An After Christmas Jaunt

Getting to the start in darkness didn’t seem right. I chuckled to myself at the thought of what we do to practice our chosen sport – early morning awakenings, severe weather, running through pain and injuries, etc. After giving our bodies a chance to digest Christmas food for a couple of days, Tina, Rosie, Chai, Nick, Michael, and I met at Joe’s Crab Shack at 6:45 A.M. on Sunday for a 10 mile jaunt. I haven’t run with this group before and they have recently started doing the Jeff Galloway run/walk marathon training in preparation for the Los Angeles Marathon. In this case it was a 5 minute run with a 1 minute walk break. We didn’t run the usual route but rather, we went out 5 miles and back 5 miles. Around Toledo to 2^nd St., down Ocean Bl., to the corner of Alamitos Av., then turn around at the bike path on the way back to the finish. It felt good running in a pack of 6 people who stayed together for the whole 10.25 miles. That should have taken care of the Christmas calories, don’t you think? The five other people in our group were training for the L.A. Marathon and I’m not, so what business do I have running with them? Just for exercise, the calorie burn, and the pure enjoyment of running with other people. Thank you very much Tina, Rosie, Chai, Nick and Michael, for letting me join you last Sunday. I’ll be back to my extra half hour of sleep this coming Saturday and will be running with the 7:30 group.

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Raiding The Closet After The 10 Mile Run Last Sunday

I went through my closet to sort out things I needed, didn’t need, haven’t used or seen in years, can live without and can dispose of. These are some of the things that I found:

A receipt for my first ever laptop computer – a 1986 vintage Toshiba T1100 with two floppy disk drives. The price: $2200 dollars! By the way, I still have that laptop and can’t bear to throw it away because it could be a museum piece one day if it’s not already. The computer still works if you know MS-DOS.

Check registers all the way from 1983 and savings account passbooks from 1981. Bank of America, I’ve been so loyal to you!

Volleyball kneepads which I haven’t used since the late 80’s when I used to live in Torrance and played in adult volleyball leagues. I’m keeping the Debbie Green-autographed volleyball. She was an Olympian in 1984 and a setter extraordinaire for the U.S. team. I attended one of her workshops after they won the silver medal in the L.A. Olympics, and had her sign my volleyball.

An ex GF’s high school yearbook and some of her pictures. I’m not even sure where she lives anymore.

Two cotton Nike running tanktops and two Brooks technical (at the time) singlets which I haven’t worn since my racing days in the 80’s.

Three old Los Angeles marathon painter’s caps which came with the goodie bags in those days.

A bunch of worn and unworn cotton or polyester gloves for cold weather running.

A box of potpourri from 1989 given to us by the airline on my way back from the Philippines, to commemorate then President Cory Aquino’s trip to Vancouver. She was of course seated in first class on that flight.

A couple of soft sided carry-on luggage. The first, a parachute cloth bag which I used in 1980 when I moved here to the U.S., and the other, something I bought from Woolworth’s and used on my visit to the Philippines in 1989. Gives literal meaning to the term “old bag”.

A gag gift given to me many, many Christmases ago by the aforementioned ex gf and her roommate. It was a small pouch called One Night Stand consisting of a small vibrator, massaging gel, and a couple of condoms.

A Samsung camcorder, rarely used, but now obsolete, and a Ricoh Mirai camera which I used extensively as an amateur photographer in the late 80’s.

I probably forgot some of the other things I found, but under the disposed of list were: the receipt, kneepads, tank tops, painter’s caps, a few gloves, the potpourri, old luggage, gag gift, camcorder, and camera. The check registers and bank passbooks, I shredded. I’m keeping the old laptop computer and mailing the yearbook if ever I find the new address of my long lost friend.

The more I took out of the closet, the more it looked the same. Darn!

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Dropping Acid?

