[ ] Abandoned Blog

An abandoned blog is a sad thing. This is not an abandoned blog. Sure, I haven't posted shit an a long time, but there's a very good reason for that. I haven't had shit to blog about. Sure, there's been plenty of blog material coming from having a two-year-old and a wife that's 9+ months preggers with our second little bundle of joy and poop, but this is not one of those blogs. This is supposed to be about the aging distance runner, and this aging distance runner hasn't run a step in weeks. Once Cupcake finally drops her womb-load I'll start running again. It'll probably only be 30 minutes at a time in between feedings when both Juniors are napping (and when I should probably be napping too), but I can't fucking wait. I'm really tired of being old, fat and slow. Maybe someday I can just be old.

Back in Bidness

As of Thursday last week I've changed my medication from Etodolac to Anchor Steam, and there has been much rejoicing.  As of Sunday last I've started running again.  It's more of a ludicrously slow jog than a run, but that really doesn't matter.  Every day, except for one day off, I've started my run fully expecting it to end in disaster.  My bad knee would always hurt at the beginning, but not bad enough to make me quit.  Then it would get a little better and stay just well enough that I could finish the run I'd planned, but not much better.  Then it would be sore throughout the next day.  It was not encouraging.  Then Sunday morning Cupcake chased me out of the house, demanding that I take a little much-needed time for myself.  For once I didn't argue, and I went out to tackle the powerlines trail, which I completed without any problems with my knee.  That was encouraging.  Then I checked my training log and saw that I ran 52 miles last week, which isn't much less than I was doing before I got hurt.  That was also encouraging.  Today everything feels pretty normal, which is just great.  I guess I'm back in training until Junior Jr. squeezes his way through Cupcake's lady garden sometime in the beginning of August.  Woot!

A few thoughts even more random than usual:

1.  I can do seven pull-ups now.  This my be a Guinness Book world record for the most pull-ups ever achieved by a complete and total wuss.  I'll have to check.

2.  Beavis and Butthead have ruined children's books for me.  Whenever I read to Junior Sr., I'll invariably utter a word or phrase that'll make me chortle-snicker-whatever because it's funny, even though it shouldn't be.  Some examples:
"That night, Reggie showed me his junk."
"Fat raindrops began falling on Shrek's hot knob"

 I can't get through "Where the Wild Things Are" without breaking into a Tone Loc impersonation at least 6 or 7 times.  Help me.



3.  From a distance runner's perspective, gaining 10 pounds of flab feels the same as gaining 10 pounds of upper-body muscle mass which feels the same as duct-taping a 10 pound pork shoulder to your head.  Not that the 10 pounds I gained during my two months off is all muscle.  It's definitiely a combination of the three things mentioned above. Mmmm...pork products...

4.  Who puts four random thoughts into a blog? Not me, that's for sure.

Mmmmm...drugs...

I'm on drugs.  Somebody get me The Original Whizzinator!

Almost immediately following my last post, the minor pain in my POS knee get a lot worse and stayed that way for over a week.  Good times.  So I haven't run since then, except for one failed test where I jogged the 20 feet to the end of our driveway and had to stop.  After another trip to doctor and another $60 in co-pays I got a prescription for Etodolac, a heavy-duty anti-inflamatory with a list of nasty-sounding side effects long enough to make Happy Fun Ball blush.  I'll be taking it twice a day for three weeks for my tendonitis, which was almost certainly caused by all the stretching I did during my month off.  Oh...and no alcohol.  Argh!!!!  I'll continue to lose fitness and get fat, and I'll have to do it dead, stone sober.

And now, a word about shoes.

Back to the Grind

And by 'grind' I don't really mean training.  I'm only running every other day for a little while, so that's not really much of a grind.  No, the grind I'm talking about is the hot, bone-on-arthritic-bone action that's happening in my left knee with every step.  Squibilly flabbiddy doo!

