Its Been Awhile

Yes, OK, so its been awhile since I've written anything here. It has also been awhile since I've run any races or worked out in general. The reason is because I began to experience a series of injuries, one after the other. And to be honest, these constant injuries just wore me down. It got to the point where instead of trying to achieve a respectable time in a race I was simply trying to complete one entire race without re-injuring anything. And I was not succeeding.

I believe I limped across the finish line of 3 Cotton Row Runs in a row. I also limped through an entire 5K race in Somerville, Tennessee one year. Yes, I limped the ENTIRE race. Pulled a hamstring. I was SO mad that I did the race anyway. But obviously my state of mind by that point was not very optimistic.

Also contributing to my workout unhappiness was the fact that for 3 years straight I was somewhat limited to running on a treadmill. I had a workout partner running beside me, which helped. But he injured his knee while stretching one day. Yes, stretching. That was all he was doing. But that knee injury stayed with him and got progressively worse until today, where he is not running at all anymore. And neither am I.

I no longer have a gym membership. My employer has a room they call a gym. We call it a storage closet where a bunch of weights are piled. But they insist that it is a gym. Or as Human Resources calls it, a 'workout space.' Yeah, not much space there, but at least there is an Olympic bar and some Olympic plates. Theoretically I could squeeze in there and do an actual weight lifting workout.

My workouts lately have consisted of nothing more than climbing a staircase that goes from the ground level up to the 8th floor, which is as high as it goes. Considering my injury-plagued history I have been taking this slowly. I did this climb daily for a very long time before upping my intensity to a light run up the stairs. Even so, three times I have had to stop because of an injury to my knee. Its on old injury, but it comes back whenever it detects me trying to exercise and reminds me that it is there. It usually takes about a week for it to return to normal so that I can resume my stair climbing again. This last time, due to an unexpected office move that required me and several other men in the group to move everyone else's desks for them, the injury lasted closer to 3 weeks. It was nearly healed when I was drafted to help with the move. But it seems much better today.

I know this is not exciting. Very little about this blog is terribly exciting. I'll admit I did this on purpose, to some extent. For those of you still reading, if you were aware of my previous blog then you likely have noticed that I have gone to great lengths to make sure this blog is nothing like it. Its not that I didn't like the previous blog. Its just that I wanted to do something different, more for me than anything else, and with less cussing and nudity.

Lacking Motivation

It's been so long since I've last blogged that Blogger seems to have locked up my page. I can't even get the URL to come up. How funny.

Anyway, over the past month, which is about how long its been since I wrote last, I've been battling this injury and that one. I even ran a 5K race with a pulled hamstring because I was just so sick and tired of always feeling like I couldn't do what I wanted due to the latest in an endless stream of stupid injuries.

One thing all these injuries have done, though, is to take away my motivation. I don't have any real reason to train anymore. I have a race coming up, the Warrior Dash, but there is no hope of my being able to run up those hills with a hamstring injury nagging at me and calves that are perpetually ready to let go any any moment. I have thought long and  hard about whether I am even going to train for it and try to go. I've just about decided not to bother. Last week I skipped the treadmill and went to one of the only hills anywhere near this Godforsaken city to run 'sprints' repeatedly up it. I put sprints in quote marks because my hamstring makes it impossible for me to truly sprint. The best I can do is carefully stride in sprint form, as if I were truly sprinting, but not quite. I could feel everything in my legs straining close to the limit, wanting to strain something - a calf or hamstring or perhaps something new.

I've had it. I'm still training, but not for any race. At this point I'm barely able to make myself even get on the stupid treadmill. On Monday I jacked up the elevation on the treadmill little by little, until I had it as high as it would go, and I fartleked on it. But after that I was so sore and stiff that I couldn't do jack squat on Wednesday. On Friday I just felt no motivation at all. I wanted to get on a bike or lift weights or something, anything except meander along on a treadmill watching the speed to see if I was even moving fast enough to be worth the trouble. I started running goofy out of sheer boredom. I did the Phoebe, from the episode of Friends when she went running with Rachel and ran like a goof. I ran like Elaine dances on Seinfeld. I ran like Kramer. At one point the guy running next to me commented that he thought I might break the treadmill. I was just so bored and sick of it all I really didn't care.

So this is where I am right now. I don't think I'm going to attempt the Warrior Dash. There is another 5K that same weekend just down the street from my house. I might attempt that one, but the last time I did one of these local 5Ks I ran the entire way with a bad hamstring. It was a disaster.

