both your body and mind.

That is a lot of good news, right? So, what do you do? Actually there is a lot that you can do to avoid the fate that may have been dealt to you through either genetics or previous poor lifestyle choices.

I have been reading the book Grain Brain by Dr. David Perlmutter. This is the same author who wrote Wheat Belly. Dr. Perlmutter has put together the research that suggests that the high carbohydrate diet that was once what we were encouraged to eat in this country is what correlates with a spike in the brain related diseases, especially with Alzheimer’s. He acknowledges that diet information is an ongoing scientific endeavor, but it is also an economic one. Manufacturers develop products which are cheap and market to the current dietary information. For many years we had the low fat, high carbohydrate products that consumers demanded because the current scientific information supported this type of diet.

According to Dr. Perlmutter and many other brain researchers, this was a toxic set up for our brains.

According to the National Institute on Aging, a number of studies suggest that eating certain foods may help keep the brain healthy—and that others can be detrimental to cognitive health. A diet that includes lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and is low in unhealthy fat and added sugar can reduce the risk of many chronic diseases, including heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Researchers are looking at whether a healthy diet also can help preserve cognitive function or reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s.

Studies have found, for example, that a diet rich in vegetables, especially green leafy vegetables and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, is associated with a reduced rate of cognitive decline. One epidemiological study reported that people who ate a “Mediterranean diet” had a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. A Mediterranean diet includes vegetables, legumes, fruits, cereals, fish, olive oil, mild to moderate amounts of alcohol, and low amounts of saturated fats, dairy products, meat, and poultry.

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The Brain and Body

Connection Continued From Page 21

While some foods may stave off cognitive decline, other foods, such as saturated fats and refined carbohydrates (white sugar, for example), may pose a problem. In one study, scientists fed rats a “Western” diet high in fats and simple carbohydrates for 90 days. The results: rats fed this high-energy diet performed significantly worse on certain memory tests than rats fed a diet containing one-third the unhealthy fat. Notably, the rats scored poorly on tests that involve the hippocampus, a part of the brain that plays a major role in learning and memory.

Some scientists have focused on DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), an omega-3 fatty acid found in salmon and certain other fish. Studies in mice specially bred to have features of Alzheimer’s disease found that DHA reduces beta-amyloid plaques, abnormal protein deposits in the brain that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. Although a clinical trial of DHA showed no impact on people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease, it is possible that DHA supplements could be effective if started before cognitive symptoms appear.

These findings are of great interest and suggest possible areas for future study. The NIA supports clinical trials to examine the relationship between several dietary components and Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline.

The University of California at Berkley presented information from Dr. Mary Newport, a pediatrician, who wrote about her husband’s journey through Alzheimer’s disease in “Alzheimer’s Disease: What If There Was a Cure?”

Dr. Newport’s book is highly personal. Her husband, Steve, has Alzheimer’s, and this is her search for something to halt or reverse his decline. Her quest led her to research suggesting that ketones may help treat various neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s. Ketones are byproducts of the breakdown of fats in the body; small amounts are normally produced.

Ketone levels rise when you fast or go on a very-low-carbohydrate diet (which can lead to a state called ketosis).

Another way to boost ketones in your body is to consume fats called medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), of which coconut and palm kernel oils are good sources. MCTs are converted in the liver into ketones, which can be used by the brain and other organs as fuel; they are a more immediate source of energy than other fats and are not as readily stored as body fat. Ketones can provide energy to cells without the need for insulin, the hormone the body relies on to get glucose from the blood into cells. The theory is that ketones might provide an alternative energy source for brain cells that have lost their ability to use glucose as a result of Alzheimer’s.

Dr. Newport began feeding her husband coconut oil, later combining it with a more-concentrated MCT oil. She reports that this improved his shortterm memory, alleviated his depression, revived his personality and reduced his walking and vision problems — and that an MRI showed that his brain had stopped shrinking.

That’s a powerful story, but just anecdotal evidence. The course of Alzheimer’s can vary from person to person, and there may be stable periods and temporary improvements within the long-term decline.

Dr. Newport cites research showing that ketone-producing diets may help treat difficult cases of epilepsy and possibly Parkinson’s and other neurological disorders, as well as improve cognition and health in general.

