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Today was definitely a Fox Mulder day...
Adopt Her Already!
First the not-so-bad. Our foster dog Reese has been wanted by a couple for over a week now but they keep dragging their feet. We met them with Reese at a pet store last week and they liked her, but then wanted to see her interact with their current dog. Makes sense, but couldn't we have done that for the first meeting if that was an issue? So we take Reese to their house, she and their dog get along great, but one of the adopters is out of town and they want to discuss to make sure. OK... Finally they decide to adopt her and we arrange to meet at my office Thursday to sign the papers but she never shows up. Today we're supposed to meet, but she calls to say she's running late and won't be free until after I leave work. Now Amanda has to coordinate meeting her while I go for my run. To top it off they can't pick Reese up until Monday since one of couple is still on travel. If they'd been just a wee bit more proactive early on, Reese could've gone home with them over a week ago! Oh well. The good thing is that Reese is adopted, and we actually really like this couple. They're nice, patient with dogs, Reese and their dog get along great, they have a big fenced-in backyard, and they go camping a lot. Reese will be happy with them so this craziness is worth it.
Bad Business
Today at home Amanda gets a call from Fidelity where the guy says he has to talk to me about my retirement account due to the takeover. (Background: my company used Fidelity for their 401K but we've since been bought by another company that uses a different financial service.) This guy leaves his name and a direct line phone number. So I call him back from work and get a generic voicemail box saying "an appropriate associate will return your call"... I get suspicious and contact HR at work, who contacted Fidelity and was able to confirm that Fidelity's sales group was using a register of names acquired during the takeover to cold-call people at my company to pitch personal retirement accounts. How incredibly unethical! On top of that, it would seem to me to be bad business. Here's a prime example: I had been planning to leave the amount accrued from my former company in Fidelity's 401K rather than rolling it over, but now they have just cost themselves my account. Prepare to roll it over, Fidelity!
Play Ball! Not.
Thursday night was my softball team's fourth game of the season, except that it never happened. We all showed up, the other team showed up, the umpires showed up... and so did a little league team that claimed to have the field during our game time! I called GRAASA, our softball league, but the number was disconnected! The little league got the city parks and recreation director on the phone, who confirmed that the little league gets the field. Our game got canceled. What the heck? It turns out that GRAASA had reserved the field and the little league was supposed to play on Saturday; however, the little league umpires had a conflict that day so at the last minute the city gave them our field but never told GRAASA. What annoys me is that this same thing happened to another GRAASA game last week but GRAASA never did anything to prevent it from happening again. Isn't once enough to learn a lesson? Maybe not for these folks, as they have yet to demonstrate any thoroughness in their operation of the league. Our schedule was postponed by a week to start the season because they couldn't find enough fields. Then the first field was played on was a kids' field with un-attached bases and a storm drain in centerfield - dangerous! Turns out GRAASA never even looked at the field before reserving it. We're currently operating under league schedule revision 5 or 6 (I've lost count) because they don't proofread their schedules before sending them out. They didn't even proofread their rulebook, which explains the disconnected phone number - their phone works, but they wrote the wrong number in the rulebook! If that all wasn't enough, some of their umpires were unaware of some non-standard GRAASA-specific rules. To their credit they are 100% volunteer, but that's no excuse for not being thorough and complete. Today at work I had to write them a "nice" letter to explain my teams' lack of satisfaction.
So yeah, today was a tough day of dealing with people that can't be counted on.
Happily we still had two good reasons to celebrate the day - Haven and Beacon's birthday!
The song "The Heat is On" comes to mind with the hot, muggy weather we've been having. As I got ready for my speed workout today I watched cumulus clouds building strength due to rising columns of hot afternoon air. My run was not going to be easy or pleasant! I leashed up Haven and jogged a warm-up mile to the track at the local fairgrounds where we met Amanda. At the track Haven was set free and promptly sprinted 100 meters at Olympic speed in pursuit of a squirrel! Silly girl.
I was hoping to run six 1/4 mile laps but only turned in four due to the heat and some lingering soreness from last night's softball game. (I was involved with a couple diving plays in the outfield - caught one; the other glanced off my glove - that resulted in "grass burn" on my left calf and right knee.) I paced Amanda for her first 100m sprint then continued around the track for my first lap, a surprisingly comfortable 92 seconds. Then I ran my hardest for the second lap and clocked 69 seconds! Woo hoo, my first 1/4 mile under 70 seconds since high school. Boy was I hurtin' after that one.
