A Cushy Tushy

I wasn’t planning on riding the bike last Wednesday, but I got my new padded shorts in the mail and well, I just had to try it. My first impression upon putting it on was, hmm, it feels like wearing a diaper. Not like I know how wearing one might feel like since I’ve never worn one before. Oh, wait! I’m pretty sure I’ve worn diapers when I was a baby and they were probably the cloth kind, not that I remember anything about it. The problem with buying clothes by mail order is of course picking the proper size. In this case, I lucked out because the shorts fit me perfectly. I also bought a new padded saddle and replaced the one the bike came with. Somehow the memory foam seat cover I put on it last week didn’t work too well in putting the cushy to my tushy. Anyway, I just exchanged the seat cover for the gel saddle at the store which cost the same.

Out the door and into the road I go, and at first I didn’t feel too much difference in my comfort level, but then again it could have been the lingering soreness from the past weeks’ rides. I went back to the criterium course where I first test rode the bike. I’m beginning to like riding there even though I just basically go around in circles, because there are hardly any cars and traffic. As the ride went along I started to feel the advantage of the new shorts and saddle. My butt didn’t feel as sore sooner than usual and actually felt quite comfortable. I only rode for an hour so it’s too early to say how it will feel on longer rides. All I can say is that the new equipment does help a lot and I could use all I can get. People who know me already know how deficient I am in the rear end department.

In the past, bike shorts were just some kind of stretchy fabric with a chamois pad in the crotch area which didn’t give any cushioning. The natural chamois pad which came from sheep hide eventually got stiffer with repeated washings. Today’s technical fabric holds up better with washings, feels more comfortable, and doesn’t require the sacrifice of animals. I sure hope the sheep are appreciative of that. I know I my tushy is. And I don’t care if people start asking me I’m wearing an adult diaper. So two thumbs up for the padded shorts and gel saddle!

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

Right Size Me

More about my new bike. Remember when I was waffling and guessing about what size bike frame would fit me? My main concern was that the bike would be too high for my height, and the top tube of different brands of bikes being straight parallel to the ground or slightly slanted, it was all a guessing game for me. I thought at first I would need a 40 centimeter frame, then 47, and with further research and self measurement, maybe a 52 centimeter frame.

 When I went to the store last week and the salesperson measured me, he took my height and inseam and compared it to the factory dimensions from the bike manufacturer’s catalogue. He figured I would fit in a 54 centimeter frame. To tell you the truth I was very doubtful and thought it was too high for me, but I left it to the expert to decide, because if he was mistaken, he could always return the frame and exchange it for a smaller one. Well, I’ll be darned! When I picked up the bike last Monday and stood over the top tube, there was about an inch of clearance to spare, meaning the salesperson measured me perfectly! He happened to be the one that sold me the bike lock, pump, and spare tube last Wednesday and I complimented him for his perfect choice of bike size for me. He also mounted the pump and lock on the bike. I should have trusted the expert more when he suggested it last week. Even though he doesn’t read this blog, I wanna say: Thank you Aaron from Bellflower Bicycles for doing a great job for me. Among his additional services were 10% off the bike, 20% off the parts, and a free spare tube. A perfect example of good customer service.

I did my second ride yesterday which was a rushed workout because I had things to do, and managed 55 minutes on the sore butt I mentioned in my last post. More on how that ride turned out later. 

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

Why Is My Derriere Hurting?

My butt hurts! No, no, no, I didn’t switch to the other side and I hope you know what I mean. This has something more to do about getting my new bike last Monday afternoon. I also picked up a tire repair kit and some tire levers, just in case. Too bad the bike was not available last weekend when I was off from work. Since I had to work Monday evening, I didn’t get to test ride the bike very much other than to find out if I can still balance on it. After riding it a couple of minutes down a side street by the bike shop, I found out that riding a bike is indeed like - riding a bike. Your muscles and brain take over and the skill which has remained dormant all these years is still there. Remember I said in a previous post that I still have a helmet, an air pump, and steel lock from the bikes I owned in the 80’s? Well, the pump is not compatible with the new bike because it’s a Schraeder type, while the new tires have a Presta valve. Regarding the U-lock I had, I didn’t have the parts to mount it on the bike and besides it was the kind that was more susceptible to thieves using just an old Bic pen.

