General Jackassery

Over the course of the last couple of years it seems that I’ve met more and more people whose lives have been touched by cancer. As many of you know I’ve been a pretty huge fan of Lance Armstrong and the Lance Armstrong Foundation because of the work they’ve done with cancer patients. In fact, over the last two years I’ve donated a reasonable chunk of change to both the Lance Armstrong Foundation and to the American Cancer Society. Donating my personal money to these causes has given me a little bit of a sense that I’m actually doing something that will help people now and in the future.

For many people it is enough to dig into their pocket books and pass along some of their hard earned cash to these types of societies and causes and until recently, I was one of those people. Today, I don’t feel like it’s enough for me to simply have some money deducted from my pay check every two weeks and go about my merry way.

As you know I recently completed my first marathon and in as little as a couple of days after completing the marathon I had already started planning on running my second in December of this year. The plan was to spend a couple of weeks recovering from my shoulder surgery and then start back running very slowly with the ambition of running the Rocket City Marathon. While that plan has not changed, I’m upping the ante substantially.

The last 4 or 5 events that I’ve been to, from the 3 State 3 Mountain Challenge to the ING Georgia Marathon to the Country Music Marathon, I’ve noticed these purple Team-in-Training jerseys on people all over the place. I decided to do a little research and found out what it was all about.

The bottom line is that Team-in-Training is about raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in an effort to fight Blood Cancers. They will help me train for a marathon and I will help them raise money to support research and patient services. At the end of 4 to 5 months of training and fundraising I will run the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. on October 28th. As part of TNT I’ll run in honor of a designated “Teammate” who happens to be a blood cancer patient, but I’ll also be running in honor of my friend Brent Ullom who passed away this past January and in honor of Steve Yeldell and Bill Nestor (Sarah’s Father and Grandfather, respectively) who are now fortunately (because they survived) and unfortunately (because they had to go through the pain, worry, and illness), cancer survivors. I will also run in honor of my father who has had numerous boughts with skin cancer. While TNT is specifically meant to raise money to help fight blood cancers, cancer is cancer and as you can see it’s something that has touched me and my family in a significant way.

From here on out you can expect to see more regular posts as I keep you up to date on training and fundraising and begin to post quick facts on the #1 cause of death in children and the #2 cause of death in adults.

I hope that you’ll continue to check in and cheer me on. I also hope that you’ll choose to support the cause. I’ll be looking to raise over $5000 in the next 4 months and I’m going to need some help.

There’s much more to come. Thanks in advance for your support!

“I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

Okay so it’s not that I couldn’t walk after the Marathon, it’s just that I had a nasty blister on the ball of my right foot that made it very painful to walk. However, after four days of recovery, said blister is starting to heal and it doesn’t hurt like the dickens to walk.

As far as recovery goes, I haven’t even tried to run or walk any real distance due to the blister issue, but I found out that I can skate. Since it’s a different foot motion and since my foot is so locked into the skate there is no real friction in the area where the blister is. Anyway, I went and got a massage on Monday evening after Sarah and I got back into town and I went from there to the Ice Complex and played in one of my Senior Open League games. Everything felt pretty good and I skated again on Wednesday. I’ve been very surprised at my resilience. I didn’t really expect to not be able to walk at all, but I didn’t expect to feel good enough to skate the next day either. I guess walking the last six miles and getting in the cold pool for 15 minutes post race really helped in the recovery process. Skating has probably helped push some of the build up out of my legs too.

Interesting side note: It’s not a good idea to get on the scale for a week or so after the Marathon. The consumption of massive amounts of Carbohydrates and Sodium coupled with the trauma of traveling 26.2 miles on foot seems to cause your body to retain fluid. So I got on the scale when we got back to Huntsville and I weighed 5 lbs more than I did before the Marathon. Research suggests this is normal and the weight will come right back off in a couple of days, but it is a little disappointing when you’re thinking you’re going to drop a few lbs.

So what does the future hold? I spent quite a while the other day working on a new training plan. I really only decided about 2 months ago that I was going to do the ING. Needless to say that wasn’t nearly the amount of time I needed to be truly prepared for the race. While I’m satisfied with the results I would like to be able to run a marathon faster and with less pain. So, I work out a plan that will slowly increase my mileage from 13 miles a week to 70 miles a week. My longest run each week will account for 1/3 of my weekly miles and the other runs will very in length throughout the week. I will increase my weekly mileage by 8.5% from the start of the plan to the end. I’ll allow for about 3 weeks of taper before the next marathon and I will have 1 step back week in every 4 weeks of training. I’ll start training two and a half weeks after my next should surgery and will run everyday of every week until December the 8th when I run the Rocket City Marathon. During this time I will also be including a comprehensive stretching routine as well as some light weight training.