Well, no. In this case, it was rising acid which was probably caused by all the greasy food consumed at Christmas. Deep into the night and in the middle of what could have been a dream I can’t remember, I suddenly felt something slowly rising up my throat (cue the “JAWS” music). It was a case of nocturnal gastroesophageal reflux. I immediately propped my head up with another pillow and went right back to sleep, not even knowing what time it was. Luckily, it was not one of those throat-burning sensation situations, otherwise it would have kept me awake the rest of the night. My only thought upon awakening was if I had any more antacid left, which it turns out I’m not going to need because I was already burping a lot on my own. The only reason why I have antacid at home is because I had one worst case of heartburn last year. It’s just something that doesn’t happen to me often. What surprised me about this reflux occurring is that I didn’t go to bed on a full stomach, which is usually one of the reasons why it happens. I’ll take rising acid any time over dropping acid. Besides, I’ve never used LSD before other than the one pertaining to running called Long Slow Distance.

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A Tangled Mess, etc.

Well I finally did it. I finally replaced the bedroom TV that I referred to in this post: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2009/05/shake-rumble-and-jolt.html . I found a refurbished 19 inch TV advertised on Tigerdirect.com which I considered a good deal (no sales tax and free shipping), ordered it, and got it in the mail last week. Then I went to the Salvation Army website to schedule a donation pickup for Monday afternoon. I was given a window of 3:30 to 6:30 P.M. and they showed up at about 4 P.M. They promptly hauled away the 43 inch console TV, a digital tuner, and the manuals for both which I had saved through the years. Thank you so much for offering this service, Salvation Army. I appreciate your pickup more than the tax deduction I might get for donating to charity. I now have a more manageable and appropriate sized TV in the bedroom which is more unlikely to kill me in case of an earthquake.

I removed the rest of the contents of the TV stand, tightened the screws, dusted it (it is surprising to see how much dust collects between nooks and crannies over time), then moved it to the living room with the intention of transferring the TV there sitting on a lower stand to the higher stand. Prior to leaving work earlier the same day, I asked my co-worker if he could help me with that process because I didn’t think I could lift the TV by myself. However with some maneuvering, positioning and finding something to grip on the TV, I managed to lift it by myself from the lower position to the higher one, but with some difficulty because the wires that were connected to the DVD player, stereo amplifier, karaoke machine, Nintendo WII and laptop computer, became taut and needed some tugging before I was able to successfully transfer the TV. Transfer accomplished, but it left me with a tangled mess of wires, some of which got disconnected. I had to figure out which wire went where after moving all of the equipment to the higher TV stand.

While I was emptying the TV stand of DVD’s and CD’s earlier in the bedroom, I found my old music cassette tapes which I purchased in the 80’s. I have maybe less than a hundred, but what was I to do with them? I posted the query on my Facebook wall and some suggestions were: sell it on Ebay or keep them as collector’s items. Of course there’s the option of converting them to digital format (mp3), but that is a laborious process which I don’t have the patience of doing. So as of now, I’m undecided on what to do.

Well, the wires are still a tangled mess but all the connections appear to be in their proper places and everything was working well when I checked them. The next day, I vacuumed whatever dust I scattered all over the place in lieu of lifting weights. I figured dust can’t wait but weight training can be put off for another day.

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Running Naked Against The Elements

I was woken up Tuesday morning by the wind rattling the windows of my bedroom. Running outdoors yesterday was going to pose a challenge. I don’t know why I decided to run outside when I could have done it on the treadmill in the comfort of my living room, but I couldn’t resist answering the challenge. Not only that, I also made up my mind the day before that I was going to run naked. Well, don’t get any ideas, I didn’t really mean unclothed. What I meant was that I was going to try to run without orthotics thus leaving my feet and ankles naked of extra support. I was doing this as an experiment to find out if it would work better for my stride and aching ankles on the premise that maybe I’m getting too much support with the orthotics. Running without orthotics and braving the elements…it was going to be an adventure run.

While taking the trash outside, I could already feel the bone chilling effects of the wind gusts. Starting the run, I was buffeted by flailing winds and even got hit on the face by a tree branch early on. Rather than running like the wind, I ran into the wind instead. It reminded me of the conditions during the 1987 or 1988 Long Beach Marathon when it was windy the whole time and also had spots of rain.

Although I wasn’t wearing orthotics, it felt like my new Brooks Addiction shoes gave enough support so as not to make me overpronate. It was hard to judge the effect objectively though because I was concentrating more on keeping myself upright while the wind was trying to toss me around. Besides, my whole body was too chilled to feel the pain in my ankles too much. I managed to run for 52 minutes even though my target was only 45 minutes. I didn’t want to go too long during my naked trial run without orthotics.