This new Trek 1.1 bike I have now is so much different from my old bikes. First, it is much lighter because it is made of aluminum. I can only imagine how much lighter the latest carbon fiber bikes are, but they are not in my price range. Even this Trek is a stretch on my budget. Second, the ride is stiffer compared to the touring bikes I used to ride, which seemed to have more “give”. And third, the wheels are narrower which makes it more of an entry level road racing bike. The narrower wheels and the aluminum probably contribute to the stiffness of the ride. The bike already came with toe clips and I don’t feel ready to try clipless pedals yet, so toe clips suit me just fine. Besides, I’ve never tried clipless pedals before, nor do I have the proper shoes for them. The fourth difference is the index shifting system which I had never used before either, so I had to ask the salesperson how to use it. I knew you had to twist a lever to lower the gears, but didn’t know how to make the gears to go back up. Turns out there were two levers on each side of the handlebars.

On Wednesday afternoon, I went back to the bike shop to buy a new pump , a spare inner tube, and U-lock, then I was able to test ride the bike afterwards. Thus, the sore butt. I figured I’d ride around the neighborhood for about an hour. I didn’t last quite that long, but I made it to 50 minutes on a criterium-like course. That just means I went round and round a few times. I was able to experiment on the gearing, braking, spinning, and stand ups. I don’t remember at what point my butt started hurting, but this is to be expected since I haven’t ridden a road bike so many years. Indoor stationary bikes just don’t compare because they have wider seats. Oh, I almost forgot about another difference. The bike also has a narrower saddle than a touring bike and I kept on being reminded of it as the ride went along.

The next day (today – Thursday), I went out to buy a memory foam seat cushion , a tool bag, and a water bottle cage, to complete my accessories. Darn! The expenses are starting to add up and I don’t even have proper bike shorts and a jersey yet! The only things I didn’t need were a helmet which I already have, and shoes (I’m still using my old durable Nike touring shoes with the torn parts repaired with Shoe Goo). I didn’t even dare try to ride the bike again today even with the new seat cushion. I need to have my sore butt recover first. Butt butter anyone? If you don’t know what that is, you can find out here: http://circlecitybicycles.com/cbutter.htm

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

An Abnormal Night At The Asylum

This is what the staff members look like.

What has this night brought us? A fire alarm at the start of the shift, for one.  A claim for 2 lost shirts second. Third, a complaint of chest pain. And fourth, a lost or misplaced wallet. With bated breath, we awaited what more is to come, for the night is still young. It’s only midnight, and there are 7 ½ hours more to go. If ever there was an abnormal night at the asylum, this was it.

I am talking about the happenings of Tuesday night at work and how I was feeling at the stroke of midnight. There is no more live blogging for me, so I have to rely on memory.

The fire alarm sounded at approximately 7:25 p.m. just as the night shift was relieving the day shift from their duties. We had to evacuate all patients to a prearranged meeting area. After about 15 minutes of the alarm bells’ constant ringing, we were finally given the all clear signal. It turns out that the maintenance people replaced a water heater and when they tested it, there was some sort of combustion that produced smoke which triggered the fire alarm.

The second incident involved a patient claiming the loss of two t-shirts. Some staff members helped him search for the shirts in his room and laundry area, but they were nowhere to be found. The patient was asked to write the shirt descriptions so we could send it to our supervisor. The day shift later told us that the patient had already claimed the loss a couple of weeks back.

Then at about 10:45 p.m., a female patient came out of her room complaining of chest pain. Vital signs and oxygen level was taken. Blood pressure was dropping, pulse was slightly elevated, and oxygen level was within normal limits. Since we are a free standing building with the emergency room at a separate location, we had to call 911. The paramedics arrived in no time and whisked the patient out within 10 minutes. The patient was later cleared in an emergency room and returned to us at about 3:45 a.m.

At 11:30 p.m. a male patient came out of his room after discovering his wallet missing. He said he kept it in his socks earlier. After a brief search, the wallet was found in the drawer of his bedside table. He probably forgot that he put it there in the first place. Disaster averted.

Oops, 1:30 a.m. and a registered nurse had to be sent home due to a decrease in the number of patients. Now we are working with one staff member short while we have two pending admissions. Six hours left to go.

