Blazing Internet For a Reasonable Price

My two year contract with Verizon Internet expired last month. I was paying them $19.99 a month for 1 megabit per second (mbps) download speed, and when the contract expired, I was billed on a month to month basis for 21.99. Last Wednesday afternoon, a door-to-door Charter Communications salesman knocked on my door to ask if I needed cable, phone, or internet service. Normally I would just brush them off and say I don’t need cable because free antenna TV is enough for me and I already have internet service. Since my two year internet agreement expired, I was interested in listening to what Charter had to offer. The guy said he can offer me internet service for 19.99 a month and I asked him how many megabits per second speed, expecting only the same 1 mbps that Verizon offered. To my surprise, he said it would be 12 mbps! I couldn’t believe my ears so I said “are you sure?”, and asked him to repeat it. So what’s the catch? Do I have to pay for monthly modem and router rental fees on top of the 19.99? He said, no catch, I only had to pay an extra 10 dollars for the first month for installation. He also mentioned that it was a back to school promo. I made sure he wrote all that in the work order form. (It bears mentioning that pre-recession, I had 3 mbps service from Verizon for 29.99 a month but that got too expensive for me so I had to downgrade.) We set an appointment for Friday between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the installer to show up. The salesman called me later and said that Friday was full, so we switched it to Saturday morning between 8 to 12 noon.

Come Saturday morning (hmm, wasn’t there a song that started with that line?), I awaited the arrival of the installer while doing my cycling/elliptical/abs workout. I even made it to the shower before he showed up at 11 o’clock. He looked around and asked me where the preinstalled cable wires were. I showed them to him and told him I hadn’t had cable in more than 20 years and those were the only connections I knew. When he tested the wires, there was no power coming out of them so he went outside to look for the cable box. It turns out they had rewired the system and my more than 20 year old connection doesn’t work anymore. He ended up having to drill a hole in my bedroom wall to run a cable from outside, around my bedroom, under the carpet, and into the living room so he could connect the modem/router device. Having finished that at quadruple the time it would normally have taken if my old cable connection still worked, he proceeded to set up my wireless connection. I thanked him very much and apologized for the extra work he had to do. After some instructions from him, I managed to change my wireless network SSID name and password.

One of the first things I did was check the internet speed. It was not quite the advertised speed of 12 mbps but more like 10 mbps. Still blazingly fast compared to the previous 1 mbps. Next I tried downloading a large file while talking on the MagicJack phone. There was nary a drop off in the sound quality. Oh, by the way, that phone call was to Verizon to cancel their service.

That brings me to this question. At that speed, why not share internet service with the neighbors? You can share the password and split the monthly fee. That’s a lot of speed to go around for maybe up to three households. Has anyone heard of such an arrangement or maybe do you yourself share with your neighbors?

I know there are much faster internet services out there but it seems like I got myself a pretty good deal with this arrangement. I hope there will be no surprise extra fees when I get my bill.

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Thursday’s Urban Walkabout

Well it seems like it’s back to walking for me. My ankles haven’t really recovered from the 9 mile run three weeks ago and I didn’t even start doing a walking workout on the treadmill until early last week. I happened to have awakened earlier than usual on Thursday morning after being off from work the previous night, and thought I’d walk outdoors maybe for 2 to 2 ½ hours, which would have made me catch up to the training mileage for the Long Beach Half Marathon.

So I headed out towards the Virginia Country Club area and planned to crisscross the streets and maybe throw in some loops. I was only aiming or at least hoping  for a pace of 15 minutes per mile while doing 4 minutes of aggressive walking with 1 minute of slower recovery. After all, I haven’t done a walking workout in a while and besides it was a hot day. The first couple of miles were uneventful but, darn it, when I hit three miles my left ankle started to hurt, and I thought I would have to abort the workout. Going into the fourth mile which I thought I was on my way home, the ankle started to stabilize, so I pressed on. That’s when the maybes started: maybe one more block, maybe 5 miles, maybe 6, maybe 7, okay, let’s try making it 8 and that should do it. When I hit 2 hours, I was slightly past 8 miles so I went for 8.5 to even it out. But wait, there’s more – I ran up the time to 2:15 and completed 9.13 miles. The first 7 miles were right on the money at my goal pace of 15 minutes per mile, but the last 2 miles were way faster because at the end, the average pace dropped down to 14:48 for the whole distance. So I didn’t make it to 10 miles, but it wasn’t bad at all for not having walked for weeks.

Even though I was surprised and excited to have completed that distance, I didn’t write about it right away because I was afraid of the aftermath. Often my ankles hurt more the day after, so I had to wait and see how it would turn out this time. Well, it seems like the tendons recovered much faster than when I subject them to the pounding of running because the pain is not as much.

After experimenting between a short, quick heel-to-toe stride and my more normal longer walking stride, I found out that my pace is faster with the longer stride, so maybe I’ll keep it that way. It isn’t as pretty as the swiveling hips of racewalkers, but it seems to work better for me.

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Gifted But Not Well Guided Runner?

There’s this girl who loves to run and she is a gifted runner despite what seems to have been a late start at the sport. If she had grown up running in high school, I don’t know. She loves running hard, mostly long distances. If I read her posts on Facebook correctly, she pushes her limits all the time. Do you know the Staples “EASY” button? I don’t think she has one. I don’t know her that well so I’m not aware if she has some guidance from any kind of running mentor or coach (which would have helped if she started running in high school). All the people in the club seem to just praise her for her speed and not give her feedback about how she pushes too much without the required easy days. I could of course be wrong about that. As a frequently injured runner myself and not knowing her that well, I’m not in any position to address her training techniques. Not that the techniques are incorrect. They are all good principles but they are not supposed to be done on consecutive days. Normally, an interval session, a tempo session, and a long run during the week comprise of hard workouts with the runs in between as being done as easily as possible to enable the body to recover. I think she even does 2 a day runs and they are both hard ones. I don’t know if this girl is doing it that way but like I said I could be wrong. Now she is injured a second time in about 4 months and people are asking her what happened and what she did. From my point of view the people who are asking her are already well aware of what happened and know the answers to their questions. I’m not saying she’s not going to get injured if she trains properly. All I’m saying is that she trains too hard too often.

G, you gotta push that EASY button sometimes..

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Thoughts About Retirement Revisited

It’s time to revisit my thoughts about retirement  two years after I first wrote about it here: http://aboutlifeandrunning.blogspot.com/2009/04/thoughts-of-retirement.html . From time to time when I think as if I’m getting tired of the rat race, my thoughts wander to what it might feel like to retire early. The primary considerations of two years ago still stand as documented at that link above.

            My mortgage is due to be paid off in about 6 ½ years and by then I would also be able to start drawing funds from my retirement savings without penalty, other than taxes, depending on the type of account. I won’t go into the differences between Roth and tax deferred IRA’s and 401K or 403B plans, all of which I have had in the 30 odd years I’ve lived and worked in the U.S. Certainly, paying off the mortgage will be a big reduction in my expenses. It is after all the biggest monthly expense which covers about 60 % of my self imposed strict budget. If and when that expense disappears, will I be able to retire then, or continue working lesser hours just so I can keep my health insurance going? See, health insurance is my biggest concern because without an employer contributing to the cost, it is something very expensive to maintain, if you pay the whole cost out of your own pocket. Just before I wrote this, I looked it up and the costs terrified me. If I retire at 60 when I pay off my mortgage, the monthly payment which used to go to the mortgage lender  will be used to pay for health insurance instead, at least until I qualify for Medicare five years later. Of course the other option is not to retire early.