Another medium paced lap at 98 seconds, then my last one I managed to run in 77 seconds. Amanda and Haven were just as hot and tired as me by this point so we went home. I ran with Haven through downtown and we stopped at the riverwalk to watch some ducklings that Amanda photographed. Finally we made it home, where Haven and I headed to the basement to recover in the cool subterranean air.
A trophy. I was 14 years old and had won "most improved player of the year". It altered the course of my athletic career forever...
In 8th grade I participated in three sports: baseball, track, and tennis.
Baseball
I had played baseball since 2nd grade and enjoyed it, but was never great at it. This was partly due to poor eyesight because once I got glasses in 7th grade, my hitting instantly went from horrible to decent. I had no power but good plate discipline, culminating in an 8th grade season where I batted .670 with a .750 on-base percentage but just one extra-base hit (a bloop double). My coach batted me at the bottom of the lineup despite my stats (I was the only one who kept stats, anyway, being a nerd) because he never realized how effective I was. I tried to explain to him that my singles were almost as good as doubles because being the fastest runner on the team, I stole 2nd base every time and often 3rd base, too, without getting caught. He was a great coach and he liked me, but didn't appreciate a hitter without power.
Track
Even though I generally liked running, I never tried track and field until 8th grade. Being a late bloomer I wasn't a standout by any means, but I was still pretty good. I ran mostly distances of 100m-400m and my highlight was running the first leg of our championship-winning 4x100 relay, keeping pace with other team's fastest runners. It was a bit frustrating that I wasn't good enough to win any races on my own, but a few of my friends were on the track team and the camaraderie was outstanding. That was some of the most fun in a sport I'd ever experienced.
Tennis
I started taking lessons in 7th grade at a local athletic club in the beginner's group. Non-beginners, my best friend among them, played in class-type practice sessions ranked by ability, "Group 3" being the worst and "Group 1" being the best. My friend had been playing for several years and finally got promoted from Group 3 to Group 2 and was proud of it. Apparently I took quite well to the sport because after half a year in the beginner's group the coaches jumped me straight into Group 2, making my friend a bit envious. And for that I won a little trophy as the club's most improved player of 1990.
Entering high school the following year, I was faced with a mild version of Sophie's Choice: all three of my sports took place in the same season, forcing me to choose only one that I could continue pursuing. I enjoyed all three sports immensely - the drama of baseball, the excitement of track, the intensity of tennis - and because of that trophy, I chose tennis.
Tennis was the only sport where I felt that my achievements were recognized, a feeling given to me simply by that trophy. I never was awarded "most improved hitter" when I got glasses or a "most promising runner" when I held my own in the relay. It's kinda sad that such praise was so important to me, but that's who I was back then.
The epilogue here is that I played tennis for just three more years, making varsity as a sophomore on a top-ranked team but quitting in my junior year after becoming exasperated with a holier-than-thou coach and teammates who were more concerned with being better than each other than actually winning meets against other schools. Luckily for my parents' wallet it only took one expensive broken racquet to realize the error of my choice. :)
I never played baseball again, but I did play in a rec softball game between the two 11th grade chemistry classes where I happened to have a great day outplaying everyone including a handful varsity baseball players in chemistry class. The chemistry teacher was also a baseball coach and asked me several times "Why aren't you playing baseball?" Sometimes I wondered that myself but...
After quitting tennis I joined the track team because my good friend Jamey ran track. I went from being the best runner on the tennis team to the worst runner on the track team; however, I was setting PRs (personal records) every race I ran. By senior year I was an average runner yet still PR-ing every race, prompting my track coach to give me one of the best compliments I ever received in high school: "Someday you'll be winning master's races."
Ironic, isn't it? I chose tennis because of the accolades it gave me, but never found any respect in the sport again while the two sports I had cast off ultimately gave me the recognition that I craved. Nowadays I'm an active softball player and distance runner, but I haven't touched a tennis racquet since college. I guess I should've followed my own heart rather than the mouths of other people, or at least the words they etch onto little trophies.
