4 miles

So today I decide to try to add some distance if it kills me.  I have a problem though, and that is I find running slower than a certain speed "unacceptable".  This is part of why over the last few weeks I only made it ~1.8 before finishing on all but a few of the runs.

Anyway - I pretty steadily increased from 6.0 to 6.5 and back down for the duration of the run and ended up with 4 miles at 38:42 (5K split at 30:03).

We were sore.

Things to not say to dad:

I put on some reminiscing music from Star Wars.  Hey, the music's still good.

10yo: I bet you can't play that on the trumpet

Wife: Why did you say that?  You should know better...

Me - bring out the trumpet and play along.  Mind you, it was probably a grade III performance (higher number = bad), as I haven't played in a number of months, and I didn't bother warming up or whatever.

And for some reason, the 10yo was busting out laughing the whole time.

not going to knock anybody off

Me, to 4yo: Stop pissing off your brothers.  (Sorry if 'piss off' is vulgar to you)
4yo, a few minutes later: Don't worry, dad, I'm not going to knock anybody off right now.

L is for Ladycar

So, we have one of those puzzle thingies where you put the letters into where they fit.  However, this one talks when you put the letter in place.  As a consequence of that, it also talks when you have a piece missing and you turn off the light.

There have only been a handful of days since we got it where there hasn't been at least one piece missing.

So for the last few days, clearly the C and L are missing, because whenever I turn off the light, I hear "L is for Ladycar".

Another small run

I'm never going to get to that half marathon in November if I never try to run further. :)

Today I wanted to experiment with speeds on the treadmill.  So I did minutes at the following (or something like this):
5
6
6
9
8
7
3
6
6.5
6.6
6.7
6.8
3
7
310 - 9 (20s at 10)
3
8
7
3
6.8
4.5 * this and below is my "standard" cooldown
4
3.5
3
2.5

Return to Karate

I went back to my karate class on Thursday for the first time in 2 months.  I was the only one there, so we went at my pace.  I wouldn't let them make me do spinning kicks or big grabs.

Some of the katas we were working on, they said I did better than before I left :)  But there were some things I was clearly down on.

For instance:

• On the block-punch combinations, on the turn and do it with the opposite side, I was off
• I couldn't even do half a pullup.  How embarrassing is that!
• I couldn't even come within 6 inches of touching my toes.  That was because my back was really tight.

So today, 6 days later, I tried pullups again, and I managed 3.  I don't know how I managed that from 0 last week, but I won't complain.  At work, while I was waiting for compiles, I practiced stretching to my toes, and I eventually made it there.

My brother was right

... I hate it when that happens.

Most of my family has started ignoring me when I start doing something they don't think my back is ready to handle.  But when I started doing Bridges (laying on the ground and making a 'bridge' between your knees and shoulders, with your feet and hands on the ground), he said I probably shouldn't be doing that.

He was right.

My back was stiff all day Monday and Tuesday.

On the other hand, I do need to come up with new exercises to work my back muscles back up.

Saturday small run

So, I start running on Saturday, intending on doing 4 miles (1 more than the last run), but only made it about 1.8.  Got too tired, and decided to not push myself more this week.

But my wife ran a 10K!  Isn't that awesome?  She's never done one before.  And, she wanted to be able to beat me in a race.  Well, there's no way I'm up to 10K right now, so she got me.  Well done!

Ode to the door-to-door salesman

Do door-to-door salesmen drive you nuts?  Grrr.  (Sorry if you happen to be one - hopefully you've learned how to not be annoying.)

Last one we had was a guy who wanted to offer us free attic insulation.  "We just need to come in and take a look, and the power company will rebate blah blah blah."

Good offer?  Maybe.  But I say no.  Why did I say no?  Well, at the time, I had 3 children inside being ultra noisy and I just wanted him to leave me alone.  I didn't want him to take a look, and I just wanted him to go away.  (Why did I answer the door then?  Who knows.  But we were all in the front room so I knew he saw me).

But it took 3 "Not interested" and "Not right now"s to get him to go away.  But here's the clincher.  As he walks away, he says "Okay, I'm not going to waste my time".

It always seems that the ones offering free stuff are the most rude.  Last time it happened it was the "we'll clean 3 rooms of carpet for "free"" and he walked away insulting my intelligence.

So, after the fact, I thought:
a) I don't want you in my house
b) I don't want 2 feet of insulation in my attic.  I have to go up there and do electrical junk from time to time, and it's hard enough to find anything and to breathe with the 8 inches I have.

(And let's not forget that I probably wouldn't see the joists, and I don't need to fall through the attic again.)

Clarinet returns

I picked up a wind instrument for the first time tonight in a while.  I was working with my 10yo (this is the same as my 9yo, who recently had a birthday) for her near concert.  I managed to go up and below the break with much greater speed than before.  Going down seemed to be easier than going up.  Not near good enough, but much faster than I can strum between chords on a guitar.

We learned various sharps and flats, and various notes over the break.  I tried to play the trumpet part of my HS fight song (I'm a geek, it's true; no surprise), and did a C above the bar for a bit.  Except it's impossible for me to hold only notes on the back of the clarinet with no counterbalance from the front, so I [incorrectly, I'm sure] held it between my knees.

Then, all of a sudden, I ran out of gusto.  Not gradually, but very suddenly (yes, that's redundant), I just couldn't play any more.