When I got home, I checked the temperature and wind speed and found out that I ran in 55 degree weather with winds blowing 20 to 30 MPH, with gusts up to 45 MPH. At 30 MPH, that would have resulted in a wind chill factor or 40 degrees. Who would have thought of talking about wind chill factor in sunny California?

Challenge accepted, elements braved, adventure accomplished, bare naked orthotics-free feet survived, joy experienced. Thank you.

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From Famine to Feast

From a low of about 20 patients last Tuesday night to a full capacity of 36 patients by Saturday, our mental health unit has experienced another one of those famine to feast situations. The patient count was so low last Tuesday that I was sent to the medical unit again. In contrast to what happened last time I was there, I got lucky because the night was very uneventful. The patient I was watching slept all night. It was so quiet that I was able to whip out my netbook to write a rough draft for a blog entry, then discovered an unsecured router in the neighborhood. Not only was I able to write a final draft, I was also able to upload it that same night.

After having three days off, I was still expecting our patient numbers to be low. To my surprise when I got to work, our unit was full. All the regular nursing staff were able to stay on their home unit. Our patient numbers have been fluctuating so much lately and there seems to be no trend anymore. Maybe it has something to do with the economy, or perhaps governmental budget cuts. I don’t know. As long as I’m working, I can’t complain about inconsistent trends in the number of patients.

I don’t know what it’s going to be like this week with Christmas coming up. I hope the patients who don’t have anywhere else to go for the holidays will decide to stay in the hospital and keep our numbers up.

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Should I Even Have Been Running?

With my new left ankle woes, I had doubts about being able to run on Saturday with the small AREC group. Sure I took five days off and hadn’t run since Monday morning, but the nagging discomfort stayed on the ankle all that time. I even woke up at about 3:50 Saturday morning and couldn’t go back to sleep because of it. Off I go to meet the group anyway to test what the ankles would feel like once we started running. The right ankle problem is a given while the left side is relatively new. Linda and Colleen said they were going to do a slow 4 minute run/1 minute walk interval for 8 to 10 miles. I was just as glad to do it with them so I could give my ankles a break. For sure, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with Cyndi because running hard with her the past several weeks is what started the left ankle pain after all. Please excuse me while I try to heal, Cyndi. Hopefully if I do, I can run with you again soon. So Cyndi takes off after about ¾ mile and the three of us tread gingerly on the streets of Long Beach: Linda with the knee problems, Colleen with sore muscles from being new to Pilates, and me of course with my bum ankles. The two girls were yakking while I trailed behind them. I didn’t mind them setting the pace this time. My hearing must be going bad because I could barely make out what they were talking about and I couldn’t even hear my watch beeping to alert me when it’s time to do a walk break. So I just followed their cue.

Along the way, we encountered Kate twice as she was on her way out then back. We also saw Dennis, who just started running again recently after a couple of years of nagging injuries. He was out for a four miler and his stride looked good and strong to me. Nice to see you running again, Dennis. A little bit of AREC history: Dennis was the organizer of the first ever Long Beach Marathon training group five years ago when it was still the official marathon training program. After that, Todd took over AREC training and the Beach Runners group took over the official duties for the Long Beach Marathon Training.

The paths of the 7:30 starters (us) met with the early 7 a.m. starters with two miles to go at the corner of 2^nd Street and Bayshore, and we were able to run together until the finish.

Other than some minor discomfort on my ankles, it didn’t seem like I aggravated them. But then, the pain usually comes much later. We’ll just have to wait and see how they feel in the next few days. My current stride isn’t working very well anymore so I’ll have to figure out a way to push off my feet without causing the ankle tendons to overstretch.

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A Mix of Emotions

So I’m feeling pretty emotional today (Friday). First, I was thrilled to see on Facebook how my friend SN is having a wonderful relationship with her bf JB. They seem so sweet and right for each other. That gave me a smile so early in the morning.