Fairly busy day... after work I had softball practice, but I wanted to get my running in, too. I drove to the ballfields about an hour early and took a tour by foot of the nearest neighborhood. After 36+ minutes I'd covered 4.4 miles, which was nice because it sure didn't feel like I was holding that kind of pace. I changed at my car, transforming from runner into ballplayer and waited for my team to show up.
Within half an hour we were warming up our arms, and then shagging balls while taking BP. Surprisingly my legs felt great despite my pre-practice run - I was accelerating without problems, leaping high, etc. I even hit the ball pretty well considering I hadn't swung a bat since last August. My shoulder held up fine - in fact, I had better zip on the ball than last season; however, I still can't throw very far with a good heave.
So was this a duathlon? 4.4 mile run followed by two hours of softball? What's neat about this "du" is that softball was one of the motivators for me to start running again. Four years ago I played softball for the first time since college and got tired just jogging out to the outfield! Sad. I used to run all over the field and turn ground balls into triples, so I started running again partly to make sure that softball would never get me out of breath.
And wouldn't you know, four years later, here I am telling you all that today's run puts me at 401 miles on the year. :)
It seems most of my major hobbies had a big event recently:
Saturday - spent about 10 hours volunteering at the Pet Expo
Saturday - conducted my Mach League player draft 8pm-10pm
Sunday - went running TWICE for an hour each run
Sunday - fetched the dogs at the river before the Pet Expo
Sunday - between runs, volunteered about 5 hours at the Pet Expo
Monday - went to the softball managers' meeting after work, got home around 9:30pm
So there you have significant events for my hobbies of dogs, running, dog rescue, baseball, and co-ed softball. To top it all off, I'm a tad under the weather. This probably explains why my second Sunday run was so painful - my body was diverting its resources to my immune system, not to my "running" system.
I debated whether I should run today or take the day off, but since Amanda was feeling tired and sore and still went for her workout today, I figured I should get my work in, too.
It was very warm - 78 degrees - when Haven and I set foot (and paw) on the road, heading for the trailhead. Just before the trailhead we passed a couple kids playing with an unleashed dog in their driveway. Upon spotting us the dog - a border collie mix - started to follow us. She was very shy and Haven kept trying to chase her away, but this dog wouldn't go away. She had very bright blue eyes so I called her Blue Eyes. I suppose I could've been more creative but sometimes my mind turns off when I run!
Anyway, Blue Eyes followed us into the woods for about a 1/4 mile on the trail, so I decided I better bring her back to the kids. I walk up the driveway and ask the kids if this is their dog. They tell me no, that this dog came from down the road somewhere. Great. I checked for tags. Blue Eyes had a collar, but no tags. At least she was pretty submissive to both me and Haven and kept trying to play with Haven, so she was a friendly dog.
My next plan was to get her tired. One time a german shepherd followed Haven and I on a run and we got him pretty tired before his owner drove up to get him. We ran back into the woods and Blue Eyes followed; of course, border collies were meant to run. I exited the trail further up the road and decided to head back towards where the kids said she came, hoping to find an owner. Once on the road Blue Eyes took off, obviously familiar with her location and hopefully heading home. When she wasn't looking I unleashed Haven, pointed at the trail and said quietly but urgently "Let's go let's go let's go!!!" and Haven bolted down the trail with me in hot pursuit. I figured if Blue Eyes tried to follow us, she'd be less inclined the more distance we put between her and us.
It worked! No sign of Blue Eyes. Haven and I finished our work on the trails and headed for the river where we planned to meet Amanda and Beacon playing fetch. I could hear Beacon's eager screams half a mile away! Partly because of the strong NW wind that was bringing a cold front our way. Just before we saw Amanda and Beacon the skies opened up with big fat drops of rain!
We continued fetching with the dogs even as the pouring rain turned the surface of the river into what looked like a giant lemon zester! Despite the decreasing temperature and increasing mud and thunder we kept throwing sticks and the dogs kept fetching them. What a blast! We were soaked when we finally headed back to the car; when we got 100 yards away the rain simply stopped and within seconds the sun was out. Perfect timing!
Woo hoo! I'm done with PT! I had my last appointment today and they declared me well enough recovered that I don't have to go back. Actually it was rather fun to go there but it's also expensive at $25 a visit.
