Summer Chill

The workout : a 7 mile run

The weather: overcast and cool

The company: a group of like minded peers

The result: an enjoyable no pressure run

The total: 9.5 miles with a 1.5 mile warm-up and 1 mile cool-down, the longest I've run without walking in recent months.

Meeting someone new during a run enables you to learn about other people's lives away from running and explore new topics. In today's case, it was a lady whom I will call M. She is training for her first marathon and she wants to do it before she turns 40. M doesn't look anywhere close to 40 so I wondered aloud jokingly who her doctor was. A little botox here, a nip and tuck there could do wonders. No, I'm not saying M had those done. Some people are just blessed with good skin like M does, while the rest of us get wrinkled sooner because of the sun damage from all the running we do.

A couple of women we paced with last weekend started out a lot faster today and we weren't able to catch up with them. They must have felt really good because even if I was behind them, my pace was still faster than last week. No matter, I'm getting used to this holding back the pace technique. At least my ankles don't feel too battered afterwards. I'm still burning about the same number of calories regardless of how long it takes me to finish.

After the cool-down and after stretching, the cool air caught up with me and I started to feel chilly so I put a sweatshirt on and just skedaddled out of there and headed home. If this edge of summer chill keeps up, I may have to fire up the heater at home again.

Not much substance in this entry, just random thoughts about today's run.

An Increase in Waist

I bought a technical long sleeved shirt from Walmart yesterday for $5.00 because it was on closeout, and I ran in it today. It felt good to wear it so I went back to the store to see if I could find more. Unfortunately, there wasn't any left. I saw some swim trunks and lounging shorts and tried them on. I currently have some swim trunks that I wear for running and they feel just as comfortable as running shorts and they have pockets on them. So I go to the dressing room to try on the merchandise and I discover that what they have for Small size which is supposed to fit a person with 28 to 30 inch waist, doesn't fit me – they were too big! I mean they looked more like size 32 to 34. Surely I haven't shrunk. A few years ago, I bought similar merchandise at the same store and they were a true 28 to 30 inches. It appears that Walmart has adapted their clothing size to accommodate the increasing girth of Americans. Is the increase in inches on the clothing supposed to make you feel thinner? You'd just be fooling yourself or maybe its the intent of the store to fool you. Maybe the resize gives you the opportunity to tell your family and friends - “oh, I'm a Small”, which is a fallacy. Of course they don't sell Extra Small sizes. You would have to go to the children's department for that. Children's size 18 to 20 would probably fit me but the Husky size would be too big. Its not only Walmart who does this. I've noticed that Target doesn't even sell Small sizes for a lot of their clothing, they begin at Medium. And these are the more affordable products that usually go on sale. I remember hearing in the news about this happening to women's clothes too but since I don't have any experience trying women's clothes on, I can't comment on that. What am I going to tell the salesperson? That I'm doing research on true sizes of women's clothes? If any of you have noticed these size changes, please feel free to tell me about your experiences. Thank you.

Downgrading Internet Service

Last month my annual contract with the telephone company's DSL internet service expired so they started billing me a slightly higher monthly rate. However they had three different annual contract options being offered to new subscribers: $19.99 a month for 1 megabit per second (mbps) download speed, $29.99 for 3 megabits per second which I currently had, or $42.99 for 7.1 megabits per second. Being an old subscriber normally disqualifies you from the new promotional offers, but having gone through a similar process last year when I upgraded from 768 kilobits per second to 3 megabits per second, I knew what to do. When you call the phone company's regular customer service people, they won't be able to help you avail of the new promotions. They have a different department called the “solutions department” where they can resolve special problems. Last year I was passed from one department to another before they were able to help me. This time I knew whom and what to ask for. In this case as well as last years', the solution is to retain a customer and the telephone company was able to help me faster this time without me feeling like a shuttlecock being batted around back and forth across the net. For my new annual contract, I opted to downgrade my internet speed to 1 mbps, two thirds slower than what I've been used to in the past year. It was initially discouraging to see the slowdown of my download speed, but bit by bit (pun intended) my patience is beginning to adjust to it. It used to take about 35 minutes to download a 700 megabyte public domain movie. Now it takes about an hour and 45 minutes at full speed. Streaming videos from Hulu.com and TV shows from ABC.com and Fox On Demand can get choppy or pixelated at times. But in this economy, some sacrifice is warranted and every little bit of savings helps.

Night At The Asylum (apologies to Night at the Museum)

A patient yells for no reason, another one is singing hymns in bed, a couple of others are snoring on opposite ends of the hallway not unlike a surround sound system, while still another is talking and arguing with herself while lying in bed. A patient staggers out in the hallway not knowing whether he is coming or going. Seems like the Ambien is not agreeing with him with all its side effects (sleepwalking, confusion, etc...).
It's 1:30 in the morning and all is well. Another night at work and despite of what is happening so far, this would be considered a quiet night. No admissions since the night shift came in at 7:00 PM but that could change any minute because in some remote emergency room someone might have checked in complaining of being suicidal, homicidal, having hallucinations, or just plain have no place to sleep for the night and cannot take care of him/herself.
I am here, I watch the hallways and check on the patients to make sure they are safe, this is my job, I'm a mental health worker, the lowest position on the totem pole of a psych unit.
It is indeed a quiet night but I don't complain about being bored because something might happen at any given second in a place like this, which I hope it doesn't. I like quiet boring nights because it means there is no one acting out and the patients are safe and getting their needed sleep. I wish I could do the same but sleep is not for me at this time of the night. Sleep will have to wait till I get home in the morning. In the meantime I keep my fingers crossed hoping that it will remain a quiet night at the asylum.
Addendum: Come 4:00 AM things have changed drastically. One of the confused patients intentionally or not tried to attack one of my co-workers and at 6:45 AM another patient tried to destroy the radio because she didn't like listening to Janet Jackson. The good news is that nobody got hurt and nothing was damaged. As the night shift ends, a new patient is being admitted by the day shift.
Oh well, another night at the asylum trenches is over and I survived another one.

Yesterday's Post Run Activity

When I left home to go to the training run yesterday, I noticed that the rear left tire of my car had partially deflated again. I've had this slow leak for the past four weeks and the only thing I did about it was add more air. I've been putting off having it repaired for so long so I finally decided to take care of the problem after running yesterday. On my way home I stopped at a specialty tire store and surrendered my car to the tire gods. I mentioned the problem and they said it will be done in 20 minutes. So instead of sitting around, I went for a short walk to check out the shops in the area. When I returned to the tire store my car was ready and I asked if the problem was with the valve stem. They said no, there was a small nail imbedded into the tire. So that problem was taken cared of to the tune of $20.00 for 20 minutes of work. Made me feel like I was in the wrong line of work. Oh well, at least it gave me some peace of mind that my tire was working again.