Nearly all of this has been highly technical, theoretical work — or else preliminary research done in animals. In any case, apparently none of this research has used coconut oil, but rather special ketone solutions or products containing concentrated MCTs. A 2009 study of a pricey prescription “medical food” providing high doses of MCTs (Axona, whose maker funded the study) found some minor improvements in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s.

So what is the average person to do? It seems like I end a lot of these articles in the same way. Eat the healthy diet that we all know we should.

Avoid those processed foods and give some consideration to limiting your carbohydrate consumption. It looks like sugar may be the true culprit in many of these degenerative diseases and carbohydrates all metabolize into sugar. Keep up with your exercise and don’t forget that your brain needs stimulation too. Learn something new. Read a book.

Chiropractic adjustments help with stimulating the brain, too, so don’t forget to see your chiropractor.

2401 Jefferson NE • Albuquerque, NM 87111 (505) 884-8012 • www.libertygym.com 20

Dr. Elaine Adams has been practicing in New Mexico for nearly 25 years. She has a bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in behavioral psychology and she spent her early career in the field of autism. She has served on the Board of Directors of the New Mexico Chiropractic Association for most of those years. You can contact her office for a consultation on the services available or for an appointment with Dr. Adams. www.lifetimechiropractic.com

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Bike to Work

Albuquerque is in the midst of creating a transportation system that provides options that meet the needs of individuals and the community as a whole. The majority of Albuquerque residents have bicycles stored in their garages but there is the perception that bicycles are strictly for residential purposes. City Council and the community have made the commitment to expand the on-street bikeway and multi-use trail system through dedicated transportation funds. The City of Albuquerque has made great progress through various planning and construction activities within the last several years in developing an improved system. These efforts are making bicycle commuting a viable transportation alternative.

Benefits of Bike Commuting

• Is a great way to get to practical exercise and be active • Boosts your energy levels throughout the day • Saves you money on gas and maintenance • Helps you skip the traffic headache • Eliminates hassles of trying to find parking • Allows you to enjoy the scenery along your ride • Allows you to be a proactive influence and promote more riders • Is environmentally friendly and reduces your carbon footprint

Helpful Commuting Tips

• Get a mechanically sound bike you are comfortable riding.

• Wear a helmet that is properly fitted and less than 5 years old.

• Plan your route and ride it on a non-work day to gauge time.

• Have a front light, rear reflector, rear light and reflective gear.

• Plan your work attire & store your clothing at work.

• Buy a good lock and learn how to use it.

• Never leave home without a spare tube, a patch kit, and a pump.

• Take a City Cycling class at the Esperanza Community Bike Shop.

• Join “Guarantee Ride Home” from the City of Albuquerque’s Transit Department.

Getting Started

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Plan your route. Map out your route in advance using this map. If there are gaps in the suggested routes or direct routes, try going out on the weekend or after to explore the alternatives. A leisurely ride through the neighborhoods along the way will reveal alternate roads that may be perfect for your commute. Make a practice run. The more comfortable you are with your route, the easier your commute will be. Get acquainted with your bike. If there are adjustments to be made, this is the time to discover that. Get used to riding your bike in a variety of traffic conditions. You will need to plan for arriving at your destination. Where you will park your bike, freshen up and change your clothes, if necessary, are all good things to know in advance. Learn and practice good safety skills and riding habits. You can do this on your own or through a bicycle safety class offered by the City of Albuquerque, Bicycle Safety and Education Program.

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Official Licensed Map from the City of Albuquerque Printed and Redistributed with Permission by

LEGEND Multi-use Trail: Paved trail closed to auto traffic Bicycle Lane:

Portion of street with designated bike lane

One Way Bicycle Lane:

Single direction Bike lane

Bicycle Route: Cars and bikes share the road Shared roadway optimized for bikes

Moutain Bike Trail:

Unpaved but maintained bike trail

Roads with Wide Shoulders

N W

Bicycle Boulevard:

Arroyos

E

Bike Overpass/Underpass

Rapid Ride Stop

Mountain Bike Trailhead

Bicycle Shop

Place of Interest

Rail Runner Station

High School

Duke City BMX

Bosque Trail Parking

Community Center

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Dynamic Fitness Lifestyle The POWER of Sleep Continued From Page 29

Not Meeting Your Daily Sleep Requirements Can Lead To Sleep Deprivation: Sleep Deprivation is a Sleep Disorder that can occur when you don’t meet your daily Sleep Requirements. According to the The National Institute of Health somewhere between 50 & 70 million people in the USA are thought to be affected by Sleep Deprivation or some other sleep related disorder due to improper lifestyle choices. As a Personal Fitness Professional & DFL Coach I am here to tell you… Sleeplessness is grossly underrated as a problem by most people and it is causing more health and well-being issues than most will ever know or admit!