What are the objectives between now and then?

1) Develop a base of miles substantial enough to allow me to run the Rocket City Marathon fully.

2) Develop enough endurance to complete the marathon in less than 4 hours.

3) Learn what works for my body in terms of how to eat and hydrate properly for endurance events.

3) Through a continuation of healthy diet and exercise I plan to lose an additional 30 lbs over where I’m currently at. By the time I run the Rocket City Marathon I plan to tip the scales at a scant 205 lbs.

4) Provide encouragement and inspiration to others and instill a since of hope in people that they can accomplish whatever they set their minds to just like I have and will.

What are the objectives for the Marathon?

1) Run non-stop the entire length of the 26.2 mile course including water stations.

2) Finish in 3 hours and 45 minutes or less.

See you along the way!

You can now add Marathon Finisher to the list on my athletics resume. Yes, you read that right; on March 25, 2007 I completed the ING Georgia Marathon. I’m sure Sarah will be posting pictures soon, but I felt like I should say something about it here.

I was not ready for this. I suffered from several bad ideas.

Bad Idea #1) I have completed two Half-Marathons since January, but 13.1 miles was my longest run until yesterday. When I set out to run this Marathon I had hoped to be able to finish in less than 4 hours 45 minutes. Unfortunately, I suffered a little bit of tendonitis in my right knee not too long after my second Half-Marathon. I did a 4 miler 2 days after the second “Half” and was going to run 9 third day after. I got through 4.5 miles and decided to stop. I didn’t want to inflame the situation anymore. I then ended up traveling for the next two weeks and skipping the 16 and 20 mile runs I was supposed to do. I also didn’t run AT ALL during those two weeks. When I got back from travel I ran 2.1, 5.5 and 2.6 miles the week of the Marathon and then had 3 days between any running and the Marathon.

Bad Idea #2) Sarah and I went back to Pilates for the first time in three months on the Thursday before the Marathon. I started feeling my ab muscles at mile 2. At mile 3 I started to feel my shoulder. All that pain would subside, or be replaced by new pains.

Bad Idea #3) I’ve been eating poorly lately and I decided it was time to get back on my LA Weight Loss program. I started back on Wednesday and instead of Carbo Loading before the Marathon, I think I was Carbo-Unloading.

Bad Idea #4) you should always eat a nice large healthy meal the night before the Marathon. You should not eat food with rich sauces and you should not eat large chunks of Chocolate Mouse Mousse (though after I ate it I felt like I had mice running around in my stomach) Cake the night before. This is even truer if you’re not used to eating that type of food. I was up until after midnight taking care of “Business.”

Bad Idea #5) you should try to run on both sides of the road from time to time. This will ensure that your feet toughen up evenly. If you’re used to running against traffic all of the time you’re feet will be used to landing on the crown of the road in such a way that your left foot will take more of a beating than your right foot. If you’re used to that and you switch sides of the road for let’s say 10 of 26.2 miles. Your right foot will develop a much larger blister than your left.

Bad Idea #6) Swerving to run underneath a hose pipe to cool off and accidentally stepping in a puddle and soaking your shoes.

So, you taking into account all the bad ideas and you’re sure to see that my only desire for this Marathon was to finish. What I can’t begin to explain is how bad I wanted to finish because I would have to be able to explain how emotionally tired I was and how much pain my body was in.

I ran the first 20 miles in a little under 4 hours. I spent probably half of miles 18 and 19 walking because I was starting to cramp. By the time I crossed the time keeper’s mats at mile 20 I was not capable of running anymore. Every time I started to job, both hamstrings and both calves would start to cramp. So I walked or as Sarah assured me I trudged. I trudged by all of the wonderful people who called my name and shouted words of encouragement. I never wanted to stop; I just wanted it to end. I had my sights so set on getting the stupid medal for crossing that finish line I could not think of anything but that medal. I told myself I’m not a quitter and at mile 23.5 I lost it emotionally. I was torn between wanting this to be over so incredibly bad and not wanting to stop. Even though I was walking I lost control of my breathing and started to tear-up.

