B A C K

 

Incontinence aside, it was much like a Lincoln driving octogenarian in the fast lane on a Wednesday morning...but it was a successful run!

I'd forgotten the disparity between how good ideas sound at different parts of the day.  At 7 PM, running at 5 AM sounds like a great idea, romantic even.  But I got out of bed, wondering what I was doing, did some jumping jacks, 5 little pull ups, 25 itsy-bitsy pushups, 100 crunches and ran (loosely using the word here) two miles.  

The last two runs involved pulling a calf muscle.  Today, calf was fine.  The past month I've had a pretty severe chest infection.  This morning, I didn't choke on phlegm.  All in all, a good start to the day!

And yesterday I rode my bike.  That wasn't as slow, but still a bit slow.  Both cases, the idea was just to get back into the groove again.  

Yesterday I posted my ride on dailymile.com.  Then, I looked at the training profile for the past few weeks.  This is what I saw:

 

Nothing at all.  I'm pudgy, out of shape, still a little weak from illness.  But ...

It's

Great 

to

be

Back

She Almost Puked...SCORE!

My wife can watch the freakiest, most disgusting things on television.  My daughters and I have to ban certain shows from being viewed.  No open-heart surgeries, liposuction or any of the like being viewed in this house when we're home!

Last night I got home from the fair where my daughters are showing rabbits.  I took the day off from work, but still got up at 4:30 and went for a run, a strong run at that.  It's been a while since I've had a run like that.  I got home at around 8:30 in the evening.  I plop on the couch, turn on the boob-tube and poured myself the one beer I purchased as a reward (for what, I don't know).  I pulled off my sock and noticed I had a torn toe nail.  I pulled it off and it was the ENTIRE nail.

Oh, I thought, this is gonna be sah-weeeet.

My wife has a foot problem.  It apparently stems from working in a nursing home and having to use power tools to grind growths of various colors and textures from the feet of geriatrics.

I showed her the nail and she instantly teared up, turned red and was as visibly upset as I've seen (I've known her since I was 14).

"THAT'S NOT NATURAL!  WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?"

"Why, because I showed you or because I lost a nail?"

And like in a good monster show, I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

So, my question to the runners is, what type of a mile-stone is losing a nail?  Have I arrived?

In other related news, I've learned the value of keeping an exercise log during this long injury recovery.  I use dailymile.com.  I noticed that I had a few "off" runs in a row and took an extra day off, redoubled my icing and stretching.  Boom, back at it better than before.  I'm still not 100% recovered, but am feeling more confident and stronger daily.  The strength training has really improved my cycling in the hills...seemingly over-night.

And regarding weight loss...I'm down around 200, though not 195 yet.  Last weekend was a family reunion and this weekend I'll be eating at the county fair for three days...so I might gain back the 90 pounds I've lost this year.

Last issue, I've had two people wonder if I'm very ill, the illness being the reason for weight loss.  People don't really want to believe that diet and exercise, not drastic measures or something in pill form, are the keys to weight loss.

Running, Weight Loss, Injury and Trust

As many know, I've been nursing a bum left bum and hamstring for ...  forever it seems.  It's coming along slowly, especially for an injury that never hurt until the next day!

Instead of running regularly I've been riding my bike.  I've been averaging well over 100 miles a week, as well as doing 30 minutes of cardio on whatever machine after lifting weights (which I do 3 to 4 times a week).  But, I miss running.

It's been almost two weeks since the leg has bothered me on a run, before this morning.  This morning things were different.  First, I had a TERRIBLE time waking up.  It's the first week back at school and that's always tough.  I'd be tired no matter what.  But, this is all part of the adjustment period...so I got up and headed out the door.  I should've identified the level of fatigue as something other than sleepiness.  I needed a day off today.

The left leg wouldn't loosen, the foot wouldn't relax either (a small knotted pain right beside my arch on my right foot).  I've aggravated some plantar fasciatis with all of the jump rope I've been doing lately. I made it a quarter mile before deciding to quit.  I walked a bit, stretched, and tried running twice more.

See, it's one thing to not run when you want to and could probably push through pain, though at quite a risk.  That's hard.

It's another thing when I'm harboring a deep fear of getting fat again.  I am afraid that skipping a run, for whatever reason, will ultimately lead to slipping back into old habits.

In the past, when I've lost weight before, if for some reason I couldn't exercise, I'd get out of my rhythm and completely fall off the wagon.

It's different this time though.  Why?  Maybe because I'm just over a year into the process.  Maybe because my initial motivations were health-focused (opposed to trying to look a lot better).  Whatever the reason, it is different now.

