Breaking Away

Glad to hear the foot's coming around. Sounds like the remaining sickness might be your body's way of saying to keep taking it easy until after the holidays.

I, for one, hope you start up another blog. Goals or not, your posts tend to bring a nice balance to the myopia some of us have a tendency to fall into.

Mike MacLellan wrote:Glad to hear the foot's coming around. Sounds like the remaining sickness might be your body's way of saying to keep taking it easy until after the holidays.

I, for one, hope you start up another blog. Goals or not, your posts tend to bring a nice balance to the myopia some of us have a tendency to fall into.

Thanks for that tought, Mike. I will keep it in mind.

I'm still feeling a bit crappy, so I made a doctor's appointment and got a blood draw taken. We'll see if they find any critters or something amiss.

The health department is still investigating but says it found problems with the restaurant's sanitizing solutions and the temperature of its meats. Hm...

I'm glad that the health department was contacted as it seems like there is/was a real problem if all of you were stricken (and others we don't even know, I assume). The place should be closed down and you all should be refunded monies spent on the food as well as any doctor bills. Know any good lawyers on the internet? Glad you are feeling better, but I've dealt with food poisoning before and those little buggers are a tough bunch.

I'm seconding Mike's request for you to continue blogging. I love your perspective on training, love to hear about the new found love of trail running, and love the pictures of the Pac NW. I would so love to live there some day, but it will never happen. And someday (maybe 2014?), I'll run Eugene.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:I'm glad that the health department was contacted as it seems like there is/was a real problem if all of you were stricken (and others we don't even know, I assume). The place should be closed down and you all should be refunded monies spent on the food as well as any doctor bills. Know any good lawyers on the internet? Glad you are feeling better, but I've dealt with food poisoning before and those little buggers are a tough bunch.

I'm seconding Mike's request for you to continue blogging. I love your perspective on training, love to hear about the new found love of trail running, and love the pictures of the Pac NW. I would so love to live there some day, but it will never happen. And someday (maybe 2014?), I'll run Eugene.

Thanks, Michele. I'll keep that in mind. It would be great to see you in Eugene in a couple of years.

So, if I keep blogging, should I cut this old blog loose in the old V-Team tradition, or should I just keep pressing on? Hm....

Health update: All the blood tests turned out totally within normal parameters, which is good, and I'm still waiting to see if anything shows up in a urine culture. I think the chances of anything turning up are very small. I guess I'm simply worn out from being sick and completing a very difficult marathon. Whodathunkit?

Stop blogging? Don't do it!!! I always have enjoyed reading what's happening and love the occasional picture too. Food poisoning/marathon running/tweaked foot all catching up maybe? Sorry you have to go through all of that but glad the blood work is all normal. There is nothing at all wrong with "unexciting" running!

John Kilpatrick wrote:Stop blogging? Don't do it!!! I always have enjoyed reading what's happening and love the occasional picture too. Food poisoning/marathon running/tweaked foot all catching up maybe? Sorry you have to go through all of that but glad the blood work is all normal. There is nothing at all wrong with "unexciting" running!

Okay, okay, okay... I'll keep plugging away on the blog. I still might start a new one, though. 2012 is going to be such a weird running year for me, starting off with an explanation might not be a bad idea. If I just launched into the whole new approach here, the explanation would get lost in the pages and people would be left scratching their heads, asking themselves, "He's doing what?!"

God damnit, Mark, you've already got me wishing for New Year's so I can see what craziness you're up to now. Man knows how to write a hook.

Mike MacLellan wrote:God damnit, Mark, you've already got me wishing for New Year's so I can see what craziness you're up to now. Man knows how to write a hook.

Thanks!

Mark B wrote:

John Kilpatrick wrote:Stop blogging? Don't do it!!! I always have enjoyed reading what's happening and love the occasional picture too. Food poisoning/marathon running/tweaked foot all catching up maybe? Sorry you have to go through all of that but glad the blood work is all normal. There is nothing at all wrong with "unexciting" running!

Okay, okay, okay... I'll keep plugging away on the blog. I still might start a new one, though. 2012 is going to be such a weird running year for me, starting off with an explanation might not be a bad idea. If I just launched into the whole new approach here, the explanation would get lost in the pages and people would be left scratching their heads, asking themselves, "He's doing what?!"