Sleep Deprivation Can Lead To: • Lethargies… Chronic Fatigue!

• Metabolic Disorders • Arthritis • Nausea • Dizziness • Higher Blood Levels of C-Reactive Proteins (Inflammatory Proteins).

• Increased urine production and more salt in urine.

• Erectile Dysfunction… Impotence!

• Body Aches and Pains… Especially in your muscles!

• Suppressed Immune Systems… Slower Healing Processes!

• Sluggish Metabolism… Weight Gain!

• Chronic Dry Mouth • Hallucinations • Hand Tremors • Headaches… Chronic Migraine Headaches!

• Hypertension… High Blood Pressure!

• Insulin Resistance • Diabetes • Fibromyalgia • Irritability, Moodiness, Anxiety, Depression… Temper Tantrums in Children!

• Memory Problems • Mental Illness • Obesity • Problems Concentrating • Short Attention Span… A.D.D.!

• Higher risk for accidents when driving automobiles or operating heavy machinery.

• Decision Fatigue… Problems with Decision-Making!

• Problems associated with Processing Information • Heart Disease • Premature Aging You can Achieve a Dynamic Sleep every Night by Adhering to the Following: • Nutritional Wellbeing… Health starts with digestion. Eat a clean healthy diet that ensures efficient digestion. When your insides are happy you are well!

• Stress Management… Destress by exercising 3-5 times a week. High intensity exercise should be performed and completed by 6:00 PM and for most people limited to 3 times per week. Any exercise performed after 6:00 PM should be low intensity in nature. (I.e.) A Brisk walk, myo-fascial release and gentle stretching can be performed up to 5 days per week!

• Power Nap… You heard me correctly! A 20 minute Power Nap can help relax and refresh your mind during the day resulting in less stress when it comes time to turn in for the night!

• Avoid the Use of Stimulants… Caffeine, sugar and tobacco excite your sympathetic nervous system which in turn triggers the production and release of cortisol. If you must drink coffee understand that an 8oz cup contains around 300mg of caffeine that has a half-life of 6 hours in the average person. This means if you are going to unwind from 6:00 PM until bedtime you shouldn’t have any caffeine after 12:00 noon. For those of you that are thinking to yourselves, hmmm, I can drink a pot of coffee and fall asleep, so that’s not a problem for me... Well, let’s just say that if this describes you, then the damage has already been done. You have already compromised your endocrine system to the point that your natural fight or flight response (in other words, your survival mechanism) is not functioning properly. If this is you, wean yourself off of the coffee and other stimulants right away. If you can man or woman-up to this challenge you will find that in 2-3 weeks you will have more natural energy than you have experienced in a long, long time. Stop making excuses… And gut out the headaches, because a detoxification headache will be the least of your worries if you don’t give up the stimulants!

• Unwind… Give yourself from 6:00 PM until bedtime (10:00-10:30PM) to Unwind. Enjoy a lite healthy dinner. Sit on your patio and read a book. Take a hot bath, sit in the hot tub or take a hot shower. And Limit electronic time after 6:00 PM to a minimum.

• Give It Up… Don’t go to bed angry or worried! Forgive the people, places or things that you are angry with.

A DYNAMIC Night’s SLEEP Supports: • Hormonal Balance… In both Men & Women!

• Production of Anabolic Hormones… Growth Hormone, Testosterone & Insulin Growth Factor!

• Dynamic Libidos… Better Sex for both Men & Women!

• Dynamic Metabolisms… Less Body Fat! • Stronger Immune Systems… Faster Healing & Recovery Times During & After Exercise!

• Increased Energy… More Productive Lives!

• Digestive System… More Efficient Breakdown, Oxidation & Elimination Processes!

• Stress Reduction… Decreased Catabolic Cortisol Levels!

