Re: Building A Better Bumblebee

ounce Mon Jun 16, 2014 10:09 am

Because I'm lazy and don't want to look, what exercise are you doing for the shins to balance against the calves? Neutral

Mark B Mon Jun 16, 2014 11:46 am

Walk/Hike: About 2.3 miles

Weather: Immediately after a downpour, some rain, dripping trees. Gear: Terra Kigers

We went for a Father's Day hike on the Wildwood Trail, starting at a different location than usual on the northern end of the trail. As we drove there, a heavy rainstorm swept through the area -- we saw some hikers who looked like drowned rats -- but it was over by the time we started hiking.

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Building A Better Bumblebee - Page 9 10386910

Driving through a driving rainstorm on the Saint Johns Bridge in Portland. Our destination is ahead, shrouded in cloud.

Alec enjoyed the hike -- "Dad, is this an example of the temperate rainforest biome?" -- to which I answered, unequivocally, yes. And Alita and I proceeded to point out the various aspects of the forest, the thick understory and heavy ground cover, the predominance of deciduous trees in riparian areas, the accelerated decomposition of downed trees and massive fungus wedges growing on snags. He took it all in, and wanted more.

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Building A Better Bumblebee - Page 9 10275510

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We walked a little more than a mile in, without any ankle issues for me, when we noticed the light dimmed significantly and through we heard a bit of a rumble in the distance. Hm. We continued on for a minute or two, then I suggested we turn around and head back. Better to get soaked on the way back then when you're still on the way out.

The rain passed us by, but it ended up being a good idea to turn around. The trail hugged the side of a slope, and Alec's ankles started to get sore with the angle of the surface underfoot. Mine were fine.

Mark B Mon Jun 16, 2014 11:53 am

Dave Wolfe wrote:Nice to see you are slowly coming back. Keep at it.

Thanks, Dave! It's slow going, but it's going.

ounce wrote:Because I'm lazy and don't want to look, what exercise are you doing for the shins to balance against the calves?

Hey, Ounce. I guess the one-legged stances are helping work all the other muscles of the lower leg and feet, but there aren't any specific exercises prescribed for my dorsiflexors. Probably because it's not needed. My tibialis anterior has always been very strong, and dorsiflexion seems to have long been my default setting. All the calf work is attempting to balance those babies out. Smile

Speaking of which, I increased the number of single legged heel lifts yesterday, up to 40 in the first go. Later in the day, I did about 20 a couple of times. It kinda feels good now. Weird. I'm still at four minutes for those one-legged stands, but the searing pain it generates in the soles of my feet* is getting less as I near that four-minute mark. I'll take that as a good sign.

*-That searing pain goes away within seconds after I stop, so I can tell it's fatigue-generated, not injury.

Mark B Mon Jun 16, 2014 1:16 pm

Barefoot Run: 2.1 miles with no mandated walking breaks!

Weather: Overcast, cool, moist. 53 degrees, a few raindrops. Gear: Bare feet, shorts, T.

Up another level in rehab today: I'm now allowed to run 2 miles straight! No more required walking breaks!

I started off easy and focused on form, trying to figure out how to get these calf muscles in on the act. That bit of coordination may take a bit of time, but they have have started to work a little... maybe.

No pain or discomfort. It felt weird not stopping to walk, and I felt a bit of fatigue accumulating, but not much. And I was still able to goose it (slightly, down to the mid 8s) in the last two tenths of a mile. Walked 0.1 mile to cool down at the end.

Average HR for entire run: 133

Schuey Mon Jun 16, 2014 1:57 pm

Hi Mark! yep it's that time of the year for that nice muggy weather to come back. For me at least I don't think I will be complaining much this year after the winter we had!! Smile

Jim Lentz Mon Jun 16, 2014 2:39 pm

Nice job, Mark!

Mark B Mon Jun 16, 2014 3:16 pm

Schuey wrote:Hi Mark! yep it's that time of the year for that nice muggy weather to come back. For me at least I don't think I will be complaining much this year after the winter we had!!

Hi, Schuey! I must confess that I'm pretty lucky when it comes to humidity. It's usually only muggy here when the temperature is in the 50s and 60s (or lower). As soon as the temperature gets much higher than that, the humidity drops.

I've run in your neck of the woods before, and in Thailand, so I know what it's like to melt in your shoes. Smile

I ran in 90+ weather when I lived in Red Bluff, but of course the humidity there was ridiculously low.

Jim Lentz wrote:Nice job, Mark!

Thanks, Jim! I've been taking advantage of these short distances to rebuild my barefoot capabilities. My hope is, the better form I'm learning will carry over when I put shoes back on again.

Schuey Mon Jun 16, 2014 3:32 pm

Oh good old Red Bluff! Yeah I remember those good old days in Chico of hot dry heat. Use to escape up into the mountains and swim in the ice cold water and partake in the wonders of nature Smile

. Oh to be young and and a kid again in college!

Mark B Mon Jun 16, 2014 3:34 pm

Schuey wrote:Oh good old Red Bluff! Yeah I remember those good old days in Chico of hot dry heat. Use to escape up into the mountains and swim in the ice cold water and partake in the wonders of nature . Oh to be young and and a kid again in college!