We received our two admissions at 3 and 3:30 a.m. without any further incidents and the rest of the night progressed normally. The staff had survived another night at the asylum.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

An Embarrassing Juice Exchange

A few days ago at work at around 11 P.M., I found a box of Kool Aid drinks in a room where we do patient admissions. It wasn’t labeled with anybody’s name or how long it had been there. It could have belonged to a patient or staff. But since it was not labeled, it was considered public domain, so I passed it around and offered some to my coworkers until just three remained out of a box of ten.

The next morning, one of the day shift staff asked if we saw a box of Kool Aid that she had forgotten to put away the day before for a patient. With much embarrassment, I admitted that I had offered it to everyone on the night shift until there were only three left. Fortunately, I had a box of similar drinks (Capri Sun) in my car so I gave it up as a replacement for what we consumed the previous night. The patient actually had a net gain of two extra containers of drinks when all was done. I hope she didn’t mind too much that it wasn’t the same flavor.

And now, a follow up. I was off from work for one night and when I returned, I asked a day shift staffmember if the patient had any questions about her replacement drinks. The patient apparently didn’t notice the difference. Whew!!! I’m still slightly red in the face.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

Successful Escapes From Psych Units

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the escape attempt by one of our patients that failed (The Great Escape). Today, I’m going to tell you about some that succeeded.

When I first started working in the psych field in an adolescent unit, we heard a loud sound coming from one of the patient rooms at about midnight. When we went to check, we discovered that the iron window bars have been pulled out of the outer wall. A friend of one of the patients had tied a rope to the bars, attached the other end to his truck outside a fence about 50 meters away, and pulled. Needless to say, the patient escaped through the window and over the fence. Who would have thunk it?! At another hospital, an agile adolescent climbed up the corners of a wall in the smoking patio area a la spiderman, and escaped from the roof. Let me try to explain how he did that: with his back facing two wall corners, he used his feet, legs, and arms to propel himself upwards towards the roof. In another roof escape from a patio, an adult patient stacked tables and chairs to get up and over the outside of the building. Most recently about three years ago, while the housekeepers were waxing and polishing the floors, a female patient managed to strip the caulk off a window leading to an outside patio and left the hospital. We didn’t find out that the patient had escaped until about two hours later, after the housekeepers finished their work. The cops picked up that patient the next day and brought her back to us.

The above are only incidents that I was present in. Other workers probably have more interesting stories about patients trying to and sometimes successfully escaping from locked psych units.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

Post Saturday Run Blues

After Saturday’s AREC run, I had to work my usual 12 hour shift from evening to morning and the exhaustion I mentioned carried over at my job. I felt so drained, that by midnight, I could barely stay awake. The next day my thigh muscles were sore (it’s Monday afternoon now as I post this and they are still sore). Kinda similar to post marathon soreness but not quite as bad. It felt as if I haven’t run in a long time and just started again. Well, duh! For someone who used to run every day for so many years, four days of not running is a long time. After that many days off then suddenly running 10.42 miles, of course my legs would be sore. At least my ankle joints didn’t fare so badly, so I hope I can resume my current three days a week running schedule. No matter how much cross training I do, it’s not a substitute for running. As I mentioned in a blog post last year explaining the training principle of specificity, you have to run to get in shape for running.

              People probably wonder, since I mention that I have a permanent ankle tendon injury, why I keep on showing up at the Saturday morning runs. If the injury is so bad, why am I still running with them? It must not be as bad as I claim it to be, you might say. The truth is, it is really bad and I shouldn’t be running anymore, but I am just hanging in there, prolonging as much as possible what I love to do despite the pain. The permanent injury is on my right ankle, but in the past few weeks I’m feeling similar signs and symptoms with my left ankle, which is not good. If my left ankle goes, so goes the running.

This is the reason why I’ve been taking so many days off. With so many days off, my running conditioning suffers. That’s probably why I felt so flat and exhausted last Saturday. Maybe instead of taking extra days off, I should just reduce my running time to 30 to 40 minutes during the week instead of my usual hour. That way, I hope my ankles are not too battered, but I would still be able to maintain my running conditioning. I may try that this coming week and see what happens.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

Random Thoughts For June

And now, another episode of random thoughts for those uncategorized topics that come up once in awhile.