That may be overstating the severity of the pain, but it's definitely beyond nagging, beyond irritating, and rapidly approaching super-fucking-annoying.  As expected, the month off with physical therapy didn't help at all.  At least it was only a month.  I remember when, as a young man, I had a bout of IT band syndrome that made running very painful.  My doctor at the time gave me the whole "rest it and do these exercises and we'll see if it improves."  When it didn't fucking improve after 6 months the guy says, "Okay.  Here's a shot of cortizone."  Two weeks later my knee is fine.  Jesus Jackhammering Christ, Doc.  How 'bout busting out the needle a little sooner...like before I get overweight, out of shape, and slow from not running for six months?

On Wednesday I went back to the shoe nazi and got some new Wave Inspires, hoping that might help.   It didn't...and those motherfuckers cost $115 now.  I may have to adopt Fat Ricky's shoe buying strategy pretty soon (Go to the running shoe store and buy the second cheapest pair of Asics).  I don't know if it was the new shoes or whether my now-less-weak-than-before hammies have altered my stride, but now I've got pain in a new spot altogether on the same knee.  I'd wager it's tendonitis.  Whatever.  It's time to shut the fuck up and plow through it.  As of tonight I've started medicating with Ibuprofen and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Tomorrow morning is Bay to Breakers, my favorite road race ever, in beautiful San Francisco, CA.  I won't be participating this year, but I'll be sending out good vibes and admiration to all those who are drunk and/or naked on a public street at 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning.  Cheers!

[ ] The Happiest Place on Earth

My month off from running continues.  I now haven't run a step in three weeks.  When I chase after Junior at the park or anywhere that he escapes his toddler straitjacket ($24.99 @ Babies R Us), I skip on my good leg.  It's kinda fun.

What's NOT kinda fun is Disneyland.  Cupcake is into it and is indroctrinating Junior into her little cult of animated films, 6-foot tall talking rats, ducks with shirts and ties but no pants, and $14 churros.  I humor her and tag along because I love her.  Stupid, lousy love....

We spent 3 days in Anaheim visiting Disneyland last week and it was exhausting.  Junior has all the patience of a meth-addicted hummingbird, so standing in lines for rides was not his cup of tea.  Nor was waiting for a shuttle bus...or riding a shuttle bus...or going through airport security...or sitting for an hour on an airplane...or having no beer available...basically all the things we had to do to make our Disney dreams come true.  I think Junior had some fun between tantrums, and we popped his air-travel cherry, so yeah...best vacation ever!

My month off, week #1

Here's what's been happening with me during my self-imposed 'vacation' from running as I attempt to fix my POS knee.

Day 1: Wednesday 4/18/12

Watched "The Descendents" with Cupcake. Not bad. If I were the director of that movie, and I was a little bit more of an asshole than I already am, I would've made Clooney do about 50 takes of the scene where he's running through the neighborhood in flip flops. Just sayin'.

Day 2: Thursday 4/19/12

Saw my doctor, got x-rays, made a physical therapy appointment for Saturday. When the nurse entered my vitals into the computer, it told her to ask me two questions. Question One: Do I do a fair amount of aerobic exercise? This must pop up when the patient's pulse is low. Mine was 45 beats/minute. I told her I've been running between 50 and 60 miles a week. She then asked, "So that would be...something like...3 days a week? 30 minutes a day?" I told her 7 days a week, about an hour at a time. That seemed to satisfy her curiosity. Question Two: Do I drink more than 5 alcoholic beverages a day? My answer:  "You buying?"

Day 3:  Friday 4/20/12

Stayed home from work because Cupcake was pregnant, sick, and had an additional, 'unmentionable' medical issue.  I'll spare everyone the gory details of the issue, but I did get to hear Cupcake shout, "MY ASSHOLE FUCKING HURTS SO BAD!" at least twice.

Day 4:  Saturday 4/21/12

Biked home from the Toyota dealership after dropping off our gangsta Prius for the 10,000 mile service.  Then it was off to Kaiser Permanente for a group class on rehabbing my knee.  Now I've got some exercises for strengthening my hammies and glutes that I'll be doing every day for the rest of my life.  Yay?  Then it was back on the bike to pick up the Prius with the new 23" rimzzz.  Holla!

Day 5:  Sunday 4/22/12

La la la la...la la la la...Elmo's song! La la la la...la la la la...Elmo's song!

