If I have won, then I am going to make that my 2012 Spring Marathon and training will start almost immediately. I usually don’t like the 16 week program because I have found that a training program that long seems to drag on for ages and I have gotten bored with in the past. Now, this was at a time when I was doing a long distance race fairly regularly and while I wouldn’t be in “marathon shape”, I would be familiar with training that my body remembered and I would find myself over training because I would make shorter runs longer.

This caused me to burn out or be over trained for the goal race and have a bad showing on race day. I benefit from the “It’s better to be under trained, then over trained” adage and so I would hand craft 12 week training schedules for me to follow. Only problem with the shorter schedule is that you have to follow it more adamantly, because you can’t miss as many training days or talk yourself into shortening your run from say 10 miles, to 8 miles, eventually to 6 miles… just because.

This time is different. I’m coming off what is a longer rest period for me than what usually happens. My last marathon was last year in November, Flying Monkey Marathon on 11/21/2010. My last long distance races were this spring (Calhouns 10 miler, Strawplains 1/2 Marathon and Whitestone 30k) and with my quad and hamstring pulls of the summer, my running was pretty much zilch.

There was also the mental aspect of running which kept my mileage down. I wasn’t motivated. I was actually not motivated from a “whole Terry” perspective and so not running was a by product of that. Now that things have gone through a mental shift back to a more normal (as normal as normal can get with me) way of thinking, the desire to RUN has come back to life.

If I don’t win the contest, then my training program will be starting on 01/15/2012 for the Flying Pig Marathon.

I don’t think I have a preference for either race. While I have not run the Georgia Marathon,  I do have Georgia (2007 Chickamauga Marathon) completed in my journey for running a marathon in all 50 states. I ran the 2009 Flying Pig Marathon, which had the largest crowd size that I had ever experienced at a marathon and wouldn’t mind running through the streets with tons of spectators cheering, just for me.

I don’t think it would have been possible for me to drink enough water to compensate for all the toxins that were released from the massage on my back.

By Thursday afternoon, I was feeling pretty bad. So bad, that when I arrived home from work, I went straight to bed and went right to sleep. This was about 5:30pm and I never made any attempt to get into Pajama Jammy-Jams; I crashed. I’m not sure of the first time I woke up, I think it was a couple hours later but I was soaked in sweat. I had soaked my shirt and Jacket, I told you I went straight to bed. I even soaked completely through my jeans, so much that even the bed and the comforter was wet.

I pretty much slept through the night and was very thankful for My Lovely and Talented Wife for taking up my end of putting the kids down for bed. In the morning, I was cognizant enough to do the bare minimum to get the kids ready for school, but then went straight back to sleep afterwards. About 9:30am, I woke up, feeling better or at least on the side closer to fine.

Despite feeling somewhat better, and the rattling in my chest about 90% gone, there was still work that needed to be done. More Massage Therapy. While the main mass of knots in my back had been broken up there were more in hiding.

Now that the rattling had gone down, I noticed something else that wasn’t right. It felt that my throat/air pipes were either covered with a layer of something or they were swollen. It did not seem that I could get the volume of air through my mouth and into my lungs. I made a note to mention this to my chiropractor for my next visit.

My next visit was 8 days after the first attack on my back. During this visit, I told him about the last week of events after the initial massage. I went upstairs to see Jeff who told me that the culprit muscle was under the scapula (shoulder blade). The bad news about the muscle was that it’s well covered by the scapula and you have to go (Basically) from the armpit to reach it. The good news was that it was accessible and after a few minutes of moderate massage, it felt pretty good.

Over the weekend, my symptoms improved even more. The rattling was non-existent but I was stilling coughing, but only occasionally. I decided that on that Monday (9/26), I would run a lunchtime to see what condition I was in. My condition was good. I only ran 2 miles and had some congestion during the run, which I didn’t think wasn’t out of the ordinary. There was still residual stuff in my chest and throat and so being active was just a catalyst to get it out.

The first half of October, I didn’t log any miles for dedicated runs, but I was active with walking (and sometimes running) to and from the bus stops. I could tell each time that I was getting back to normal. And for some of the runs where I was running to make a particular bus, despite a heavy backpack and up hill, I was noticing that I could run longer while still maintain a particular pace.