As a little boy, I remember getting woken up early Sunday mornings to get ready for mass and having to drink a glass of Ovaltine or Milo at least an hour before communion to satisfy the one hour fasting requirement. Breakfast came only after getting home from mass. I’m wondering now if that was actually a Catholic church regulation.

Eating a plain ham and cheese sandwich nowadays reminds me of the snacks they used to serve on the Philippine Airlines DC-3 flights from Jolo to Zamboanga. What did they serve my Muslim townmates, I wonder? I don’t remember the airline serving peanuts...

In elementary school, I remember the boys having to wear shorts as part of the uniform. We couldn’t wait to get to high school so we could wear grown up long pants. I don’t know how we survived wearing khakis from kindergarten through high school in the tropical heat of the Philippines.

Psych patients are like needy babies sometimes. All they care about is instant gratification. All a baby does is eat, sleep, and poop, or in some Philippine dialects “papa, meme, oo”. In the case of patients, in addition to eat, sleep, and poop, all they like to do is take the most medications and smoke the most cigarettes they can possibly have. Like babies, they also throw tantrums when they don’t get what they want right away.

There used to be 2 or 3 wireless networks within range of my home 2 years ago, some of which were not secure. Today there are 11 and all secure. People have finally learned about keeping their networks safe.

I went to Target last week to buy a one terabyte hard drive for $69, which was the cheapest I’ve seen for that size. What surprised me at the store was not finding that there was any left for that price, but rather seeing for the first time Target’s waterless urinals. There was no water used for flushing and a sensor simply emptied your pee by use of gravity (I think).

My computer crashed while I was trying to do too many things at once on it (watching a movie, downloading a huge file, moving files from one drive to another). When Windows Explorer restarted, there was no audio in the video files I had saved. I thought they were permanently damaged. I shut it down and rebooted, Thank God and Microsoft Windows 7 which did a self diagnosis, I didn’t lose any files and the system repaired itself.

                When I had a day off several weeks ago, I closed a Roth IRA CD that matured from a bank and transferred it to another bank down the street which offered a slightly higher rate. CD rates are so low nowadays that you can’t get a decent interest rate unless you sign up for a longer termL.  Then I went home and exercised, did my laundry, updated my computers, burned video files on DVD’s for friend, caught up with DVR’d American Idol and watched the finale of Dancing With The Stars online. Later that evening, I watched the American Idol finale and blogged about it afterwards, which I never thought I would have ever done. It was a pretty productive day off.

                One my way home from the Wrigley River Run last week, I saw two motorized wheelchairs create a traffic jam between themselves on a sidewalk. They were facing each other and there was not enough space on either side for them to pass by each other. I thought that was a little amusing.

                I wrote these random thoughts a few weeks back but never got to post it. Well, better late than never, and it’s still June after all. Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there!

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

The Magic Jack Trial

Who, do you ask, is Magic Jack? Some kind of prestidigitator named Jack? A lot of people have heard of the Magic Jack of course, and I’ve read about it myself in the last couple of years since it first came out, but I found no reason to obtain one since I have been using my cellphone and Skype for telephone calls ever since I stopped using a landline. I’ve managed with those so far even though I couldn’t receive incoming calls in Skype, though you can subscribe to that service if you wanted to for additional bucks. Since I’m not a big phone user, my prepaid cellphone service and outgoing Skype calls have sufficed. But my Skype credit is down to 93 cents and it was either put in more money, or try something else. Hence, I bought the Magic Jack yesterday. All that was required for it to work is a computer and high speed internet connection. You can use a corded or cordless phone, but it’s not necessary.

 I remember last year when my brother and his wife called me from the Philippines using Magic Jack with an Arizona phone number. I answered my cellphone out of curiosity to find out who would call me from Arizona and was surprised to hear my brother. It turns out, someone from the U.S. had given it to them as a present.

 Now it is my turn to try this device. I plugged it in a USB port on my computer, the built-in program tried to install itself, then nothing else happened. So I read the instructions more closely and it said, plug in the phone to the device before plugging the device to a USB port. When I did that, the software installed and asked me to register so I can obtain a new phone number. So far so good. I have an old cordless phone at home which is what I plugged into the Magic Jack, but I didn’t get the expected dial tone. However, if I used my computer’s speakers and microphone, I was able to make and receive phone calls. I concluded that my old cordless phone’s battery was dead and was no longer charging. The next day, I went to Walmart and bought the cheapest corded phone I could find (six bucks), even though it was tempting to get one of those DECT cordless phones. When I got home, I disconnected the non-functioning cordless phone and plugged in the cheap corded one. I got my dial tone at last!