Then on my way out to the store at noon time, I saw my neighbor’s brothers changing the locks on his door. My neighbor has been sick for a few months and was in the hospital so I asked about his condition. The brothers said that LM passed away the day after Thanksgiving. That made me sad. LM was the first person who welcomed me in our condo complex the day I moved in and he was a really nice person. I’m going to miss him.

While having lunch, I watched the Michael Jackson documentary “This Is It”. I got very engrossed and mesmerized by the movie. It was a series of videotaped rehearsals that MJ had in preparation of what was supposed to be his upcoming concert, but even with that, he was in very “good voice” and the performances were very entertaining. I was glued to the TV set for more than two hours. After watching it, I turned on the surround sound and played some of the songs again and they sounded even better. We have truly lost a tremendous talent in MJ. He was a good singer and performer, and I’m saddened once again about his loss. Despite that, I felt uplifted after seeing this movie.

Then I read Kristin Armstrong’s (ex of Lance) blog. She is such a good writer and she writes very inspiring pieces. Here is her entry for today: http://milemarkers.runnersworld.com/

Off to odd/strange news I go and I find this one about a man with superhuman effort. This article made me smile too: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20091218/D9CM0KDG0.html

Well, it’s just mid-afternoon and I may still find other inspiring, uplifting, or even sad things that might grip my heart and soul. So far it’s been a good day to experience a broad spectrum of emotions.

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My Left Ankle Hurts :(

My left inner ankle has been hurting quite a bit lately and has not been recovering well between runs. In fact it hurts more and the pain lasts longer than the one I have on my right ankle. Could this be the start of the deterioration of the posterior tibialis tendon on my left ankle? The symptoms are similar to when I developed the problem on my right ankle more than four years ago and I’m afraid that if this gets worst, I may definitely have to stop running altogether. It would even be difficult to walk with two ankles hurting. Right now my walking gait when in pain looks like a penguin’s waddle. The funny thing is that it doesn’t hurt too much while I’m running but the pain gets sharper several hours later. This comes at a time when I have been able to do pickup intervals again during the shorter runs. It just feels good to be able to put a hard effort in, but the consequence is it makes my ankles hurt. Shall I be satisfied and content just to put in the slow miles which tend to get even slower as time goes on? After last Saturday’s rainy day run and experiencing pain, I decided to take the whole week off and not run again till next Saturday. When Monday came around I was only going to do the stairmaster or stationary bike or a combination of the two, but when I saw how sunny it was outside, I went out for a six mile run anyway. Now I’m suffering the consequences of that decision. I hope I can hold myself back and not run again till Saturday when we are supposed to cover ten miles. For sure, it’s going to be a run/walk situation for me.

It doesn’t help that the cold weather is making me eat more and the excess calories are beginning to gradually show on the weighing scale. All I can do is try to increase the intensity of my other cross training workouts to match the effort I am able to do while running. Trying to stabilize my eating would help a lot too. In the meantime, with the extra days off, I hope my ankles recover.

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A Good Day to Waddle

Rain? What rain? Sure, the sky was dark and ominous, but only small droplets were falling as we started our waddle. After running with early starters Rosie, Michael, and Lena for about 3/4 mile, I turned back to look for people who might show up for the 7:30 run. I was already dreading having to run by myself after seeing nobody at the parking lot, but fortunately someone emerged from her car and I finally got to meet Sonja, a new addition to our small group. The clouds continued to hold so it was turning out to be not a bad day for a run after all. As we made our turnaround at Nieto Street, I could almost hear Chicken Little whisper in my ear “The sky is falling”, which got louder as we went along. The heavens opened up ever so slightly so that we were now waddling on the street, at the same time dodging puddles. We didn’t see any other runners out there. Come to think of it, not even ducks were out, which we were doing a fair job impersonating, or induckinating. The rain started to fall more steadily but not quite a downpour. It was just enough to soak us a little bit. We eventually finished the run without slipping on the wet pavement even though our shoes and socks were heavy with moisture. I could only thank Sonja for showing up because it made running in the rain more bearable.

In other rain related news, I had to break out my old, hardly used but ever trusty Goretex suit just for this special rainy day occasion. I’ve had my Goretex suit since December, 1980, which was a Christmas present from my Uncle when I first moved to the U.S., and because of our fair weather here in California, it’s very rare that I get to wear it. It’s so old that it’s older than some of the people I run with and so old that the company – Sub 4, doesn’t even exist anymore. I’m surprised that the suit hasn’t fallen apart yet.