• Artistic Creativity… Studies show that sleep consolidates memories, in other words your brain reorganizes and restructures your memories thereby making them stronger, which results in enhanced creativity!

• Athletic Performance… A Stanford University study found that college football players who tried to sleep at least 10 hours a night for seven to eight weeks improved their average sprint time and increased overall stamina!

• Overall Wellbeing… Emotional Recovery and Balance!

So there you have it… Why you need to sleep... When you need to sleep… How long you need to sleep… How to achieve Dynamic sleep… The benefits of sleep… Everything you need to know about the importance of Sleep for Living Dynamically!

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Dynamic Fitness Lifestyle The POWER of Sleep for Living Dynamically!!!

Good morning Duke City Fit readers! Forgive me if you are reading your Duke City Fit before bed, but I am writing this article on an absolutely beautiful New Mexico morning… The birds are singing, the sun is shining and I am enjoying clear blue skies for as far the eye can see! The only thing that could possibly make this morning any better would be a majestic Albuquerque skyline covered in hot air balloons!

With that said, it shouldn’t be hard to imagine why I am absolutely beaming this morning. But I must say that I would still be thoroughly enjoying this morning even if it were cloudy and cold. You see, I woke up this morning completely energized and feeling mentally, physically and spiritually reinvigorated after a very restful night of deep sleep! Can you say the same? If not, then you are not “Living Dynamically” and we must try to change that. Because if you are not “Living Dynamically” then you are simply not living up to your full potential!

First of all, let’s take a look at the definition of SLEEP. Sleep is a state of not being awake. Duh! REALLY? K, K, I’ll be serious… Sleep is the body’s “Rest Cycle.” Sleep is a state of partial or full unconsciousness that occurs in people and in animals, during which voluntary functions are suspended and the body rests in an effort to recuperate from environmental stresses and restore itself to complete homeostasis. Sleep stimulates a heightened anabolic state brought on by a complex group of hormones that respond to cues within the body and the environment around it. These hormones accentuate the growth and cellular rejuvenation of the immune, central nervous, and musculoskeletal systems.

There are Five Phases to a Sleep Cycle: Stages 1, 2, 3, 4 and REM (Rapid Eye Movement). We begin our Sleep Cycle in Stage 1 and go through each stage until reaching REM Sleep, and then our body begins the cycle again. Each complete Sleep Cycle takes anywhere from 70 to 110 minutes. Our brain acts differently in each stage of sleep. In some of the stages, our body may make movements, but in other stages our arms and legs are immobile. Practicing healthy sleep habits helps to ensure that are we getting each type of sleep that we need.

Stage 1 Sleep is the slow eye movement period that occurs when we are drifting in and out of sleep and takes place between being awake and completely asleep.

If awakened during Stage 1 Sleep, and this is easy to do, we often feel as though we were never asleep. Our eye movement and body movements slow down during Stage 1 Sleep. We may experience sudden jerking movements of our legs or other muscles during Stage 1 Sleep as well. These jerking motions are known as hypnic myoclonia or myoclonic jerks. They are also known as “sleep starts” that can give a sensation of falling and are caused by the motor areas of the brain being spontaneously stimulated by the Alpha waves that are making way for the slower Theta waves.

Stage 2 Sleep occurs approximately 50 percent of the time that we are sleeping.

Our eye movement stops entirely and our brain waves become slower. Our heart and breathing rates slow way down. And most of us rarely ever dream during Stage 2 Sleep. Though the sleep is deeper, we can still be awakened easily during Stage 2 Sleep.

Stage 3 Sleep is our first stage of deep sleep. Our brain waves are a combination of slow waves, known as Delta Waves, combined with the slightly faster waves known as Theta Waves. During Stage 3 Sleep it can be very difficult to wake someone up. If you are awakened during this stage, you may feel very groggy and disoriented for several minutes.

Stage 4 Sleep is our second stage of deep sleep. In this stage the brain is almost exclusively making the slow Delta Waves that are associated primarily with deep dominant Stage 4 Sleep. During this stage of sleep it is also very difficult to wake someone up. Both Stages 3 & 4 of deep sleep are extremely important for feeling refreshed upon rising in the morning. If these stages are too short, sleep will not feel satisfying. There is quite often dreaming in this stage, more than in Stages 1 & 2, but much less than in REM Sleep.