The Magic Jack has worked pretty well so far when I made a couple of calls from it yesterday. There was some occasional choppiness as can be expected from internet telephony but not any different quality that I get when using Skype. My internet connection isn’t that fast anyway, only 1 Mbps, so I can live with the choppiness, I’m sure. I don’t know what the quality will be like yet if I’m uploading or downloading something, but I hope it would not be too degraded. Even though the instructions said that I should plug the device into a main USB port and not in a hub, I have mine in a hub and it has worked just as well. You can dial from your telephone keypad or on the pop-up keypad on your computer screen. So there it is. This is not a review, of course, but just my experience with the device so far. 

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

Run or Bust on Saturday

I know when one kind of pain feels different from the usual. The different pain is what I felt towards the end of what was supposed to be a slow, easy run last Tuesday morning. It’s the same old tendon overstretch story that you have probably read time and again if you’ve followed this blog for the last couple of years. It won’t be the last time it’s going to happen either because this is the nature of my injured ankle. Just from personal experience, it would either be baseline pain, overstretch pain, or tendon tear pain. The third one of course is what lays me off from running for several weeks to a couple of months. What kind of pain did it feel last Tuesday? It felt like the second type, or at least I hope it’s that one. The pain has been coming and going the last few days and I haven’t run since then even though my schedule calls for a run Thursday. Usually it doesn’t hurt as much two days later. I don’t intend to try running again until Saturday which happens to be the Wrigley River Run 10K and I don’t know how my ankle is going to feel that day. I am only hoping that taking a few days off from running will enable it to heal enough for me to run the race on Saturday regardless of how long it takes for me to finish.

On Saturday morning, I’m going to wake up early, lace up my running shoes, drive myself to the starting line, play it by ear, or in this case by ankle, and hope for the best. It’s going to be run or bust.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

Shredded Tire, Anyone?

On my way home from work Sunday morning, I took the freeway since it was not busy. There I was driving leisurely on a wide open freeway following a van. Just as I was about to exit, I saw some debris hit my windshield, and then I noticed that the front right tire of the van ahead of me was shredding to pieces! Good thing I wasn’t following too close. The driver of the van managed to pull over to the shoulder of the road without losing control of the vehicle. Lucky for him for not losing control, lucky for me for seeing the problem from a distance, and lucky for both of us for part of the freeway we were in being devoid of other cars. Whew! The van’s tires must have been retreads because I’ve never seen a tire shredding to pieces like it did. It's not the kind of excitement I'd like to have especially when my day is winding down and I'm about to go to bed. Well, at least nobody got hurt.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

The Evolution of Virgin Mobile Phones

Most people who have used cell phones through the years have gone through different iterations and sizes of the device, not to mention what services they have subscribed to. Cell phones started out large, got smaller and smaller until it got to candy bar size and now they have started getting bigger and heavier again to accommodate all the electronics.

 I myself have been using what I consider lower tech gadgets from the Virgin Mobile prepaid service all these years and I’d like to show you the different phones I’ve had from the start to present time. I didn’t upgrade every time they came out with a new phone, of course, and probably kept each model I had for about two years. This year, Virgin Mobile finally came out with a couple of semi-smart phones in the form of the LG Rumor Touch and a Blackberry model. As a self present for my birthday, I acquired the LG Rumor Touch which is the first touch screen model for Virgin Mobile. I didn’t really need it since I don’t surf the web or use Facebook and Twitter on my cell phone, but it was my birthday and it was on sale at Best Buy. It is also my first phone with a full keyboard which makes it easier for me to add contacts and send text messages even though I’m don’t do SMS that often. In any case, it is there if ever I need it.

 So here are some pictures of the Virgin Mobile cell phones I’ve used through the years. I’m not a reviewer so I’m not even going to attempt to describe what these phones can or cannot do. Of course feel free to look them up on the web if you are interested to find out what functions they have or in the case of the older ones, what they had.