            But what if I really, really, want to retire early? Will moving back to the Philippines still be an alternative? The dollars go farther there as I previously mentioned. In recent weeks, I have surfed the web to look at the cost of homes in different areas of the Philippines. Metro Manila is definitely out of the question because it’s expensive to live there. Even if that is to be considered, the most I could possibly afford would be a studio condominium unit, which is so tiny I would feel squeezed in. There have been suggestions about living in the following cities: Dumaguete (a lot of expatriates supposedly live there), Davao, Cagayan Do Oro, and Zamboanga were among the ones I looked at. Compared to homes in the U.S. which would cost more than what I have saved so far in my lifetime, for the price of about 1/7^th of what I have, one could have at least a 2 bedroom condo or house depending on what city you choose. Even though I looked at Zamboanga where my mother lives, it was not one of the suggested places because it is not as safe as the others mentioned. The homes are cheaper there though. There is just one problem with this scenario. Only Filipino citizens can buy a house and lot in the Philippines, although condominiums are exempt from that law. If anyone from the Philippines reads this, please correct me if I’m wrong. I have no qualms about living in a condo, mind you. I live in one now.

            Ok, now let’s say I decide to retire at 60 and move to the Philippines and buy a home there. There is still the health insurance concern. An expatriate living in the Philippines mentioned in his blog that he set aside $10,000 in case he develops any catastrophic illnesses that requires hospitalization and other expenses that follow.

            After the initial major expense of buying a home, I could possibly live on $500.00 a month until I turn 62 when I can start collecting a reduced amount from Social Security . That would still more than double my budget, that is, if Social Security would still be available then. Farther down the road at 65, I start qualifying for Medicare, which is no good in the Philippines. So what now? Move back to the U.S. just because? By that time, out of pocket Medicare premiums may no longer be affordable to me, and besides, where would I live?

Am I thinking too far ahead? ASTAGPIRULA! This is giving me a headache, LOL!

            Another thing I wondered about is if I can retire now. Well I looked at my net worth a few days ago and the available cash I have which are not part of my tax deferred retirement plans. Here is the nitty gritty: I cannot retire at this moment because if I pay off my mortgage, I would hardly have any money left that’s not tax deferred. And I don’t foresee selling off my condo so quickly that I can vamoose to the Philippines right away. If however I can sell my condo, I may have enough to make it last until I can draw funds from the retirement accounts when I turn 60. So darn complicated. Hmm, unless I win big in the Super Lotto soon. Otherwise, forget about tax deferred and think about retirement deferred instead.

            Having said all that, here are some homes that have piqued my interest because of the price and location. There’s just one possible problem – I don’t know anyone there other than a former classmate from elementary and high school: http://www.philippine-real-estate.net/Camella_Lessandra_Residences.1643.0.html

                Does anyone have thoughts on the matter? Your feedback is appreciated.

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Complacency, Laziness, or Apathy?

I dare say all of the above. I’m terribly disappointed and angry at one of my coworkers whom I feel is not pulling her weight even to the point of shirking minor duties. Even for her, I found it hard to believe what she did last Sunday night. Up till now, I haven’t said a bad thing about this woman, but it appears that as time goes on she has become too complacent with what needs to be done in our job. I dare say that complacent is too mild a word for it. Complacency is something I don’t give in to and that just differentiates my work ethic from others. It’s not as if our jobs are physically strenuous, although it could be mentally tiring, but there are some tasks that just require a little common sense. Let me tell you about last Sunday night that raised my ire unnecessarily.

 I was assisting a couple of patients by putting their clothes in the washer and dryer. While I was in the laundry room, I heard a knock on the door. It was a patient asking me if I could take them outside to the patio for a fresh air break. I told the patient to ask the staff sitting out in the hallway who were doing nothing other than talking with each other. The patient said the mental health worker in the hallway sent him to me. This person had to gall to tell a patient to follow me to the laundry room and ask me to take the patients for a fresh air break in the patio when I was already busy with something else, while she was just sitting there talking?! It’s not as if she didn’t see me carrying two bags of clothes to the laundry room because I walked past her on my way there. She could have easily monitored the fresh air break while the other person monitored the hallway. Instead she told the patient to ask me?!!! I don’t know if she expects me to be in two places at one time. I asked her why she couldn’t escort the patients to the patio and she said because she was watching the hallway. I brought it to her attention that there was an LVN sitting with her who could have done that. She replied that the LVN was passing out medications. Well, that response was not justified because the LVN finished passing meds half an hour earlier. By the way, she doesn’t just reply, she retorts, even though they’re not logical. More like response to cover guilt.

Wow! I still can’t believe up to now that it happened. How can one be so lazy? All because she didn’t want her conversation interrupted for a 15 minute break to assist the patients? That doesn’t even require physical or mental work! It’s difficult to comprehend that kind of thinking and that’s why I was so angry about it. This is not good for me because it spikes my blood pressure and it takes awhile for me to get it back down.

Being the one who does most of the heavy lifting on our work shift and don’t complain about it, I think I’m justified about my complaints about the other person here. Please forgive me for my rant but I’ve been bottling it in and I just needed an outlet.

Here is a draft I wrote a few weeks ago regarding another incident. I was going to title it – Blissful Incompetence:  I don’t know what to think about some of my coworkers anymore who have been working in our hospital for several years. Is it laziness or apathy? Despite being here for years, some of them don’t seem to know or haven’t learned how to do things properly. Even when you delegate the simplest jobs to them, they seem to bungle it. They also take more time than necessary to finish, and not even finish it correctly at that. The diligent ones really shouldn’t have to check up on the others to make sure they did the job right the first time. I guess some people just want to get paid without earning it.

Do you have any coworkers with similar work habits? How do you handle the situation?

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Post-Crooked Running Workouts

After doing all that crooked running two Saturdays ago, my ankles couldn’t quite recover even though I kept myself from running again since then. The pain in the past week was just too much despite all the icing, compressing, and elevating. That means I didn't even bother preparing my running gear on Friday night and missed the AREC training run this past Saturday morning. I even avoided walking so as not to put pressure on the sore tendons, so the workouts for the past week have been limited to the stationary bikes with a few bouts on the elliptical machine and rowing machine. I even had to go overtime on the bikes one morning because I lost control of my eating the previous day. There was a sale on cookies with lemon flavored cream filling and they were so yummy that when I started eating them, I found it hard to stop. I’m now trying to keep it down to three cookies as dessert after a meal. Just one bout of mindless eating and you pay for it dearly.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before now, that I’ve started using the rowing machine again. I find it hard to do a rowing workout for extended periods of time so I do a sort of circuit training among all the machines in my living room. I usually start off with rowing for 5 minutes, followed by 5 minutes each on the elliptical machine, spinning bike, and recumbent bike. That makes one set. I do three sets and I’ve done an hour long workout while avoiding the boredom of doing it on only one machine. Heck I only usually do 40 to 50 minutes on the recumbent or spinning bikes if I use those by themselves. Five minutes increments on each machine at medium intensity makes it more manageable and easier on the mind, rather than thinking of it as a whole hour of working out. I turn the TV on for the rowing portion, then turn it off and read the newspaper on the other machines. It’s not as satisfying as finishing an hour run, but it’s enough to keep the endorphin cravings at bay.

