30+ DRC 264

Wow. 264 days run.

A little over three months and I'll have reached a year.

And what have I learned from this? That I can always make time for at least a mile. Twenty minutes out of my day to prep, run and cool down if I'm in a hurry. But I usually have more time to do more stuff so I take advantage of it.

I'm lucky about where I work. Yes, it can stink to high heaven at times. It's a mushroom farm and we make our own compost. But once you get used to it (after a few years), it ain't so bad. At times it smells like pork rinds for some reason. Then I get hungry.

Most of the time though, it's wonderful. The farm is situated in bowl, kinda. The composting yard up along one of the hill sides on a huge, paved area. It's on the opposite side of where I work. It's the start and end of what I call the SWT (Shitty Work Trail). As I've said before, it sucks because the elevation changes are spaced really close. I'm running on a sawtooth ridge.

On the map below, the Start is colored in what I think is teal? And the end is in black. The yellow spots are where I loop back. I kinda follow my gaming methodology in this. I always go right . . . until I can't. Then I loop back and go right again. It mostly works. Sort'a.

The big brown chocolate stain at the top of the picture is the composting yard, what is known in the mushroom industry as Phase 1. The white roofed buildings next to it are what are called the Phase 2 rooms. After they get the compost from phase 1, they stuff them in 4'X8' trays and stack them in these temperature controlled rooms get them colonized with what the growers call fire-fang. In the lab, we call it scytalidium. It a fungus that thrives in relatively high temperature. It's also food for agaricus bisporus . . . your typical, store bought white or portobello mushroom.

Yes, the white mushroom used on pizzas and salads are pretty much the same as the portobello mushrooms. They are analogous to how dogs are different, but can still breed with each other. Not you'd want to breed a Great Dane and a chihuahua . . . poor chihuahua.

The grey roofed buildings below the phase 2 rooms are the actual growing rooms. Most of it is dedicated to the white mushrooms. Each section of those buildings is a growing room. They are huge rooms. The buildings by where my trail starts are pretty much dedicated to growing the portobello mushrooms. Not as much coming out of those as the other side of the farm.

I don't know if I said before, but the reason I'm running the SWT is because I was getting tired of my bum knee. It really was jacked up and I couldn't comfortably run flats anymore. I took a shot at the trail one day to see if having a constantly changing trail would help my knee out.

Unfortunately it did. I hate it because of how friggin' hard the trail is to run. I mean, SHIT! It really kicks my ass! I love it because it's actually helped my knee. I love it because I get to do it at work early and not worry about having enough time to do it after work. So I get to spend more time with the daughter.

So . . . that's the lesson for the day. I want a 1000 word report on how fungi can save the world. Due next week.

GD

p.s.
didn't check. run smiley :)

30+ DRC 248

This is a little test that I'm trying.

I once tried typing up a post on my iPhone . . . didn't work out so well. I just want to see how this post up later.

The last few runs have been getting better. Each day an improvement. I'm hoping by next week, I can start running the two miles regularly and slowly bump it up again.

The Santa Cruz Half Marathon is in April and I'd like to be able to run that one. Gotta get better and increase my mileage for obvious reasons.

The problem area has shifted from my knee (kinda) to my outer thigh. More of an ache though, because that muscle has been compensating for whatever I originally screwed up.

Also when I used to start out my runs, my ankle would want to stiffen up. But about a minute into the run it would be fine.

After very little thought, I finally remembered why I have so many problems with this leg. And it has to do with that ankle.

Back when I was working (full time) and going to school (full time), I was mean ol' fat bastard. Well not mean, just horrendously fat. Like 5' 6" and nearly 300lbs fat. I'm still not a pretty picture, but 225 (at last check a couple days ago) is much better than 300.

It had been a LONG week at work and at school. A lot of projects and reports due (AAS in computer tech). School was 5 days a week from 6pm to 10:30pm. I carried two backpacks full of books and supplies EVERYWHERE.

I was relieved that I completed everything on time and was very satisfied that I'd get excellent scores and grades. Not being cocky, just very thorough (and I did, btw). I skipped pizza and beer with my friends that night because I had to work the next morning (on a Saturday, ugh).

I got home and headed to the garage to throw my backpacks on my desk . . . and misjudged a step down. I rolled my ankle and heard a snap. Then I felt it. I wanted to scream like a little girl and I don't know why I didn't. I still don't remember how I ended up on the sofa a few minutes later with an ice pack wrapped around my ankle.