The Two Wows

Today was the second training day on the AREC (A Running Experience Club) marathon and half marathon schedule. Four miles for the half marathoners and six miles for the full marathoners were on tap. My alarm clock goes off at 5 a.m., and I'm wondering why am I doing this when I could be sleeping in. After all I have to go to work later tonight. But it gives my early Saturday mornings a purpose, so out of bed I get. For some reason I felt very tired and just couldn't wake up fully. I got to Joe's Crab Shack and someone was talking to me and I couldn't even respond very well - I was mispronouncing words. When the run started I was even feeling a little lightheaded. But oh well, I guess we just need to have a little blood pumping up to the brain. I started the run conservatively as planned and tucked behind some people I've run with in past years, but whenever I saw somebody up front whom I thought I could catch, or when somebody passed me, I could feel the urge to pick up the pace. But today, I kept thinking about preserving my ankles so I was able to resist the urge to go faster. My goals have changed, now its just to finish the run and increase my running longevity. The run went pretty smoothly and I talked to someone I haven't met before. Although there was some effort, I didn't feel like I was pushing so it surprised me that I was able to finish the six mile run in under an hour. That was the first wow. The second wow happened when I signed back in on the roster (we sign in before the start, then sign out when we finish so everyone is accounted for). There were 82 people who signed the roster today! Unbelievable! I don't think that many people have ever done the Saturday run before. I already commented to other runners during the run that it seemed there were more people this week than last, and the roster confirmed it. Well, its seems like this old fogey can still run under 10 minutes per mile despite the ankle ailments and at a conservative pace at that. Of course since there are more participants now, there is a better chance of finding someone to pace with, and that helps a lot. Now its time to ice the ankles.

Shake, Rumble, and Jolt

The old song says: shake, rattle, and roll, but instead of that we experienced a shake, rumble, and jolt here in the Los Angeles area last Sunday evening. The earth moved, the cat jumped, the building shook, I was frozen on the couch, then a big jolt ended it all. My first thought was: WOW! That felt stronger than the Northridge earthquake of 1994. Next thing I did was go on the United States Geological Survey (USGS) website to find out where the epicenter was. It said Lennox with an initial intensity of 5.0 which was later revised to 4.7. Not much reaction from my neighbors since the electricity, gas, water, and phones were still working. So I check around my condo and saw that a couple of my emergency flashlights have fallen on the floor and under the couch. I wouldn't have found them if the electricity went out. In the bedroom, I have a huge old analog 43 inch TV on top of a stand which was near the foot of my bed. It had moved about an inch forward on the TV stand. I always feared that this TV would fall during an earthquake and if Sunday's jolt was any stronger, I think the TV would have fallen. I have to get myself a smaller TV for the bedroom. I really don't need a huge TV in there. I opened the cupboards in the kitchen and although nothing was broken, some plastic containers had moved about and fell out. When I opened the refrigerator, I couldn't open the door all the way, the oven door was blocking it, so I had to push the fridge back a couple of inches. There was a 4.0 rolling aftershock on Tuesday but it didn't affect anything here. So there it is, it seems like we survived this one without much damage. Gotta read up on that emergency plan again so we know how to react if worst things happen.

Increased Serotonin Level

Got the first training day out of the way, in the pocket, finito, and Long Beach Marathon training has taken its first steps for the 2009 season! It was nice to see and talk to old friends and acquaintances from previous training years again. This year I promised myself that I'm not going to push the pace but just run comfortably depending on how I feel, regardless of what the pace is. Of course I've sworn the same thing in previous years but could never hold back. This time, if I want prolong my running life, I would really need to control myself.

Since it was early when I got there and people were still signing up, I went for a 15 minute warm-up jog, then after listening to Todd (AREC president) talk about the training program, we were on our way for a 5 miler. Coming down a bridge into a left turn, what do we encounter but a pink thong on the ground. I had to make a quick check beneath my shorts to make sure mine hadn't fallen off.

Its always nice to be able to talk to a bunch of people while running because it makes the time and distance pass, and I got to catch up with people I haven't seen since last October. After the 5 miler, I ran by myself for another 23 minutes as a cool-down. For some reason, I felt really happy after the run. I was smiling all the way home. Not because I saw a thong. It must be the increased serotonin levels in the brain that exercise can give you.

When I got back from my solo cool-down run, I saw a pan on one of the tables that the club set up. I went to check it out and what do I see? Hot chicken wings! At 8:30 in the morning?! That was a first for me (to see, not to eat). Post workout protein replenishment, I guess.

So just like the swallows of San Juan Capistrano in the spring, we return, but instead of to the Mission, to Joe's Crab Shack instead.

Marathon and Half-marathon Training

AREC (A Running Experience Club) marathon and half-marathon training for the Long Beach Marathon starts again tomorrow and I'm feeling apprehensive. So many questions that need to be answered. How will my ankles feel? Will they hold up to the gradually increasing mileage that is required to finish a half marathon five months from now? Will I have the mental toughness and concentration to go through long runs again? I haven't done any long runs in recent months aside from the five minute run one minute walk technique a couple of months ago. Provided my ankles hold up there is no doubt I can finish a half marathon that way. But what if I try to run continuously forgoing the one minute walk breaks? Am I still capable of doing it? It scares me that the tendon tear of last October might happen again. Right now I'm pretty content on being able to run non-stop for an hour or so. I don't really need to run another half-marathon if I don't want to. But it seems that I feel the need to challenge myself again. In the past, needing to challenge myself meant training for a full marathon. I know for sure that I can no longer withstand the pain of training for that. How about training to walk a full marathon? Thats a consideration but it would take so much time to walk a marathon at the pace I'm capable of, about six plus hours. So which training should I try to do? Right now, I don't really know. But tomorrow and every Saturday thereafter for the next five months, I will show up at training and try to find out what I'm really made out of. After all, if I don't try, I'll never know.
This was last years' photo from the Long Beach Half-marathon. As you can see, I'm running crooked because of the pain on my right ankle.

Big Lungs On The 3-2-1

I went out for a run yesterday planning to do a road interval workout. It was either 2 minutes hard effort with 2 minutes recovery jog or the 3-2-1 intervals ( One set consists of: 3 minutes hard effort, 1 minute recovery jog, 2 minutes hard effort, 1 minute recovery jog, 1 minute hard effort, 2 minutes recovery jog, for a total of 10 minutes each set). During the first 10 minutes of warm-up, my legs were feeling pretty good so I opted for the harder 3-2-1 intervals, maybe at least 3 sets of it. As far as my breathing was concerned, the first set felt good, the second felt better, by the third set I was feeling really, really good. It felt like I had really big lungs where despite having to breathe harder due to the increased effort my lungs felt bottomless. So I kept that feeling going until I finished an hour: 10 minutes of warm-up plus 5 sets of hard intervals. The speed of my run may have looked very slow to any casual onlooker, but the intensity and effort I put into it made it a very good workout for myself. The only reason holding me back from being able to run any harder is the pain in my ankles. Yesterday, my ankles cooperated.

Audited By The IRS – Part Deux

I recently chronicled my experience about being audited by the IRS in this blog entry: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2009/03/audited-by-irs.html
Two weeks ago, I finally heard back from them but they had no good nor bad news for me. All the letter said was thank you for my response to their inquiry and that they will contact me again within 45 days to let me know what action they are taking, yada yada yada...
Then last week I got another letter from them. It said: “Closing notice. We are pleased to tell you that with your help, we were able to clear up the differences between your records and your payers' records”. More yada yada yada, then, “Thank you for your cooperation”.
I'm breathing a sigh of relief right now and am so happy that they agreed with me. Whew!