We always come away from your blog scratching our heads asking ourselves, "He's doing what?!"....why would this be any different?

I am interested in what you have in store for 2012. That reminds me I still need to go read your race report from Tecumseh...sadly it got lost on my to do list a few weeks ago and is just now making it back up to the top.

Also, how about if I start up a blog, will you create a new one? My year should be about as "exciting" as yours is based on little I know right now.

Joel H wrote:We always come away from your blog scratching our heads asking ourselves, "He's doing what?!"....why would this be any different?

I am interested in what you have in store for 2012. That reminds me I still need to go read your race report from Tecumseh...sadly it got lost on my to do list a few weeks ago and is just now making it back up to the top.

Also, how about if I start up a blog, will you create a new one? My year should be about as "exciting" as yours is based on little I know right now.

Heh. Fair point, Joel. What can I say? What I lack in talent, I try to make up for in quirkiness.

You should read the Tecumseh report. It was quite an experience.... both during and after.

I'd totally read your blog.

I'm looking forward to the new blog in the New Year.

Mark B wrote:

Joel H wrote:We always come away from your blog scratching our heads asking ourselves, "He's doing what?!"....why would this be any different?

I am interested in what you have in store for 2012. That reminds me I still need to go read your race report from Tecumseh...sadly it got lost on my to do list a few weeks ago and is just now making it back up to the top.

Also, how about if I start up a blog, will you create a new one? My year should be about as "exciting" as yours is based on little I know right now.

Heh. Fair point, Joel. What can I say? What I lack in talent, I try to make up for in quirkiness.

You should read the Tecumseh report. It was quite an experience.... both during and after.

I'd totally read your blog.

Ok that emoticon looks eerily close to the face in your avatar, coincidence? I don't think so....and quirkiness isn't a talent? Hmm, no wonder I have been called quirky my entire life.

Ok, I will start one up shortly then. I have the Houston 1/2 in a couple of weeks and then the spring is dedicated to the Texas Independence Relay so it should be an interesting ride.

What did Forrest Gump say? "Quirky is as quirky does."

Well, or something like that, anyway. One of my favorite non-made-up quotes comes from "Gonzo" journalist Hunter S. Thompson: "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

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Now, gentle readers, you may have noticed a distinctive lack of running activity reported in this running blog. In fact, none since Tecumseh.

Well, there's been a reason for that - and I'm not just playing coy before starting up a new blog.

I was still recovering from Tecumseh (sore foot and general post-seven-hour-marathon fatigue) and trying to get over that gawdawful case of food poisoning that hit on the flight home. I am still having a hard time eating, and I can't seem to ever get enough sleep. Yes, I did go to the doctor, and they couldn't find anything else wrong. So it's just a looong recovery.

I might have been able to try running some easy stuff.... except that Alec came down with something very nasty last Friday night. He's had a fever that's gone as high as 105.1, and spent about three days with a temperature of 103 or more. (He also has a stuffy head, sore throat, some body aches and coughing and very little appetite - he's lost four pounds so far).

We've been to the doctor a couple of times, and he's pretty much puzzled by the whole thing. When blood work showed no sign of a bacterial infection (they're still running cultures, just to be sure), we're pretty much left with a potent virus - maybe the doctor's first case of influenza this year. Maybe.

What's weird is, no other kid has come in to the doctor with these symptoms (prolonged medium-to-highish fever) yet, and neither Alita nor I have caught it. Curiouser and curiouser.

At any rate, it's thrown off the whole Christmas spirit in our house. Still, we managed to get the Christmas lights up and do a little decorating. If all goes well, we might be able to find a tree this afternoon. Running is definitely on the back burner.

Mark, sorry to hear that your household is being beset by the Plague. Hopefully Alec is just a flu victim and your personal malady resolves itself soon so that you, Alita and Alec can all have a Happy and Healthy Holiday! Running will follow soon enough.

I'm happy to report that Alec's fever has dwindled down to normal, and his appetite is starting to return.

Woot! Having a kid (mostly) healthy by Christmas is a very good thing, indeed!

Speaking of Christmas, I found something to do with the slightly cheesy medal I got from Tecumseh. They don't usually give them out, but they're happy to go to the local trophy store and have them whip something up. At any rate, it nice and shiny and looks good on the tree.