The Virgin Mobile Party Animal

                                                        

I don't remember the name of this model

The Marble

The Slice

The Shuttle

and finally, the LG Rumor Touch

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

The Great Escape

               Last week, we had a patient who was upset about being in the hospital and made it known to his parents who were visiting, that he will not be here the next day. He stormed out of the visiting area and went back to his room. A few minutes later we heard a loud crash coming from his room and we rushed to see what happened. I cringed at the thought of seeing the patient hang himself. Upon entering the room, we didn’t see him so we immediately checked the bathroom. The window had been busted open and the patient was trying to escape! He probably thought that the window led to his freedom. Unbeknownst to him, it opened into an inside patio with a door leading to the nurse’s station. After a brief tug of war of the door between him and a female nurse, he managed to enter the office. There, he encountered more nursing staff who had rushed back to the office knowing that the only egress the patient had was in there. He must have been so disappointed to see where he ended up in. He tried to fight with us when he was being escorted out of the office so we didn’t have a choice but to tie him on a bed with leather restraints. As I probably mentioned in a post awhile ago, we try as much as possible to avoid restraining a patient, but in this case, with his aggressive behavior, that was our only option. He was a pretty strong fellow because he was a trained gymnast who developed depression in recent years. The next day, we saw him doing push-ups in his room. The kind of horizontal push-ups where his feet didn’t touch the ground and just all arms!

                It was fortunate for us that the great escape turned out to be a failed attempt. This patient could have harmed himself or worse if he succeeded. Gymnast, he was, but Steve McQueen he was not.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

My Brief Stint as a Tennis Pro

 Being on the varsity tennis team in college, I volunteered myself as a student assistant for some instructors in tennis P.E. classes at the University of the Philippines and that is where I honed my teaching skills for beginners. Students started out facing the outside wall of the campus gymnasium which was used as a huge backboard while learning the basic strokes of the game: forehand, backhand, and serve. Turn slightly sideways, time the arrival of the ball, swing the racket through the ball in an arcing upward motion, and follow through with the swing. While doing all that, you transfer your weight from the rear leg to the front leg with your knees slightly bent. Imagine if you were the student trying to remember all those instructions in an attempt to do one basic stroke. By the time they process all that information, the ball would have passed them. Tennis fundamentals are difficult initially but when you learn it properly at the start you are able to improve quickly the rest of the way.

                While assisting in college, I also had a couple of clients for private lessons which I charged twenty pesos an hour and that helped a lot in supplementing my meager allowance.

                After graduating, my first job was teaching tennis in a summer recreation program for employees of a major pharmaceutical company. When I received my paycheck at the end of the program, the first thing I bought was a skateboard which I never learned to ride. If I remember correctly, I still had a couple of students for private tennis lessons at the time. I stopped teaching the sport when I got a job at a health club as a fitness trainer. A year after that I moved to the U.S., played tennis in a few parks for a couple of years, then stopped playing the game altogether.

Then there was this travelling tournament sponsored by Marlboro cigarettes in the Philippines. One summer while I was visiting my parents in Zamboanga City, the tournament was held there and I played in it. I was eliminated in the first round by the man who coached me when I was still learning the game in high school. I got 50 pesos for losing in the first round.

So there you go. No remarkable tennis past in my life, but it was a sport that I loved playing. I limit my tennis to an occasional Nintendo WII game nowadays.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

Freeway Closure, Abbreviated Warm Up, AREC Run

I got out of the house later than usual on my way to the AREC training run Saturday morning. To compound the problem, part of the freeway was closed and my usual exit was not accessible so I had to drive farther to get to where I wanted to go. That delay cut into my usual warm up time so I had to cut that short after I arrived at my destination. No time for pre-warm up chit chat today, so I just took off and managed to do a 1.2 mile warm up before the group got started.

After the usual short speech by our club president, Todd, we were off for a 7 mile run. As usual, I hooked on with the 10 minutes per mile pacers and we hit the first mile slightly faster at 9:49. I started picking up my pace with the plan of chasing and recovering like I did a couple of weeks before (http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2010/05/chaserecoverdrive.html). That worked pretty well for the next three miles, but after that, the rest of the runners were separated by huge gaps that I couldn’t bridge. My breathing felt like I was racing a 5K by this time. I even considered running back to rejoin the 10 minute pacers so I can catch my breath. I caught up with a last group at a water stop but their pace was slightly faster than mine and they pulled away in the last two miles.