The Roots Of My Being

I called my Mom in the Philippines today to greet her Happy Mother's Day a day early because I anticipate the lines are going to be busy the next day. And no, it was not a collect call. We talked for almost an hour about how she was, what was going on at her part of the world, and what her plans for Mother's Day was. We also talked about the upcoming Notre Dame reunion because she was a product of the same elementary and high school as I was. I finally got the chance to ask her how our family came to live in Jolo. On her side of the family, she said my grandpa who was originally from Pangasinan was in the Philippine Constabulary and was assigned to Jolo. My grandma was originally from Pasig but my mom doesn't know how grandpa and grandma met, but they met before they moved to Jolo. My mom and a couple of my uncles and aunts were born there. Incidentally, did you know that there is a community called Jolo (pronounced Joe Low) in West Virginia? Anyway, back to my story. On my father's side, my grandpa was an agriculturist who was assigned by the government to Jolo, although he and my grandma met in Zamboanga where my father was born. So now I know my roots up to the grandparents level. How interesting that I never queried about those things while growing up until now.
How about your roots, can you tell me about them? Click on Comments below and leave me a message :)

Coming Soon

The other night I was assigned to work 1:1 with a patient who had assaulted another patient earlier during the day. Fortunately for me, he slept all night from the time I started watching him till it was time for me to leave in the morning. So what did I do to fill the 12 ½ hours I sat by his bed? Between reading and answering crossword puzzles (I always save the newspaper crosswords for quiet nights such as that night), I wrote drafts of a few blog entries I intend to post soon. Here is a preview of what those topics may be: Audited by the IRS–Part 2, Internet Slowdown, and Karaoke. Everyone please keep checking this blog with bated breathes. LOL!
I also made a list of the names of my former elementary and high school classmates, both male and female (those that I can remember). I still have to figure out what to do with that list. So I managed to be creative with the fortunate downtime I had and got something accomplished.

Going For A BQ

No, its not what you think, nothing to do with cooking meat over hot coals, and no, its not about me doing it either. A BQ is a Boston Marathon Qualifier. The Boston Marathon has certain qualifying standards based on sex and age before the organizers allow you to participate in the prestigious and storied event (there are other ways that you can participate but it involves raising money for charity). It means that you have had to previously run at least a certain finishing time in a marathon within roughly a year and a half before the year of the Boston Marathon that you want to participate in. For example for men aged 18 to 34, the qualifying time is 3 hours and 10 minutes. For women aged 45 to 49, its 4 hours.
My neighbor, friend, and erstwhile training partner, who has gotten faster while I have gotten slower, BQ'd in last year's Long Beach Marathon by running it in 3:49:41. So on April 20, 2009, she toed the line in Boston and finished the race in a remarkable time of 3:50:32. Kudos to her for the achievement (I immediately sent her a text message when she finished because I was tracking the race online).
Another friend is trying to BQ at a younger age group so he ran a marathon on May 3, 2009 in an attempt to do so. The week prior, he told me about his plans and what pace per mile he needed to run to achieve his BQ goal. I asked him what his most recent 10 kilometer race finishing time was. From prior experience and readings in my almost 30 years of running, I was able to mentally calculate what my friends' potential finishing time was going to be based on his 10K time if he ran well on marathon day. He needed to finish the marathon in 3 hours and 10 minutes to BQ, but my calculations brought his potential more into the 3:20 range. I didn't have the heart to tell him that because I wanted him to keep his positive mood for the race. Besides, who knows? He might be able to outdo his potential with the proper circumstances on race day. It has happened to others before, so I just kept my fingers crossed for him. Alas, it was not to be. He finished way short of his goal and even short of the calculated potential. In his own words he said he “crashed and burned”. I feel bad for him. So his quest for a BQ continues and I'm sure he is going to keep on trying. After all he is still a young man and has lots of opportunities to achive his goal. When I was running my best at my prime, I would have never BQ'd because I never even had the calculated potential to do so. If my friend continues to train well, he does.

What Happened Last October or The Half-Marathon of My Discontent

Looking back at my training logs to the last few days leading to last year’s Long Beach Half Marathon, I just realized what could have caused my posterior tibialis tendon to tear. Having been a physical education major in college, I learned that one of the principles of training is specificity. This means that to be good at sport, you have to train specifically for that sport. So if you are a tennis player, you play tennis, if you are a cyclist, you cycle, and if you are a runner, you run. This is so the muscles and joints get used to the specific movements of the particular sport you are training for. Using that principle, I ran for two consecutive days on Saturday, and the race on Sunday. I believe now that this spelled the doom for my posterior tibialis tendon. When you exercise, you develop microtears in your muscles and connective tissues and it is during recovery days between hard workouts that these muscles and joints get a chance to repair themselves. In my case, with a pre-existing injury, even the short run recovery day on the eve of the half marathon continued to irritate my ankle tendon. And this is what I think led to its overstretching or tearing during the race. It was just a bad training decision based on a good training principle. Keeping an exercise logbook does help to see where things went wrong and likewise when things went right. Hopefully, I know better this time and not make the same mistake. Learning about your own body is an experiment of one.

In Search of Wee

About a month ago, my elementary school classmate who is a doctor in the Philippines asked me to try to look for his aunt whom he said lives in California. He was planning on visiting this coming summer. I asked him for the last known address that he knew and whatever other information he had. I searched on the internet and the phone book and found a woman with the same name whose address happened to be about 3 miles from where I lived. Not only that, but it was on a street that the River Runners used to do their workouts on Saturday mornings. So for my running workout the next day, I decided to run to that house, check it out, then run back home. When I got to the address, I rang the doorbell and a young man answered. It appeared that I had woke him (must have been a night shift worker). I briefly stated the purpose of my unannounced visit, asked him if there was a woman whose name is so and so lives there and if she was from the Philippines, and he said yes. So I told him I was going to call their listed number later to give more information. Then I apologized for having woken him up then left to run back home. Later that day, I tried calling the number I got from the phone book and internet, but to my disappointment, the number was no longer in service. So a few days later, I wrote a letter addressed to the lady of the house introducing myself and restating the purpose of my prior visit. I left my email address and phone number in addition to my classmates email address in the Philippines. I put the letter in an envelope, ran from a different location, then dropped the letter in her mailbox. Later that day, I received a call from the lady and she acknowledged that she was indeed the aunt of my former classmate. We talked in our native dialect for a few minutes and I told her I was elated to find her and about being able to help my friend. Then to our mutual surprise, we found out that we work in the same hospital! What a coincidence! We had never met because I work in another building, but one night a few months ago, I had worked on the unit where she was a charge nurse. After talking for a few more minutes, we bade our goodbyes and believe it or not I could almost hear the song “It's a small world after all” in the background. I was very happy to be able to reunite an aunt and her nephew.

That Loving Feeling

“You've lost that loving feeling” , so goes the song by the Righteous Brothers. That is how I have been feeling the last few weeks about my running due to certain aches and pains to my lower extremities. After having worked the last two nights with hardly a break, I expected today's run to be another slog in the neighborhood streets. I started out pretty slowly but after about 15 minutes I felt a good bounce to my stride and the pace speeded up subconsciously. My plan was to run for only 30 minutes but I ended up finishing 38 minutes with the last 23 minutes in an unintended tempo/race effort. I just love it when I experience this kind of run and the natural high that I feel while I'm doing it. Just a short run but very satisfying. I'm happy to say that the loving feeling is not “gone, gone, gone”.

How I Came to Live In The U.S.

I've recently been in touch with another former classmate in the Philippines. She works as an archaeologist over there and she sent me an email recently asking me how I ended up in California. It seemed to her that I just disappeared from the face of the earth right after high school. We went to the same university after that but we never saw each other there. So here is a brief history of how I got here:

The running boom in the U.S. during the 70's finally reached the Philippines around 1979. I was working as a physical fitness instructor then and I joined a Sunday training group in the Metropolitan Manila area. It was just one of those weekly fun run events where they gave you ribbons for finishing and after participating 10 times, you got a free t-shirt. There was also a group that followed the Honolulu Marathon Training Program with the intent of running the 1980 Honolulu Marathon. It was with this group that I hooked on to which enabled me to come to the U.S. They arranged for the visas, air travel and hotel accomodations after we gave them the money so everything was taken cared of. With us came the medical director of the fitness center I worked for, so he was my roommate in Hawaii when we got there. We had already run our first marathon in the Philippines in November. So we ran the Honolulu Marathon and it was one of those rainy days where peeing in your shorts while continuing to run to save time wasn't out of the question. After all, the rain just washed it all away. No need to pull over the side of the road to expose and relieve yourself. Gross, huh?!