That's been my whole year, really, a disaster.

Wounded Warrior

I'm running 3 times per week now, always on a treadmill, so the environment is heavily controlled and always the same. The only thing that is changing is what I'm watching on the TV while I try to run.

My calf injury problem is getting worse. My left calf has bothered me repeatedly. A good wrap seemed to stop that. For awhile. But then my unwrapped right calf went out on me. So I wrapped it as well.

And just this week my left calf, even with the wrap, went out on me. I felt it going and jumped off the treadmill immediately, limping over to the stationary bicycle to finish my workout. But come Friday, which is today, it was bothering me so badly that I never got beyond the fast walking stage of my warm-up and even then it was hurting. And yes, it was wrapped.

I've been trying to strengthen both of my problematic calves with toe raises after every run. My calf muscles feel bigger and tighter, but they are apparently no more durable than they were before.

An article I read said that as runners get older all the usual injuries - hamstring, quadriceps, gluteus - become less and less problematic. But the calves start to become the real weakness, the main source of trouble. I can't imagine why this is. And I can't help but think that it isn't the years of running that have caused this, but something else, something I'm doing wrong.

Every day at work I am either tired at some point when I can't afford to be tired or else bored to death. So I drink coffee. I've had a friend who is a professional trainer tell me that she thinks coffee is bad and that I should avoid it. But she didn't say it causes pulled muscles or strained calves specifically. I drink it black. And I try to drink a lot of water throughout the day to make sure I'm not dehydrated.

I've developed a habit of drinking a Coke with my lunch. Sometimes its Orange Crush. I don't sip on this sort of drink all day like some people do. I just have the one drink and when lunch is over and the Coke is gone I don't have any more. But Coke does tend to dehydrate a person.

Far too many of my lunches have involved going out to eat. Restaurant food takes a lot better than my sandwich, but it is very bad for me. I wonder if this alone could be causing this problem?

After every workout I drink a gigantic glass of milk mixed with creatine, whey or casein protein, amino acids and various other GNC-approved runner's cocktail stuff. Then I shower and after that I try to either ice or massage my arches and calves. Lately, with all of the injuries, I've been doing mostly icing.

The more calf raises I do, the more my arches seem to be talking to me in the mornings when I get out of bed. To be fair, this coincides with my calves bothering me and so I'm icing and not doing much massaging or rolling tennis balls under my feet. I returned to the tennis ball tonight after my run. My feet thanked me for it. Then I used The Stick on my calves and they, too, seemed appreciative.

I have another race in about a month. I really need to figure this problem out and get it resolved. I realize that not many people are reading this blog, but any help or advice anyone has to offer is greatly appreciated. Any ideas?

Argh!!!

Monday I returned to running again. In fact, I had a phenomenal run on Monday. I ran faster than I have all year. And I felt great. What a surprisingly good Monday!

Wednesday was a great beginning. I started my warm-up. The guy I've been running with, more or less, never warms up. He jumps on the treadmill and cranks it up to his top speed. Then he just runs at that speed for 3 miles. Wa-la, he's done. I have this long, careful process I always go through where I slowly build up speed, from fast walking to a jog to finally working my way up to my actual intended speed.

Ah, but not today. Today I felt great. Especially after Monday's awesome run. So today I jumped on my treadmill and started walking. The other guy jumped on his treadmill and cranked up the motor, running flat out. I rapidly skipped past the fast walking to a slow run. But I was bumping up against the handle already. This was too slow.

So I sped up. I sped up to the top speed I ran on Monday. Yay me. This was going well!

I ran at a good solid speed for 1.33 miles. I felt great. A little stiff, but mostly great.

Then my calf pulled.

Oh no, not the left calf, the calf I've injured and reinjured over and over. No, this was the right calf. This was the only calf I have been able to rely on year after year while the left calf was a constant problem.

As soon as I felt the pain I leaped off the treadmill. I stretched and limped around the gym. I stretched some more. I used the rollers on a lower back machine to work my calf like a massage roller. I stretched some more. No good. It's hurt.

Dammit.

Wednesday

I've been fairly consistent with my workouts since starting back up again. I've made it into the weight room at least 3 times per week, each week, usually 4. When I've been in pain and unable to run I've either biked or used the elliptical. I've stuffed myself with protein and other recovery-oriented chemicals following my workouts and then slept like a corpse from total exhaustion.