Guilt

Okay, so this is going to be weird:

So, the last few months have been a little traumatic, but it's basically over -- except for the GI issue, whereby I left a lab work culture at the lab yesterday, with TBD results, and the urinary issue, which, seems to be good 2 days in a row and less good 2 days in a row, and the good days are about as good before all of this started -- and sometimes feels like a distant memory.

Today is the 2-month anniversary of the middle surgery.  About a week after coming home, and I got on antibiotics, and they were worried about things like meningitis (where, it seems, a for this is if you can't touch your chin to your chest), I find out that a neighbor of somebody I know dies of meningitis.  He was in his 30s, has small children, and it came on suddenly.  Various friends and family members are acquiring their share of chronic ailments.  Then there's me, almost sort of virtually back to normal.  How am I supposed to feel about that?  Lucky?  Guilty?  Weird?  I guess I'm a little of all of that................................

Ode to the Sweat Line

Oh, sweat line, how do I love thee, let me count the ways:
1 - It feels cool to exercise hard enough to earn it
2 - ...
3 - ...

I made it 5K tonight!!  In 31:12, slightly less than an average of 6mph.  That almost makes me feel comfortable enough to start planning a work 5K.  Yesterday, I made 1.5, going from 6 - 7 and back down.

Running

So, Monday, I went on a 10 mile bike ride with the boy scouts.  Then I had to sleep for about 2 hours.  This may or may not have to do with recovery, or my complete inability to ride a bicycyle.  I may have needed the nap if I did this 3 months ago.

In the Tuesday or Wednesday era, I ran on the treadmill - .5 miles at 6.3, minute walk, then 3x.25 at 6.3 with a minute walk between each one.

This morning I did 9 minutes ramping up from 5 to 6.6, minute walk, 5 minutes at 6.6, minute walk, 4 minutes at 6.6, to hit ~2.05 miles in 20 minutes. 

I don't really feel much pain any more.  I can tell my legs are still a little bruised, but they don't hurt unless I stretch into some weird unnatural/and/or pilates position.  My back muscles under and possibly around my incision site are a little sore or tender, but I don't think the incision itself is in any pain any more.

The primary pain I still feel is when I lean back, and I believe those are still effects of the laminectomy (cutting off the bone surrounding the spinal canal).

Stupid blogspot

So I'm confused - people walk up to me in person and ask if I've updated my blog.  However, blogspot reports 0 pageviews for every post for like 2 weeks.  blogspot: Why u no update pageviews?!!  (Oh no, now I'm sucked into that meme)

Almost thou convincest me to be a morning person

So, since the surgery, I haven't had a lot of energy to stay up past about 10:30.  But, going to bed that early, I don't have great desires to sleep past 7 or so.  And for you that might not be considered "morning person", but for me, who normally sleeps until he has to get up or the kids will be late for school (no comments about how they are regularly), it's kinda early.

So, to compromise, I usually just stay in bed.

Running and exercise

Last week sometime I ran 1.25 miles - starting a 4mph, deciding that was boring, and incrementing (wow, that word is misspelled according to my browser dictionary, and the person sitting next to me adds emphasis that it's not a word) every minute by .2 until we hit 6mph!  Whoo!  Then I lasted about 2 minutes there until my legs turned to jello and was done.

In other news I did an incremental lifting competition last night (at a family easter party) whereby I wanted to see what my back could support, starting at the smallest nephew and proceeded incrementally upward.  By the time my sisters saw me I was at the 15-yo and they told me to stop, and what was I thinking, etc.  Which is okay, I don't think I would have dared go any higher.

Note that it's not quite the same as dead-lifting - I was lifting them from their standing position, which is a lot less work on the back.

4yo says...

I got a cheesy song in my head, and I started singing:

"Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket", and then I decided it was too cheesy and changed the subsequent words to:

"Never let it eat your...", but couldn't think of the appropriate object, so my 4yo, finishes it with:

"brain"

(who says that "Plants vs Zombies" can't teach you anything?)

Cell phone vibrator algorithm

So, sometimes my cell phone vibrator works and sometimes it doesn't.  I used to keep it on vibrate all the time because I've that that it ringing was annoying, but I have little choice when the vibrator doesn't work.

But I've figured out when it works with the following algorithm:

Was it recently dropped?  If not, it works if it worked before.
If so, its working randomly determined.

See, my phone has been dropped more times each week than an iPhone can and still survive, and so dropping it makes the vibrator work.

Wasn't going to post, but...

My wife made me a really awesome chocolate cake, and I just got a pack of get-well cards from my cousin and his family.  Awesome people!

So, after my mile run on Saturday, I was exhausted the rest of the day, similar to when I ran a half-marathon two years ago.  Then I didn't exercise again until yesterday, where I walked half a mile a 4mph.  Felt mostly fine.

(Rationale on Saturday was that walking a 4 does more twisting at 4, so running at that speed was easier than walking at that speed, but I compared them both yesterday, and it turned out not to be the case).

The leg pain is almost gone.  Sitting on the ground, I can bend my right knee up as high as it can until "normal tension", but my left leg is still a little behind, as it has been the whole time.

Otherwise, I can do anything non-strenuous.  I am carrying the 2yo everywhere (carefully, and most certainly not lifting from a position of more than 6 inches away), and I picked up 4yo to a waist position yesterday (was scared to lift her the rest of the way).  I'm scared to do pushups...

I can still feel the line in my back where the scar is healing.  When I walk/run too fast, it feels like the line is pulling (like as if it were held together by a string, and you pull on the top of the string to cinch it up), and I back off immediately.

But I think I meet the criteria I made for myself last week to be at Stage 1 Recovery.