Part of the plan was to visit relatives in the mainland so the day after the marathon, we left for California. We went our separate ways here, me to visit my uncle, and the good doctor off to see relatives in Connecticut (if I remember right). So this is how it came to be. Visiting relatives, finding a job, becoming a legal alien, then finally becoming a U.S. Citizen. All this things happened to me and I owe it all to running. Thats probably the reason why I continue to run today, because without running I wouldn't be where I am now. Being in a place where a lot of people all over the world can only dream of.

Keeping Cool

The heat wave earlier this week left everyone sweltering even indoors. Coming from work Tuesday morning, I went to bed and upon waking up in the afternoon, went to the bathroom. To my delight, I saw that my cat had found a comfortable spot to keep herself cool – the bathroom sink. That gave me a good laugh because it was so cute so I just had to take a picture of her.

The Year of the Gun

The year: 1992. It was the height of the Los Angeles riots. People of different races were being threatened and harassed on the streets and were in danger of getting beaten or worse. It was at that time I purchased a .25 caliber handgun from a sporting goods store. The gun was a piddly little thing which probably had no stopping power. I have never used it all these years and it has never been fired. Last weekend an opportunity arose to finally get rid of it. The L.A. Sheriffs Department has a program called “Gifts For Guns” where you turn in a firearm with no questions asked and in turn they give you a $100.00 gift card from Best Buy, Walmart, or Target if it was a handgun, and $200.00 if it was an assault rifle. I wasn't familiar with the collection area so I drove past it before seeing the sign. I turned around and parked on the opposite side of where the entrance was supposed to be. The sheriffs had put those yellow “do not enter” tapes around the area. Not thinking too well, I took the unloaded and boxed gun from the car trunk and started walking past the yellow tape approaching the officers manning the entry from behind. I didn't realize that this was a drive thru operation until I got there since the newspaper notices didn't mention it. I was immediately stopped by an officer who asked me where I was going. I pointed towards the entrance and said I was turning a gun in. Another officer escorted me, took the gun and had to frisk me because I was a “walk up”. Then it occurred to me at that point how dangerous it was for me and them, that I had crossed the yellow boundary tape and was walking towards the officers with a gun. So I understand why they were taking extreme precautions. However, the officers were very respectful and walked me through the whole process. They separated the ammunition first, then at the next table they inspected the gun barrel for any bullets after which they inserted a disposable plastic gun lock in it. At the next table were the gift cards. There was a choice of picking two $50.00 cards from whichever store you wanted. I picked a couple of Walmarts because I thought that was where I could get the most bang for the buck. They also gave away a free t-shirt with Arnold Schwarzenegger's picture on it saying “TERMINATE VIOLENCE”. Everything turned out to be a very pleasant experience. I got $100.00 worth of gift cards for a never used gun that I bought for about $60.00 a long time ago. Pretty good deal!

New Nintendo WII Tennis Record

Playing Nintendo WII tennis has been an up and down experience. I have found that if I don't beat the machine handily my skill level points goes down by leaps and bounds. Even when I win a match, I can still lose points by not winning all games or if the opponent is given a chance to rally too much. This is how it goes. A match in WII tennis consists of 3 games, unlike in real tennis where a match consists of winning 6 games in a set and 2 or 3 sets in a match. So basically, WII tennis is a very shortened version. You have to win 3-0 all the time, not 3-1 or 3-2 or else you lose your overall skill level point standing. It gets worse if the machine beats you. Of course this encourages you to play better and harder. The machine hardly beats me anymore but sometimes it wins one or two games so that brings my point total down. Thats the reason why I take a picture of my record score for posterity because I might not exceed it again.

Thoughts of Retirement

The recession, poor economy, exhaustion from working, has led me to thoughts of retirement. No, not here in the U.S., I wouldn't be able to afford retiring here at this moment. As an emergency plan, I thought returning to the Philippines might be a good idea, specially if a job loss happens. I've saved all these years but most of my savings are in tax deferred investments and I have to wait until I'm at least 59½ before I can withdraw from those accounts without a 10 percent tax penalty. I'm not even sure if I have enough liquid cash to last me from now till I'm 60 before withdrawing from the tax deferred accounts. Money aside, there is this problem about the place I might want to move to where my mother now lives. The general area is very notorious for kidnappings by rebels who don't agree with the government. Here is a comparison data about the cost of living in the Philippines which a remittance company had in their newsletter:
San Francisco / Metro Manila
Movie Ticket: $11.00 / $3.00
Fast Food Meal (Lunch): 5.00 / 1.50
Restaurant Meal (Dinner): 15.00 / 4.00
Taxi (5 mile trip): 12.00 / 1.30
Studio Apartment (monthly): 1100.00 / 160.00

Another friend who lives in the city where my mom lives told me that its possible to live very comfortably there for about $500.00 a month. Will that be within my modest projected budget? Well, it could be possible...
Of course its not just a matter of checking out from here, then checking in over there. How do I liquidate my condo, car and other possessions? What kind of lifestyle will I be able to live? What if if I find out I don't like living there? How do I collect social security from here when I reach the appropriate age? I'm thinking that with the internet, applying for it and having direct deposit may make it possible, but thats a long way from now. There's also the concern about healthcare. With no health insurance, will I be able to afford the cost of medical care in case something happens to me over there? So many questions which answers I still seek. Well, like I said, its just an emergency plan. Or not even a plan, but just something to consider.

Curtailing Running

The hard and long workouts I have been doing the past few weeks has finally caught up with me. I have been doing road intervals (running hard for a few minutes then jogging slowly to recover, repeat a few times), and long run/walk workouts as I mentioned in previous blog entries. It felt so good to be able to run hard and long and be able to push the pace sometimes. One day I averaged below 9 minutes per mile which I haven't done since last summer. I've even done a couple of two days in a row of running. I don't seem to learn my lesson because in the recent past, when I run on back to back days, my joints don't recover very well. This week even my good left ankle started to hurt. That led me to the decision that I should curtail my distance, time and pace so I don't injure myself further. It's better to be able run slow and short than not be able to run at all. Remember, I can't Zen the pain away anymore.

Must Watch!

Copy and paste to your browser. Watch it and let me know how you felt after watching it. Thank you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-KiGva9dV4

Oil and Filter and Poop

I went to have the oil and filter changed on my car today and was planning on running while the service was being done. Normally you would fill out your information on a duplicate form then the serviceperson would write up the work order then depending on how many customers were ahead of you, your car would be lined up behind others until everyone else is serviced and its your turn. I was planning on having this waiting time to do my run and hopefully by the time I was done, the oil and filter change would be finished. Well it seem like this service station or the corporation that runs it had a new technique. I spent approximately 40 minutes of waiting around before a serviceperson addressed me to find out what service I needed. That was 40 minutes I could have spent doing my workout instead of stewing and raising my blood pressure while waiting around doing nothing. The service person never said anything except “I will be with you in a few minutes”. Apparently if your car has been serviced there previously, then they already had a record of it, which mine did. So that eliminated the filling out of paperwork. After getting the work order the serviceperson said my car should be ready in about 5 minutes. I told him I was not going to wait and was going out for a run. It seems that this new marketing technique would make it appear that the waiting time between write up and finishing the service is shortened. What they probably didn't consider was the waiting time beforehand. So I go for my run which I now badly needed to de-stress myself. I was still stewing about the long waiting time and was already having a bad day because of it. To make things worst, after I finished running and was walking back to the service station, I felt something drop on my forearm. A bird had just pooped on me! What else can go wrong with this day?! I took some leaves from a nearby plant and wiped the poop off my arm, paid for the oil and filter change, picked up the car and went home to take a shower. I'm now currently trying to decompress from a stressful morning. Hopefully the rest of the day will better. I am considering calling or emailing the company to complain about this new service technique.