The Week In Review, and a movie review too...

 Celebrations first:

1. For the first time in about two months I was able to run on consecutive days. 
2. For the first time in about two months I was able to run completely pain free.
3. I was able to successfully complete four runs this week.
4. I incorporated a greater variety of leg exercises at the gym.
5. I increased the level of intensity on core exercises.
6. I worked out at the gym 4 days this week.
7. I did my first interval training workout on my road bike.
8. My plateau is way busted...down about 10 pounds from 3 weeks ago.  I'm knocking on 200 now.

Looking at this picture...my head now looks disproportionately large compared to my body.  

 Where as compared to a year ago, my head seemed quite appropriately sized.

 While loading the previous two pictures, I found this jewel.  My daughters decided to curl my hair for me.  What a looker I was!  Sorry ladies, he's taken!  Man, my wife is patient. 

Let me say that I am thrilled with my leg's improvements.  The focus on stretching, providing time, icing, compression and strengthening is FINALLY really paying off.  I can sit in a chair for about 20 minutes pain free now.  Before, sitting in a hard chair was painful.  Now is the hard part.

How and when will I know when I can "open up" a little bit.  Running at this pace takes a lot of focus when my leg isn't hurting.  Now, if I do too much and aggravate the injury while intentionally running harder, that's okay, I can live with that.  Reinjure due to lack of concentration, on the other hand, would infuriate me. 

My game plan for now is just to run at the same pace until the end of the run where I'll "open up" a bit.  I'll monitor how that feels and progressively define the end of the run as longer distances.

Friday was our first day back to school, though it was meetings the ENTIRE day.  If you've never been in meetings with a group of teachers, you've never been in a bad meeting.  Teaching isn't my first gig, I know how meetings are outside of education and they're pleasant by comparison.  Now, remember that I mentioned sitting in hard chairs is painful to my injured hamstring/glute?  Yeah...I'll leave it at that.

After lunch we did one activity because of such a high number of new staff.  We had to find 5 people we did not know and learn a few specific things about them with the expectation that we'd remember and recall later in the day.  Know how many people that I know came to introduce themselves to me (they weren't playing, they really didn't recognize me)?  More than I expected, though I lost count.

Maybe because of the meetings, where I normally try to obtain some sort zen enlightenment much like a martial arts expert going somewhere in his mind to ignore the pain, but I didn't play with any of the people that didn't recognize me.  I gave everybody an easy out.  Nobody felt embarrassed or awkward.  I've got some karma coming my way! 

I was again struck with the realization that other than a handful of friends, the only people that readily recognize me are the new people.  It's pretty funny.

This week I watched Fat Head.  Fat Head was in my suggested movies on Netflix.  I didn't want to watch another Supersize Me.  While Supersize Me was entertaining, I found it to be intellectually dishonest.  I approach life with the idea that humans are autonomous creatures (it's actually the framework from which I approach teaching teenagers).  Supersize Me, however, cast people that made poor decisions as victims of circumstance, which also reads: Need Saving! 

Anyhow, FatHead was hilarious and interesting.  While I wouldn't take the dietary actions of the comedy-documentary (self-proclaimed), the video did touch on a lot of issues regarding data manipulation by researchers as well as corrupt government and the role of the well-intentioned but misinformed. 

While it was a low budget film that largely poked fun at Supersize Me, it wasn't poorly made.  If you have an hour and a half to kill and can't stand to watch Hot Tub Time Machine, give Fat Head a chance.  If nothing else, it'll probably challenge some of what you think you know about cholesterol's role. 

Here's to another week of improved health! 

I'm so happily WRONG!

I thought today was the first day of work.

W

R
O
N
G

That means I don't have mind-numbing meetings until tomorrow!  Now this idea isn't mine, but I did a quick google search for a poster I have in my classroom that refers to meetings and found this.  This is a good idea to make meetings less mind-numbing.  How bored could you be if everybody is a storm trooper?

To celebrate my extra day off I slept in until 7 am.  I didn't as much as stir until my wife told me she was leaving for work.  I thought about trying to go back to sleep, but decided a run would be better.   I drove to the trailhead and one the first step my injured left leg went "HEEEEEY, remember me?!?!"  

But I took it easy and had no other issues.  I completed a four mile single track trail run that's 85% shaded (a rare treat in this part of Arizona).   There were lots of calves that were afraid enough to trot away from me, but not enough to really leave.  They'd ramble up the trail a bit and then forget they were running...it's sometimes hard to remember you're fleeing something when the world is your pantry.  They'd start eating something and as if they'd never seen me before, take off again when I caught up to them.  The worst two offenders eventually crawled under some scrub and laid down. 