Day 6:  Monday 4/23/12

Finished installing the chandelier Cupcake bought months ago.  There was a lot going on with this project.  Climbing around in the attic, cutting holes in the ceiling, installing a new electrical box, wiring, patching drywall, and then actually hanging this sucker on the ceiling.  Celebrated by doing my physical therapy exercises.

Day 7:  Tuesday 4/24/12

Cupcake made meatball subs for dinner, and they were marvelous.  After the feast, I did my rehab exercises.  Stretching is part of the exercises.  That's right.  I like to live dangerously.  I may have felt something move in my knee as I was exiting a standing quad stretch.  This seems like it should be bad, but it didn't hurt and afterward it actually felt pretty good, so maybe it was a move from Paintown to Smoothsville?  Probably not, but maybe...just maybe.  If the knee is now suddenly better, I'll have to amend my 'stretching causes injuries' theory to 'stretching toggles injuries.'

My Shit's Fucked Up

I very gingerly jogged about 6 miles last night, taking care with every step not to hurt myself, but I still hurt myself. I gotta stop doing that.

Done.

The new plan is to not run a step for one month. During that month, I'll be trying to strengthen my incredibly weak hamstrings and quads. I'm sure my doctor or doctors are going to recommend stretching.

As everyone should know by now, stretching causes injuries. But since I'm already injured, I shouldn't worry about that. Right? Then, if I stretch my injured leg, should I stretch the good one too, and risk hurting myself there? What happens if I start running again and have one stretched leg and one unstretched? How bad will that be? My mind is more boggled than Deion Sanders' was when he hosted the Miss USA pageant.

Anyway, here's the new theme song for thaoblogg. Enjoy!

[x] injured

And just like that, it was over.

After months of gradual deterioration, and a couple of weeks of pretty rapid deterioration, my oft-fucked-up left knee finally jumped its own personal shark about 3 minutes into last night's tempo run. When this has happened in the past, I've been able to get it back in action after a little while. Not this time. After three tries to get moving again, I had to give up and walk home. I guess now I'll be forced to see a doctor about it. Le sigh.

There's a chance I'll be able to run tonight, however. It may just be that I can't run fast in my fun, lightweight shoes anymore.

[x] Ass: kicked.

Friday I had the rare opportunity to run at lunchtime. Normally I go home at lunchtime to help get Junior down for his nap, and then run at night after Junior goes to bed. However, Cupcake wanted to get a pizza and watch War Horse on Friday night so at high noon I hauled my old bones over to Rancho San Antonio to do a fartlek on the powerlines trail.

On the powerlines trail, after a little warmup hill to get the juices a-flowin', there are 5 climbs to the top before heading back down the high meadow trail. The climbs vary in length and grade, with the first being the longest and the last being the steepest. The plan was to work the climbs as hard as possible and recover on the short drops between the climbs.

As I was making my way up the climbs, working as hard as I could, I thought to myself, "Self...I don't think you're going any faster up these hills than you do when you're working a lot less hard. Are you really getting any sort of workout in besides a nice run in the hills?" It took me a day to find the answer to that question, which was a resounding "Yes!" It's Monday night, and I'm still sore from that motherfucker. Guess I was doing it right.

A Small Setback and More Track

Nothing can keep me from my nightly runs. Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing except home improvements that wind up being a lot more difficult than they were supposed to be. Nothing except that. Nothing except that and a kid with the measles. Nope. Nothing but those two things. And not sleeping. Nothing but those things can make me take three days off like I did earlier this week.

Shockingly, one side effect of the measles vaccine is the measles. Who knew?

Fremont High School has now finished locking up the front gate to their football stadium and wonderful new track. Boo. Fortunately there are at least a couple more easy access points from within the campus itself. On a Wednesday night, the campus is still wide open as students practice their French horns or their dance routines or whatever other activities their parents pressure them to do. Works for me.

Last night, in attempt to regain what little speed I once had, I re-did the old 6x200,4x400,6x200 with lots of recovery, workout that I did 3 weeks ago. While still very slow, I was noticeably less slow than last time...on the order of 2 seconds per 400m. Guh-roo-vee. That, and Junior Sr. sleeping through the night without a single wakeup, has me feeling optimistic again. Cue the doomswitch!