REM Sleep or Rapid Eye Movement Sleep occurs 60-90 minutes after we fall asleep and is the sleep stage in which dreaming occurs. Our first Sleep Cycle has a shorter phase of REM Sleep. When we enter into REM Sleep, our breathing becomes fast, irregular and shallow. Our eyes will move rapidly and our muscles become immobile. Our heart rate and blood pressure increases. Men may also develop erections during this phase. For adults approximately 20 percent of sleep is REM Sleep. Toward morning, the time spent in REM Sleep increases and the deep sleep stages decrease. If our REM Sleep is disrupted, the next sleep cycle does not follow the normal order, but often goes directly to REM Sleep until the previous night’s loss of REM Sleep is made up for.

General Sleep Requirements for the Average Person: Below is a Chart that generalizes Daily Sleep Requirements according to Age and Condition… It is important to remember that Lifestyle… Career Demands…

Level of Fitness… Functional Health Conditions all play a part within each age group and sleep needs will vary from individual to individual.

• Newborn baby - Up to 18 hours • 1 to 12 months of age - 14 to 18 hours • 1 to 3 years of age - 12 to 15 hours • 3 to 5 years of age - 11 to 13 hours • 5 to 12 years of age - 9 to 11 hours • Teenagers - 9 to 10 hours • Adults - 7 to 8 hours • Women during pregnancy – 8 to10 hours

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Respect Your Internal Body Clock We are all born with an internal body clock that regulates the release and suppression of hormones during our natural sleep/wake cycles. These natural sleep/wake cycles are called the Circadian Rhythm and they cycle through every 24 hours. These hormones have a direct effect on our functional health and overall wellbeing. Our Circadian Rhythm revolves primarily around the light of day and the dark of night resulting from the rotation of the sun and moon. These very complex cycles affect nearly all living creatures but they especially have a profound effect on humans because when we disrespect them our body, mind, and spirit suffer greatly.

Stress activated hormones like cortisol are produced as the sun rises around 6:00 AM and their levels peak around mid-morning at approximately 9:00 AM. By noon these levels have decreased significantly and they maintain steady until approximately 6:00 PM. By sundown these stress hormones are near their lowest levels and leave way for the bodies’ release of melatonin so that the body can begin to wind down from sunset until approximately 10:00 PM. At this time the body then begins to increase the production of growth and repair hormones so that most physical repair can take place from approximately 10:00 PM until 2:00 AM during the first four hours of sleep. And then from 2:00 AM until approximately 6:00 AM that psychogenic healing of the mind and emotions occur. And then at approximately 6:00 AM the cycle starts all over again as the sun rises.

Now take note that it is for this exact reason that I am professionally against high intensity evening exercise because it stimulates the release of adrenal hormones that disrupts this natural hormonal rhythm. On the other hand light exercise like a brisk evening stroll and self myo-fascial release combined with gentle stretching can be quite therapeutic for destressing and winding down in an effort to achieve a great night’s sleep.

Bedtime MATTERS! After more than 30 years of Personal Fitness Training and Lifestyle Coaching it truly saddens me to tell you that one of the biggest obstacles that I face is getting adults to understand the importance of going to bed on time! Now don’t get me wrong, I love modern day conveniences as much as the next guy when used responsibly. But when adults engage in 24 hour movie access, videogaming, and web-surfing into the late evening and wee hours of the morning with total disregard for their health, it then becomes what I call Adult Bedtime Behavior Disorder (ABBD). I call it a disorder because these folks will give all kinds of excuses for staying up past 10:00 PM while they are experiencing everything from severe body aches to headaches to skin rashes/eczema/ psoriasis to ADD to forgetfulness to general fatigue and even dyslexic behavior.

Dwain Kindelberger has been a Personal Trainer since 1981. He is a graduate of The National Academy of Sports Medicine, and is the owner of Designer Bodies Exclusive Personal Training and Nutrition Management Center.

Visit us on the web at

www.designerbodies.net

You see, staying up past 10:00 PM forces your body to produce stress hormones late into the evening. This happens because your brain recognizes fluorescent lights along with TV and computer screens as sunlight because they flicker on and off anywhere from 60 to 120 cycles per second. Since cortisol can take hours to clear from your blood stream, this also prevents the normal release of melatonin and growth/immune hormones which will lead to severe hormonal imbalances causing many unwanted side effects because you are cutting into the body’s heeling and repair time.