This is life with a bad case of PTTD. Run a few weeks as the tendons allow, stop a few weeks when they protest. By the way, I bought a roll of Kinesiotape from Walmart a few days ago but I haven’t applied it yet. It was a surprise to find it at that store because previously you can only buy them online or locally from podiatrists and chiropractors. Although I think my PTTD is beyond help from Kinesiotaping, I’m willing to give it a try. I’ll let you know how it works out.

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Retitling This Blog and Other Changes

Well, I’ve retitled this blog to aboutlifeandrunning.blogspot.com on 7/26/11. Why? Because when I started doing this, I didn’t know any better so I just used my first name and last initials. I wanted to use lifeandrunning.blogspot.com but that was already taken by someone who hasn’t updated it since 2008.  I also updated the About Me section to briefly reflect what has been happening in the recent past. Although it appears like the people who follow this blog is still on the main page, I think they are being sent to the old webpage name. If you are one of them and I’m mistaken, please let me know. If not, I hope you find me again. I noticed that I also have to restore my blog list or the list of bloggers I follow because they disappeared from my main page. Sorry for the changes.

Another thing I updated is the background because I finally found one on blogger.com that had a running theme. I also removed the infolinks ads. If I found them irritating when they pop-up in other websites I visit, I’m pretty sure you feel the same way. In spite of that, I earned about $10.00 from those links, but which I will not be able to collect because their minimum payout is $25.00. Oh well, that’s life. This is more of a journal for me than something to earn money from. Also gone are the amazon.com ads because when California started mandating sales tax to be collected for internet purchases, Amazon discontinued payouts to residents here. Anyway, I don’t think I have any earnings from the Amazon ads. I’m trying a new contextual ad site called Affinityclick. The type of ads that will appear will depend on what I write about. So far none of their ads have appeared on this page yet.

If at all you find anything interesting, please feel free to share it on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, or whatever else social networking site you are a member of. Thanks in advance.

In the past three years of blogging, most of the hits I get are from topics regarding Virgin Mobile and Starbucks. I haven’t quite figured out yet the right labels or tags to use that can get the most hits. Unfortunately, it appears that with the name change, I’ve lost traffic from readers. It has become lost in the blogosphere and may take awhile before I get the number of hits I used to get, which is by the way, not much, LOL! Although I lament this loss of readership, I believe in the long run, the new title better reflects what I write about. If you are new here, I hope you have the chance to check out the archives and perhaps find something that suits your fancy. It has more than 400 posts.

Well, that’s all there is to it. I’ll keep writing about running as long as my body and all its ailments will allow me to run. The rest will be about daily experiences that I feel are out of the ordinary for me. If you’ve made it by reading this far, thanks again and have a wonderful day!

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Facebook Discussions About High School

Former classmates from our little town of Jolo (in the province of Sulu in the Philippines), and I have been having a discussion on Facebook about happenings in our lives during those days. Even though I say classmates, it wasn’t true in the real sense of the word because we were divided by great distance into the Notre Dame Girl’s Department run by the Dominican Sisters, and Notre Dame Boy’s Department, managed by the Marist Brothers. The discussions centered on secrets people had in high school regarding crushes, admirers, real or imagined relationships, and such. It’s so funny at our age to be pondering these things (we are all in our mid 50’s). Could that mean that we are still young at heart despite our chronological ages? So far, few if any have spilled the beans. Some of these supposed secrets were already known back then but they were never overt. Apparently, a few people knew more about them than others. Those who were in the loop are beginning to drop hints about what purportedly happened. Most, including me were either innocent, utterly clueless, or just lived  sheltered lives under the constant supervision of conservative and very strict parents.

So that got me digging into the deep recesses of my mind to try to remember what I did in high school and why I wasn’t socially active (and still not to this day). Well, I was more involved in sports back then. As a freshman, I played basketball, then learned tennis in my sophomore year, broke my left ankle in a motorcycle accident as a junior, then it was back to tennis as a senior. A lot of my free time was spent at the Bureau of Public Highways tennis court initially, then Jolo Tennis Club, and at the Notre Dame gymnasium tennis courts. In between, there was hunting birds with my cousin (he shot the birds with his BB gun and his maid dressed and cooked them. We even ate a bat and a kingfisher once). There was also table tennis at the house of one of our teachers (Mr. Villanueva) on some weekends. All those physical activities left me no time to be socially involved with male peers or girls. That, and the aforementioned constant supervision of conservative and very strict parents. But then again, that may be just be my reserved personality. My younger brother turned out socially much better under the same parentage after all. By the way, nowadays I socialize better while running. There is something about opening up my sweat glands that make me open up my vocal cords too.

Addendum 8/10/11 @ 400 P.M.: I was not with the boy’s department students taking the jeepneys  from Plaza Rizal to Gandasuli because I usually hitched a ride with the Nangquils  whose father was the district engineer, from their house in BPH. This made miss admiring the PYT’s from the girl’s department while the jeeps circled the plaza.

So my dear classmates who by chance happen to read this -  sorry for not having any juicy secrets to divulge to you, however I’m intrigued to hear about yours. I can only offer you this Beatles song:

Listen,
Do you want to know a secret?,
Do you promise not to tell?, whoa oh, oh.

Closer,
Let me whisper in your ear,
Say the words you long to hear,
I'm in love with you.

p.s. Diana A. in early high school and Ohara N. much later, and one other who happens to be on Facebook who shall remain nameless… I started to type in their last names but I decided otherwise to protect the good names of the innocent. Thanks for letting me share.

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The Crooked Runner

If you told me four weeks ago that I would be running 9 miles this past Saturday, I would probably tell that you must be more delusional than I am. But that’s exactly what happened during AREC’s training day so I could debunk such delusion. I didn’t have anybody to pace with so I had to run mostly by myself except around 5 miles when I tried to keep up with this lady who’s name I learned later was Elsie. The problem with trying to keep up with her was that she would throw in some surges ever so often and I’m more of a rhythm runner. Besides, surges don’t sit too well with my injured ankles. So I had to let her go and I trailed about 50 meters behind her after 7 miles. I had to take a couple of 40 second walk breaks in the last mile but in spite of that I was surprised that my pace became quicker so much so that I was able to catch up and pass Elsie and also Rick who was about 75 meters ahead at the 7 mile mark. Those two walk breaks really helped make my ankles recover somewhat. Now I’m wondering if I should just do that for the whole distance instead of taking the breaks when my ankles start hurting. I was very elated to finish strong and for being able to cover the distance when I’m not supposed to be covering any distance at all. But oh, the soreness the morning after! Because I’m not able to run as often as required to avoid the said muscular soreness. There is a minimum of three runs a week to avoid the soreness but once a week of supreme effort is all I could muster. And that’s not even mentioning the tendon pain. Like I said before, I don’t mind muscle soreness but it takes longer for tendon pain to recover. I question myself sometimes if one day of running is worth the rest of the week in pain. With the type of injury I have, everything can change tomorrow and I’d be back to walking, if that. But last Saturday morning, I truly appreciated what my body allowed me to do.

p.s. As you can see in these photos, I’m mostly leaning to one side when I run nowadays due to muscular and joint imbalances, thus I am a crooked runner.