            This is how my stride felt from start to finish: my footstrikes from miles 0 to 3 went flick, flick, flick, then miles 3 to 5, they felt like flop, flop, flop, then by the last couple of miles, my feet were going thud, thud, thud.

           At about 5.5 miles, my body’s check engine light went on, indicating a problem with the right axle (ankle). Not wanting to make it worse, I pulled the pace back a bit and that was when the people ahead of me left me behind. Still, when I hit the last hill, I managed to pick up the pace again to finish strong without further hurting my ankle. Other than the discomfort of putting in a lot more effort than I planned, it was an altogether satisfying run. Why? Well, because I finished.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

National Running Day Sentimentality

Running on a treadmill on National Running Day (Wednesday) was not the most ideal way to celebrate it especially when it was not part of my workout schedule, but rather just had to do it to be sentimental. It was something I should have at least done outdoors since it was a beautiful day. Instead I did a token run on the treadmill for thirty minutes plus another thirty minutes on the elliptical machine and twenty minutes on the stationary bike.

                Why all the activity, you ask? Well, National Running Day fell on my birthday and my coworkers threw a potluck party for me at work on the night shift. You know what that means: another bout of overeating. Thus, there was a need afterwards to balance things out by burning those calories. That was the reason for the extended workout. I normally don’t do any aerobic exercise past an hour, but with all the eating we did, I felt the need to do something extra. Even though the slow treadmill run added to the calorie burn, my ankles did not appreciate not being given the extra day off from the activity. Maybe next year I will arrange my schedule better so I can fit in a run day on that date.

As a result, Thursday’s scheduled run became a slog of sorts. Even though I planned for an easy run/walk, my tired legs made for a slower than usual pace and sore than usual ankles. I’ll chalk it up to the previous day’s workout and the junk food induced malaise from the potluck party.

Oh well, such is life. It can’t feel good all the time. Running due to pure sentimentality didn’t help either. I promise to do better next year.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

The Memorial Day Un-race

On Memorial Day warm enough to run in a tank top, there were a few races far and near going on. I was not a participant in any of them. Instead, I raced unexpectedly against me, myself, and I. The intended workout was supposed to be an easy six miles using the four minute run/one minute walk method. What it ended up being was an hour run comprising of a ten minute warm up, followed by 8 x four minutes hard pace with one minute recovery jog, and ten minutes cool down to finish it off. The first two intervals felt smooth and bouncy, but the last six were a knockdown, drag out fight between me against gravity, wind resistance, and the limits that God gave my body. The left thigh pain I developed the previous day from using very heavy gears on the stationary bike was not even an issue. What mattered most was trying to maintain form while running as hard as I can for four minutes without making my ankle tendons suffer the consequences of the pounding. For four minutes at a time, it was me racing against the road ahead of me. On this day when I found it difficult to get going, that I didn't start my run until almost 9 A.M., just by getting out there and putting one foot in front of the other, I already won the race. 

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

American Idol 2010 Finale

Great American Idol Finale show tonight! In my opinion, based on yesterday’s performances, it was an upset, but then again this is a popularity contest. Most of the time, if you listen closely, Lee Dewyze is off key or maybe that’s just because I have bad hearing. All I can say is that Crystal Bowersox had better performances and vocals Tuesday night. But she doesn’t have a pop idol look, so that may have been why she finished second even though it was her better voice that took her to the final two. Lee on the other hand has the looks but seems to have poor communication skills and when he sings, he appears to have no emotional connection to the songs. His face has only one expression.  If I were to choose a winner based on performance and pop idol looks though, I would have picked Siobhan Magnus. It’s too bad she was voted off several weeks ago. Just to let you know, I have not voted since Carrie Underwood won several years ago.

                What I enjoyed most about tonight’s finale were the performances of Christina Aguilera and Janet Jackson. Their voices sounded great! Forget about Lady Gaga and her wardrobe changes. She is still not on the level of Christina and Janet. Just sing it, ladies. Wardrobe malfunction not required.