I had to run half blind because I couldn’t wear my eyeglasses which don’t have wipers, and my old contact lenses are too cloudy to wear anymore. I figured it was safer to run without eyeglasses than to drive with cloudy contact lenses in weather like this.

Today, we got to play in the rain and it was quite satisfying to be able to accomplish something you love to do regardless of the inclement conditions. Today, we got to waddle like ducks J.

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At the Mercy of Plumbers

Unfortunately, the plumber didn't look like this:

My next door neighbor has had plumbing problems for at least a couple of months. I know, because they asked me if I had problems with my bathtub drain, which I didn’t. I could also hear their tub faucet leaking. Not just dripping, you can actually hear the water flowing (I hate it when water goes to waste like that). Last Sunday I heard someone trying to unclog their drain which I learned later was the plumber. When I woke up from a short nap and was getting ready to go to work, I noticed that dirty water had seeped into my bathtub which came from next door. I notified my neighbor right away and they in turn made the plumber aware of the problem. Little did I know that it was just the start of my own woes. My next door neighbor’s problem had become mine too because we share a main pipe. Somehow, when the plumber ‘snaked’ their drain, the area that was plugged up moved and clogged my drain as well. That started several days of sponge baths and showering in standing water, which I had to scoop out first so as not to overflow the bathtub.

The plumbers did not address the problem until Thursday and they got here just as I came home from work. So while they were trying to figure it out and fix it, I could not go to sleep. They left for a few hours and didn’t tell the affected residents where they went. When I finally called them, they said that they had to wait for the resident downstairs so they can make a hole in her ceiling so the plumbers can attack the problem from there. When they restarted the job, it was already 4 p.m. and didn’t finish until 9 p.m. All the while I haven’t slept and was up for more than 24 hours already.

When the plumbers were done, I was presented the bill. I was shocked when informed that I had to pay $150. I was anticipating maybe $100 at most. I asked them how the bill was broken down and they said that the homeowners association will be charged about $800, my next door neighbor about $300, and me, $150. Even though I didn’t create the problem, I still had to pay for labor and parts for the area of the drain on my side of the building. This is what pisses me off. I was not at fault but am affected financially nonetheless.

I was doing well with my Christmas budget up to now, then I get hit with one of life’s little emergencies. This just adds to the stress of the holiday season. Even though I know in my mind I didn’t cause the problem, I can’t really confront the neighbors about it or plead my case with the homeowners association, or not pay the plumber, because I’m afraid of the possible repercussions in offending these people. First you have to coexist with your neighbors, second, the homeowners association could assess my condo by putting the blame on me and my neighbor, after all they were billed a major part of the bill, or third, get sued by the plumber. After negotiating, bargaining, and pleading for mercy with the plumber, and even though in principle I’m not at fault, I’m still out $120. I’m eating ramen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next couple of months.

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Tiger Woods

Tiger On The Prowl In The Woods

This is my take on the recent Tiger Woods saga, not based on facts but just on my own conjectures. How this all started in my opinion, is that after their family Thanksgiving celebration and after Tiger took his Ambien for sleep, Elin looked through his cell phone because she had seen him texting earlier during the party. Upon seeing the suggestive/salacious messages, she got into a rage, woke him up to confront him and during the argument, he got out of the house, got in his car to leave, all the while Elin followed him with a golf club and smashed the windows as he was driving away, thus causing the car to crash. Of course the effects of the Ambien didn’t help, which is probably why witnesses say that Tiger was asleep and snoring on the ground after he was pulled out of the car. Then it was all downhill from there. Privacy was gone, and just like long lost relatives appearing out of the woodwork in the life of a big lottery winner, women of all kinds started to claim having a relationship with Tiger.

After this, I suggested to women at work that if they wanted to become instantly famous, they should claim that they too had an affair with Mr. Woods. Speaking of wood… oh, never mind. Fame, fortune, wealth, and good wood. Looks like Tiger had them all.

What’s your take on the subject?

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Waffling: Out or In?