I can’t begin to thank Sarah, and Amy and Brian enough for their support. They ran, walked, hitch-hiked, taxied and subwayed their way around so they could cheer me on every couple of miles and in the end when I had nothing left emotionally or physically they walked with me and gave me the mental support that I needed to finish strong. With 4 blocks left in the race, I mustered what little bit of courage I had left and trotted across the finish line.

It wasn’t what I envisioned. I was elated that I finished a marathon like I thought I would be. I wanted nothing more than to just sit down.

Well I do one again? The answer to that question is an absolute unqualified yes! I will run the Rocket City Marathon here in Huntsville in December. I will finish the Rocket City Marathon in less than 4 hours and I will run the whole way. I will be prepared and the list of Bad Ideas above will be history.

For now: Brian, I wouldn’t have done this if it were not for you. Thank you for your support, encouragement and help. Amy, I couldn’t have wished for a better sister! Thank you for being there and cheering me on. Sarah, I love you with all my heart, I couldn’t done this without you.

Now that the Holidays have past it’s time to get my nose back to the grind stone. I haven’t slowed down on the running and excercise part of “Operation Svelte,” but I have pretty much left my nutrition for dead. My goal was to get through the holidays and not gain any weight. I came very close to accomplishing that goal, I made it through the last three weeks of Holiday cookies, candy and feast and only netted a one pound gain on the scales.

When I went into LA Weight Loss to find this out I was pretty satisfied considering what I have been eating. That said I was ready to turn on the burners again and watch the scale start falling. So I’ve mostly been back on plan for a couple of days now. I’ve added a few extra carbs to the diet so I could sustance the distances that I’m running now and when I went in on Friday to find out what the damage was I had lost 7 lbs. As of Friday afternoon I’m as light as I’ve been since 1995 when my Driver’s License said I weighed 258. On Friday was done to 240. That’s 20 lbs away from my official goal and 30 lbs away from my unofficial goal of 210 lbs. I have lost a total of 38 lbs since the start at the end of October and I’m down 56 lbs from my all time heaviest.

On the excercise side of things. I completed a 9 mile run on Monday of last week. It was the longest I’ve ever run in my entire life. I signed up for the Nashville Resolution Run on Monday. It was only a 5k so I ran the course twice before the race started and then ran it a third time after that and set a personal best for 5k run of 27 min 24 secs. In other words I ran the last 3.1 miles of a 9 mile run at an average pace of 8 min 51 secs per mile. Needless to say I’m pretty thrilled with that. But if that wasn’t enough I set another personal distance record today.

For the first time in my life I’ve run a distance in the double digits. I complete a 10 mile run in 1 hr 34 min and 2 secs. If you don’t care to do the math that’s a pace of 9 min 24 secs per mile. 10 FREAKIN’ MILES!

This week is a step back week, so no personally records as I’ll be giving my body some much needed recovery time and not running as far, but next week will bring a new distace record and the following week, we’ll travel to Callaway Gardens to run a Half-Marathon with Brian. I’m really looking forward to that.

Oh by the way, when I got on the scale after the run I weighed in at 235. I couldn’t tell you when I saw a number that low on the scale.

A week ago Sunday I was playing my second league hockey game and about half-way through the 1st period I managed to pop my arm out of the socket. Now, this is something that has happened on a semi-regular basis since sometime in 2001 when I dislocated it the first time. Anyway, it’s happened so many times that it doesn’t hurt as bad anymore and usually it just pops right back in. However, when it happened on Sunday, it stayed out of the socket for 15 to 20 seconds and it happened when I was reaching for the puck. I wasn’t hit, I didn’t fall down, I was just reaching for the puck. That’s the 2nd time in two weeks that’s happened and the 3rd time in 3 months. Then when I was at home later that night I was reaching down to pick up something off the floor and it nearly dislocated again.

Having had enough of my should popping out, I decided to make an appointment with the doctor to see what he had to say. My hope was that I could just go to Physical Therapy and strengthen the muscles. The doctor decided to refer me to physical therapy, but he also refered me back to the doctor that did my knee surgery in 2003.

Yesterday morning I went to the Orthopaedic Surgeon to see what they had to say. Dr. Alexander looked at the X-rays and then played around with my shoulder and said, “You’re gonna have to get this fixed.” He then refered me to another doctor at SportsMed who specializes in Shoulder Arthroscopy and Dr. Layton agreed that after looking at the x-ray and manipulating my shoulder that there is ligament/tendon damage in my shoulder that can only be fixed surgically. The only question is whether or not the surgery can be done Arthroscopically.