Recently Watched Unknown Movies

I watched two movies today: The Burning Plain with Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger in it, and Revanche, an Austrian film. I don't believe these two movies got any press here in the U.S., because I've never heard of them before. Both had beautifully and carefully crafted stories and I think deserved to at least be nominated in the recent academy awards for best director and screenplay.

This is the plot of The Burning Plain as described by IMDB: A drama with a two-tiered storyline concerning a mother (Basinger) and daughter (Theron) who try to form a bond after the young woman's difficult childhood.

OK, big mistake, I just discovered that Revanche was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year during the last Oscars. Here is its plot courtesy of IMDB: Ex-con Alex plans to flee to the South with his girl after a robbery. But something terrible happens and revenge seems inevitable.

I hope that if you have the time and if they are available at your local video store, then you can check them out.

Long Beach River Runners

The alarm clock jolts me out of a dream and its time to wake up earlier than usual to run with the Long Beach River Runners group. I haven't woken up this early since last October and it takes some time getting used to doing it again. I usually set my alarm for 7 A.M., when I'm off from work and catch up on my night sleep (I work nights). For the past two Saturday mornings I've been joining a group of runners who are preparing for the second annual Wrigley River Run and Tadpole Trot on June 6, 2009. Some in the group are experienced runners, others coming back into running, and still others who are complete beginners who set their goal to finish their first 5k or 10k run. I usually get there early so I get about a 15 minute warm-up jog, then join the group for stretching, then run with them (20 minutes for the past 2 weekends), then go off and run by myself for about another 30 minutes. So far so good, I might have to curtail my warm-up and post group extra miles when the group incrementally increase the number of minutes they run through the coming weeks. Its just nice and inspiring to be able to see people doing something to improve their physical fitness. After having a crummy 40 minute run yesterday where I struggled from start to finish, I had a better day today despite having run 2 days in a row which I hardly do anymore. Running with other people always helps. Makes waking up earlier certainly worth it.

For more information about the River Runners and the Wrigley race, please visit: http://www.lbfoundation.org/Events.html

Today's run 3/31/09

Oh boy! What a run today! I started out with my right ankle hurting and ended with it hurting more. Other than that my legs felt good. I was hoping for another 2 hour run today using the 5 minute run/ 1 minute walk method, but even before I started my right ankle was already in pain. Must have been that unintended 5k effort, 15 minute portion of a run with Gavin last Saturday morning. I was planning on taking it easy that day since we were running with a beginners running group and I had already done a sort of speedwork two days prior. I did a 15 minute warm-up by myself, then ran with the group very slowly for about 15 to 20 minutes, then Gavin ran with me to a house where I delivered a letter. Well Gavin is almost 20 years younger than me and even though he was pushing a baby jogger with his two children in it, he is still way much faster than me. I was really hauling butt and at the edge of oxygen debt for that 15 minute portion that I was trying to keep up with him. After reaching the house where I delivered the letter, Gavin asked if I wanted to continue along another route to get back to where we started from and I had to decline. That was the hardest pace I had run since last summer before my ankle got worst. So I just turned around and ran back slowly to recover from the unplanned speedwork. I think that 15 minute portion kinda overstretched my ankle tendon a bit and as of today it had not fully recovered. I didn't think I could finish 2 hours today so I aimed for something lesser. I was thinking that 1½ hours would be good enough. I just ran around the neighborhood, circling loops and crisscrossing streets. Even saw my co-worker at a park playing with his kids and said hello to them. I eventually ended up with a total of 1 hour and 50 minutes. Pretty close to my original goal and at a way faster pace than my 2 hour run a week and a half ago. That was the upside, and the downside is that my ankle hurts a lot. I'll keep icing it all day today, take a couple of aspirin and take about two days off from running. Please excuse me while I go and do my third icing for the day.

The Zen of Pain

When you have been running for awhile, eventually you would suffer some sort of injury. It could be the knee, iliotibial band, hamstring, piriformis, calf, ankle, tibial tendon, Achilles tendon, plantar fasciitis, heel spur or Morton’s neuroma. In the past, whenever an injury struck, I would deal with it with what I considered the “Zen of Pain”. This is how I describe it: Be one with the pain. This means that while I’m running, if I accept pain and become one with it, I will eventually not be in pain anymore, and I can continue running painlessly. Of course the endorphins had a lot to do with that. Eventually the body heals itself and the injury disappears. Well that used to work very well when I was younger and was able to heal faster. Being able to deal with injuries that way was what enabled me to run every day for more than 21 years despite being biomechanically inefficient. The pain I have now is not the kind that disappears no matter how much I try to become one with it. It just gets worst the longer I run. So what happened then? Age caught up with the inefficiencies of my natural stride. This is something I am learning to accept and unfortunately never to Zen forevermore.

Today's Long Run

Happiness is ...

having an unexpectedly good run today. Considering that I had a twinge of pain on my left knee and right ankle last night and felt mentally unready upon waking up this morning because I couldn't even decide which way to go today. I never know how my run is going to turn out until I take the first few steps and monitor how my legs and my breathing feels. Today, I decided to do the 5 minute run/ 1 minute walk intervals again and try to do it for at least an hour and a half. My legs and breathing felt pretty good at the start, even felt light and bouncy because I deliberately tried to run easily. So far no knee or ankle pain at the start so I just rolled with the good feeling. I kept going on this one long street not even knowing when I was going to turn around because I felt so good. I ran past a park where there were a lot of children playing soccer, boy's T-ball baseball, and girls softball. They looked like they were about 5 to 10 year old kids. So cute with their tiny uniforms. Moms and dads supporting and cheering for them. Some giving last minute instructions. One mom was playing catch with her daughter and another playing whiffle ball. So that part of the run felt good because there were a lot of things to see that distracted me. A few more blocks down the road, I finally decided to turn around because that would have given me a 2 hour run if I made it back home, which was more than what I had intended to do. I went down another street on the way back home, my pace and stride still feeling good, but at about the 1 ½ hour point, my form was starting to deteriorate. To make matters worse, my GPS watch froze after I paused it at a stop light then tried to start it up again. See, the GPS watch beeps when the 5 minute run portion ends and I do the 1 minute walk, then beeps again after the minute is up to signal me to start another 5 minutes of running. When it froze, I had to guesstimate how many minutes more I had to run and when I can start walking again. When that interval ended, I still had 12 minutes to go to finish 2 hours. So I pulled out my cellphone, switched it to stopwatch mode then completed the run. I think next time, I should also bring my regular watch along in case the GPS freezes again. When I got home I managed to unfreeze the GPS by mounting it on its charger. Then I had to extrapolate from the data up to the point where it froze, the additional last 12 minutes of the whole run. Not really hard to do with a running pace calculator. The total mileage for the 2 hour run/walk was 11.70 miles at a pace of 10 minutes and 15 seconds per mile. Felt quite good and satisfying. I don't know where I got the energy to finish the run today. Must have been the Skittles jellybeans I overdosed on yesterday.