A Wedding, a Funeral, and an Update.

Bring da amber lamps! It's the Very First Occasional ThaOBlogg Travelogue!

Dateline: St. Paul, MN.

My grandmother Lillian (age 96) died in February, so on March 12th I hopped on a plane to attend her memorial service and spend a little time with the rest of the family.

In this case, a little time was about 12 hours, since I landed at MSP around noon on a Monday and got on a plane back to SJC at 6 AM the next day. I got to see some rarely-seen family members (basically all of them) and some extremely rarely-seen family members (hadn't seen aunt Marisa in about 30 years). I broke my beer-fast with a Bell's Porter, which was as delicious as I remembered it. I spent what will likely be my last night in the house where I grew up, as ThaOMomm and ThaODadd are preparing to move into a condo (no stairs, no yard maintenance). Maybe it was the wet weather and the brown, dormant grass of late winter, but my old neighborhood looked a hell of a lot dumpier than I remembered it. There were chickens roaming the streets fercrisesakes. I had a chance to run while I was there, but chose to spend all of my limited time either hanging out with the family or sleeping.

Dateline: Pasadena, CA.

On a much happier note, my good friend Rajiv got married on Saint Patrick's Day. Cupcake and Junior were kind enough to give me another one-day pass to attend. I got to meet the bride, who looked lovely and was incredibly nice and friendly. Good job, Raj. Here is the happy couple tearing it up during their first dance. Sorry for the craptacular camera work.



I got to hang out with Erin and Mike Oxlong* and their kids, which is always a hoot. My opinion of Los Angeles did not change. It's still a nightmare.

Dateline: The Vale, CA

Despite a small setback in Junior's sleeping (That Measels, Mumps, and Rubella vaccine does pack a wallop.), my mileage is creeping up into the respectable range. My last track workout of 4 x 1 mile was, on average, about 5 seconds/mile better than it was 3 weeks prior despite windy conditions. Monday's tempo run went well, too, with my pace edging ever closer to 6:00/mile. And I can now manage 3 pull ups...almost 4. Yee fucking ha!




* Not their real last name...duh. Their real last name is Oxinfected.

[ ] Race Toughness

So I broke my reconstructed race hymen on Saturday and it feels good. It feels so good, in fact, that I put together a racing schedule for myself for the upcoming months. More on that later.

Races are good for me and for anyone else who trains alone. When I run a race properly I can achieve a level of discomfort I just can't simulate in a workout. Alone on a dark track, nobody can see me get lazy during an interval. In a race, when I can't/don't push through the pain, then I get passed by bozos who have no business beating me, which is a real bummer. When the real pain hit in Saturday's race, I did not push through it. I did not push through it because I couldn't push through it because I'm not 'race tough' anymore. The only way for me to get 'race tough' is to race. So that's what I'm a-gonna do.

And now, the tentative racing schedule:

April 29, Great Race 4 Mile
May 13, Running of the Bulls 5k
June 16, Trail Quake Half-Marathon
July 15, Jungle Run Half-Marathon
September 28, Moonlight 5k
October 28, Morgan Hill Marathon
November 11, Home Run 5k

Look for me out there. I'll be the old dude in the Papa Smurf t-shirt.

Race Recaplet

Well, I ran the Juana Run 8k this morning. The short version is I started a little too fast, picked up a gorilla and the piano he was playing after 3 miles, and finished 10th or so in 28:25. Cupcake and Junior came out to watch and recorded my final waddle to the finish

Ludicrous Speed!

Another week, another trip to the track. Wednesday night I returned to Fremont High for a bunch of 200s and 400s. Once again, the track was open and no fences were climbed and no trespassing citations were issued. Once again, I was the only one out there. Once again I was reminded of how much speed I've lost in the past three and a half years.

Before I left the house there was a little drama. In preparation for my overnight trip to Minnesota for Grandma O's funeral, Cupcake tried to put Junior to bed. This is something she hadn't done since June 2011, when I took over the exclusive duties as part of Junior's sleep training. Results were mixed. No, Junior wouldn't go to sleep for his mama right away, but he did after a short period of screaming/crying. This never used to happen before. In the past, once he started crying, he would not stop for hours no matter what Cupcake or I tried. Good times.