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Snickers Marathon Bars – A Reconnection

A quick post : Last week I wrote about someone giving away energy bars (http://aboutlifeandrunning.blogspot.com/2011/07/running-afterglow.html). This is Kathleen , a very speedy runner who is sponsored by Snickers Marathon Bars. We both know another speedster named Marigold who now lives in Corpus Christi, Texas and is pregnant with her first child. I ran with Marigold about 7 years ago when she trained for her first marathon. I met Kathleen about 4 years ago at the Long Beach Marathon which she ran with Marigold and we reconnected at the AREC training run last week. Too bad I couldn’t keep up with their pace anymore. Thanks for the Marathon Bars Kathleen. They made for a good dessert that day!

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Running Aimlessly

Having not recovered from last Saturday’s 8 ½ mile run, but itching for a different type of workout other than what I’ve been doing indoors in the past three days, it was a gamble deciding to put on my running clothes and venturing to the sunny outdoors of my neighborhood. I really wanted to run on Tuesday but had to put it off for Wednesday because my ankle tendons were still tender. I figured I’d just stop and go back home if I started to hurt too much so I wanted to keep it in the vicinity. I wasn’t even sure which direction I was going when I got out the door but started heading North, then West, then it became aimless after that point. All that mattered was running slowly for four minutes and taking a one minute ankle-recovering walk break afterwards. Maybe I’ll turn down this street, wait, maybe a couple more streets down past this construction zone. Make a left, a U-turn, a right on a street where a friend used to live, then ten minutes South on the L.A. River bike path. At this point thirty minutes into the run, my GPS watch indicated that the lap memory was full so I had to stop and walk until I figured out how to reset it to zero. Resuming the run, I headed back North, down another street, into the neighborhood park, added a few minutes by running up and down a couple of short hills, then headed back home to finish fifty minutes of meandering and aimless running. Finally! A relief from indoor cycling, rowing, and from the elliptical machine. Let’s hope the ankles will have healed enough to run on Saturday. Weight training having been done yesterday, now to start my abs workout…

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Minimalist Running (AREC Training 7-30-11)

Waking up to the alarm clock in mid-dream isn’t the best way to rise for the day but that was exactly what happened Saturday morning at 5 o’clock. It must have been a good dream because my first impulse was to turn the darn alarm off and resume the pre-alarm reverie. But, I’ve been looking forward to this run all week so I jumped out of bed before I could even press the snooze button. Wait, wait, I can’t do any more jumping whether it’s out of bed or elsewhere. Let me rephrase. I rose slowly out of bed before getting tempted to press the snooze button. After the usual routine of using the bathroom and checking email, I donned my running garb for the day. It was another surprisingly cool summer morning so I opted for a t-shirt day instead of a tanktop. It wasn’t one of those bare buns runs so I put on a pair of running shorts too. After tightening the shoelaces of my Asics Gel Foundation very snuggly, I was all set and headed out the door for the short drive to Joe’s Crab Shack.

                My previous warm up routine before both ankles were seriously injured was a mile to a mile and a half of slow running with a few strideouts towards the end. Nowadays, I am only able to do a few short jogs so as to save the ankles for the pounding that was to come later.

                I didn’t know who I would be able to pace with on this day but I espied Rosie, who I’d run with before, and her pace matched mine at the start so I joined up with her. She was one of those girls that I couldn’t catch up with three weeks ago when I started running again. For the first couple of miles I felt that I might be able to until later when I may have to do some walk breaks.

                It was one of those busy weekends in Long Beach along our running route. Between miles 2 and 3, there were dragon boat races going on at the beach side, so we had to run on the street side. We passed this area on the way out and on the way back. Somehow the dragon boat races didn’t look as crowded as in previous years. Anyway, Rosie and I chatted until club president Todd caught up with us, upon which we talked briefly about his and Rosie’s dog. I could feel the pace gradually pick up since Todd is a lot faster than us even though he was chopping his stride. I brought this to their attention so Rosie and I pulled back while Todd forged on. Rosie and I had a couple of pictures taken while coming and going at this point. Our club VP and intrepid photographer Dave just got back from Rwanda and Brussels and we missed him taking our photos while he was gone. We joined up with Nancy at about 4 miles and talked about real estate, wine, Rosie’s and my jobs, and Long Beach marathon history, which, helped me dissociate from the anticipation of pain in my ankles. While all this was going on we barely noticed that we had made it to 6 ½ miles. Nancy had to stop to re-tie her shoelaces so it was up to Rosie to bring me home to the finish. And bring me home she did and we even managed to tack on an extra half mile, thus completing 8 ½ miles for the day! In mid-run, I asked Rosie what her usual pace is for long runs and she said 10:30 to 11:00. The woman had that pace dialed in because when I checked my watch at the end, our pace was 10:28. I thanked her profusely and felt so happy that I forgot to stretch afterwards. I only remembered about it on the  way home and did it when I arrived. Did I have any ankle pain? That goes without saying, however it was more of a dull rather than intense pain and that was most likely due to the distraction of talking with people while running.

So how times in the previous week and how many miles of running did I do? Forget about minimalist shoes, this is minimalist training at its best. Last Tuesday, I ran/walk for 4 ½ miles then my only other run (without any walk breaks by the way!) was the 8 ½ miles on Saturday. Hurray! Almost a half marathon for the whole week! You won’t hear any complaints from me. After all I managed to run didn’t I?

Postscript: My pee was slightly dark yellow post-run because I sweated 3 pounds of fluids, but ingesting 48 ounces of fluids later, I was back to normal hydration.

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Running Afterglow

There was this little 7 mile run I attended last Saturday morning. It was just the usual AREC training stuff. It took my ankles two weeks to recover from the previous 8 miler I wrote about two weeks ago so I don’t know how long it will take this time. Running once or twice every couple of weeks? What kind of training is that? Well, I run when I can and I don’t when I can’t. That simple. I used to do a mile to a mile and a half warm up before the club training runs and that included some stride outs. Nowadays I can only manage short jogs interspersed with walks, just enough to get my circulation going but not enough to hyperventilate my lungs in preparation for hard running. Like usual I set my watch to beep after four minutes so I could do a one minute walk break, then repeat the process until I finish. However, I ignored the beeps and kept running without the walk breaks hoping that my ankles would hold up for 7 miles. Just to find out if I was the slowest participant, I started at the rear to see if I could pass anybody. I may have gotten a lot slower but I’m not the slowest runner yet, unless of course I just walk like the first few weeks of the training program. As I was chugging along, I saw this woman who usually runs with her daughter, but on that day she was running alone. So I asked her why she was going solo. She said her daughter just started cross country in high school and was exhausted. I remarked that her daughter was too fast for us anyway. I was hoping to run with somebody like I did two weeks before but I didn’t find anyone to pace with. The daughterless woman remained a few steps behind me and I could hear her footsteps, which compelled me to keep my pace. She might as well have been my pacer because I felt like she was pushing me from behind. That was until I barely made it through a green traffic light while she got stuck with red. I had to rely on myself for the last two miles. I don’t know if it was the loss of company or the infrequent running that made those last two miles feel much harder. It was like driving with four flat tires but I managed to persist to the end. To my surprise, the average pace turned out to be 10:01 minutes per mile! Hardly running nowadays and still being able to run that pace?! However, I don’t foresee myself doing continuous runs as the mileage climbs because the pain on my ankles would be too much. Regardless, I was happy with the way I performed last Saturday.