The Concussion of Two Months Ago

It's kinda scary to think what could have happened to me after falling in the bathtub and hitting my head a couple of months ago. See blog entries:

http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2009/01/first-post-for-2009-my-old-web-page.html and

http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2009/01/day-after.html .

With the current news of actress Natasha Richardson passing away due to a what seemed to be a minor head injury from a skiing fall, I realize now that one cannot minimize even what one would consider a mild concussion like I did after my fall. Because you cannot see an internal hemorrhage, even if you are not in much pain, you can never really be sure how bad it is until you get medically cleared. If you have read the news, Ms. Richardson initially refused treatment and when symptoms got worst later, it was too late when she got rushed to a hospital. So I just want to thank my lucky stars that I survived that fall and am still around to write about it.

Running With a Purpose

Running to do self errands always makes a workout easier to bear. Last Thursday I ran from home to my job’s human resources office to return an employee survey, then ran back home. It used to take me about 29 minutes to get there, but now it took me 32 minutes. On the way back home I added a few short spurts of what I consider speedwork nowadays. 32 minutes out plus 28 minutes back for a total of one hour of running, plus a short walk back home to cool down. That took care of two things that needed to be done that day: returning the survey and finishing the workout. After that, I had the rest of the day free since I was off from work.

Last Saturday, I finally did my 5 minute run/ 1 minute walk workout. The goal for that day was to find the location of a videogame store about a mile and a half away, because I wanted to check out a tennis game later, then circle the neighborhood up to the point where my ankle would start to bother me. Anyway, I wanted to run/walk for at least an hour. I found the videogame store pretty easily and just a few feet after I passed it, I saw a five dollar bill on the sidewalk. I picked it up, secured it in my sweater pocket and continued running. After five more minutes of running, I doubled back to see if I could find more money on the ground. Wishful thinking. All I found this time was a penny. So I kept on running perchance to find more treasures on the road well travelled: past CVS Pharmacy, past Walmart, and past the outer road of Long Beach airport, before turning back home, not finding anything else worth picking up from the street. Still, that day’s treasure was not so much about finding $5.01 on the street but that I was able to do a total of an hour and 24 minutes of the run/walk workout. The average pace of the run/walk was 9:49 minutes per mile, while the average pace of the run intervals was 9:24 minutes per mile. Not bad for an urban videostore hunt. Now, I just have to remind myself to look on the ground more often during future runs.

Facebook Picture

Late last year when I started looking for former high school classmates, I signed up with Facebook. The second thing I did after completing my personal information was to upload some pictures. I decided I would try to find pictures from the time I started college, left the Philippines with my Philippine passport, obtained my U.S. passport, and a few other photos which showed me through the past 3 decades. The purpose was that I hoped my former classmates would recognize me. I titled that group of pictures: “The Evolution of Me”. I found my old and new passports pretty easily and some others from the 80’s and 90’s, but to my consternation, I couldn’t find my old university I.D. I knew it was somewhere in my home but despite all of my efforts in looking for it, I could not find it, so I finally gave up. I thought maybe I had disposed of it accidentally during one of my closet emptying forays. I was truly disappointed that I wasn’t able to include it in The Evolution of Me album. Jump ahead a few months later… Has this ever happened to you? Its when you are looking for something else then you suddenly find something you are not looking for now but was frantically doing so months ago? Well, I found my university I.D. under some computer accessories in a filing cabinet. I don’t even remember putting it there. After having scanned and uploaded it to Facebook, the album: The Evolution of Me, finally feels complete. This was me circa 1975:

Audited By The IRS !@#$%^&*

Last week I received a very special love letter from our beloved Internal Revenue Service regarding my 2007 income tax return. According to them there was a discrepancy between the return I filed and the numbers that they have on file concerning my investments. They also said their files indicate that I deducted double my California taxes. So I had to find my 2007 statements from my investment firm. Fortunately they were available online so it saved me from digging into my filing cabinets. I highlighted where it showed that I exchanged money from one type of fund to another type of fund and that I didn't gain any extra income from it. Next, I had to find a copy of my 2006 California tax return and 2007 Federal tax return where it showed that I only claimed the amount listed on the return and not double as they had in their files. I then wrote them a response letter to explain the discrepancies, then mailed all of that with the rest of my evidence the next day. All I can hope for now is that they agree with me. I thought my income tax returns were pretty straightforward and I am in no way trying to cheat on them. I use tax software and just answer the questions the software prompts me. Until I hear back from the IRS, I'll keep my fingers crossed and hold my breathe and hope they see it my way.

New WII Tennis Record!

WOW! I was wrong! I didn't think you could go beyond the 2000 Pro Level but there it is. My previous best was 1993 which I mentioned on a previous post. Now I'm thinking that it is the built in WII opponents that Nintendo didn't program to go beyond 2000. The surprising thing is that you can also lose points even when you are winning your matches. I haven't figured that one out. Well there is a new WII Tennis game that is going to start selling this coming Tuesday. Its called Mario Power Tennis. Maybe I can try that out and see if its more challenging.

Longest Run This Year

Today, I did my longest run since October 2008. I have been limiting my long runs to one hour the past few months just to make sure I don't overextend what my right ankle can handle. I decided to drive down to Ocean Boulevard and run on the Long Beach bike path which I haven't done in a couple of months. I initially planned on doing 5 minute run / one minute walk intervals for an hour and a half, but it didn't turn out that way. After the initial 5 minutes I kept running thinking I would do the 1 minute walk break on the next interval. Well when the next walk break was supposed to come, I kept thinking maybe on the next one. So I just kept going and going.

Along the way about ¾ of a mile before the turnaround point I bumped into Katherine, Diane (the two ladies I ran with last December and the subject of my blog on: The Tale of Two Gimps), and another lady whom I didn't recognize (could have been due to oxygen debt), who were on their way back to where they started from. After passing each other with a quick hello and wave, we kept going our own ways, me: to, them: from. On my way back, I bumped into Todd, who is a coach for the Long Beach Team in Training group. I admire this guy. He runs barefoot and has completed more than 200 marathons by now. This was the reason I decided to run on the bike path, hoping to run into people I knew.

Today was not one of those feel good runs. I struggled the whole way and my legs felt heavy, in addition to the pain on my right ankle. What helped was seeing plenty of runners and other exercisers along the way. So finally after eschewing the one minute walk breaks, I ended up running non-stop for an hour and 15 minutes which like I mentioned earlier is my longest run in months. Total miles: 7.83, Pace: 9:34 minutes per mile. If I only knew I was close to 8 miles, I would have tried to reach that distance. Even though I was wearing my GPS watch, I had it set to time the 5 minute run/1 minute walk intervals and at that mode, it only gives my ongoing mileage based on the 5 minute run intervals. I only get the total distance of running and walking if and when I stop the watch and save the workout. The average pace really surprised me because I was running heavy and it felt a lot slower. My aerobic capacity must be getting better. Thank goodness for that. I hope I would be able to go farther as time goes on and as I increase my tolerance level for my ankle pain, as long as the tendon doesn't tear again as it did last October. I shall save the 5 minute run/1 minute walk workout for another day. Today, my body may have been the one that was running, but it was my mind that carried me through to my longest run this year.