Looking at the calendar, it was an 8 week ordeal and by no means is the issue gone. However, there is no more rattling, no congestion and I can manage the knots in my back pretty efficiently with a K’NEX building piece that I “borrowed” from the kids. It’s long enough that I can reach back with it and get good pressure on the muscles. It’s strong enough that I can push the underlying muscles and it’s not too pointed as cause me to poke holes in my back.

With a new mental attitude to running and a somewhat working back, I’m starting to focus on training and racing again. I don’t have anything set right now, but I am in the process of seeing what races are on the horizon. Who knows, I might even WIN a free entry to the Publix Georgia Marathon and the decision of determining my next marathon might be a no-brainer.

The first symptoms manifested themselves as coughing and congestion (or rather the expelling of it). A few days later, a rattling of BOTH my lungs was the next symptom to join the party. It was at this point that I had the fear that I was coming down with Streptococcus pneumoniae, which it and I do mortal combat against each other periodically. I had the classic symptoms: rattling in the chest, coughing, and congestion. Except I was missing a BIG component, I wasn’t sick.

I didn’t have a fever, or rather the Cyclic Fever with Fatigue. Usually, I get a fever that comes and goes and comes and goes and tossed in there is the overwhelming fatigue where I just want to sleep. I’m so tired that I collapse where ever I am and sleep. However, there was none of that. So, I’m thinking WTF… as in Where’s The Fever. So now my self-diagnosis is Rub… Pleural Rub.

I decided to run on 8/23 and did just peachy during the run, apart from being a little slow from lack of training. However, the systems all came right back and stayed at a constant level. Now, I’m thinking WTF! I decide to take a week off from running and take it easy as I did when I had my pleural rub of yesteryear. Eh, 7 days… 0 changes except that I start to think that it is an infection (and there quite possibly was one in there somewhere). I ran again on 08/30 and results were mediocre.

At this point, I hadn’t taken any meds to treat any of the symptoms but I am starting to concede to the thought that I would need to take something… possibly an antibiotic to at least getting me in the right direction.

I took antibiotics for 7 days and there was no change. I did notice a clearing of some other issues because of the antibiotics, but for my lungs… it didn’t help.

Next Step: Crack-a-lack

The next approach to my ailment was to have my chiropractor take a look to see if I was out of alignment or some other issue that he could resolve. I wasn’t scheduled to see him for a couple of days after I decided that he would be my next plan of attack, but I was able to schedule an appointment a couple of days earlier.

Funny thing, my alignment was good from my previous realignment. He had me go see the Massage Therapist to work on my back. She worked on my back and some of the biggest knots ever! They felt as if they were the size of my fist and to make things worse, they were under my shoulder blade. However, she was able to work out everything that was easily accessible. Despite the fact that most of the work on my back ranged from uncomfortable to moderate pain, I knew that it was better to not have those knots there. This was Wednesday 9/14.

UPCOMING: ‘Results to Back it Up’ or ‘Sub Scapulicious’

We didn’t have any issues over the weekend. Thanks to the almighty schedule (a product of My Lovely and Talented Wife), everything worked like clockwork. Maybe not a Swiss clock, but a decent craftsmanship made watch.

Kids went to a Saturday morning TaeKwonDo class, of which I didn’t attend the following adults class. There are some logisitical issues (i.e. snacks & entertainment) that need to be addressed before I could start the Saturday morning class. If the uniform was smaller than a ship’s sail, I could run with it to and from class… and not only get some cross-training with TKD, but also a good run in as well. I’d need a nap later in the day though

I had planned on running on the treadmill Saturday night since that was about the only way I was going to get in a run. Plus, that’s one of the functions of a treadmill. However, that wasn’t quite the case since I was much farther behind on laundry then I realized. I listened to the UT/Alabama game, which was like listening to 2 separate games… the Decent (if not Good) UT team the first half and then the “Hey, wait for me” UT team the second half. Thankfully, a margarita (or two) helped manage the second half team, at least from my point of view.

Sunday was fruitless in getting a run, however I did make a batch of Gluten Free Cookies, since I ran out of eggs on Saturday and had a big bowl of Sugar-Butter to deal with. I actually split the batch of cookie dough, so that I had: “sugar” cookies, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and (taking a deep breath) chocolate peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. At least I had plenty of comfort food to console me for not running… HA!