Which brings me to what I miss most about this activity - the camaraderie in the afterglow of running. Does that even make sense? You know, a bunch of people who are still on an endorphin high hanging around and talking about the day’s run or whatever else comes to mind. I talked to that woman who was missing her daughter and told her about how she was pushing me from behind and she in turn said I was pulling her from the front. I guess we really helped each other. When she mentioned which high school her daughter ran for, I knew the school very well because I used to live near it. In fact, one time another runner who was my neighbor did intervals on that high school track many years ago. As we were talking, another woman approached us and gave each of us a Marathon energy bar. She was being sponsored by the company so pictures were taken of us enjoying the freebie. I talked to a few more people before departing the scene. It was a most enjoyable workout day in recent memory.

When I got home, I tried something different with regards to icing my ankles. Instead of using ice packs, I filled an old cat litter pan with water, dumped a tray of ice in it, and dunked my feet and ankles in the cold water. It was okay except I don’t think I had enough ice in it because when I use ice packs they feel cooler. I’ll let you know sooner or later how long it took for me to recover from that last run. Ta-ta for now.

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A Weighing Scale With Too Much Weight?

Not in pounds or kilograms, mind you, but in functions. My two year old digital weighing scale which measured body fat percentage and hydration level went on the fritz a couple of weeks ago so I had to find a replacement. I mentioned this in a recent post about running to the Target store to look for one. I later settled for the one they had at Walmart. This new scale which is the same brand as the old one has more features. Aside from the aforementioned body fat percentage and hydration level, it also includes measurements for body mass index (BMI), bone mass, and how much weight you lost from your initial measurement. Heck, why don’t you throw in the date and time in there too while you’re at it? Believe me, they are all in there. If it had GPS and a timer and if I could wear it around my wrist, I might have taken it out for a run or a bike ride so I can monitor minute to minute all those measurements. It can even track data for as much as four people. Uh… did I tell you I live by myself? Do I have to develop multiple personality disorder so I can avail of all the functions of this multi-fangled weighing scale? If there is something like too much information, I believe this device has it. It took me a few days to figure out what all the numbers were on the display. On a side note, while looking for similar products online, I found one with ‘The Biggest Loser‘ brand name (a TV show in the U.S.). I don’t think that’s the same kind of scale they use on the show though. 

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Denturized

Okay, I’ll spare you the pictures because they are downright unappealing. Two years ago around this time, I wrote about my oral surgery experience . At the time, a couple of my teeth had to be extracted and it took up to now to have those replaced by artificial ones. Since I own all imaginable aerobic exercise machines already, it was time to finally have some savings to afford partial dentures. If I can afford to spend something for my heart and lungs, surely I could spring more than a few bucks for my mouth too, and so I informed my dentist that I was ready. I was getting tired of chewing food from one side of my mouth. Measurements were made a couple of months ago and it took two attempts because there wasn’t enough mold material the first time around and the dentist was having a hard time releasing the mold from my mouth thus messing up the impressions. My jaws actually felt tired after that ordeal. Two weeks later, I was called back in to fine tune the measurements and another two weeks afterwards, another tuning was required. Finally, last week, the partial plate that was to replace three lost teeth on the left side of my mouth was ready. The dentist showed me how to put it in and take it out. I asked her if I had to take it out every time I go to bed at night and she said yes and to just put it in a cup of water. I was thinking maybe I would adapt to it better if I kept it in the whole time. Good thing I looked up the reason for taking it out on the internet because I didn’t get any aftercare instructions other than taking the dentures out. The main reason is so that the gums could breath and recover and the other was that there has been a history of people swallowing their dentures in their sleep (!). Let me get back to how it felt having a foreign object in my mouth. Unquestionably, it felt strange having something stuck on the roof of your mouth but like other things new in life, it’s just a matter of getting used to it. After all it hasn’t even been a week since I got it.

So what was the damage to my wallet? Well, the insurance company only paid about $240 and out of pocket, I would have had to pay $459. As I was taking out my credit card, the nice receptionist suggested that I ask the dentist for a discount. They rounded it down to $400. If it cost that much for three teeth, I wonder how much it would be for a full set of teeth! I’m guessing if I had implants done in the Philippines, it would have cost much less, but of course I would have to pay for plane fare to get there and back.

So how does it feel so far? I have to chew my food slowly because otherwise I tend to chew on my cheeks too. I have to find the right balance and chewing pressure on both sides of my mouth which takes practice. That doesn’t mean I’m going to eat more often, silly! As of this writing, I still need a mirror to put in and remove the partial denture. Hopefully in the near future I will attain better spatial awareness or proprioception of my mouth. For everyone out there who still have all their teeth, please take good care of them because it’s not much fun losing any of them and getting artificial replacements.

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Running 8 Miles Without Run Training

Me on extreme right side trailing Kim and Luis last Saturday.

Nuts, I say!  I haven’t done any runs in… well (pause to think), I don’t even remember the last time I did. Sure, I’ve walked farther than that in recent months, but as far as my ankle tendons go, running becomes a different beast altogether. After overstretching my left ankle tendon three weeks ago while doing squats at work in the middle of the night, then doing a 7 mile walk with AREC a week after, I stopped doing walking workouts altogether for 17 long days. I kept all my workouts on the spinning and recumbent bikes. After I deemed my left ankle adequately healed (my right ankle is hopelessly damaged), I went out last Tuesday not for a walk, but (gasp!), a run/walk to Target (to my readers from overseas, it’s a department store). I had to check out what kind of bathroom weighing scales they had and the costs because mine broke, but that’s another story. Anyhow, I managed 45 minutes of the 4 minute run with 1 minute walk break with minor soreness, which I followed up two days later with a 10% incline hill walk on the treadmill.