The State of Mental Health Care - Part Deux

A lot of nurses and other workers in mental health have jobs in several hospitals and they see the same patients in one hospital being in another hospital in a matter of days or even lesser. Some of the patients may get discharged from one hospital and would be in another the same day. Hospital hopping is so very common in this field. When a patient wants to get admitted to a psychiatric unit, they know exactly what to tell the mental health evaluator or Psychiatric Emergency Team (PET). All the patient has to say is that he or she wants to hurt him/herself or hurt other people and that they have a plan on how to do it. You should see how many of these people say running into traffic as their plan. The PET team member has no way of determining whether this is true or not so it has to be taken at face value. The only way of preventing persons from hurting themselves or others is admitting them to a psych unit where they can be observed closely by the staff. Of course there are a lot of patients who really need help and are really serious about hurting themselves or others, but there are on the other hand a bunch of others who are just malingering because they have run out of money for one reason or another, and just need a place to sleep and eat for free until they get their next social security disability checks.
This entry is not really a complaint about the patients we take care of, and like the PET team member, we just have to take things at face value and take care of the patients the best we can whether they are malingerers or not. Although its sometimes difficult to handle, specially when the malingerers are usually the more demanding patients with a sense of entitlement. Until Medicare, Medi-Cal, and/or the Social Security System catches on to it, or keeps on allowing it, or God forbid turns a blind eye to it, this is what we have to live with.

Recession Thought

Just a short and quick thought that occured to me the other night at work:
My co-workers were talking about our jobs and the recession and I said - "I wonder if Osama Bin Laden is being affected by the global recession? Maybe he had to downsize his quarters and move to a smaller cave."

The State of Mental Health Care

First, a disclaimer: This is only based on my own experiences and observations, although most of the people who work in mental health will probably agree with me. And this is not a reflection on my current or past employers, but about the whole mental health system in general.
This is what has been happening in my field of work in recent years. A patient gets admitted to a psychiatric unit today, gets discharged in a couple of weeks, then after a day or two, or a week or two later they are back in the psych unit for the same reason. Most of the time in the same hospital and sometimes in another hospital. So what went wrong? Was the patient not stabilized enough so he or she relapsed so quickly? More often than not, that is not the reason. Its because the system allows it. Mental health patients nowadays are usually covered by Medi-Cal or Medicare health insurance wherein the hospital is reimbursed by the state or the federal government. These patients are usually also collecting Social Security benefits due to being “permanently disabled”. I put those words under quotations because the mental disability of some of these people are highly questionable. The government has decided that they are disabled by one reason or another and its not up to the hospitals to decide if the government erred in making their decisions or not. Workers in mental health can plainly see that a lot of so called disabled patients are scamming the system. Patients go in and out of hospitals when they run out of money and basically use psych units as motels where they can live and eat for free until they get their next social security checks. Its more than just a coincidence that these people want to get discharged on or about the time they receive their social security checks.

To be continued...

Q & A

What type of injury do you have?

PTTD

What does that stand for?

Posterior Tibialis Tendon Disorder

How do you describe it?

It is when the tendon in the inner ankle over-stretches and can no longer support the Achilles tendon thereby flattening the foot excessively, thereby causing the foot to overpronate or roll inwards.

Does it hurt?

Very much, whether I'm running or not.

If it hurts so much, why do you still run?

Because I love to run more than it hurts, although I am not able to go long distances any more.

Are you nuts?

Very much so. Why else would I endure so much pain if I wasn't?

Maybe you are just a masochist?

Hmm...never thought about it that way.

Postscript: Please read this article about firefighter Matt Long in Runnersworld.com, its very touching and inspiring:

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-297--13053-0,00.html

WII Professional Level

After a few weeks of playing WII Tennis, I have finally achieved the level pictured above (1993). It appears that the topmost level is 2000 because the game hasn't showed me an opponent beyond that. I'm so happy with my improvement. Yesterday while playing a game, there must have been a point when me and my built-in opponent exchanged about 20 strokes. That was so exhausting and sweat was dripping off my brow. I may have to wear a headband soon to keep the sweat off my eyes.

About rain and running, or not

I was planning on going out to run today but when I woke up this morning it was raining again as is has been in the past few days. My last run was on Saturday morning so I was itching to hit the roads. Alas is was not to be. So I just suited up to do my indoor exercises: stairstepper and stationary bike. In the middle of my stairstepper interval, the rain stopped and the sun came out, so I had to decide whether to continue indoors or stop and get dressed up in warm running clothes, stretch, and step out the door to the wet and slick streets. Well, with my bad right ankle, my balance isn't exactly very good these days. Remember my fall in the bathtub a few weeks ago? So I decided to continue with the indoor workout and live to run another day. I managed to do 1 minute hard / 1 minute easy intervals for 25 minutes each on the stairstepper and recumbent bike. I'm hoping tomorrow will be a better day for running. Time it was when neither a little rain or even a typhoon would keep me from running. I remember a few years ago when I ran for 8 straight days on the treadmill because of the winter storms. Not anymore. I have to make my ankle recover at least a day before I can pound the pavement again. If that is all my ankle would allow me to do, so be it.

Listen to the pouring rain

We are finally getting some substantial rain in our area. There has been a drought in the past couple of years so much so that people have been encouraged to conserve water. I have been contributing my share of conserving water by taking shorter showers, turning off the faucet while brushing my teeth and not flushing the toilet after only one pee among other things. Hopefully the three storms passing through here would help alleviate the problem a little bit. Of course the downside is that I can't go out and run outside so I may be confined to using the stationary bike for a few days. The upside is that my right ankle which has been hurting a bit the past few days could use some relief from the pounding it gets from running. I used to have a treadmill until the motor finally gave out last year so that leaves out running indoors. Well thats it for the next few days: stationary biking and WII sports for activities unless you consider watching the rain fall an activity.

An addendum to my own post @ 11 A.M. I ended up doing 20 minutes each on the Stairstepper, Upright bike, and Recumbent bike for a total of one hour. Plus one hour of vigorous WII Tennis. Won 2 matches and lost 2 matches. I am now playing at the 1500 level against opponents in the 1900 to 2000 level. As I mentioned in a previous post, professional level starts at 1000. Hey, I even put my tennis shoes on this time. Normally I play with just flip-flops on my feet.

"Doubt" and Mother Superior

Last week, I watched the movie “Doubt”, with Meryl Streep playing the role of Mother Superior in a Catholic school. One of the scenes was set inside a classroom and on the chalkboard was written a lesson on diagramming a sentence. I remember those lessons from way back when I was in elementary school. I started laughing to myself because, come to think of it, learning how to diagram a sentence has absolutely no practical application in real life.
Based on my experiences as a child going to Catholic elementary and high school, and remembering what Mother Superiors used to be like, I think Meryl Streep played the role of Mother Superior so very well. At my father’s funeral a few years ago, the Mother Superior from my elementary school came to the wake to pay her respects. You wouldn’t believe the reaction I got upon seeing her. Here I was, a grown man feeling nervous all over again like I was in elementary school in the presence of this larger than life woman. Good thing I didn’t cringe or run away to avoid her. Having been in touch with former classmates from the old country and from information gathered from the internet, I learned that Sister Innocencia Saavedra is still the Mother Superior to this day. Gulp.
Meryl Streep can’t compare to the real Mother Superior even with her superb acting.

Work And The Recession

Let me tell you about my job. Last weekend all employees got a letter in the snail mail from the Hospital Administrator. In it was an unpleasant message. Everybody was getting a pay cut of 3 percent. Some managers got as much as a 25 percent pay cut, and a few other employees were also laid off. About three months ago, almost everybody got a 3 percent salary increase after our annual evaluations, so the boss giveth and the boss taketh away, plus more. You see, our health and dental insurance premiums increased, our doctor’s visit copays increased, and mail order prescription medication costs increased too. Bad news indeed, but, is there anything good that can be taken out of this? With the current recession, and the unemployment rate in California running at 9.5 percent (10.5 percent in Long Beach), I am still grateful about having a job. I hope I can ride out the current situation until things get better. If only I didn’t lose so much money in the stock market last year…
I promised myself last week that the Nintendo WII would be my last major purchase for awhile. Anybody reading this blog, please hold me accountable to that promise.
I began asking my co-workers, since we had a 3 percent salary decrease, should we also cut our work effort by a corresponding 3 percent? Maybe instead of going the extra mile to take care of our patients, we should just go the extra kilometer.