 2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
   out of the mud and mire;
   he set my feet on a rock
   and gave me a firm place to stand.

 3 He put a new song in my mouth,
   a hymn of praise to our God.
   Many will see and fear the LORD
   and put their trust in him.

The 40 Milestone has arrived. I’m now officially a “Masters” runner, which is just an euphemism for “statistically slower runner” but even in this new age group, it’s not the most difficult (30-34 group is very tough) but it has enough “still fast” elite to fill the top spots. I’m thinking that I will keep an overall Personal Result (PR) time with denoting Masters or not.

Looks like the first race of my newly entered age division will be the CrossKnox 10 miler on Sunday Oct 16th. I haven’t worked a race since July 3rd and it’s been even longer since I ran one. I’m signed up for a pre-race volunteer spot! I need to make up the 3 that I lost this spring due to the flooding of my Civic and by a flesh wound I received at the Strawplains Marathon, during registration! Freaky! That’s like $15 of race fees that I have lost or have succumbbed to natural disasters.

I haven’t ran this race either… so it’s new to me. It’s a point-to-point 10 miler, which is highly unusual for this area. The idea of the run is to showcase the Knoxville Greenways as almost all of the course is run on them. The other thing that is different is that it is a Sunday afternoon race, we have so few races that aren’t Saturday morning. I just have to juggle the Church schedule to make sure I can get to where I need to be. Since it is point-to-point transportation is provided.

So “Welcome Forty“… I might just have to drink one in Recognition.

###

“FORTY” by U2 (link if the embed doesn’t show)

(oooo, kril)

So there I am sitting in my Platelet donation throne giving my monthly dose of Terry Juice ™ when one of the Technician (I’m not sure if Bodily Fluid Extractor Technician would be appropriate, I think that is reserved for prostitutes filing their 1040ez) saw that I was watching VH-1 and the song for Right Here, Right Now by Jesus Jones came on and she made the comment “Hey, you like him.”

“Really? Thanks,” was my reply all the while thinking, “Now that’s someone I’ve never be compared to before.”

Jesus Jones in video Right Here Right Now 1991

Of course in trying to find a picture (i.e. PrintScreen off a video of Right Here, Right Now) that might have some similarities, I discovered that Jesus Jones is alive and kicking, I mean, they have a Facebook page! And I did learn that Jesus Jones is much like Hootie and the Blowfish  in that, the person in the picture is not Jesus Jones (Old School Darius Rucker, “I’m NOT Hootie”) but rather Mike Edwards.

I’m home alone, trying NOT to buy groceries if I don’t have to and eat what we have here. So, looking in the cabinet, I found a big ole bag of Pinto Beans and I was thinking “Pinto beans, heh, what good are pinto beans?” Which then carried into a inner conversation,

“Wait, you LIKE pinto beans. It’s Pinto cars you are not found of.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Wait, what do I like that has pinto beans in it”

“Uh, Hello! Refried Beans are Pinto beans.”

“Oh, right, do we have any Black Beans we could make?”

“No, just this bag of Pinto Beans, but I am not sure what we have to eat this with.”

“I could make some chocolate-peanut butter fudge. A big bowl of beans and then fudge.”

“Ugh, no fudge. We need something like rice or a meat or both. We have rice in the fridge and we can see what meat is in the fridge. And when I say meat, I mean fish.”

“So we are going to eat beans and rice. Beans and Rice? ‘Red beans and rice didn’t miss her, Some knucklehead tried to dis, ‘Cause his girls are on my list…’”

“Not now, please, I have to think… We’ll cook them in the crockpot because I don’t want to manage the stove and clean at the same time”

(Cough)“Lazy”

“I got it… why not post on Facebook the question on how to season the beans? BRILLIANT!”

“BRILLIANT! And we can take all the suggestions and use them at the SAME TIME! How cool would that be? OH OH, I say we suggest Jalepeno peppers!”

“Oh, good call, that would make them nice and tasty!”

“Just think, with all those beans, we’ll be able to play with the Tubas in the Independence Day parade.”

“I’m glad this is an inner monologue conversation, because that was in just crude, funny but crude. Go make some fudge.”