Which brings us to last Saturday morning. I had skipped the AREC workouts for two weekends since it was useless to show up if I didn’t plan on walking while I healed. The plan on this day was to do the 4 minute run with one minute walk interval for at least 6 miles. It was revised mid-run because my ankles felt ok so I didn’t do the scheduled walk breaks. The revised goal was to see if I can run non-stop up to 4 miles without pain before doing the walk break, which was revised further to 6 miles, but that was only because I managed to link up with a couple of other runners -Kim and Luis, which is what I miss the most about the training runs. When I walk alone, it makes the time and distance feel longer. Sorry guys, that I didn’t talk very much because I was trying to monitor how my ankles felt as the run went on. Not only that, I was also concerned about straining my right calf muscle like I did last year. We had two water breaks and one insulin adjustment break for Kim who is diabetic, which helped a lot in enabling my ankles to go a little bit farther. Believe me, I didn’t mind those breaks one bit and appreciated them a lot, whereas in the past I would have gotten very antsy. I told them about my plan and when we hit 6 miles, Kim reminded me of it. Well, one more mile maybe, and at 6.5 miles, I asked her to block or stop me from running any further and take a walk break when we get to 7. I made it to 7.34 before my watch signaled the one minute walk break, and this time I took it despite having only 2/3 of a mile to go. My stride was deteriorating at that point and I could feel the pounding on my ankles. A four minute run, a walk break and another couple of minutes of running later, I finished the greatest 8 mile run in recent history I’ve ever had! Yippee! All thanks to my two running partners of the day.

Was I in pain afterwards? Well of course I was, and I didn’t expect any less. I experienced what I consider a “beautiful soreness” of the muscles the next day. The real test for me however, is how much pain my ankle tendons would have the next day and two days after that. Thankfully, as of this writing, not very much. Notice how I differentiate between soreness and pain?

What do you say to a person who shouldn’t run anymore but still tries to? Don’t say “you’re nuts!” because I already self diagnosed myself with that one. Am I back? Highly doubtful. As it has been in the past couple of years, I’m day to day, and that’s just the way it is. Who knows? Running once a week just might work out for me.

Me and Rick going up Appian Way bridge.

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A Psychiatric Worker’s Worst Fear

The worst fear a psych worker can have happened to me last Tuesday night – the fear of losing a patient by suicide. The night shift just started and on my initial rounds, this patient was just in her room not giving a clue on what she was going to do next. While I prepared to do vital signs on all the patients, this woman asked another staff member to open the shower for her. A few minutes later, I heard a commotion and three workers rushed to the shower room. Upon opening the door, we saw the patient hanging from the ceiling. She had torn the pieces of cloth that are used to tie hospital gowns, knotted them together, put a noose around her neck, connected the other end to a sprinkler on the ceiling and jumped from one of the plastic chairs in the shower room. She was beginning to gag when we got there and the only thing I had on me to cut her down was a pair of nail clippers that I always have in my keychain. I cut the cord from the ceiling first, then the ligature from her neck. Fortunately, she had no trouble breathing when we sat her down on a chair and her vital signs were normal.

 That just goes to show you that if someone was really serious about killing him or herself, they would find a way to do it despite the precautions we practice, like taking away shoelaces, belts, and sharp objects from them. We were lucky when we found the patient while she was just in the process of doing what she did, which also happened to be the time of my next rounds. If that happened in between, it might have been a different outcome. The patient would have been out of a life and I’d have been out of a job.

Like I said, that’s what I fear the most in my job – finding a patient dead due to suicide. When that happens you might feel responsible because you were not able to prevent it. After all, keeping patients from harming themselves is our main responsibility.  I’ve found a few patients dead before but those were from natural causes or they had underlying medical problems. Even though I felt bad about losing them, at least they didn’t do it intentionally or deliberately.

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Aerobicizing Without Running

Equipment I used to have years ago. The upright bike and stairstepper have been replaced with a spinning bike and treadmill plus an elliptical machine.

I’ve been trying to hold off from walking or jogging the past couple of weeks and confined myself to the recumbent and spinning bikes at home. I’m trying to get my left ankle to heal as much as possible even though it’s tempting to get out and pound the pavement. One moment I don’t feel any pain then the next moment the pain comes for no reason at all.

On the spinning bike, I noticed that when I start on a low gear and ramp it up ever so slowly while trying to keep the cadence high, the breathing pattern feels like doing an easy run then progressing to a tempo run. Because of that, the endorphin high feels similar too. The only difference is the pain in the butt. For some strange reason, doing stand ups on heavier gears, even though it feels harder,  doesn’t have the same effect.

Unfortunately the elliptical machine isn’t working too well for my ankles because there is too much up and down motion which overstretches the already tender tendons. I’ll try wearing running shoes with heel lifts and use a lower tension next time. Maybe that would help.

I’m considering using the rowing machine again but I don’t like the inconvenience of dragging it from it’s corner and unfolding it. Besides, I can’t do any reading while rowing which I like to do while stationary cycling. If I had more room I’d keep it open and probably use it more. I used to do a variation of circuit training where I do five minutes each on the rowing machine, recumbent bike, and upright bike for three or four sets. It breaks the monotony of using only one machine for a whole workout. I still do this sometimes with the spinning bike, recumbent bike, and elliptical machine.

          I haven’t resorted to my old Taebo DVD yet. I’m not even sure if I can find it any more.

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Random Thoughts For Late June 2011

After not having an entry for a couple of months, finally another edition of random thoughts.

I wanted to open a bottle of wine last week so I went to get my corkscrew from where I usually get it from – a drawer in the kitchen. Well, it wasn’t there and I searched high and low, even in unlikely places, but I couldn’t find it. I must be getting forgetful, having more senior moments, or worse, developing dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. I finally had to use a very old rudimentary cork screw, the one with a piece of steel attached to a piece of wood. I didn’t have to resort to my imitation Swiss Army knife with a corkscrew after all. The next day, I bought a new one at the 99 cent store but it wasn’t the same as the one I lost. I’ll probably find it one of these days when I’m looking for something else. Either I lost a corkscrew or lost my mind. You pick.

While at the 99 cent store I noticed a product called Sunny Acres Flavored syrup for coffee. Hmm ,no calories. Sounds like a retirement or nursing home doesn’t it? ! I have a couple of bottles at home now: French Vanilla and Hazelnut. Goes very well with my instant coffee.

Our condo association is making it more unaffordable to own and live here. They have been increasing our monthly dues 10% each year for the past three years. I can barely afford to pay the mortgage anymore. They work the same way as the government: tax and overspend.

Observations on store bought salads: Reser’s potato and macaroni salad taste like what my mom used to make while Kroger brand tastes like what grandma used to make. The first one is more tangy while the other sweeter.

This from a news item I read on the web: alcoholics in Australia confined in hospitals are drinking the alcohol based hand sanitizers which are available all over the building.

I finally retired the Sorbothane cycling gloves I’ve had since the early 80’s which I’ve been using to lift weights in recent years. The Sorbothane gel had disintegrated and was staining my palms.

Ever noticed in grocery ads that when they have a sale on hot dogs, there is usually no corresponding sale on hot dog buns? Goes the same for hamburger patties and buns. Unless of course it’s the Fourth of July, then all of those are on sale.

Noticed at the 99 Cent Store: 4 port USB hubs for what else? 99 cents. You can find Iphone and Blackberry skins there too.

I can’t decide whether to immobilize my left ankle or keep on doing flexibility exercises on it in an effort to promote the healing process.