Once I got to the track, the plan was to do some short, fast intervals with lots of recovery. 5 x (200m + 200m jog), 5 x (400m + 400m jog), 5 x (200m + 200m jog). This was the first time in a long time that I got up on my toes for some sprinting, and as expected the results landed somewhere between feeble and merely weak. I timed the quarters, which I ran all out, hard as I could, and they were all right about 75 seconds. That's a pace at which I once could cruise a 5k. No problem, though. I'm old, right? Maybe this will improve with training. Maybe that's just my new top end speed.

Junior slept through the night, and I woke up pretty sore Thursday morning. Yesterday's easy run home from work felt a bit gimpy, but in a good way. Tomorrow I race the Juana Run, which should be fun. After that, I'm gonna try to race once a month until Junior Jr. is born.

Word.

Beer Near

Back in August of 2010, my lovely and talented wife, to whom I refer on the blog as Cupcake, gave birth to our first child, an inexplicably large boy to whom I refer on the blog as Junior. Junior is healthy. Junior is cute as hell. Junior smiles and laughs a lot. For the first nine months of his life, Junior never slept. Okay…that’s an exaggeration, but not much of one. Junior never slept for more than 2-hours at a time at night. His naps topped out at 45 minutes. He would cry and scream for hours because he was so tired, but he just would not sleep. And since we were all living in a one-bedroom apartment at the time, Cupcake and I didn’t sleep either.

One of the consequences of not sleeping was, at least for me, not running. Another was eating a lot of take-out fast food. This will come as a surprise to exactly nobody, but I gained 20 pounds and completely fell apart physically. Once I got a little bit used to the not sleeping, the worst of my many aches and pains was in my lower back. It would come and go, but mostly it came and stayed. Initially I thought it was from the extra weight I was carrying (Junior), but eventually I formulated a ‘brown’ theory that it was the extra weight I was carrying (my gut). What “proved” my theory was a little experiment I did where I didn’t suck in my gut at all for a week. That was in November, and it seemed to help my back, and so operation get-svelte-again commenced. On December 1st, I was 170 doughy pounds.

At that time, Junior was doing a lot better with his night time sleeping. He would usually need me to attend to him only once or twice a night, and occasionally he would sleep solidly from 7 PM to 6 AM. Most importantly from a running standpoint, he was almost always asleep from 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM, so I could get in an hour-long run every night without worrying that I was abandoning an exhausted Cupcake to deal with Junior’s night time adventures. I managed to run 173 miles in December (on 27 of the 31 days). On January 1st, I weighed in at 166 pounds.

Normally I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. In prior years, when asked if I had any I would reply, “Yes. Keep it rolling.” This year, however, I made one. I resolved to drink no beer until I was down to 155 pounds. Immediately I made an exception. Months previously our friend Scott reserved for me a spot on the Anchor Brewery tour for January 3rd, where there was much tasting. Yay! But besides that, there was to be no delicious, frosty beer for me until I was within spitting distance of my former racing weight. This turned out to be an accidental stroke of brilliance. Besides eliminating the calories beer so wonderfully supplies, there was an additional, psychological benefit. It turns out I love beer a lot more than I love food, so the beer-fast provided powerful motivation to lose the weight as quickly as possible. Another slice of pizza? No way, mang. Gonna have me a Fat Tire in a few weeks.

In January Junior continued to improve his sleeping and I ran 206 miles (on 30 of the 31 days). At my January 29th weigh in I was 162 pounds. Four pounds in four weeks…that’s pretty good.

In February I ran every day for a total of 217 miles, with the addition of tempo runs, track work, and fartleks on the roads. The hardest day of the month for me was the 5th. Super Bowl Sunday with less than four beers doesn’t feel quite right. Super Bowl Sunday with zero beers is completely wrong. Nonetheless, it must have scored me some karma points because, when I weighed in yesterday, the red LEDs on my cheap-ass bathroom scale from Target glowed with the digits 155.0. Seven pounds in four weeks…that’s good.