It didn’t take long to get a reply either. I posted it to Facebook via text message and what seemed like 5 seconds, there were 2 replied… BACON (BACON BACON BACON) and Garlic! Then just a few seconds more and I looked and there were two more. Cumin and Ham Hock, smoked.

The only bad news is that I don’t have a ham hock. I do however have that packet of ‘Ham Seasoning’ when you get the 16 bean soup. I’ll probably use that because we don’t let the fact that we don’t have no stinkin’ ham hock stop us from making beans! It just won’t be as tasty.

So right now the beans are soaking overnight and in the morning I will season them (Hmmm, I wonder if I should have asked for seasoning amounts… at least you can never over do bacon) and fire up the ole crock pot so that when I come home I’ll pan sear some trout and have a nice dinner. I have an indoor soccer game at 9:30pm tomorrow night, maybe I’ll get a little boost… of energy… or something.

So with all the donating, the stretching, the side kicking and punching AND then getting out on the soccer field and running around for about an hour KNOWING what I needed to do, but being so rusty with my ball handling skills and not being in running shape when Thursday rolled around, I was SORE. I hadn’t been that sore since before my 3rd marathon (but I could walk down stairs without the old man hobble). Friday wasn’t much better, I was still pretty slow.

So slow, in fact, that I was unable to get everything ready for the garage sale I was having at the house on Saturday morning that I had to NOT GO to see the Ryan Michaels Band play at the Hard Rock Cafe in Gatlinburg for WFIV 105.3FM’s free event. Even Saturday morning, I was a little sore, but I was moving all over the place. It is amazing how much crap STUFF one can accumulate. I so want to do the “only 100 possessions” but maybe I could do more like the 845 possessions. I don’t know.

After the garage sale, I had to be somewhere at 1pm because I was volunteering, so I started to clean stuff up around 11:45 (as I put a 12pm closing time). Even Today, Tuesday, you can see the organizing strategy that I had taking everything that was outside of the garage. You only have to walk an extra 10-20 steps to get from the garage door to inside the house and if you want to lower the number to an extra 8-18, you can hurdle over the barrier of unwanted home decor.

That some place was the Knoxville Brewfest being held downtown Knoxville at the Southern Railway Terminal where a number of brewerys set up shop to allow sampling of their brews. This event was a fund raiser that benefited CureDuchenne (on the Muscular Dystrophy Spectrum) as the event creators of this event their son has Duchenne’s.

When I got there, I really had no idea of what I was actually going to do there and while I would have liked to be near the beer, I was ready to say “I’ll take whatever place you need, even the least desired spot”. I never really had a chance to decide because before I knew it, I was assigned to SweetWater Brewery table/booth/area.

Don't Float the Mainstream

Thankfully, I knew “OF” SweetWater but didn’t know anything “ABOUT” SweetWater. They brew in Atlanta Georgia and brews are available at a good number of locations here in Knoxville and surrounding areas. The “corporate” guy for SweetWater was Curtis, the sales rep for the Knoxville area and his babe, Sara. As for the hired help, it was myself, Tommy and Maithais (will have to look this one up), a future brew master but currently a swimmer for UT and potentially a Olympic hopeful for Sweden in 2012.

SweetWater had 5 flavors available: Blue, Georgia Brown, 420, IPA, and Road Trip. I manned the Jockey Box (i.e. Rubbermaid Cooler converted into a thermodynamic transfer apparatus for portable pouring) which had IPA (Indian Pale Ale) and Road Trip (their Spring Seasonal “catch” of the Pilsner variety).

I was feverently pouring cups of Road Trip from about 3pm until around 7:15pm when the keg finally ran dry. Every time someone asked for a Road Trip, I had to shout “ROAD TRIP” as if I was Hoover or Boon in Animal House. Blue was the 2nd flavor to dry up. It’s a wheat beer that is filter with blueberries and so on a hot day like Saturday, it had a nice refreshing taste with no tart blueberry.

The 420 and IPA clientele where very savvy with SweetWater brews, while they enjoyed the other flavors, they zeroed on their favorite to take advantage. One of the IPA guys wanted me to give him a sign if the IPA was getting low, you know… just in case. As a regular, I didn’t have to ask or wait to find out what he wanted nor did I need to skimp on the pour. It was filled to the top, every time.