On the day after a rainstorm, do I venture outdoors in the bitter cold? Or do I stay in the relative warmth of my living room and run like a hamster on the treadmill? Using the treadmill presents some problems because my heavy stride and the sound of the motor create a lot of noise which sometimes bothers the neighbors. If outdoors, do I run non-stop, or do I do the run/walk intervals and for how long? Despite the bright sun, it was still very chilly outside.

Having stepped outside in my running shorts earlier to take out the trash and feeling the chill, I felt I needed more protection. I dug out my very old Sporthill running pants and put them on over my shorts. Still, I could not make up my mind. Run outside or run indoors? I ventured outside once again, this time bent on hitting the road for the day’s run. Alas! Even before I could take a few dozen steps I felt my ankles aching. Back indoors I went, deciding finally to use the treadmill with its more forgiving cushioned deck. Off with the running pants and the jacket, up on the treadmill for 50 minutes in 78 degree temperature instead of the low 50’s outside. Correction: the temperature outside on Tuesday morning was in the 40's at 8 A.M.

For all the waffling I did, I should have had maple syrup to go with it.

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Running Into Cougars, et al.

The temperature dropped last Saturday morning and it was colder than it had been in the past few weeks. As I arrived at Joe’s Crab Shack, the trail running group was leaving the parking lot to head for Carbon Canyon, and all that was left was a pack of cougars mingling around. I started a very slow jog for my warm up and turned around after about a half mile out. On the way back, I encountered the cougar pack of about 10 or so heading towards me. With a smile and a wave, I gave them a wide berth, then noticed that they were a group of women from the AREC running club who usually run together. If they ever read this blog, I wonder if I’ll suffer their ire for referring to them as cougars. They’ll probably have some non-complimentary choice names for me too. However, this was a pack of cougars you would rather run with, than run away from J.

I had a fairly good run on Saturday morning. During my warm up I also saw Jon and a friend hauling butt. I don’t know if they were racing each other or just doing a tempo workout. We saw Kate coming down 6^th Street hill on our way up. I found out later through Facebook that she was out for a ten mile run, then did a twenty mile ride on the bike. Amazing! Rich and Colleen joined us on Saturday too but they just did six miles. Colleen, I heard about your mom’s passing and my condolences to you and your family. It was nice to see you and Rich back out on the road.

Well, ok, so I did 1.2 miles on my warm up jog then ran with our small group. As a group, we did a mile warm up, then the pace started picking up to what felt like a tempo pace to me (probably just a jogging pace for the two women I was with). I ran with Cyndi and Patti at that effort for the next three miles and really pushed the pace up 6^th Street hill before joining Linda for the last 5 miles doing the four minute run/one minute walk intervals.

To sum up: 1.2 mile jog + 1 mile warm up + 3 miles tempo + 5 miles of 4/1 intervals for a total of 10.5 miles. Nice variety huh? The run/walk intervals probably saved my ankles so I could run another day. This was my longest run since the Long Beach Marathon in October.

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@ My Home Unit

Thank goodness for small favors. With my home unit semi full, I didn’t have to float to another ward or get cancelled today. If we keep the patient count up through Tuesday, I may even get a long five day weekend, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed till then. We currently have thirty two patients out of a possible thirty six and if we keep it at twenty eight and above, then all the regular staff gets to work here. I find myself more productive when I work in my home unit because when I get sent somewhere else, I feel like a bumbling idiot. I can’t seem to find things, the regular workers there might have their own way of doing things, and I don’t want to appear like a hindrance to their work. What I usually do is ask them to tell me what to do and I’ll try do it to the best of my ability. When I work in my home unit, I am able to visualize almost everything that needs to be done and make sure all those tasks are completed. Send me somewhere else, and you’ll have to hold my hand and guide me, which makes me somewhat uncomfortable. Not that I mind too much about working somewhere else. That’s a better option than getting cancelled and not earning anything, and the unease only lasts for 12½ hours. I’m sure other workers who have to float here feel the same way.

Update: unit is almost full with 34 patients. New one admitted as I was finishing this entry. Things are looking up.

Definition of FLOAT – the act of being sent to work on another unit due to overstaffing or low patient count.