The other night a patient came up to me asking for an extra pillow because her roommate was snoring. I asked her if she was planning on putting the pillow on her roommate’s face. (Similar to gallows humor, but in a psych unit.) Thankfully she said that she was just going to use the pillow to cover her own ears.

Last week, a psychiatrist was looking for a patient. The patient was taking a shower but since the doctor was in a hurry to leave, he conducted what I would call “shower therapy”. No, he didn’t join the patient in the shower. Rather, they talked through the shower door for a few minutes.

I just realized that when I turn 55 next year, I would qualify to be admitted to the geriatric psych unit if ever it came to that. I should bring my own earplugs so I don’t have to smother a snoring roommate. Don’t even think about doing shower therapy with me!

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NOC Shift BHW Duties and Responsibilities for South Campus (Revised 6/23/11)

Since I don't have anything else to write about, this is what I'm going to post. Ever since my job switched to electronic medical records a couple of months ago, some of my duties and responsibilities have changed and/or have been rearranged. In 2006 I independently made an orientation checklist for new Behavioral Health Workers (or mental health workers) and also as a reminder for old ones in case they have forgotten what they have to do. The checklist below shows the current responsibilities shared by all BHW's.

*Get report from day shift.

*Q-15 minute checks on all assigned patients.

*Pass out snacks at 8:00 p.m.

*Monitor free phone calls at 8:00 p.m.

*Vital Signs – all patients need orthostatic vital signs taken at start of shift. Make 4 copies afterwards and give one to Team 1, 2, and 3 RN’s and Med Room.

*Chart vital signs, nutrition, and ADL’s in Cerner Powerchart.

*Put stickers on Close Observation (Q15 minute checks) Sheets

*Check stickers binder first to see if it is up to date: contains all the patients names in them and in the correct rooms. If any are missing, check the charts if there are some in them. If not, ask the charge nurse to print some out.

*Mark precautions (everybody is automatically on Fall Precautions), write in date and room number of both sides of the Close Observation (Q15 minute checks) Sheets.

*Update Roster (South Campus Combined Precautions Diet Meal & Shower Log) with patient names, precautions, and diet then print out to put on clipboard for day shift.

*Update Goals and Reflections sheet then print out to put on clipboard for day shift.

*Update South Campus NEW Orthostatic Vital Signs sheet for NOC shift.

*Update VITALS-Sherrie Version for A.M. shift then print out to put on clipboard for day shift.

*Monitor smoke breaks at 9:15 p.m. and 6:45 a.m.

*Turn off phones and close dayroom for housekeepers to clean at 10 p.m.

*Insert forms from chart packs in empty chart binders in preparation for new admissions.

*Assemble new chart packs

*When the chart packs in folders run low in the basket, put in new packs in folders and refill the basket.

*Admissions: Check vital signs, height, and weight. Have patient sign forms then witness them. Inventory property and call Security for valuables to be placed in the safe. Orient patient to unit.

*Check showers for items left behind by patients like: soiled towels, gowns, pajamas, empty plastic bottles.

*Assist patients with ADL’s as needed

*Assist with laundry as needed.

*End of the month: Denial of Rights sheets – make new ones for each patient by filling in Month, Year, Medical Records Number and Legal Status. File each under Graphics divider in chart. Tear off white copy from the previous month and place in case manager’s filing tray.

So there you go. This is my job and that is what I do. Oh, and talk to the patients of course.

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A Fortnight of No Walking and Blogging

Oh well, I haven’t posted anything in more than a week which is my longest drought since I started this blog. Just lazy I suppose or nothing to talk about, more likely. Ideas must be running dry. Notice how I managed to add “running” to that sentence?

First, a freak injury which sidelined me for more than a week in which I had to hold off from walking. It was more about overstretching an already injured or weak tendon, that being the left posterior tibialis. I was trying to keep awake or warm one night at work and was doing squats. The first few sets were okay but when I tried to do faster repetitions, that’s when disaster struck. I guess I didn’t control my legs too well and I overstretched to tendon mid squat. I was hurting the whole night and even though I avoid taking analgesics other than a daily aspirin for heart health, I had to take Motrin for pain relief. After that I had to limit myself to stationary cycling for exercise for about a week and a half.

Second, I missed participating in the Wrigley River Run this year (I ran it the past couple of years) because I had to attend a mandatory Management of Assaultive Behavior class on the day of the race. Renewing it annually is a requirement for my job and my certification was supposed to expire the day after the class. Even if I didn’t have to attend the class, I would have missed the race anyway due to the aforementioned injury. There were physical movements involved in the class and I tried to limit myself as much as possible due to the ankle pain.

I tried walking again on the treadmill when the pain subsided last Thursday morning. Normally I would have gone to 10% incline within the first five minutes of the workout and at least 3.5 mph and gradually increasing it up to 4 mph. That may sound slow, but remember it’s an uphill walk all the way. Well, on my first day back to a walking workout, the best I could do was 7.5% incline (which I didn’t even reach until about half an hour into the workout) and 3.5 mph. It was good enough for that day and besides, I have to save something for Saturday’s AREC workout.

And that brings us to Saturday. My alarm woke me up mid-dream at 5:00 a.m. and my first thought was - do I really have to do this?. After all, it’s too soon to try a six or eight mile walk after not having done so for almost two weeks. I banished the thought and got up, prepared myself for the task ahead, then headed to our meeting area. That day, instead of starting with the group I left about 15 minutes early to get a head start before they caught up with me. Normally I would do a mile warm up, then start with the others. I incorporated the warm up with the whole workout this day and instead of doing six miles (for the half marathoners) or eight miles (for the full marathoners), I did an in between seven miles. I tried a few steps of jogging while I was at it, but the left ankle felt very tight, as if it was about to tear. So I went back to walking and didn’t try to push the pace even at that. It was brisk but not as brisk as the 13:30 to 13:45 pace per mile I did in previous weeks. I managed a few short jogs in the last three miles which was probably not a good idea, but the ankle felt okay when I finished. I’ve mentioned this before in my posts: once the endorphins kick in, the analgesic effect lasts for hours and the pain feels diminished. It wasn’t until the next day that I felt it really badly. Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation were of little help. Fortunately, when I left for work the pain had subsided probably because of the increased circulation in that area. Now, it’s a wait and see to figure out when I can do a walking workout again. Stay tuned.

Things noticed during the above mentioned walk: swim trunks are similarly cut and just as comfortable as running shorts for workouts and much cheaper too. I never knew there was a lifeguard museum in Long Beach. It was housed in what was not more than the size of a snack shack. That’s what happens when one has a meandering pace. You observe more things than when you are running breathlessly. When I took off my shoe when I got home, I found a piece of jacaranda flower in my shoe. The search for a runner’s high even when it pain is not such a good idea, but runners (or in my case: ex runner) do it anyway. Nuts, I say!
And as an addendum: In the last mile of my walk, one of the long time runners from the AREC club passed me and said "I couldn't do 21 years of running every day like you did". Thanks for making me laugh and smile Bernard! I responded - I couldn't even do 5 minutes non stop nowadays! With that, we continued on our way to the finish. Since that running streak has been long gone, sometimes I forget nowadays that it even happened.