On a good note, once I have convinced these folks to give up the late night frolicking they begin to feel and even look better within as little as 2 weeks and many of their modalities have begun to clear up!

The information contained in this article is not meant to treat, diagnose or cure any ailments or diseases. Please consult your physician before starting any exercise or nutrition program.

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Uncle Uncle KC’s KC’s Corner Corner

Movin’ Up the Ladder If you live in the suburban stretches of Albuquerque like we do, you may have some new neighbors. They’ve been moving in all over the city. Anywhere there happen to be trees.

They like trees. Big trees. Mature trees. Lots of trees..

And pigeons. They’re fond of pigeons, too.

Truly, if you live anywhere in the Albuquerque metro area and you have lots of big ol’ trees, and you got pigeons, well you probably have some new neighbors. They’ve moved in over the last few years, or they’re moving in even now.

And you probably don’t even know they’re there… not until… well… until you find a scattering of white feathers in your yard.

That’s what happened to us, up here in the Northeast Heights. Right there in the backyard underneath the big ol’ Ponderosa Pine, I found a bunch of feathers. What the heck? They looked like pigeon feathers to me. I immediately assumed the rogue cat that used to roam our neighborhood was back.

Good for you, I thought. There’s too darn many pigeons around here anyway. Stupid birds, seems to me, and all they can do is make a mess of things wherever they hang out.

“Have at ‘em,” I say. “Be my guest.”

It did seem strange, though, that there was no carcass anywhere. No bones. Just a bunch of feathers.

“Ah well,” I thought, “Who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth?”

That first feather finding was about a year and a half ago, in the late spring of 2013. After that, every few months, I’d find another feather distribution, often in very nearly the same place where I’d found the first one, under the sweeping umbrella of our Ponderosa.

It always made me smile. Not that I reveled in the demise of another hapless pigeon (although, admittedly, that fact may have contributed just a little), but because I liked the fact that a predatory food-chain thing was playing out in my backyard.

For we have what I would call a very healthy and active eco-system in our backyard. From the cockroaches at the bottom up to the occasional roadrunner at the top. We’ve got lizards, crickets, skinks, butterflies, hummingbirds, spiders, praying mantises, robins, pigeons, and jays. And now, something new. Was it on a higher rung on the food chain ladder? How high?, and where does it stand in comparison to the feisty roadrunner?

Once in a while, the smattering of feathers would be of steely gray, rather than white. “Ah-hah,” I’d think. “A dove.”

That’s okay by me. The doves often make quite a racket early in the morning right outside our bedroom window. So go ahead… take a dove or two, whoever you are. Maybe they’ll choose to hang out somewhere else.

Nah, they’re not that smart.

It did kind of nag at me that this culling of the pigeons was happening almost right under my very nose and I’d never even so much as caught a glimpse of the perpetrator. What kind of a landlord was I?

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That changed, finally, this last spring, in a rather dramatic fashion. I like to think that our new pigeon-exterminating neighbor decided to make himself known by giving me just a little bit of a taste of what it might be like to be on the receiving end of his predatory strike.

It was a Sunday, getting towards dusk, and I was laying back in our hot tub, soaking my bones and muscles as is my wont after a rowdy afternoon game of soccer. I’m getting a little bit old for that kind of stuff, and the hot tub helps to ease the harsh reality of that fact. Tired, and nearly dozing, I gazed at the ever-pinkening Sandias through the branches and leaves of the many trees twixt me and the mountains. My eyes were droopy and life was good.

Whuup… whoosh… right next to my left ear, from behind, a startlingly intense windy noise, like a small sheet flapping in the wind, mere inches from my head. And I swear I felt the slightest of breezes on my damp ear, from whatever it was.

At the same time, a dark mass shot by my head and directly into my field of vision, moving away in front of me at a good clip. I popped out of my drousiness and into heart-pounding awareness, jerking upright and slopping water everywhere, pulling something in my lower back in the process.

“What the hell?” I blurted out. Sometimes I resort to colorful language when I am scared shitless.