It’s over a day later but I still haven’t had my celebratory beer. I got a little rambunctious on the powerlines trail due to the incredible weather. I wound up pushing pretty hard but had a great time doing so. After that, and chasing Junior around for the rest of the day, I was way too tired to properly appreciate a well-crafted ale. It sure feels good to have that option again, though.

More creamy track goodness

Construction continues around the track at Fremont High School here in The Vale. From the looks of things, I'm worried that I won't be able to use the track anymore once they're done. I sure hope I'm wrong. Signs posted about visitors having to report to the school office before 4 PM and about walkers and joggers using only the outside lanes of the track paint a more optimistic picture. We shall see. I'll always have a fartlek-on-the-roads backup plan ready for track nights that get shut down by locked gates and such.

Last night I got onto the track again without having to climb over or under any fences. I did have to squeeze through a gap in the temporary fence around the construction zone, but it didn't feel like trespassing.

The workout was a standard one (for me, anyway) in the style of my old coach, The Shoe Nazi*. The way he would describe it would be "12 by 150 with a 50, jog a lap, 3 by 600 with a 200, 6 by 300 with a 100." That means do 6 laps of alternating 150m hard and 50m jogging, then jog a lap, then do 6 laps of alternating 600m hard and 200m jogging, then do 6 laps of alternating 300m hard and 100m jogging. Generally there would be strides beforehand and something painfully fast after, but I'm not ready for that yet.




*No shoes for you!

Was that the week that was? 2/19 - 2/25

Sunday, 2/19: Powerlines trail at Rancho. This trail deserves its own blog entry.
Monday 2/20: Tempo run around Birdland. Did 6.8 miles in 42:58, then kept going for another 3+ minutes because my iPod was still in the middle "One Shot at Glory" by Judas Priest. I didn't wanna stop 'til it was over. That's metal!
Tuesday, 2/21: Easy 7-mile jog on the streets. Felt like warmed-over ass.
Wednesday, 2/22: Track (see post from 2/22/12)
Thursday, 2/23: Easy 7-mile jog on the mean streets of Sunnyvale and Cupertino
Friday, 2/24: 8.5 mile fartlek through "the vale".
Saturday, 2/25: Another easy 7-mile jog through Sunnyvale/Cupertino metroplex.

All together, that was over 54 miles of running, my highest weekly total in a long, long time. Woot!

Adventures in Patheticness

Yesterday was a fun day at work for me. A gas leak in my building forced my evacuation into a beautiful, sunny, 75-degree February afternoon. Rumor has it The Weiner Dogg farted (SBD, IMO). Anywho, after hanging out for a while in the warm sun, I stepped into the gym in the other building and did one pull up. Just one. That was it. That was all I could do. Sigh. I'm now slow AND weak. This is not acceptable. If things continue like this, my kids will be able to kick my ass by the time they're five years old, and I won't be able to run away.

I'm adding another wrinkle to my training. I need to be able to do at least 10 pull ups by August, when Cupcake is due with Junior Jr.

Back to the Track

Yodel it from the top of Mount Hamilton. I've started a blog. I'm now part of an exclusive club that contains just about everybody. Fuck it. I did it anyway.

Tonight I set foot on a real track for a real workout for the first time in almost two years. As part of my push to get back into racing shape before I hit 40, I've been going to the dirt track at Nimitz Elementary for some interval training. On my way there tonight, I took a little detour over to Fremont High School to see if there was some way I could run on their brand new, all-weather, rubberized 400m track. Sure enough, there was an open gate, so without even having to hop a fence, I did my intervals there instead.

The workout: 4 by 1 mile (1600m, actually), with a 400m recovery jog. That's all. That's plenty right now. I did the 'miles' in 5:44,5:39,5:43, and 5:39. I used to be able to go much faster, but I also used to be younger, lighter, and childless. I'm okay with being slow.

The track itself is wonderful. It's soft and forgiving on old bones like mine. It's well lit. There was nobody else on it except for a couple of students out for a romantic walk (sorry to ruin the mood with my loogies, kids). It's new so there are no potholes. It's metric so it's a little shorter than the track at De Anza, which makes my times seem a little less glacial than they actually are. I'll certainly be back there next week.

That'll have to do for my first post. My 19-month-old son is coughing up a lung so I gotta wrap things up. Yay, blogging!