                Nevertheless, despite being not my choice, I congratulate Lee Dewyze for having more votes than Crystal on this night. I can only hope he gets better. Otherwise he may fade into obscurity like some other previous winners.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

The Shower Fix

               First let me tell you, I’m not a handyperson and can hardly fix things. When it comes to plumbing, you might as well write the word “STUPID” across my forehead. In recent weeks, the stream adjustment on my shower nozzle broke and I’ve been looking for a replacement shower head. I finally went to OSH Hardware Store last Thursday afternoon to look for one. What I found out was that the shower head I had was so old that they don’t make them anymore and the standard size had changed. The salesperson suggested that I go to Plumbing World which was a couple of miles away. Since it was already late and they were closed, I went first thing next morning. They didn’t have the type of shower head either and they suggested that there may be an adapter that I can connect to the tube attached to the wall in my shower, which I can put in a new standardized showerhead. Unfortunately, the one they had was not the correct size for the brand I had. So I went online when I got home to look for it and found one at the Ace Hardware Store website. After the Saturday morning AREC run, I visited the nearest store and with the help of the salesperson there, located the product I needed, which was actually cheaper then the price quoted on their website. In addition, I bought the cheapest showerhead I could find and some Teflon tape as a sealant for the attachments. When I got home, I connected everything and the new showerhead worked perfectly without any leaks. If it works for the next 20 to 30 years like the old one did, I would have gotten more than my money’s worth.

            My personal expenses for this venture: 1 week’s worth of search time, plus shower arm adapter: $4.99, showerhead: $3.79, roll of Teflon tape: $0.99. Savings: approximately $50.00 for not calling a plumber. Surprising what a little bit of resourcefulness can do. If you can please wipe the word “STUPID” off my forehead now. Thank you.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com

Chase/Recover/Drive

No, it’s not the same as shake, rattle, and roll. This has more to do with Saturday morning’s first AREC training run of the year for the Long Beach Marathon come October. After a somewhat lengthy registration process, introduction, and orientation to the training program (due to a lot of newcomers which swelled the group to over a hundred!), the marathoners set forth on their 5 mile run, while the half marathoners left for their 3 miles. Wait, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Waking up in a spacey mode which lasted throughout the morning, I got to the staging area early, said hello to Sophie, filled out my registration and waiver forms at Kate's, Emmett's, and Deb's tables, then caught a glimpse of Tam, Jamie, and Jean starting out already. Not wanting to warm up all by myself, I caught up with them and learned that they were going for 9 miles. I ran with them for one and a quarter miles then turned back to the starting area for a total of 2.5 miles as my warm up.

After the above mentioned introductions, I searched for and found the 10 minutes per mile pace group with our Aussie mate, Allison leading the way. I stayed with them through past the half mile mark when I saw Rosie up ahead, so I upped the pace slightly and gave chase. I talked to her for a few minutes so I could slow down and catch my breath. Then I saw Michael up ahead and the chase was on again. Upon catching up, I did the same thing I did with Rosie to recover. I thought I saw the 9 minutes per mile pack up ahead and in between me and them, was a woman who I had a nodding acquaintance with last year. So I gave chase again. When I caught up with her, I mentioned remembering her losing her husband on the course in one of last year’s long runs (no, losing is not a euphemism for dying, she and her husband just happened to run different paces and somehow she got separated from him during the run). So that was how the run went for the first half, with me chasing people and recovering or catching my breath when I caught them. While I was eyeing what I thought was the 9 minute pace group up ahead, I missed the turnaround point going out and coming back. Was it supposed to be Covina Street? Well, I never saw it so I didn’t turn around until I reached Nieto Street, which I knew was way past where we were supposed to turn. By that time most people I was keying on were too far to catch, but not for lack of trying. I tried to keep the pace close to my redline point the rest of the way and didn’t catch any more runners until the last two miles. The long drive to the finish lasted for about 2 ½ miles which I felt I covered at 10k race pace. Due to missing the turnaround, the run that was supposed to be 4.9 miles became 5.65 miles for me. To my astonishment, I had run the course at an average pace of 8:54 per mile. I didn’t think I still had it in me to run sub 9 minute pace. Well, it was just about 5 miles after all. For sure, I’ll be slowing it down when the distance increases and will be doing the run/walk too. But for Saturday’s run, maybe my spaciness was just another word for focused. I thank my ankles and knees for holding up to the hard paced run.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!
Back to Main Page: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com