I am glad I've been able to be patient with my rehab.  I've developed and am continuing to develop some strengthening and stretching routines and devote more time to warming up and cooling down, for both running and riding.  These are things I needed to do anyway. 

It's been a while since I shared any MSPaint art with you.  So here goes:

This injury will make me stronger than before! (And Tucson runners are PSYCHO!!!!)

First off:  Happy Birthday (13) to my running partner and beautiful daughter!

Second:  If you're religious, I need prayers.  If you're not, send karma.  I now live with two teenaged girls.

Hurricane Dora has sent some thick cloud cover to my neighborhood, enough to make the sun shy this morning.  I got up at a quarter to five to find it totally dark outside.  Last night, I fell asleep imagining how I would take my time and carefully monitor my injured leg as I went on a short, but quite hilly run this morning.  When I woke, my leg was stiff and wouldn't loosen.  I ditched the planned run in favor of an easier, but slightly longer route; a four mile out and back with just one smaller hill.

I hit the road by 5 am and trusted myself enough to bring my stopwatch.  I couldn't see a thing and briefly considered returning indoors to stumble around the bedroom while I looked for my headlamp.  I figured I'd bothered my wife enough looking for my right shoe already and it would be light soon enough.

The first intersection is 3/4 of a mile down the road and it's a drop of about 200 feet in elevation.  I did a great job of running under control, very slow...painfully slow.  Well, actually pain-free slow.  As I ran I thought about a lot of things, I got in my own head.  That's what I missed most about running.

I completed the 4 miles in just under 42 minutes.  My leg was tight on the last 3/4's of a mile, but my vigilance hopefully prevented too much damage.  It wasn't quite a workout, but it was nice to run.

But now that I'm cooled off, stretched and iced, the injured leg is quite painful and tight.  My gait is slightly impaired, but I don't think it's a set back.  I'm thinking that my next run will be a short 2 or 3 mile run on a treadmill on Monday.  Tomorrow I'll have a clear idea of what's going on with the leg.

In the meantime, I will take the recovery VERY slowly.  Even after I'm pain free, I'll limit running to 3 days a week for the first two pain free weeks.  I'll probably not resume where I left off until September.  But hey, that's alright.  I'll ride my bike for cardio and continue to strengthen and improve flexibility in the meantime.

When I do come back, I'll be stronger than before because of the experience.

Today I rode my motorcycle to Tucson for a small job regarding math curriculum with ASU.  The start time was 8 am and the ride up was AWESOME.  We were done by noon and I ate some sushi for lunch...mmmm.

I needed to pick up a few things for my bicycle ride tomorrow, so I had to drive my motorcycle through town.  Remember, it's Tucson and it's July.  While it's cloudy at my home 60 miles south, it's substantially hotter in Tucson even when it's NOT cloudy at my home.

The bike idled at a red light. Red lights must have been a theme.  One light liked me so much, it turned red again after I waited through the first cycle.  Red lights and sweat.

Heat.  My feet, through my boots, could feel the asphalt's heat.  I thought about how bad it would be to wreck, how much worse it would be to lay in a heap on that hot asphalt.

The 100 cubic inch air cooled v-twin thumped.  Each thump sent a wave of heat rising from below toasted my legs and torso.  While the sun had been shy in the morning at home, she was angry at me here.

I'm rehearsing my route as I bake at the red light.  When's that turkey thermometer going to pop off?  I'm going to get some new water bottles and maybe some shorts if the sales are good.   I'm riding my bicycle from my home to a town twenty miles north of Tucson tomorrow...  I've got a degree in math.  That means I should be able to figure out a lot of problems other people can't solve.  And yet...wait, is this some sort of autism?  Am I crazy?  October is nice!

At that moment, I notice a runner with a white t-shirt draped over his head taking slow strides.  Hallucination?  If so, they're multiplying.  On the other side of the street a woman is running.  This is madness.  Then I see, farther down the street, another man running.  He was moving his arms in a strange fashion like swatting at bugs, though I doubt any where there at the time.  Tucson, by the way, has the most psychologically unstable bums on the planet.  Apparently, its runners are following suit.  Well, when in Rome...or when in Tucson, exercise in the heat.

The ride is on for tomorrow.  I'm excited and nervous.  It's been a while since I've ridden that far and I've never done a ride like this...one direction.  It's going to be great.