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Enduring a Bad Run

Yesterday, I experienced one of the worst runs I’ve had in recent months. I felt flat, heavy, uncoordinated (now, how much coordination do you need to run?). It was one of those struggling efforts from start to finish. The breathing never stabilized, I was huffing and puffing and breathless the whole way. Picking up the pace didn’t help, slowing down didn’t help either. The stride just falls flat and doesn’t feel like you are being propelled forward. Even though the terrain was flat, it felt like running uphill the whole time. Not even tuning out on the MP3 player worked. I was thinking that 40 minutes would be enough, well maybe, 45 minutes, but I went out a little too far so I managed 50 minutes with another half mile to walk back home. Some runs just end up that way regardless of whether you are injured or not and there’s nothing you can do about it except push through the discomfort until you’re done. You just have one of those days when nothing feels good and you just hang in there and finish your time or distance and call it a day. My right ankle was hurting when I stopped and it took a few minutes before I could walk straight again. It was one of those survival runs. I did, done, made it through a bad day, which made me feel much better afterwards. It’s days like this that you can look back to when you have another bad running day, and think that you have made it through a tougher time before and you can make it again. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or so I’d like to think.

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Remiss In Blogging About Running

Darn! I haven’t written about running in more than a week already! Isn’t this supposed to be a running blog? I guess I’ll tell you about last Saturday mornings’ run then. Linda, Cindi, and I started out together. Would we do road intervals, fartlek, or a slow and steady jaunt? Well it turned out, neither of the three. With Linda having some knee problems and Cindi feeling tired from Black Friday, I was content on whatever they decided to do. So we did the four minute run and one minute walk Galloway training method for eight miles. The first mile and a half was pretty brisk, then we backed off because Linda’s knee wasn’t cooperating. We continued the process at a slower pace, or so we thought. I say this because it felt like we were slogging through the workout: my legs felt heavy, Linda’s knee was aching, and Cindi wasn’t feeling too hot either. Upon finishing the run and checking our average pace on the GPS watch, we were surprised to see that we ended up running 10:06 per mile. Believe me, it felt more like 10:30 to 10:40. I must have lost my perception of pace through the years. But then again, with the run/walk method, I find it more difficult to get a feel for my pace based on effort. But, it doesn’t matter, whatever takes us from point A to point B regardless of pace is good enough.

On a solo run/walk workout Monday morning, I managed to get the average pace down to 9:57 minutes per mile over six miles. My ankles protested afterwards and I had to ice them three times in a span of two hours when I got home.

We are expecting someone new to join us next Saturday. She found my blogpost last week on Facebook under the AREC Group and contacted me for info. We shall welcome her with open arms.

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Computer Frustration

Computers are at times so quirky, fickle, and unpredictable. On Saturday my Uncle called me so many times asking questions about his computer that I started answering my phone “tech support, how may I help you?”. He was having problems getting on the internet again because his computer was not connecting with the wireless router even though he moved the router closer. Well it turns out the USB dongle receiver had detached from the computer. Not knowing this, Verizon advised him to just hard wire the DSL modem to the computer’s Ethernet connection. That should have taken care of the problem, but nooooo…He called me again to ask about this and I told him to turn off the modem for about a minute, then turn it back on. Still no luck. I thought maybe there was a brief interruption of service in his area so I advised him to wait about an hour and try again. An hour or so passes by and I get another call saying there was still no internet connection. I was out of ideas so I looked it up on the internet and called my Uncle back to give him step by step directions. Turn off the modem, unplug it from the electric socket, turn off the computer, plug the modem, turn it on, start up the computer, and BAM! The heavens parted and the internet came down and showed itself to my Uncle.

On Sunday I had computer problems of my own. I started up my back up laptop so I can update the antivirus software and Microsoft Windows. However, while the computer would connect to the router, it could not connect to the internet. Despite several Microsoft suggestions in the Help and Support section of Windows Vista on how to fix the problem, still no cigar. So I tried something that Microsoft did not suggest. I turned off the DSL modem, turned off the wireless router, waited a minute, then turned everything back on again. Problem solved.

My co-worker just bought a new computer and will be getting a wireless router soon, and she needs help. Noel’s tech support at your service, ma’am.

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