That was my first newspaper job. I spent a lot of my spare time exploring Lassen Volcanic National Park. And making road trips to Chico for Tower Books and, later, Hula's Mongolian Grill. (Still the best I've ever had.)

Schuey Mon Jun 16, 2014 3:54 pm

Mark B wrote:
Schuey wrote:Oh good old Red Bluff! Yeah I remember those good old days in Chico of hot dry heat. Use to escape up into the mountains and swim in the ice cold water and partake in the wonders of nature . Oh to be young and and a kid again in college!

That was my first newspaper job. I spent a lot of my spare time exploring Lassen Volcanic National Park. And making road trips to Chico for Tower Books and, later, Hula's Mongolian Grill. (Still the best I've ever had.)

Haha awesome Hula's Mongolian Grill!!! Yes!!!! Ditto on trips to Lassen, I used to spend a lot of time in Shasta and did most of my hiking in the Trinity Alps. I actually named my dog Trinity after that place, so beautiful. Yeah Chico was a cool little town, sure do miss it. Who knows maybe we just might find our way back there in the future.

Mark B Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:29 pm

Schuey wrote:
Mark B wrote:
Schuey wrote:Oh good old Red Bluff! Yeah I remember those good old days in Chico of hot dry heat. Use to escape up into the mountains and swim in the ice cold water and partake in the wonders of nature . Oh to be young and and a kid again in college!

That was my first newspaper job. I spent a lot of my spare time exploring Lassen Volcanic National Park. And making road trips to Chico for Tower Books and, later, Hula's Mongolian Grill. (Still the best I've ever had.)

Haha awesome Hula's Mongolian Grill!!! Yes!!!! Ditto on trips to Lassen, I used to spend a lot of time in Shasta and did most of my hiking in the Trinity Alps. I actually named my dog Trinity after that place, so beautiful. Yeah Chico was a cool little town, sure do miss it. Who knows maybe we just might find our way back there in the future.

I hear ya! I met Alita in Red Bluff (she was a reporter at the rival newspaper down the road in Corning), and that's where we got married. I still have many fond memories of the place and the people who live there. We moved on because, professionally, we really didn't have a choice. If we had... we might still be there.

Mark B Mon Jun 16, 2014 4:32 pm

PT update: I did 30 reps of the supported-stiff-single-leg-heel-lift each side after the run. Probably should have waited a bit, because it felt more difficult than usual. I waited a couple of hours before doing my stiff-single-leg-standing exercise, and I was able to keep it up for five minutes each side. It's weird, but as I get to the end of where I can stand it, I start to get a burning sensation underneath my achilles tendon. I wonder what muscle is screaming at me? Probably tibialis posterior? (Or not, I just checked an anatomy diagram and found two other muscles down there - the flexor digitorum longs and flexor hallicus brevis, both major foot stabilizer muscles. Which makes total sense.)

Dave P Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:43 pm

I have a hard enough time remembering the names of the half-dozen muscles I know now. Hope you figure it out. I said a prayer for you.

Mark B Mon Jun 16, 2014 9:04 pm

Dave P wrote:I have a hard enough time remembering the names of the half-dozen muscles I know now. Hope you figure it out. I said a prayer for you.

Thanks, Dave! This has been an enlightening process. I keep finding new and educational ways to hurt myself! And it's improving my physiology vocabulary immensely. Smile

Mark B Mon Jun 16, 2014 11:04 pm

Speaking of vocabulary and practical physiology, I'll take a break after my last set of one-legged heel raises (40 each side) and playing with a stability pad for possible use on one-legged stands (if I'm feeling masochistic/ambitious) to show the muscles I was talking about.

First, a view of the deep muscles of the lower leg, posterior:

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Building A Better Bumblebee - Page 9 Gray4310

These are the muscles that run underneath the achilles tendon, soleus and gastroc muscles. They're the tibialis posterior, the flexor digitorum longus and the flexor hallucis longus. They help create and support this great lever that is the foot and lower leg.

When you look at a side view of the foot, you see where two of them end up:

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And, looking at the sole of the foot....

Building A Better Bumblebee - Page 9 Gray4410

Fairly beefy muscle up top, hooking up to the base of all the toes. Yep. Pretty important for making the foot do its thing.

I think the other muscles you see in the lower image are the intrinsic foot muscles my podiatrist and PT say are so important for me to build to support my bone structure and prevent injury. And i think they all yell at me when I hold that one-legged stance for long enough. I'm sure we'll be on speaking terms someday. Smile

Mark B Wed Jun 18, 2014 10:24 am

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program for....

Catastrophe.

When Alita got home from work yesterday, she came home to a disaster scene. Water was rushing through light fixtures in the ceiling and into a flooded-out first floor of our house. About a half inch of water on the floor. She dashed upstairs and found our master bathroom's bathtub was overflowing, and one of the water control handles was pushed on full. One of the cats must have bumped into it.

We have no idea how long it was like that. The disaster crew our insurance company dispatched said it'd had been going on for hours.

I got the call at work. When I got home, water was still flowing steadily out of the light fixtures.