I'm also happy to report that, after nearly three weeks of not running since Tecumseh, I am finally starting to get restless. I had a dream about running last night, and I'm eying my shoes and wanting to ... well, I guess I need to leave that for my next blog, don't I?

At any rate, even if I was dying to run next week, it's better to keep it on the shelf. It'll give my foot time to heal more (I still have cranky ligaments, or something, in that foot I twisted a month before Tecumseh), and it will allow us to make sure we can take care of various chores and appointments we've been cramming into Alec and Alita's two week Christmas break.

Thank goodness for double insurance. I think our dentist will be able to make an extra boat payment off it this month...

I just found the coolest quote...

"If you don't read Phil Maffetone, you're turning your back on one of the most powerfully probing minds in endurance sports. The brilliance of Maffetone's work is his re-discovery of the ancient understanding that the human engine doesn't need to be fueled on suffering, and that pain is only the penalty you pay for backburnering your brain. The best advice you could give any athlete, no matter what their level, is to read Maffetone and start over."
— Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes, and The Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen.

Hm...

Speaking of hm...

We went for a walk this afternoon on the Salmon Creek Greenway Trail, and my left foot is still sore... in fact, it might even be more sore now. Mostly on the top of the foot, where the 4th and 5th metatarsals connect to the mid foot. It hurts when I press down on it from the top... in about a dime-sized area. Hm...

It was a pretty day for a walk, though.

Okay, so the walk made my foot more sore. Flexing my foot aggravates it.

So sore that I finally went to the doctor.

He's put me in this bad boy...



.. for two weeks.

He found some swelling and ordered another X-ray, which this far into the process would be more likely to show the signs of a stress fracture, if there's one there. But the doc - who is a marathoner - was pretty matter-of-fact and not too interested in the time, hassle and expense of a bone scan.

"If it DID turn out to be a stress fracture, how'd we treat it? Put it in a boot."

"If it turned out to be a sprain that just won't heal, how'd we treat THAT? Put it in a boot."

I could tell he was a runner. He kept asking me what, training-wise, I was most worried about? What do I have on my calendar?

I told him my goal was to get it diagnosed and fixed. Then I'll move on. He seemed satisfied with that.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. i hope this gets them put to rest for good.

Traveller wrote:Sorry to hear about your troubles. i hope this gets them put to rest for good.

Thanks, Clark! So, maybe torturing myself for nearly seven hours in the hills and hollows of Tecumseh less than four weeks after a bad ankle roll might not have been the best thing ever for my foot... oh well. I'm not training for anything at the moment anyway.

Hmmmm. Open toed sandals in mid-winter in Washington. Will the next post be about your treatments for frostbite? So what DID the Doc say when you asked him if he had a boot with more tread on it so it would grip on the muddy trails?

Can you have the doctor put a sensor in the boot that warns of bad Italian food?

Sounds like my doc 4 years ago when I had the stress "reaction" -- "could be or not -- don't really need a diagnosis just need you to stop running do it will heal."

Heal well!

Tom H wrote:Hmmmm. Open toed sandals in mid-winter in Washington. Will the next post be about your treatments for frostbite? So what DID the Doc say when you asked him if he had a boot with more tread on it so it would grip on the muddy trails?

Frostbite? Hm. You're mistaking where I live for the Yukon, Tom. Trench foot would be a greater risk. (I just looked up trench foot on wiki... and yuck!)

I like your suggestion about the extra trail traction, though. Hm...

charles.moman wrote:Can you have the doctor put a sensor in the boot that warns of bad Italian food?

So it turns around immediately and takes you someplace with safer, more tasty food... like, say, Taco Bell? I think that's a FANTASTIC idea, Charles!

What a month! Food poisoning at the start, a kid with the flu (or something) from hell to start his Christmas vacation, major dental work for my wife this week... and now me clumping around in a walking boot!

Upon reflection, maybe we should get rid of that little Tiki idol we picked up in November...

Dave Wolfe wrote:Sounds like my doc 4 years ago when I had the stress "reaction" -- "could be or not -- don't really need a diagnosis just need you to stop running do it will heal."

Heal well!

That sounds about right, Dave. It was funny how he was trying to get a sense of just how crazed I was about running. He was even suggesting pool running or cross training to bridge the gap! I'm not that far gone, though. I'm content to rest a bit more and then get back to it nice and easy when everything is working the way it's supposed to again. I'm taking the long view, so I'm not in a hurry.