But my strategy of trying to get my speed up without first getting my whole body back into the workout groove hasn't worked so well. My knee hurting and swelling I guess I can deal with. I've been pushing the speed and that puts added stress on the knee joint. But when my problematic calf gave me a twinge of pain and a threat of taking me out of this race one more time I took it as a big warning.

Yesterday, just to be cautious, I started walking and very slowly raised the treadmill speed one tenth of a second at a time. Even when I finally started running I kept raising the speed very slowly and very carefully. I never reached the speeds I've been running in previous workouts. I just reached a speed that I felt I could hold without my knee hurting or my calf tearing or cramping. It wasn't the speed I wanted, but I want to not be hurt more than I want to finally run a decent time again after 2 years in a row limping across the finish line in well over 30 minutes.

I didn't work out at all today. I had been working out 4 days per week, Monday through Thursday. I'm starting to believe that I'm trying to leap into this too quickly and all I'm going to do is reinjure myself just in time to not be able to run my race. So I'm cutting back, slowing down, and lowering my aim.

My new goal is to run the Cotton Row Run from start to finish without any injuries popping up and making me limp or walk prior to my crossing the stupid finish line. Reaching for the stars, I know. But considering the injury troubles I've had in the last 2 races I'm thinking this might be the best idea for me right now.

Sorry if this isn't very inspiring. If my workouts go better I may raise my aim a little. Otherwise, this is probably for the best. One injury-free race and then I will aim higher.

Not gonna be me

Augh! Skunk!

Coming soon ...

OK, my Wordless Wednesday post is scheduled to go in about 12 hours, but I wanted to post this real quick just because, I guess, this is my fitness blog ... mostly.

I ran tonight. I skipped my race last Saturday. I wasn't feeling my best. Even so I thought I could have done it and would have done OK. I ran tonight. This is my first run since the Cotton Row, whenever the heck that was ... months ago? So I'm accustomed to the first mile feeling like hell. And I didn't walk as long as I usually do to warm up because it is getting dark sooner and I didn't want to go to the gym and run on the treadmill. I ran my neighborhood, complete with wild animals, as the sun was going down. I think I went a mile and a half, maybe 2. It wasn't a long run by anyone's standards. A paraplegic could run farther and probably faster. I had no energy, no speed, and no lung power at all. Blah. I was wheezing like a beginner. I never really fell into a good groove like I usually do. For a moment I thought I was going to, but the sun going down convinced me to turn for home early. As I did I had to jog (I hate that I'm a jogger now instead of a runner) up a small hill. It was no big deal. I mean, for a decent runner this hill wasn't even a pimple in the road. But I was wheezing along like an asthmatic old pensioner. And most pathetic of all, even as I told myself that I wasn't going to stop at the top of the hill and instead go on to the same spot where I started running I stopped and walked. I didn't even get up to the top of the hill. I was like 3 feet from the top when I stopped. That is TRULY pathetic. I love hills. I love conquering hills. I couldn't even keep going long enough to reach the top of this tiny bump in the road.

And then I saw the reason all the animals in my neighborhood have been so nervous and on edge for the past few weeks. As I passed a driveway I saw something  coming out of the pipe that crosses underneath the driveway apron. It was a big old black skunk. And there was something odd about it. It was standing  there facing me, but it's tail was still sticking out of the pipe. No wait, it was two skunks! No wait, it was a family of skunks living in the pipe! Aaaaah, now I get it. My cats can smell these things and know they're around. This is why they don't want to go outside anymore. And this is probably why no one has reported seeing the bobcats in awhile. Ah well, it's a trade-off. The skunk looked at me and hunkered down like he was getting ready for trouble, but I guess he could tell I was wheezing like a soon-to-be-dead moose and decided I was no threat. I kept walking. He ignored me.  And I went  home to take a shower and die.

I have the Warrior  Dash coming up in 3 weeks. 3 weeks!!!! I'm so totally not ready.

Mom, is that you? Maybe we should follow you home just in case.

Some Saturday Stuff

My workouts are in a state of chaos lately. After the last race I ran, the Cotton Row, my calf injury stopped me from running for awhile, so I was biking. But for some reason I seem to have a problem with my heel now. I think a ligament in my foot is inflamed, but I'm not sure. Whatever the case, biking has been my thing. And the bobcats make the idea of jogging through my neighborhood somewhat less appealing anyway. But this thing with my heel concerns me. I've already got a nagging calf problem. This makes what, 3 years in a row this calf thing has impacted me? If I add a nagging heel problem to it then my running days may be done.