We used two wet/dry vacs and the help of a neighbor and her daughters to get the water off the hard surfaces and a bit out of the carpet, which helped. The ServPro guys came a couple of hours later and ...

This is too much to process right now. I'll get back to you with more of the gory details.

ounce Wed Jun 18, 2014 11:16 am

Oh, crap.

I hope you were able to get the handle dusted for pawprints.

Mark B Wed Jun 18, 2014 1:28 pm

Okay. Back for a moment.

Here's the offending tub hardware, bumped by the cat, which flooded the house.

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The handle on the left was on full when Alita got home.

And this is what it looked like downstairs, about a half hour AFTER she turned the water off. It was still flowing. We could put goldfish in the light fixture even this morning.

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Building A Better Bumblebee - Page 9 15190110

They're classifying this as a "large loss." And I keep hearing insurance people sounding surprised at just how extensive the damage was. Lovely.

How extensive? There was a good half-inch of water on the floor in most of downstairs, with some running down into the ductwork and into the crawl space under the house. We had water in every room downstairs, some worse than others. The office, with this computer, was largely spared, thank goodness.

Upstairs, our master bathroom and bedroom has extensive water damage. And water spread to a closet, our hall and our guest bedroom. Alec's bedroom is intact, as is a bonus room.

The ServPro technicians said they will be back soon to "gut" the downstairs. We will have an uninhabitable house effective, well, now. And lasting at least a week, and maybe more.

We have a number of fans and dehumidifiers running now, and it sounds like I'm in a 737. Sleeping last night was not fun, and after 4 a.m. this morning, not possible.

I'm trying to clean wet clothes and start packing up the fragile items before the crew arrives this afternoon. Also on the phone with insurance a lot. Alita and Alec are at school today (the last day of school is tomorrow).

Step one in the recovery process is exposing all wet material, removing or drying whatever is wet. They'll be pulling the ceiling, wall board, carpet, vinyl flooring, kitchen cabinets, toilets, etc., etc., etc. That should take a week or so.

Step two, once the house is fully dried out, involves the claim processor, who will come and work through how much they think it'll cost to get it all back to pre-catastrophe status. Then they give us the money, less our deductible, and a list of recommended restoration contractors. Then it's reconstruction, which could take a few months.

Suffice it to say, our summer vacation just took a turn.

More later. Back to work.

ounce Wed Jun 18, 2014 1:55 pm

I hope those cats have insurance.

Michele "1L" Keane Wed Jun 18, 2014 4:02 pm

Crap. We had no such issue as I caught the leak immediately and worke my neighbors up to turn off the water to the toilet and it was solved. However, we could have been there. Back when I lived in Ohio before, we had a terrible electric storm and lost power which eventually had the backup battery on the sump pump run out of power. My husband and I were away and my Mom was taking care of my daughter who was 11 at the time. neither of them heard the alarm and we had about 1/4" of water in most of the basement before we came home and immediately found it. The alarm was going off for 2 days - we got lucky and got out with little damage because the main flooded area was the concrete storage area and much of the main room was tile. One room of carpet was slightly damaged and we still had to replace it.

By the way since I'm not a cat person, I can only say, I'm glad I have a dog.

Jim Lentz Wed Jun 18, 2014 4:49 pm

That s*cks.

Nick Morris Wed Jun 18, 2014 9:58 pm

Boy Mark...that truly stinks. Sorry to hear that your summer has now been turned upside down. I am glad that your insurance should cover most of the damages...where are you going to stay while everything is getting tore up?

Mark B Wed Jun 18, 2014 11:33 pm

Hey, all. Quick update.

We are now staying at a Residence Inn in Portland while the rehab crew does its job. Two days with the heaters, blowers and evaporators put us all in sensory overload. Exceedingly unfun.

But the place seems pretty nice, and insurance will reimburse us for it, so that's a positive step. Cats are confused, but the racket at home had to be much worse for them.

More later.

ounce Thu Jun 19, 2014 7:12 am

Mark B wrote:Hey, all. Quick update.

We are now staying at a Residence Inn in Portland while the rehab crew does its job. Two days with the heaters, blowers and evaporators put us all in sensory overload. Exceedingly unfun.

But the place seems pretty nice, and insurance will reimburse us for it, so that's a positive step. Cats are confused, but the racket at home had to be much worse for them.

More later.

WHAT DID YOU SAY?????

I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!! Smile

Mark B Thu Jun 19, 2014 2:28 pm

ounce wrote:
Mark B wrote:Hey, all. Quick update.

We are now staying at a Residence Inn in Portland while the rehab crew does its job. Two days with the heaters, blowers and evaporators put us all in sensory overload. Exceedingly unfun.

But the place seems pretty nice, and insurance will reimburse us for it, so that's a positive step. Cats are confused, but the racket at home had to be much worse for them.

More later.
WHAT DID YOU SAY?????

I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!

Such a funny guy!

Alec and Alita are at the last day of school. I'm at the house waiting for more packing and destroying, getting things we will need for an extended absence.

My foot ankle are sore again. Not a huge shock, given the stress load of the past few days. I'll try to baby it when I can.

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