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The Soreness of an Infrequent Runner

You’ve heard of The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner which was one of the books that started the first running boom in the 70’s. I have not read it and neither can I identify with it since in my case, it has become the soreness of an infrequent runner. Please allow me to explain. If you have been reading my blog recently, you would know that I do power walking now when I train with my running club - A Running Experience. Last Saturday morning, I was feeling a little frisky after doing a three hour walk two days prior so I thought I’d try to do a little jogging. I did my usual one mile brisk walk warm up then set my GPS watch interval timer. The plan was to jog for two minutes then do a one minute recovery walk. With a bit of delusional thinking, I thought I could keep up with some people whom I’ve run with before, at least during the first two minute interval at the start. I was woefully mistaken when reality struck me in the face after I saw that those people had gotten much faster since I last ran with them. That, plus the combination of me having gotten so slow. No matter. I kept plugging away and didn’t do the walk break after two minutes and numerous more times thereafter. I mentioned in my previous post that I didn’t sweat very much during the three hour walk. Well, within the first five minutes of slow jogging, perspiration was dripping down my brow. I kept shuffling along not knowing how far I could take it before my ankles start to protest. When my stride became heavier at about 3 ½ miles, I decided it was time to do the walk breaks, but not until I reached 4 miles. A couple of people passed me at that point which was a surprise because I thought I was again the last runner. The one minute walk break ended and I started jogging again but this time I opened up my stride a little bit until the two minute alarm told me to do another one minute walk break. During the two minute run, I would catch up with one or two runners and they in turn would pass me on my walking breaks. This pattern kept on for the last 3 miles of the 7 mile route.

                Let me tell you how it felt to open up my stride for those two minutes of running: it was two minutes of pure bliss at a time which made me feel like a runner again. Look at the picture below with the forward lean while I neared the finish. Do I look like a runner? LOL! And of course look at the picture above with the more upright posture near the two mile mark when I was just shuffling. Oh by the way, those runners going the other way were from another training group. (Thanks to our intrepid and speedy club VP - Dave K., who runs all over the course to take these pictures.)

                So how does the title of this post fit in? Well, as can be expected, when you don’t do a certain activity often enough, you feel soreness in your muscles and joints afterwards. What surprised me was that I didn’t feel as sore as I expected even though I had to work the next couple of nights. But oh, boy was I tired Saturday night and it took every ounce of energy to keep myself awake while on the job. As far as my muscles and joints? I lucked out this time because the soreness was minimal.

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A Slow Blur of a Birthday Walk

         So I turned 54 a few days ago and like last year I got greetings for two days because my friends in the Philippines and similar hemispheres are about 14 hours ahead of U.S. time. Since I was off from work those two days, I managed to individually thank all those who greeted me. Click the “Like” button and say thank you. But enough about that. For some reason I woke up very early on June 2nd and since I didn’t have anything better to do, I thought I’d go out for a long walk, perhaps in the two hour range. It didn’t turn out quite that way even though I turned around after going out for an hour. I did some meanderings into some neighborhoods instead of heading directly back home and that added another hour to the whole jaunt.
This was not one of those arm swinging, hip swiveling, face paced walks which I had been doing on Saturdays with AREC. It was more leisurely. In fact the first couple of miles were in the 17 minutes and 20 seconds per mile range. The pace picked up ever so slightly in the miles that followed but it was never forced. I hardly broke a sweat, certainly not on my brow, and just a little bit on my back. Maybe because it was a cool morning and I started early. I can’t really describe the sights and sounds of this experience because it was mostly a blur to me. My mind doesn’t quite work very well that early.
I used to do these long jaunts years ago during special occasions like New Year’s day, my birthday, 4th of July, etc., but I did it running and not more than two hours. I don’t know what came over me that I extended it to 3 hours this time. Maybe to prove that I can do it or to see what distance I can cover on an easily paced walk. I ended up with 11.35 miles at an overall pace of 15:52. If I went another half hour, I would have done a half marathon!
The aftermath of that long walk? From the shins up, everything felt ok. Below that, my ankles hurt, but not so badly. So maybe if I can keep my ankle tendons as they are come October, I just might be able to finish the Long Beach half marathon. The only question now is: walk more briskly so I can get to the finish line faster but with more pain on the ankles, or walk like I did on my birthday and get to the finish line longer but with less pain?

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Back To Basics - A Uniform and Group Therapy Mandate

          Starting June 1st, our hospital has mandated the mental health unit staff to start wearing nursing garb, i.e. scrubs. We’ve always had to option to wear those instead of the civvies that has been standard wear for psych units for decades. One of the reasons why out administration decided to do this was because they wanted to eliminate the wearing of hoodie sweatshirts. I guess they finally got a clue that people wear hoodies so that the cameras that surround the hospital hallways cannot identify them. As I post this, I would have been wearing my uniform the previous night.
Another thing our bosses wanted us to do was group therapy on the night shift. That would be difficult to squeeze in between the time we report to work at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. when the patients go to bed. I commented facetiously during a staff meeting that maybe I could conduct group therapy while passing snacks at 8 p.m. Pass the patient a snack and ask him/her how the day went and if he/she met her goals for the day. If not, what he/she could have done better to achieve those goals. In the meantime, the rest of the hungry masses (and they are always hungry) wait in line for their turn. Then a group riot ensues… Just stating the worst case scenario.
In reality, this is how the night shift schedule works out: at 7 p.m. we report for duty and until 7:30, we listen to report from the day shift. At 7:30, we do our rounds, check on how our assigned patients are doing (first we have to make sure that they haven’t run away, and are still alive). The mental health workers do this while the RN’s talk to their patients. It is also in this span of time that patients get visits from family and friends until 8 p.m. The LVN’s on the other hand are getting the medications ready for the evening. At 8 p.m. we serve snacks to all the patients. They line up in the dining room and we pass out whatever the dietary department left for snacks: sandwiches, or fruit cups, or yogurt, plus juice and milk. This can be quite chaotic since everyone wants their share plus more. Some patients want a second helping even when the others haven’t had their first helping yet. Also at 8 o’clock, we offer free phone calls on the hospital phone and there is another queue in the hallway for that. Some patients do their phone calls first, then come to the dining room to get their snack or vice versa. Did I mention that we also check the patient’s vital signs at that time? There is another line in the hallway for that and we have to do orthostatic blood pressures and pulses which take time especially that we almost always have 30 to 36 patients. This takes about an hour and a half to finish.
So there is a constant flow between the hallway and the dining room. How are you supposed to conduct group therapy that way? By 8:30, the medication nurses are ready to pass medications and that requires a separate line in the dayroom area where the medication room window is. So there are actually 4 activities going on at the span of time between 8 to 9 p.m. After that, at 9:15, we conduct the last smoke break of the day, which lasts till 9:30, and finish off the remaining vital signs. Most of the patients go to bed after that and a lingering few watch TV until 10 p.m. after which we close the TV room so that the housekeepers can clean it up before they leave for the night. As you can see by now, the schedule is tightly packed between 7 and 10 p.m. and squeezing a group therapy session in there would be an exercise in futility. Of course the bosses who told us we should do group therapy has never worked the night shift or even observed what goes on in the evenings. Go figure.

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