One of the most popular things I've ever posted here was when I talked about the lunatic at my office stealing my coffee cup. When it first began the CIO's assistant immediately said "It's those people who sit around you, that group." And she specifically pointed a finger at 2 women in particular. I don't know why I do this, but I said "no, its not them. They're both nice to me."  I shouldn't have, but that was my reaction. All this time later I realize that I wasn't their first victim and the assistant had reason to point the finger at them without even hesitating. My shielding of them only egged them on.

I researched the worst one of them on the internet and found her various social media profiles. They were unintentionally hilarious in a pretentious, narcissistic way. Her name is Melanie. Her profile photo features her pretending to laugh as she holds a glass of wine. But it doesn't look quite right somehow. It looks like she's trying too hard to convince you. Anyway, she's the source of all the trouble. I hadn't even worked at this company for very long before I had overhead enough of Melanie's endless drama and personal phone calls to realize that she is a huge drama queen who just loves to stir up trouble and then sit in the middle of it and insult everyone caught up in her whirlwind of chaos. It makes her feel important. And that is really all she cares about. Half the time she was on the phone with family members screaming at them for being inferior idiots. Usually it was her mother she was abusing, complaining that her mother called her for help too often and usually for stupid things (Facebook.) But she loved it. She loved having them dependent upon her for certain things so she could yell and abuse them whenever they needed her. And she loved Facebook so much that she talked openly about how much time she was spending at work updating her Facebook profile or worrying over what some random guy 'meant' with his latest status update (whether it was about her.)

Like all narcissists, she would frequently get bored and abuse people to entertain herself. Stealing my coffee cup was her way of making a boring day fun for her. Never mind the trouble it caused for me. Never mind the trouble it caused her entire team after I asked HR to put a stop to it and they dragged her coworkers in and talked to them. She didn't care. She just liked to stir things up and abuse anyone unfortunate enough to come in contact with her.  Luckily for me, I don't have to come into contact with her anymore. I left that company and went somewhere else.

Aside from that, my life is pretty uninteresting right now. I'm studying a lot for my work. I have also been trying to focus on a project for my own personal benefit, but can't seem to stay motivated. The fact that my laptop died and seems to have lost all my work didn't help any, though. I don't want to start over. If I was struggling with motivation before, losing all my previous work has made the struggle a lot harder. Outside it is July and that means hot and humid. There is hot and then there is July in The South hot. It hasn't gotten above the mid-90s yet, but we're on our way there. I can run in heat up to about 95 degrees and not suffer so badly that I have to stop. But after 95 I don't feel like the run is doing me much good. The heat takes too much of a toll and I don't accomplish much. Maybe I'll find a new gym near my new workplace and get back on the dreaded treadmill until summer is past the worst part? Oh speaking of gyms ....

I haven't lifted weights in months. I stopped weightlifting and focused exclusively on running and biking prior to running the Cotton Row race. Since then I still haven't gotten back into weights again. I really should hurry up and find a good place to lift because it isn't good for me to go for so many months without doing any weightlifting at all. But then again, in my current situation it might not be such a bad thing because .....

I have a nagging back injury that won't seem to go away. I'm not even sure what I did to set this off, but it keeps coming back and it hurts like crazy. Sometimes it makes my neck hurt, but only on one side. Other times it is my upper back that is killing me. But again, only on one side. It's a truly strange back injury. It only hurts on one side. This is something I don't really know what to do with.

Do any of you have ideas about this? Any of you ever experienced a back injury that only seemed to hurt you on one side of your body? What did you do for it?

Holy Bobcats, Batman!

OK, so it's been over a week since I blogged, if I remember correctly. In that time there has been some chaos, but I don't want to blog about most of it. The main thing, since this seems to be my fitness blog as much as anything, and I'm not really sure how that happened since it wasn't my intent, but I haven't been able to run or walk all week. Partly it is because I've been out of town. Partly it is because of my injured calf not being healed enough for a good solid run. And partly it is because of certain wild animals currently roaming our neighborhood.

We have a family of bobcats living near my house.

I wanted to put that previous statement in a line all by itself so you could think about it for a second as your eyes scanned down to the next sentence. Yes, bobcats.