Despite the large quantities of alcohol (“The problem of and solution to all of life’s problems” – Homer Simpson), I personally didn’t see any one stoopid drunk. Sure there were plenty of people who were going to feel bad in the morning,  slurring their speech and talking loudly, but, as expected, there was a good police and taxi presence in and around the venue.

Also as a volunteer, we received a voucher for either Brixx pizza or Dead End BBQ. Given that I am on a gluten free diet (except for beer – it does not give me comatose gluten hangover), my only choice was the BBQ and then it was just meat and beans. But after 5 hours of sampling beers, it tasted pretty good. I ended up, after they sent all the patrons on their way home (or to the Old City), help cleaning up the place while I drank as much water as I could.

It was a packed Saturday from 5am until 11pm (and I only did 2 things – Sell Stuff, Serve Beer) when I got back home and headed straight for the comfort of the bed. I did allow myself to sleep it off in on Sunday morning and did not get upset when I rolled into the Sanctuary right at the end of initial group of songs to start the worship when usually I am at church about 90 minutes early (kid’s schedule). I never made it out to the pool as I was inside cleaning/organizing, but had I actually made it to the pool, I have a feeling I would have fallen asleep out there for a couple of hours. Not good.

Now, the next time I go down to Atlanta, I am going to schedule a tour of the SweetWater Brewery! (@sweetwaterbrew)

As I write this it is already tomorrow from the day of the story that will follow… that was yesterday but today, well rather, later this morning I am going to need to get up so that I can catch the EARLY KAT Express (102X), but the fact that I am still bleeding (that’s another blog post), I need to take a shower (that is NOT another blog post), start a load of laundry and a few other things is not helping. Plus I am sitting at the computer composing this blog post, which I am going to post right now and not wait… 1, 2 or 45 weeks to hit ‘Publish’

So I gave platelets this morning. I’ve tweeted-facebooked in the past some pictures of me donating, but as a courtesy I’ll try to warn ahead of time that I am going to send a picture with big sharp pointy needles and blood. For some reason, that creeps people out… kinda like spiders and snakes and a bad banana with a greasy black peel. So what’s it like to donate platelets you ask? Well, you get to be in what I like to call a “Donation Throne”, you get to watch TV or a movie and the place has free wifi, but you have to type with one hand because the other has a BIG FRIGGIN’ NEEDLE in it. Donating whole blood, if you do it right fast, can get you in and out in about 30 minutes from signing in to getting your refreshment. Platelets take a little longer because your blood gets to go on a little out-of-body journey. My average time for donating platelets is around 90 minutes or so. I chose to watch TV because we don’t have cable at our house. And what do I watch? Either VH1 for videos… because I found out that they STILL make music videos… no really! How so 1981ish. Or I watch The History Channel, if there’s something decent on… which today there was not at the time I was there.

So I caught a couple of videos of songs that I like and a couple of songs I hadn’t heard before. I was STOKED because they played “Sweater Song” by Weezer, but my Fave song was Weird Al Yankovic’s “Perform This Way” which is parody of Lady Goo-Goo GaGa. Weird Al was in Knoxville last year and sad that I missed him because who knows when he might return.

Okay, back to platelets. So they stick you with a need and suck out your blood (no ladies, no Edward for blood extraction) it goes through this machine and through the MAGIC OF SCIENCE, they keep the platelets and give you back the rest. The benefit is that since you get your blood back, you retain almost all of your body’s ability to move oxygen, so you don’t feel tired after donating. Since you get your blood back, you can’t really do the donate blood, go drink a nice tall 40oz, which I’ve never done (except in college). Also your body regenerates your platelets back pretty fast. When you donate whole blood you have to wait 56 days, unless you lie during the interview process. With platelets you have to wait 2 days, but there is a yearly limit to the donations… I’m not sure what it is and I probably will never look it up or retain that tidbit of information.

So now what is SOOOOOO special about platelets? I know they give it to cancer patients and transplant patients… but honestly they can do whatever they wish with it. But here’s the catch with platelets, they have shelf life of like 5 days where as blood has the shelf life of (The Hitchhikers Answer to everything in the Universe) 42 days. I asked if I should donate platelets, even though I am O+ (Universal Donor), and I paraphrasing here but they said “(@#$&*@#($&* NO We need as many platelets donors we can”, so then I said “Hell Yeah, I’ll donate platelets”. Here’s the bonus, remember when I mentioned earlier that you aren’t a cheap drunk you don’t have the acute fatigue from not having as much as blood to carry oxygen, well that means… hee hee… it doesn’t effect my running especially when I am in training for a race. I made the mistake of donating in the morning and then running in the afternoon… calf pains for MONTHS! MONTHS PEOPLE! No more donating, they going to 5k race 4 days later and not understanding why I had such a difficult race!