An Acute Case of Wii-itis

Right shoulder muscles (I couldn't find a picture of the left shoulder)

This is Rod Laver, my idol when I was growing up. I am left-handed like him.

Wiitis: A "Sports" injury contracted by playing too much Nintendo Wii.

I've been playing the Wii Sports games for the past week now, mostly tennis since it brings me back to my sports roots. I used to be a tennis player before running became my sport. I played tennis from high school all through college where I played for my university's varsity team. I started out trying to get a feel for the game and as previously mentioned in an earlier post, the intensity has been growing to the point of breaking a lightbulb and almost falling headlong on my TV. So now, I move some furniture as far away as possible before playing. The first few days I didn't save any of my games and won a majority of them. Turns out I was playing as an amateur competing against other amateurs. When I finally saved my games, I noticed that I was losing more frequently and that when I won, my opponents levels were being elevated to professionals. Professional level starts at 1000 and I have been playing against as much as 1800 pros. However I still have been winning my share of games so much so that I am now a 700 level amateur. The thing about playing against better opponents is that the intensity level goes much higher. More strokes are played and the ball speed is faster. As a result of playing more vigorous games, I developed a case of Wii-itis. I woke up one morning and my left deltoid and left side of my trapezius muscles were very sore (I am left-handed). This was something that I never experienced when I was playing real tennis (well, I was much younger then). So I got to reading about wiiitis on the internet and there is even an article about it on WebMD.com. Having learned my lesson, I do some warm-up stretches now before I play the game. This game is so intense and realistic except for not having to chase the ball around a tennis court, that I have now added WII Tennis to my arsenal of workouts.

The Reader

I just finished watching the movie "The Reader" with Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. The movie was slightly long but the pacing was very good and even the slow parts were not boring and kept me engaged. The script was also well written and I highly recommend to anyone to watch it. I even think this is better than Kate Winslet's other movie "Revolution Road".

New Math

Now why didn't they teach us this way in high school???

It would have made it simpler and more understandable then.

Thanks to Bill Amend, the owner of this comic strip.
Click on the cartoon to enlarge it so you can read the balloons.Thanks :)

Congratulations President Barack Obama

We have a new President!
God bless America!
Looking forward to a fresh start :)

WII Weeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Well, I finally gave in. After having experienced playing the Nintendo WII at my relative's Christmas party last year, I finally bought one yesterday when it became available at a Target store near my home. It helped that I received a gift card from my cousin at Christmas, so that took care of the sales tax part of the purchase. Today, I hooked everything up, upgraded the software/firmware on the internet and loaded up the included WII Games. I put in the CD Disk, then...nothing.... I got an error message saying “unable to read disk”. I took the disk out, wiped it clean, then tried again. Still nothing. Finally picked up the instruction manual then went to Nintendo's website to look for error messages. Well, duh! I found out that I put in the disk wrong side up! Well, I got the thing working and tried a few games. Some of them like tennis and boxing were pretty strenuous. Being a former tennis player myself, I was swinging away as if I was really on a tennis court. Fast forward to just a few minutes ago (9:30 P.M.). The WII system gives frequent warnings about securing the remote control to your wrist and have enough space around you when playing games. I played tennis again and after a few sets I was playing pretty vigorously. After my computer opponent hit a very angled shot, I lunged for the ball and hit the floor lamp near my computer, which fell over and broke the light bulb. So there goes my first WII casualty. Still I pressed on and after a few minutes, my computer opponent hit a very strong serve and when I attempted to hit the ball, I almost fell head on against my TV set. Fortunately I managed to catch myself on the TV stand thereby avoiding casualty number two. I figured I better stop now before I do more damage to my living room. So here I am feeling hot and sweaty while I type this. I enjoyed the experience very much and thought I got a pretty good workout at the cost of one lightbulb. I never was a video game player, and still don't consider myself one, but I thoroughly enjoyed the interactiveness of this Nintendo WII System. I just hope I don't break anything else after tonight.

The End Of The Streak

I originally wrote this article for my running club newsletter in August of 2007. It gives you an inkling on why I'm obsessed with running.

The End Of The Streak

My stack of logbooks say that It had been 21 years and 8 days since I missed a day of running. It started on January 25, 1986 and ended on February 2, 2007. I don’t even remember the reason why I started running every day. It just sorta happened and became a habit or a necessity like brushing teeth or eating. I could not imagine not being able to run, be it to force myself to do at least a minimum of 15 minutes, all the way to 3 hours or more when preparing for a marathon. The last three years have been a struggle as I have suffered through some painful injuries. The left achilles tendon injury in 2004 which lasted a whole year, then the posterior tibialis tendonitis on my right foot the past two years which prescription orthotics failed to remedy. In other words, I had become brittle. Through all the aches and pains I struggled to maintain my daily running ritual. In recent years, my weekly mileage had dropped steadily from a high of approximately 40 miles a week , down to about 15 miles a week. The decrease was due to my body's inability to recover as quickly as it used to. To compensate for decrease in mileage, I cross-trained by using a stationary bike, and a rowing machine with an occasional weight training session.

On January 21, 2007, I was out for a slow one hour run. At about the 50th minute, I was about to cross a street when the traffic light suddenly turned red. I made a quick right turn then stepped off a curb on my left foot. Due to the quick turn, I miscalculated the height of the curb and landed awkwardly and heavily. I felt a twinge of pain on my outer left thigh but was able to continue running and finish the hour undoubtedly the pain numbed by the endorphins circulating within me. I managed to hobble/jog for 20 minutes each of the next 3 days, then was able to do about 30 minutes on the 4th day.

Its kinda difficult to run when your stronger left leg which is now injured is being supported by a right leg with an ongoing posterior tibialis tendonitis problem. It creates all kinds of imbalances and compensations by other muscles just to keep upright and keep moving forward. Either that or you just pound away on the same pre-existing injuries.

A few days later on my regular every other Sunday run with AREC, I was even able to do some pick-ups on a 7 miler (10 minutes warm up, then 5 sets of variable intervals: 3 minute pick-up, 1 minute recovery jog, 2 minute pick-up, 1 minute recovery jog, 1 minute pick-up, 2 minute recovery jog, then next set). I felt twinges of pain and was ready to stop anytime the pain got worst, but somehow I managed to run the whole 7 miles. I was thinking my leg must be getting better. Five days later, I tried doing the 3/2/1 interval workout again. This time things didn't go too well. I tried pushing past the pain and in doing so, not only aggravated the left thigh injury, but made the pain unbearable. I wasn't sure if I could even run the next day. Tomorrow came and I planned on running for only 20 minutes. I tried to run to my neighborhood video store to return some rented DVD's. I hobbled with excruciating pain from my door to the video store, all 5 1/2 minutes to cover 1/2 mile. After placing the DVD's in the return slot I tried to resume running but after a few steps the pain was too much to bear and I had to stop. I walked slowly back home a beaten man. My 21 years plus daily running streak had ended, and not by choice. Was it a great endeavor to try running everyday for the rest of my life? Or was it just a foolish obsession despite the cumulative injuries? If it were you, what would you have done?