I was talking to my neighbors the other day about how unhappy we are that some douchemonkey bought a 10 acre plot of land around the corner from my street and just leveled the trees, leaving behind broken, ruined trees and a big mud hole full of water and mosquitoes. It's been that way for over 6 months with absolutely nothing more being done with this land. It looks like a tornado armed with a chainsaw ripped through a single 10 acre stretch of land and destroyed everything on it. But it wasn't a tornado. It was a douchebag. And I know he destroyed all 10 acres despite it now being an uncrossable mudhole/swamp thanks to him because I can see it on satellite view courtesy of our all-seeing, perpetually watching, electronically spying government. This issue has me more than a little irritated. So I mentioned it to our neighbors while we were sitting on their back patio.  And this is how my neighbor responded:

Hello, we're new to the neighborhood ...

"There is a family of bobcats over there now, too. I've seen them twice. In broad daylight. I've seen them running across the road there, with three babies."

I took a keen interest in this for self-preservation reasons. "Um, across the road where? Where the trees are leveled, right where I go running every day?"

"Yep. I'd carry something with you in case you encounter them if I were you."

Oh, so awesome. What shall I carry? A camera perhaps? It'd make an awesome photo, wouldn't it?

"Here's a great shot of 4 bobcats that I took right before I was mauled by the big one. Isn't she pretty? Look how big her paws are. Those claws are razor sharp, too, believe me."

How about a gun? If you're a runner then I'm sure you can imagine how annoying it would be having a heavy steel gun banging against you as you jog along. It'd beat you to death.

One person suggested I wear a shoulder holster. That way the gun could beat my ribs instead of my groin like a fanny pack would do. I'm all for choosing to sacrifice ribs over groin, especially since its impossible to stand, let alone run, after being hit in the groin. But I'd really prefer not to get either ribs or groin pounded by a metal object while running. And carrying it in my hand isn't a good idea either, especially out here in the country where people might mistake me for a man running with gun in hand for some evil reason and decide to apprehend me. Country people are doers and they'll take matters into their own hands if they think the situation calls for it.

Imagine driving down a country road in your big Dodge Ram pickup truck when you come upon a man in running shorts and a sweaty shirt, all red faced, running down the side of the road with a gun in his hand. You'd consider hitting him and then calling the police, wouldn't you? Maybe he's running because of something bad he did? The idea that he might be running from a family of bobcats probably wouldn't be the first thought to enter your mind.

So, someone else mentioned pepper spray. All of my canisters of pepper spray are older than dirt. So I may have to make a trip to the store and see if I can find a brand new can of it that is big enough to make me feel safe running with bobcats, but small enough to still be carry-able while running. I hope so because I can't really think of anything else that would work. Everyone I talked to seems to feel expert enough on the subject of what works to fend off a wild bobcat that they all agree on pepper spray. I just wonder how the  heck they know this?

This is Getting Monotonous

This is jogging?

Monday I went for another run. With my left knee giving me a really bad time my runs have turned into more of a 'run' with the sarcastic single quotes around the word the way the media does when a conservative is being mentioned. I end up walking for a very long way until my knee finally says "OK, I guess I could try running now."

I can't even remember what a good run feels like

But on Monday I was impatient and not in the mood to walk forever, so after about a half mile I broke into a run anyway. It was sort of a "ready or not, let's get it on" sort of thing. I ran slooooow. I mean, it was what people mean when they say 'jogging' instead of "I went running." Does that make sense? My mind was a million miles away and I wasn't paying any attention to my pace. So my pace was slow. On the plus side, because I wasn't paying much attention, I ran much further than I have in at least a month by just zoning out and trotting along. There are a lot of hills out here and I hit them all. Well, up to a point. I could have run farther and hit many more, but I had a set course in mind. I've taken to walking down the steepest hill just as a precaution for my cranky knee.

Gravity running - it still counts

I jogged about 2 1/2 miles before I reached the top of the steepest hill, gasping from the pollen-clogged air which I had been sucking deep into my lungs as I tried to maintain good running form while climbing the hill. I sort of let gravity take me to the bottom on the other side and then trotted a little further. Then stopped and walked the rest of the way home. Somewhere I have a map where I wrote down the distances to various points along my route. I think I was about a half mile from the house when I started to walk.