Thursday morning I go back to the doctor’s office to get an MRI. The MRI will not tell whether or not I need surgery but what type of surgery will have to be done.

Based on the x-rays, there was a visible defect in the ball on top of the humurous bone. The defect is caused by the humurous slipping out of the socket and colliding with some of the other shoulder structure. (This is how they explained it to me.) The MRI will determine the size of the defect. If the defect is very large then the surgery will have to be done by opening up my shoulder. If the defect is small they can fix it with the scope.

At the moment the doctors feel like the surgery can be done with the scope, so that will have me having a 3 inch scar on the front of my shoulder. I should know for sure on Friday.

Anyway, the surgery is already scheduled and one way or the other I will be having surgery on my shoulder on Wednesday the 7th of February. I wanted to give myself the month of January to continue training and hopefully be able to run the Half-Marathon with Brian at the end of January.

If all goes well, I will have my shoulder immobilized for 10 to 14 days, should be back to jogging in 4 to 6 weeks or less and should be fully recovered in 4 to 6 months. We’ll see how it all goes.

Okay, first of all I did just call it “Operation Svelte.” That’s what Sarah has decided to call this latest endeavor to loose weight and get in the best shape of my life. I thought it was pretty funny so I decided to adopt the name.

Now, on to better things.

Many, many thanks to Amy and Brian. Had it not been for Amy telling me that Brian was going to run in this race I would never have done it. Had it not been for Brian deciding that he wanted to run a marathon in the spring, I don’t think I would have done it. So, thanks for the inspiration and the invite! Sarah and I thoroughly enjoyed the couple of hours we got to spend with you guys.

The longest run I’ve ever done is 5.5 miles. The first time I ran that distance was about a year ago and I remember being so proud because I ran it at an 11 min/mile pace. About three weeks ago I ran that same route and was able to run it at a 9min 53sec/mile pace. I remember thinking to myself, “Man, you’re kicking but.”

This past weekend I ran my first ever 10k. For those who don’t want to do the math, that’s 6.2 miles. When I decided to run the race my two objectives where: 1) Finish, 2) Finish in under 1 hour.

Again with the math, that would mean that I need to run at an average pace of 9 min 40 secs / mile. That’s just 13 secs per mile faster than my best pace on a 5.5 mile run. So I set out training to run this 10 K. I had a lot of good training days and felt like I was ready for this thing when Saturday morning rolled around.

The race started about 15 minutes late and it was pretty dang cold, somewhere in the mid to low thirties when we started. Brian had said that he was going to stay with me atleast for the first couple of miles and then if he felt like taking off that’s what he was going to do.

“On your marks, get set…….go!”

We took off running and at the very beginning it seemed like everyone had the rush of running with a couple hundred other people, so the pace right off the start was fast. I guess that was okay since the first half-mile was down hill. I told Brian that I didn’t want to get caught up in all of that so we slowed down a little bit. Run your own pace and all.

Brian stuck with me for almost 4 miles before he picked it up a notch, but he helped me keep a really good pace and by the time he took off I was in a pretty steady rythm.

By mile 5 I was starting to slow down a little bit, but I was still hanging in there pretty good. I also picked up a little kid somehwere around mile 5 and we ran pretty close together all the way in. Somewhere around 5.8 miles you start going back up the hill to the finish, I thought it was pretty mean to have an uphill finish, but what can you do.

When we got to the 6 mile mark I picked up the pace a little, but since I was still going uphill there wasn’t much I could do. The little kid passed me and put about 50 ft into me before I could stop loosing ground. With about a hundred yards left and the top of the hill in sight I went all out towards the finish line. The kid heard me pick up the pace and he took off too, so I started cheering for him to keep pushing. For some reason I didn’t want to pass him when he’d worked that hard to get to the finish line. So I got beat by a little kid at the very end, but it was fun.

Remeber I said that I wanted to finish in under 1 hour? Look at the clock over my shoulder. I crossed the line 2 seconds later.

My official time was 57:52 so I beat my goal by 2 min 8 seconds and my average pace for 6.2 miles was 9:20 per mile. I’m happy with that.

Thanks Brian, I enjoyed it!

By the way, Brian finished in 54:50, not too shabby! Keep up the good work.

Just a quick update. I’ve been working really hard at this LA Weightloss thing and while I haven’t been the best about staying on the plain, I have had huge success so far.