I probably should have gone to the doctor . . . but I didn't. My ankle was the size of a football at first, but the swelling had gone down to about softball size the next morning.

Continuing this story on my computer now because it's a bit tedious typing on this crappy screen for this long!

Just so you know, that isn't really the beginning of the crappy day that I had.  It started earlier in the day right after I got out of work. My friend and I worked at the same place (he was my boss at the time) and we commuted together. We took turns driving. It was his turn that day. He's one of those drivers that sits really close to the wheel and tailgates like a mofo! I think he does it more when I'm in the car with him to keep me a nervous wreck.

Anyway, so it's the end of the day and we are sitting at the stop waiting to make a left-hand-turn at a notoriously dangerous intersection. There hasn't been a month that goes by that someone ends up in the ditch on either side of the road on hit by another car.

I guess we were selected to get T-boned that day.

We had left early that day that we got out at the same time school lets out so there were a lot of cars going by on the main road. It's a 55 mph curvy mountainous road. The road we were on had the elementary school, so people were turning onto it. When it was his turn to wait to make that left, there was a line of cars about 7 deep on the near side of the main road in front of us all slowing down to turn onto the road we were on. All the cars appeared to be making that turn. They were all signalling.

But I saw a work truck speeding up from behind those other cars and when my friend asked if he should turn, I told him no. He hit the gas.

The truck hit us.

We were soooooo lucky! And I'm not being sarcastic about this. It could have been so much worse.

When the truck hit us, nailed the back end of the drivers side hard enough to tattoo the license plate number on the body. We spun around a couple of time and ended up in the ditch right across from where we were at just a few seconds ago. The car was ass down, nose up at about a 60 degree angle. For some reason, I pictured us about to take off into space when we ended up there.

I asked my bud if he was ok. He said he was fine, then the jerk asked where his glasses were at. I told him no, I'm fine too! I wasn't calm, but I wasn't too upset. From the moment we stopped in the ditch, I knew we were more than fine. The car was totaled, but we were fine. I got out to make sure of my self assessment and make sure he was ok. He seemed a bit dazed. I had him sit down on the hood of the car while I checked on the driver of the truck. He was running towards us wanting to make sure WE were fine. He was just as scared shitless as my friend. When he saw that we were ok, he literally just dropped to his knees in relief . . . in the middle of the road. I helped him back up and had him sit next to my friend.

His truck . . . perfectly fine. Just a bit of paint from my friends car. No other sign that it had been in an accident. My friends car . . . all three back windows gone, driver side window gone, windshield spiderwebbed, body had a 15 degree angle to it now from the rear driver-side door (4 door Honda). Oh, and it was in the ditch.

Other drivers had pulled off the road and asking if we were ok and were calling 911. I found my buds glasses in the middle of the road. Not a scratch on 'em.

Something was in the cards for that day.

So there I am, on the sofa with my ankle FUBAR'ed. After the accident earlier I was supposed to pick him up the next day because he didn't have a car to go to work yet. But here was the problem: At the time I drove a 1981 Toyota Longbed pickup . . . STICK! I needed both feet to drive!

Crap. I just realized that's not the reason why I'm having trouble with my right leg now. I guess it's just a  regular injury. Bummer. Oh well, might as well finish the damn story.

My LEFT ankle was my clutch foot. How the fuck was I going to drive to work! I called him and told him what happened. Being the idiot that I am, he convinced me to pick him up anyway.

I somehow hobbled out to my truck and miraculously figured out how to press in the clutch without TOO much pain. When I got to his house, I told him to drive. The fucker tells me he doesn't know how to drive my truck. He once had manual 4 speed Hyundai. I forgot about that like an idiot until MUCH LATER!

We somehow get to work without killing us and I told him I was just going to sit in the lab with my ankle elevated and that he can fuck off if he wanted me to work. I was too pissed and in pain to actually be able to work anyway. He left me alone until noon when we finally left. I didn't speak to him that whole week.

I didn't break anything and I think the only thing the visit to the doctor would have done was put me in a cast to minimize movement. I put a wrap around it and was on crutches for about a week I think.

I'm sorry for the long post, but I'm a bit worried. That happened in a February. My two personal car accidents (none my fault) were in February. My street hockey related broken wrist . . . February. My slashed on the are by some crazy random dude when I was 12 . . . February.