My abs/rib injury has been healing nicely. While not 100%, I'm able to do most anything I want without problems. My shoulder is actually progressing more slowly but still making progress. It's not quite strong enough to do "step-ups" (in a push-up stance, walk my hands up and down a stairstep) - I can do it, but it causes pain in the front of my shoulder. I'll have to keep working on that.
The coolest part of PT today was when the PT handed me a baseball and a mitt and said "Let's go see how well you can throw!" Yes! He grabbed a catchers' mitt and we went out into a wide hallway at the fitness club to play catch. Bringing my elbow back and up caused a slight click in my shoulder, but the actual throw posed no trouble. That's good, because softball practice will start next week!
I went to my PT appointment this morning and if it weren't for the fact that I'm there due to an injury, I'd love to go more often! Seriously, it felt like I went to a museum or something - it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. They even had all kinds of sports items - posters, pennants, even mock lockers for Steve Yzerman, Derek Jeter and Mia Hamm! My exam room had an autographed Jeter photo, photos of Tony Clark and Alan Trammell in action, and a "timeline of baseball history" poster. Awesome!
FYI, I have two injuries - a bad right shoulder that's been bothering me for a few years, and also a strained rib cage that I hurt six weeks ago. This PT appointment addressed the shoulder; there's not much that can be done for the rib cage aside from rest.
The therapist started by asking a ton of questions, then started prodding me all over on my back. She did mention that my back appears to be unaffected from my rib cage strain, so that's good. Then she hits my right shoulder and says "Whoa, there's quite a knot back there!" That was news to me; I'd never noticed anything like that. Next I had to move my arms around in various directions with the palm of my hand facing one way, then another, etc. Some of those motions caused a clicking sound in my shoulder, which I expected - it happens quite frequently. The last step in her diagnosis was for me to push against her hand with my arms in various orientations, e.g. push outwards one way, push down another way, push up yet another way, etc. One such configuration resulting in my arm shaking as I pushed up with very little force, although I didn't feel any pain.
At last, a diagnosis. We walked over to a wall chart depicting all of the muscle groups and she pointed out one in particular - the infraspinatus. That's the one that was all knotted up. She concluded that I don't have any tearing or significant damage to the muscle - sweet! The problem is that the muscle is quite inflamed, especially around that knot and especially where it connects to my upper arm bone (the humerus), which is where I can actually feel some pain if I push on that area.
The problem is that the inflamed muscle doesn't behave properly - when flexing the inflammation apparently weakens it and disrupts some of the nerves trying to control it. See how many muscles connect to the shoulder? It's a complex joint, so when one is out of whack and the shoulder moves, certain motions can be rather uncoordinated and cause the clicks that I sometimes feel.
The solution? Ultrasound! Seriously, the therapist wheeled an ultrasound machine into the room, set the timer to eight minutes, and proceed to rub the wand around on the back of my shoulder. She explained that the ultrasound warms up and relaxes the tissue. It worked! After the eight minutes she confirmed that the knot in my shoulder was gone. Wow.
Next I had to sit in a chair parallel to a table and rest my right elbow on the table next to me with my hand raised as if I were doing a casual wave. She then pressed her fingertips into that infraspinatus muscle and leaned into it so hard that she nearly pushed me out of my chair! While she's doing that, she asks me to raise and lower my hand a dozen times... dang did that hurt! Not sharp pain, but rather it felt like my shoulder was full of lactic acid. After I'd completed the dozen reps my hand was all tingly and pale white - it felt really weird. And I was done!
I'm scheduled to go back next week, and then 2-3 times per week after that for 3-4 weeks. I don't know exactly what they're going to do, but I assuming something similar to today. I was also given a few simple exercises to do daily. Amazingly, the entire day my shoulder has felt all limber! I guess I never realized such tightness had formed but boy that ultrasound must've done something. I still get the clicking, so I need to build that muscle back up to strength before that will go away.
How did this injury happen, anyway? Well, I used to be a fairly serious tennis player back in high school - the strongest aspects to my game were my uncanny quickness (rarely is the tallest guy on the team also the quickest, but somehow I did it) and my booming serve. I loved serving and practiced it often, even throughout college as a way to burn some energy. I also played rec softball in college. Needless to say, my right shoulder must've been pretty well developed.