It was a bird. A good sized bird. It swooped over my left shoulder right past my head, straight up in front of my now wide-open eyes. I couldn’t miss it. A mere 20 feet in front of me, in the sprawling branches of my neighbor’s cherry tree, it did an acrobatic, stalling, turning maneuver and landed on a branch. Facing me. If I hadn’t seen the maneuver myself, I would have said it was impossible.

There it perched, its red eyes staring right at me.

Penetrating eyes.

“Whatcha think there, fat boy?” I imagined him saying.

“Catchin’ a few Z’s, are ya?”

It was a hawk.

A hawk!

I scooped up my heart, pounding away there in front of me, and I tried to calm it back down. A sudden realization washed over me… it weren’t no dang cat taking out our pigeons. That top rung on the food ladder had a hawk sitting on it. And he was hanging out with me by the hot tub.

We looked at each other for a few seconds, did the hawk and I. Time froze. I was staring eyeball to eyeball with a raptor… a raptor who had just scared the daylights out of me and was even now making me feel like I was in violation of some kind of unwritten predatory code.

He finally, disdainfully it seemed, looked away from me and into the backyard behind me. Nothing there, he already knew, and looked back at me… “See what you’ve done? Why don’t you take your sorry old-man nap somewhere else? I’ve got dinner to take care of.”

With a little hop and a little dive and a near-silent popping open of his wings he was down and out and through the branches and over my house roof and gone. Much more quietly than he’d arrived. Graceful and acrobatic and impressive. I laid back after a few seconds and stared up at the sky. “Thank you for that,” I muttered to no one in particular.

It was the beginning of a wonderful relationship. Now that I knew just what it was that was plucking meals out of my backyard, I had a much better idea of where to look for him.

Up. And for his or her part, now that our neighbor had introduced himself to the property manager, he seemed much more comfortable with being seen and heard thereabouts. My wife and I began noticing his presence on a near daily basis.

The sound he made was unmistakable, a semi-high-pitched “Kaack”. Usually just one iteration. But it was enough to draw our eyes to one of the many trees where we would find him perched. … preening or gazing, studiously ignoring us.

It seemed to me that he would often make his noise when we first walked out in the morning, as if to let us know that he was there. On the job.

But perhaps it was not that at all, but rather a kind of recrimination… “What the heck, don’t you know you’re scaring the pigeons?”

“And a top of the mornin’ to you, too,” I’d yell up at him cheerfully.

To be honest, we weren’t seeing very many pigeons or doves back there anymore. And I didn’t think it had to do with our humanly presence, either, if you know what I mean.

Sometime in the spring of this year, we got a change-up in our hawk’s behavior. Heading out into the backyard with a morning cup of coffee, my wife and I pulled up short and stared out through the glass patio door in disbelief. Our hawk was perched out there on the side of our little fountain. Right there in front of God and everybody.

He looked at us. He knew we were there. But he remained nonchalant and dipped his head to the water now and again with a certain regal slowness that was reminiscent of the Queen of England’s slow wave from her motorcade, allowing the peons a glimpse of her magnificence.

There is a noble look surrounding him, no doubt about it. It captures your eyes and it captures your imagination. If there be royalty in the high desert, this might be it. He is a prince, mayhap, descended from a long line of hawks who have lived here and presided over life and death in this rift of the Rio Grande.

For generations. For so many generations that his heritage far outstrips our meager human presence. His ancestors hunted here before the buildings came. Before the cars and the streets and the hot tubs. Before any of it… they honed their skills and developed their methods and passed along their regal heritage to their young. And now… now those

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skills and that heritage are being tested, in a new millennia. And that is how I saw him that morning, on a concrete fountain in a concrete world. It was a surreal scene, a Salvador Dali painting in an aluminum patio door frame.

He perched there, proud and alert, a steelyeyed predator in the shadow of an angel… of a childish cherubim, blissfully ignorant, smiling and dribbling forth the watery essence of life into a concrete tub. Here in the desert. It was a poem waiting to be written.

There was slight motion to my left then, and glancing that way (I hated to tear my eyes from the sight of three hawks), I saw… are you kidding me?… a fourth hawk. It was perched there in a separate tree, right in front of the three, like a lecturing professor in front of his class. It, too, swiveled its head and glared at me, as only hawks can do.

It had red eyes.