February and I don't get along. 28 days is too long for February. I'm not too superstitious except for this. I have several years between major incidences, but I'm still wary. Every friggin' year I watch for extra crazy stuff.

GD

p.s.
too crazy to check. run smiley :)

30+ DRC 243

The last couple of weeks haven't really been to interesting in the running aspect of my life. Other than really trying to keep up with the extra exercises after my runs. One of the reasons I actually keep up with it is because of the Fitocracy app on my iPhone.

Fitocracy is a social network for exercise. Only I don't really use it for the social aspect of it much. It's just another log I use to help keep track of what I'm doing. It's another reminder that I gotta keep going so I don't fall back to my former potato-ness. It's a great tool.

The other neat thing about it is that you level up! So it throws in that gaming aspect to your fitness. As of now, I'm at level 23 and I only need 1754 points to reach level 24. If I keep up the effort, I can break through to level 24 in about a week! Ok, I'm not really that excited about it. But sometimes you like to look at your level and appreciate all the work you put into what you've done. You have a hard number to work off of.

Another reason Fitocracy helps is because if you're really motivated, you can set up your exercises for the day and if you don't do them they are a glaring reminder of what you didn't do. It's a whole psychological thing with it. And it's helped me get through my days. You can track your running on it as well as a ton of other exercises they have on there. You can set up routines or follow one of the Quests they have. A LOT of them I cannot do yet. But there are two that I do follow. The Push The Earth Quest and the As Seen On TV Quest.

Push The Earth is as follows:
20 Reps - Body Weight Lunge
30 Reps - Body Weight Squat
20 Reps - Pushups or Kneeling Pushups
10 Reps - Jump Squats (Toyotas)

When I first completed PTE, I followed it exactly except for the pushups. When you select PTE for your quest, it actually posts both the regular pushups and the kneeling pushing for your routine. What I didn't know was that you could edit it out . . . until much later. But by then, I was already incorporating both into my version of PTE. I was doing the 20 kneeling pushups, but  only 5 regular pushups for the quest. And I was happy with that because it was something I wasn't doing before.

For the squats and lunges, I was happy that I'd taken a beginning class for Crossfit a while back. I remembered how to stay on my heels when doing the squats and the lunges were nice and wide without my knee passing my foot. The Toyotas were a bit of a surprise. I forgot how difficult they can be.

Now here's the thing about the quest. It tells you that you are supposed to complete the quest within one day. So you can spread out the quest throughout your day. You don't have to do them all at once. As long as you finish them all within that 24 hour period. But I figure since I go for my run when I get home and I'm all warmed up  . . . might as well just finish it all in one go. Sort of my own modified Crossfit routine.

When you complete the quest, you go to your workout for the day in the app or on your pc and you add in how much you did for each exercise. Now I've been slowly increasing the reps since I've started following PTE. This is what my PTE looked like yesterday:


30 Reps - Body Weight Lunge
15 Reps - Pushups
40 Reps - Body Weight Squat
20 Reps - Kneeling Pushups
20 Reps - Jump Squats (Toyotas)

Fucking Toyotas, man.

I try to complete this quest on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The As Seen On TV quest is a bit more diffcult:

5 Reps - Pushups
100 Reps - Jumping Jacks
30 Reps - Crunches
10 Reps - Body Weight Squat
30 Sec - Plank
15 Rep - Body Weight Lunge
20 Rep - Bicycle (abs)

The first time I did this quest, I only changed the pushups to 10 instead of the 5. I'm trying to build my upper body strength damn it! As with the PTE quest, I've also been increasing the reps on this one, as well as the order in which I do them. The following is what I did on Wednesday:

10 Reps - Pushups
40 Sec - Plank
30 Reps - Squats
40 Reps - Crunches
100 Reps - Jumping Jacks
50 Reps - Bicycles
30 Reps - Lunges

And I used to think planks were easy to do. What a dumbass. What probably makes them even more difficult is that I do the plank right after the pushups so I stop at the top and hold the position for the 30 or more seconds needed to complete the plank.

What trips me out is that I have no problem with all these leg exercises. But when I'm running, my knee is getting all out of whack and I can run further than maybe a mile and a half. It's been slowly getting better, and I think it's because I've been doing these quests. I'm would like to try to run 4 miles on Saturday at the Toro Estates. Hopefully I can.

Again with another long post, but I hope it was somewhat informative.

GD

p.s.
too lazy. run smiley :)