Medic Blood, as a marketing tool, to get people to donate will pay the fees associated with blood if you ever need it. You can even donate your units (that’s jargon they use) to special causes (like victims of domestic violence) or specific people (like estranged Uncle Stan who is getting a face transplant) [Ed. note: Apologies if you have an Uncle Stan who has had a face transplant, I was looking to offset the seriousness of domestic violence]. A platelet donors get TWO units to divvy out! Right now, our whole family is covered from blood expenses until 8/26/2054! I will be almost turning 83 at that point… and that’s just if I quit right now. I have no intention of stopping donating bodily fluids until they say that I can’t. But with so many units, I can donate them more freely now.

Oh look at the time… I have to try to take an extended nap so that I can take the bus into work tomorrow.

But perhaps FREE stuff is a motivation to take the plunger to my big bowl of constipated drafts and say WOOOOOSH!

At least right now, as I type this, I am IN my wordpress admin site, so that is one step closer to getting that race report done! Also, the episode of Gravity@1053′ which happens to be Episode 27, IS uploaded just not formally published. So if you happen to know where to get it, you can get it before I get the post up. I am not even sure if my Feedburner actively monitors that folder anymore.  Well, anyway… back to the free stuff.

So there’s this website, errrr blog, called Safer Choices, which finds even “HEALTHIER” choices then some of the knighted “Healthy” choices out there. Now like my Favorite Running Company of all time, Vitruvian Running [Sorry that you had to close down Chuck], the owner/writer of the blog is a chick (couldn’t find a name quickly) who I shall dub “Safer Jen” (cause there’s only like 2 billion ‘Jen’s out there and I got a special one of my own) who used to work for the “Corporate Giant” Rodale (hey, Runner’s World) publishing  and in her own words worked on “Organic Gardening Magazine to health and fitness books like Alternative Cures and South Beach Diet” and now has this site.

What’s nice about this site is that it doesn’t have the “Scare & Awe tactics” that some of the Uber Healthy website have, sure it has some undertones such as “Could your toothpaste harm your unborn child?” but that’s much better than “Killing the unborn with toothpaste”. It’s more of a “Guess what I found and here’s the skinny” and so processing the information she writes about is much easier to digest because you don’t have the “This sounds like a bunch of crap” mind set.

So to the free stuff…

The loot is a FREE coupon for Pacific Natural Foods’ soups (and you know with it being “Natural” and “Organic”, those are two upcharge premiums at the grocery store).

So what is so special about Pacific Natural Foods’ soups that is worth having to do all of this manual labor? BPA-Free Packaging

Here’s Safer Jen’s Review of the Soup’s and you can see my comment (1 entry to the contest)

Here’s the link TO the contest itself and I have to link to the Safer Choice Giveaway page too

So the other things that I have done to get extra entries is:

You will get one additional entry for each of the following (leave a separate comment for each):

1. “Like” Safer Choices on Facebook (link on top right) and leave a comment with your Facebook name.

2. Follow Safer Choices and leave your name.

3. Follow Safer_Choices on Twitter and tweet the following: “Enter to win a free Pacific Natural Foods product at http://saferchoices.blogspot.com/search/label/Giveaways “. *Be sure to leave your twitter name in your comment.

4. Blog about this giveaway and link to http://saferchoices.blogspot.com/search/label/Giveaways and leave the link to your post in the comment.

which I have Done, Done, Done and Done (once I actually stop typing and hit [publish]).

I’ll even toss in the Pacific Natural Food’s Corporate Website, just because that’s the kinda Spread-the-Love guy that I am (or at least in my head that’s what I think).

Now, the sexiest thing about this particular contest is that there is going to be some Statistical Methods used in determining the winners! Nothing like a good ole random sample to determine the winner! Stats RULE!

I will use Random.org to select the winning comment numbers.