This coming Friday I will have completed 6 weeks on the program. I don’t think I’ve stuck with any diet this long in my life. When I got on the scale Friday, October 20th, I weighed 280 lbs. This morning when I got on the scale I weighed 252 lbs. 28 lbs down, 32 to my current goal.

Also, I had gone on a couple of jogs that were 2 miles or less in September, but I hadn’t had any excercise other than hockey for the later half of September and into October. Since then I’ve started jogging again. Saturday afternoon I ran 4.75 very hilly miles and was able to maintain a 9 minute and 44 seconds / mile pace. Yesterday I ran 2 miles at 9 minutes and 15 seconds.

Yay for me.

There’s a lot to talk about, so I think I’ll put this in list form.

1) 3 weeks ago Friday I took a big step for the sake of my health and happiness. I got up early to play hockey on that Friday and before I left I decided to get on the scale. I’d been watching my weight steadily rise, and I wanted to see what I weighed at my lightest. The scale said 280 lbs. I had gained almost all of the 20 lbs I lost since my wedding back. Because I’ve been watching my weight rise for several months I’ve been thinking hard about doing something about it, but I’ve tried diets and exercise before and I’ve never succeeded alone. I decided that I needed help and that was a big step for me. Seeking help meant that I was going to have to truly commit to changing how and what I eat as well as how I exercise and how much. That morning when I read 280 I decided to join LA Weight Loss. No matter the cost, the time or the commitment I decided that I wanted to lose this weight. Sarah has been very supportive so far and I’ve been very successful. Just two and a half weeks in I’ve lost over 14 lbs.

2) I’ve been on the road a lot lately. This is probably some of the heaviest travel of my career to date. Most of them are not long trips, but I’m going on multiple trips per month and most of the trips will span a weekend. I don’t expect too many people read this anymore, but if you do read it then you know why I don’t post that often.

3) I ran 3.2 miles last night at a 10min/mile pace. Amazingly enough despite the weight gain, I haven’t lost my base of fitness. My brother-in-law is planning on running a Marathon in March and while I don’t think I could ever be ready to run a Marathon in five months I think I’m going to try to at least run a half-marathon by then.

Not so random thoughts,

a) I do not support the war in Iraq. That is a change from the time when we went to war with Iraq. I believed at the time that dethroning Sadam was a good thing, I believed that they had weapons of mass destruction and that they were going to give them to terrorists to blow use on American Interests. Now, I believe we should bring our boys home, lick our wounds and learn from our mistakes. I believe that our people are doing good things in small doses in Iraq, but we’re not making a big enough impact because we have not committed to making that impact. I believe that our President believes that as long as Iraq is a vacuum there will not be any more terrorist attacks here.

b) I DO support the guys on the ground over there. I work daily with veterans of the first Gulf War and I work daily with people who have served as soldiers and civilians in Iraq. Those guys are doing their best to get things done, but they lack leadership. I believe that our troops should be given the best equipment available to keep them as safe as possible as long as they’re over there.

c) I believe that people need to learn to distinguish between not supporting the war and not supporting our troops. I believe that we all want our people to come home and we all appreciate that they’re willing to volunteer to do the things they do. I appreciate them and thank God everyday that there are people out there who are willing to try to better themselves and our country by joining the military and fighting wars on our behalf. I choose to show my support for the troops by not sending them do die in a place that we have no business being. But, since they are over there I want the government to provide them with enough manpower and equipment to be successful. Our nation is already in debt so far we’ll never get out, so why do we worry about spending more money to protect the guys who volunteer to protect us.

d) I’ve written about hippocracy before, but I think I need to say it again. In the bible there are three small areas that are left up to interpretation about gays and gay marriage. However, in the bible it says many more times than three that you should turn the other cheek, that you should love and pray for your enemy and in the bible it says that HATE of any kind is not to be tolerated. So why is it okay to go blow whoever off the map, but it’s not okay for two men to marry? The book of Matthew also says something about not judging. I’m tired of people using religion whenever it’s convenient and discarding it when they feel like sleep with their neighbor’s wife.

e) Believe I written enough.

Apparently I’m addicted to golf lately. Maybe it has something to do with Tiger Woods being at the top of his game and making it fun to watch.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything and though I’ve had a real desire to post for some time now I have no idea what to write about.

So I think I’ll just leave this short and sweet for now, maybe I’ll have something to write in another day or so.

Goodbye for now, world.