My foot hurts

Later that night I noticed that my heel was bruised on my left foot. I have no idea how this happened. My running shoes are padded like little foot-shaped pillows under each heel. I've run with far, far less padding in a sole before. I can't imagine how my heel got bruised.

So, with a bruised heel, running on Tuesday seemed like a bad idea. Walking didn't seem much better, either. So out came the bike. I pumped up my tires, which clearly needed air the last time I rode as I could feel the rims of the wheels transferring bumps and ridges up through the bike frame into my butt. And then off I pedaled, into the wild green and asphalt yonder.

My bike is kind of old

It was a decent ride, not fast, but with endless hills I couldn't avoid. By the time I arrived back home again my legs and lower back definitely felt satisfied that they had endured a workout.

Today I woke up and decided to try running again. My heel seemed better and my race is coming up fast. So I went outside, walked even less than I did on Monday, and started jogging. I felt agonizingly slow, which I was, but my goal was to keep going the entire way and cut out more of the walking, so that I started running maybe a quarter mile from home and then planned to stop running the same distance from the house. That would still leave me plenty of distance for a proper cool down.

My knee doesn't feel right

Somewhere around 2 miles my left knee suddenly started complaining. And I do mean suddenly. Everything was fine and then suddenly it wasn't. Ouch! I briefly considered trying to continue on, running through the pain in the hopes that it would go away by itself. But it's less than a month until the race and I remember what happened last year when I tried to run through the pain in my calf. It wrecked my calf and I wasted a race just limping along the entire course afraid to accelerate for fear that I'd reinjure my calf. By the time the main race for the year came along I was still unsure of my calf, although it did ultimately hold up.  So, lesson learned, I stopped and walked.

It even hurt to walk on it. So I walked more carefully. I came to the bottom of the steepest hill and began trying to jog up it. I thought "I'll just stride up this, working on my form, and then stop running again. My knee won't mind that." But it did and I stopped and went back to walking pretty quickly.

My new best friend

I made it home just fine. My knee isn't screaming or swollen or anything. I think I'm going to become addicted to Chrondroitin or however you spell it. I should have taken some before I ran instead of just after, but I didn't. Next time I won't forget.

Back to biking

Anyway, looks like tomorrow its back to the bike. And Friday I have an appointment so I don't know if I'll get to run or bike before breakfast or have to do it after, with food in my stomach. Part of my goal with these terrible runs is to run first thing when I wake up so that my body has no fuel. The theory is that this forces your body to use fat for fuel, which doesn't feel very good, but it helps you lighten up before a race. Of course, if my thyroid is still sabotaging me then all I'm burning is muscle. I need to make an appointment to be retested so the doctor can see if the very weak thyroid medicine they gave me is accomplishing anything.

If you'll throw this ball for me I'll stop chasing you

So, that's my exciting update of my adventures in jogging. No snakes this time, but a big yellow Lab did run out of the yard as if he was going to eat me, only to get right in front of me and wag his tail at me until I reached down and scratched his ears and chest for a bit.  Oh, and a friend sent me a link to a Sprint Triathlon coming up this month. After yesterday's bike ride I don't think I'm up to it. The bike ride in this triathlon is only listed as being 8 miles, but all I'm biking is maybe 3 or 4 and that seems to do a number on me. Apparently I'm still too pathetic to swim, bike 8 miles, and then run 3.1 miles. I still have a lot more work to do just for a tiny little Sprint Tri, which is the shortest triathlon there is.

Pathetic.

That Was a Workout??

Skinny

 So I went for a pre-breakfast walk, run, walk, dry-heave workout outside on Thursday prior to some nasty storms coming in. It was terrible. Or rather, I was terrible. Supposedly everyone who wants to cut weight before a race runs first thing in the morning on an empty stomach in order to maximize the fat-burning effects of the workout. They claim that first thing in the morning your body has no fuel to burn, so it has no choice except to burn fat. That is, unless your body is messed up like mine and then it may burn muscle instead.


No fat, no muscle

 So I got up and went out to give this a try. Keep in mind that I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination and I hate, hate, HATE running early in the morning, especially on a totally empty stomach. Now add to that the fact that I am having to walk a great deal prior to breaking into a run in order to get my knee warmed up enough to let me run at all and you have half a workout wasted just for the knee warm-up part.