In retrospect, what I did next was relatively stupid. I brought my big, black Nikon camera up in a vain attempt (and I use that word “vain” in both of its contexts here) to digitally capture the scene. The hawks were having none of that.

“You’ll have to contact our agent first.”

They were gone, gone, gone.

And gone. The lone red-eyed hawk taking up the rear.

Mere days after our fountain encounter, my wife and I were afforded another brief glimpse into the everyday life of a Coopers Hawk in the Duke City. While we shared a congenial cupof-java in the backyard, our hawk announced his arrival with his now familiar “kaack” and proceeded to land on the ground in that selfsame backyard.

That is my story. We saw multiple hawks This was new. around for a while after that, but fairly quickly He was in no hurry. He looked around, up and it dropped back down to one. The original down, over at us, walked around a bit, studied one, we assumed. We still hear him or see him and picked at the ground. “What’s this all frequently. about?” both of us wondered. We watched him In an effort to understand what had happened, for a few minutes.

I arranged for an interview with a hawk expert Finally, evidently making a serious decision, from the New Mexico Department of Fish and he picked up a stick with his beak. It looked Game, Kristin Madden. We talked at length kind of ludicrous, really. This is the same about our experiences with the hawks, and hers, vicious-looking hooked beak that we know full which are far more extensive since she has been well was designed for things far more grisly studying and working with them in ABQ since than stick gathering.

2010.

But pick up a stick he did. And in another Our hawk was a male. They establish a complex maneuver that combined juggling and territory, about a quarter of a square mile in gymnastics, he took off into the air, dropped size, and they build the nest. Usually, if there is the stick from his beak, and grabbed it mid-air a female involved in the nest building, it is in a with his talons as he ascended through the tree “supervisory” role. branches and up and over the house. Just like The eggs, 3 to 5 of them, are incubated by that. the female in the nest for about a month. Once “Whoa, did you see that?” hatched, the young grow to nearly full adult He’s building a nest! It dawned on me. Or size and leave the nest in another month. That’s she is. Or they are, maybe. It’s time to pass that about two months from start to finish, if you’re heritage on to another generation, right here counting. In our case, that was from about early and right now. I wondered if they’d be teaching May to early July. them to drink at the foot of an angel?

The three hawks I saw together were The nest, we discovered, was not far away, probably siblings from that nest. And that was about a hundred feet as the hawk flies. It was in their father perched across from them. The our next door neighbor’s front yard mulberry tree. It was a big tree. The nest was about twothirds of the way up, hidden in a sturdy crotch.

We left it alone, allowing them their privacy, and kept its presence to ourselves. We still only ever saw one hawk at a time, never two… presumably the same hawk, but who could know? I hoped it wasn’t just a lone hawk doing its instinctive nest-building stuff with hopes for a future with another hawk that Newly hatched Coopers Hawks Photo by Kristin Madden might never materialize.

“Keep your negative thoughts to yourself,” my wife chided me. And I did. young have yellow eyes, which evolve to red/ orange flecked eyes with age. The young also Weeks later, a month later?… a day came have a speckled front side, for about the first in mid-July when I was out tinkering with my year, which changes then to the rust-brown tomato plants. I heard the kaack and then saw horizontal stripes of the adult. the hawk swoop over to land in the yard behind The father evidently has taken over this area ours. This was my assumption anyway, for there as his territory. The others, including the female, is a tall wooden fence blocking the view. Then I have vacated. He may or may not migrate away saw another hawk seemingly do the same thing. this winter. Some do and some don’t. We shall Whoa. Two of ‘em! see.

I scrambled inside, grabbed my camera, and But next spring he will probably be here, one then worked my way up the cinder block wall way or another. He’ll spruce up the nest and the in our yard to peer over the wooden fence into same female will show up. And the circle of life theirs. Behold! Not one, not two, but three will keep on keeping on. hawks perched there side by side on a long I hope so, anyway. Their presence has added horizontal limb. As my head cleared the top of a dramatic dimension to our little part of the the fence, all three hawk heads swiveled in my world here. It has bonded us in a way that I direction and all six hawk eyes glared at me. could have never imagined possible… to our Yellow eyes. All of them. Noticeably, notably heritage, and to our legacy. And to the noble, yellow. enchanted life that is here and now in the high desert.

Fall 2014

A young Coopers Hawk. Only a month or two old.

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