Then I stopped. For several years I played neither tennis nor softball, then a couple years ago I started playing softball again. My mind remembered how to throw a ball hard, but my muscles didn't and over time my now under-developed shoulder muscles couldn't keep up with the expectations I was putting on them, and one became inflamed. Hopefully after all of this PT has run its course my arm will be strong enough again to hurl a softball a couple hundred feet again, without injury!
Today's long run was shorter than usual because Amanda and I wanted to take some batting practice before heading over to the local animal shelter to pick up our new foster dog, Ella. I was planning to run 12 miles but wound up doing just 9.25 to make sure we had enough time for softball.
The cool thing about this run was that I ran a 10:30 pace for the first four miles, but then started feeling good and ran the last 5+ miles at a 9:20 pace! Negative split! Amanda arrived at the local park just five minutes after I did, so I changed into my softball cleats and stepped onto the field.
I must've been a bit tired, or maybe just out of practice, but my swing was UGLY. I can't remember any ball that I hit really well, at least right handed. My second series of swings I took lefty and made some pretty good contact. When I play softball I bat and throw right-handed, but I'm fairly capable left-handed and I have a smoother swing from the left side. Often times I'll bat lefty just to remind my right side how to swing a bat!
Tuesday evening this week I went for a run with my dog Haven in 90-degree, humid heat. Just 14 hours later I went running again, a 5-mile lunchtime run with a few co-workers, with the temperature at the same 90 degrees. However, that second run was MUCH HOTTER. Why?
The sun. Tuesday evening's run was after 8pm and the sun had just ducked below the trees (but hadn't set yet). On top of that my route was along tree-shrouded dirt roads, so the road didn't see much direct sunlight throughout the day. In fact, it didn't seem quite so hot to me, although my dog was definitely feeling it.
Meanwhile, Wednesday's noon run was on city sidewalks exposed to the glaring high sun. Not only was the running surface hot as a griddle, my body was soaking up the sun's radiative heat, too. Yeah, my legs were tired from running the previous evening, but the heat was absolutely sweltering in comparison.
To top it all off, my softball team played it's 16th and last game of season Wednesday evening! I was definitely feeling tired after seven innings playing shortstop and running the bases. So today, my legs are getting a day off from running to catch up on some rest!
Wednesday evening was hot and humid for our weekly softball game. I captain one of the two co-ed rec teams at my company and this we played our arch rivals, a team with which we had split our two season meetings. The game was sluggish as neither offense could really get going in the calm heat of the evening - everyone seemed almost sleepy!
In the top of the 7th (and final) inning we were down by a run. We managed to get runners on 2nd and 3rd; with two outs and two strikes, our pitcher hit a soft liner that landed right on the chalk of the left field line - fair ball! Two runs scored, and then we fielded a scoreless bottom half of the inning to get a one-run victory.
Sound familar? Perhaps you watched the MLB All-Star game this week - the exact same scenario took place! The AL was down by a run in the top of the 9th with runners on 2nd and 3rd; with two outs and two strikes the batter hit a 2-RBI triple. Pretty cool.
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The next day I convinced Amanda to join me and the dogs on a run. There's an old scout camp nearby with river access and lots of trails. I drove 1.5 miles to the entrance where I stashed the car, then jogged along the trails and exited out the "back door" of the camp which is just half a mile from home.
I made this run a very tough one along 2.5 miles of sand and dirt. The dirt part was OK because it was usually shaded by the forest, but the sandy sections of trail were exposed in a power line right-of-way. The sun had baked the sand all day long and now the sand was radiating that heat back onto me as I charged up the steep hills. Boy did I get hot!
I ran back home where Amanda was waiting for me with the dogs, all leashed up and ready to go. Haven ran with me while Beacon had sled-dog duties with Amanda, pulling her up the first hill. Once on the trail and away from the road, we let the dogs off leash and followed behind them. Amanda wanted to walk but I kept pushing her to jog, saying things like "Run the downhills; the gravity is free energy!" and "It's just short uphill; blast up to the top and it'll be over sooner!" She bravely trusted my coaching and ran much of the ~2 miles to the river.
By the time we reached the river, Haven and Beacon were "dog" tired and very hot. They waded in the cool water and even tried to lie down in the shallows, so we all just stood there and recovered some energy. Soon the deer flies found us so onward we hiked up a very large and steep hill. Another half mile of running/walking brought us to the car with a very welcome air conditioner! We drove home with the A/C at full blast and a car full of twelve sore, worn-out legs!