Electric blue and speed walking

 I went out in my awesome electric blue running shoes. They're obnoxious and they'll blind you if you look directly at them for too long. I walked as fast as possible until, to be honest, I couldn't stand to walk anymore. My knee didn't technically indicate being ready to run. But I started running anyway. Oh, and my allergies were attacking me like mad. This was the first outdoor run I've done in a long time. Right off the bat I had to run up a steep hill. My knee complained the entire time, so I walked down the other side, which was steeper. Then I went back to running. I quickly became aware of the fact that my run pace wasn't much faster than my walk pace and I probably looked like an idiot.

Then I passed a snake.



You sure run slow. Why aren't you faster? Maybe I'll chase you.

 It was a tiny snake, curled up on the side of the road right at my feet as I sloooooowly ran by barely making any progress at all. At first I thought it was a piece of rope. Then I saw the head. Then it flicked its tongue and I said "oh, snake, how awesome." And I ran on, glancing behind me just in case the evil snake decided to chase me because, you know, they do that.

It didn't.

Here comes the sun

My run was terrible. I felt terrible. I had no energy at all and no speed. Also, I was badly sunburned last weekend and this was the first day I had gone out into the sunlight since then. I could feel the sun hitting my burned skin and it hurt.

Why so serious?

I ran to the bottom of more hills and trotted up the first hill. I thought about running on up the rest, but decided that I needed to make this an easy run, just to assure that I felt well enough to run again tomorrow. So I stopped and turned around, heading back the way I came.

Snake! Again.

Back to the first hill I climbed, and this is the steeper side. I stopped and walked the rest of the way home from there. And my God, I felt like death!

This is so much fun. I feel awesome.

 So, this running on an empty stomach thing, if it takes any weight off me and makes me lighter for race day, is hard. And if it doesn't take any weight off me, because lets face it, a personal trainer tried everything he could think of for a year and a half and it had NO EFFECT, then it's just a major pain in my ass. I hate it. I feel like death running with absolutely no fuel whatesoever inside of me.

And then for the rest of the day I felt like death. And I STILL hurt the next day, mostly from the sun on my burns, so much that I didn't run. Blah!

Next day, no run

Off With Their Heads!

A lot has been going on, but not a lot has been going on that I can blog about.

I've been going to the gym. I've run the treadmill a few times, which bores me to death. But the treadmill allows me to focus on things that need work, like old injuries and bad form and various weaknesses. It's mind-numbing, but if I am to avoid an injury like I had to deal with last year at this time I think it is necessary.

I've been focusing mostly on legs lately, because of the coming race. I hadn't intended to join a gym just to prepare for a race, but that's only because I had forgotten that the race was coming up so soon. So far a big problem I've uncovered is my knee. It doesn't seem to be very happy. It's been several days since my last run, but it still hurts. It's a cranky bastard.

I found ... I don't know the official word for it .. a jump box? Many gyms these days are reacting to the rediscovery of the value of old-fashioned ideas like kettle bells and medicine balls and dynamic exercises like jumping. So they're equipping their gyms with stands for people to jump onto and off of. My new gym has 2, one very small and one larger stand. It looks like a stool that you'd drag around a library to reach higher shelves, but in fact it is for jumping on. I've been using it. It's easy to get because no one else uses it. I jump and jump and jump. And my knee doesn't much like it.

I also did a few sets of negatives with the leg extension machine, focusing heavily on my weaker and most frequently injured knee. I make it do extra sets. I go heavier and lift the weight with both legs and then force my weaker knee to slowly lower it. I do this over and over until my leg feels like it is going to fall off. I suspect this has something to do with my knee still hurting me all through the weekend. But I don't know that for sure. Hopefully its just soreness and complaining from the exercise and not an actual injury. With this particular knee there is just no telling.

"Off with their heads!"

Things at the office are starting to get ugly. This has nothing to do with Drama Queen or my coffee cup. It relates more to an attitude much higher up that filters down and affects all the rest of us. It's a bit like Alice and Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts' - "off with their heads!" No mistakes or its your head. Ah, but go fast, fast, fast and no mistakes. Faster, dammit, but NO mistakes. Go blindingly fast, don't slow down to think, but don't make even a perceived mistake that isn't a mistake or else its off with your head. Did you ever see the episode of "I Love Lucy" where she worked in a chocolate factory and the assembly line kept going faster and faster and faster? Yeah, its a lot like that.

So anyway, I have to stop here. I'd like to say more, but so much can't be said openly until I change my current situation.




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