Songs On Loop Inside My Head

   This past week saw me get three runs in, as my chest cold continues to improve. Tuesday I ran 8 miles, Thursday 5.2 miles, and Saturday 7.5 miles with 1500 feet of climbing. During Thursday's run, a couple of interesting things happened. First, I saw two road runners cross the road in front of me when I was about 1.5 miles from being finished. Since I don't run with headphones, I sometimes get a song on loop going through my head. After I saw the two road runners, I started singing the Road Runner cartoon theme song to myself, over and over, and over.

"Road Runner, Road Runner runs down the road all day.
Even the coyote can't make him change his ways.
Road Runner, the coyote's after you.Road Runner, if he catches you you're through."

      I'm sure you get the drift. Everyone who grew up in the 60's and 70's watching cartoons every Saturday morning knows this song. I could go on, but enough of having songs on never ending loop inside my head. 

     The other thing that happened was my custom running Depends had very little fluid in it after my run. This was something I was very excited about, maybe I'm finally returning to normal. 

     Saturday's run had Robin, Maggie and I heading up the power line dirt road above F.P. Elementary school. It was a beautiful morning after some severe winds the four days prior. On this particular run, again I had something new happen to me. On the way back to the car, I had to change my custom Depends, as fluid began to run down my leg. I'm not sure if the issue was the dog pulling on the leash, or the fluids I was consuming along with Jelly Belly Sport Beans with caffeine. I have had issues drinking tea with caffeine, it goes right through me, whereas alcohol does not. Lucky for me I had a spare Depends with me. So from Thursday's run, where I hardly peed myself, to Saturday, when I filled my pad, my emotions about my recovery continued to ebb and flow(pun intended). 

     I have subscribed to and followed Runner's World magazine since the 1970's. For a runner to get a picture or their name in the magazine is close to the ultimate thing to happen in our sport. Recently, an article about chafing was published, and a picture of me with bloody nipples made the cut.

 I finally made it into a Runner's World article, but for all the wrong reasons.

Picture of Me with Bloody Nipples on Runner's World  

The Tejon Ranch Half Marathon and 10k Run; Race Report #3

     This race was different for me in a couple of ways, first and foremost, I was able to go to a race only 10 minutes from where I live, not the normal hour. Second, I have not recovered from the chest cold and had not trained much the last 2 weeks. I knew the hills would be a test for my breathing, seeing as I have been coughing a lot lately and that in turn made me pee every time I coughed.
     We got to the race about 5 minutes to 7, for the 8 AM start. We followed the line of cars into a field outside of the Tejon horse facility, where everyone was guided to park. Unfortunately, there were no signs for directions at the freeway exits, so a lot of people went the wrong way. We hustled to check in, and the line was already pretty long. We got lucky, we only had to wait 15 minutes for our bib and t-shirt. Daisy Cuddy checked us in, how cool is that? For some reason, the powers that be decided that 3 porta potties would suffice for 450 people, luckily guys had plenty of rocks and trees, but the women were not so lucky. The other problem was the check in. Even the people that had pre-registered had to stand in line to get just a bib and t-shirt for 40 minutes or more, and some of them didn't get the T-shirt they had chosen during registration. Between parking long ways away, the porta potty fiasco, and the check in issue, a proper warm up was not possible for most runners. Because of all this, the race would be starting late. I laced up my Nike Zoom Wildhorse Twos and headed to the starting area. This too was not close to parking, restrooms, or registration.

Lining up prior to the start of the 10k and half marathon

     Finally, the horn sounded, whatever happened to start guns and blanks? I guess it's part of the pitiful politically correct world we live in. To my amazement, runners in front of me were walking from the get go. Shouldn't they have been in the back? City morons, what can I say? That being said, after awhile I got through the slow idiots that started too close to the front and settled into a nice pace waiting for the hills. I went through both mile 1 and mile 2 at 8-minute pace. It wasn't until heading up the last hill in mile 3 that I started to feel my lungs wanting to hack something up. I did enjoy the downhill after the turnaround, but I knew that the downhills on the way out were going to be uphills on the way back.

View of Castac Lake from the run

     The cool thing about hitting the turnaround was it was downhill for awhile. It wasn't long before I saw Aden and Stan, both looking good, and doing the half marathon. I did have fun dodging people who were on their way out. My wife Robin looked great as she headed out, as did all the people I knew in the race. I received a lot of high fives as I ran back. There was only one runner that got my as*hole comment for his lack of courtesy, so it wasn't too bad. My third mile was a 9:30, as I had begun to really shorten my stride on the uphill to conserve my energy.

Stan running uphill as I was heading back

Robin heading out as I headed back

     I began to trade places with a few runners for position, one being the 1st place female. We traded places, I went easy on the uphills and would get passed, then I returned the favor on the downhills. I knew the finish was a downhill, then a slight uphill grade, so I waited until the last hill, when I could see the I-5, then I pushed it in the rest of the way. My pace settled back into 8:30's for the last couple of miles, and other than my breathing issues from being sick, I cruised to the finish in a 52:20, 5th overall and 1st in my age group.

Hitting the finish. My official time was 52:20

     I received my finishers medal, a bottle of water, and started running the half mile to my car so I could get my camera, and take photos of my friends that had yet to finish. When I got to the registration area, the band was playing, Gil Karson and his buddies were rocking it. I was able to get back to the finish area and snap pictures of all my friends as they finished. It was great having everyone out there, we debuted the Running with Prostate Cancer Nike shirts, and already have more people wanting them. 

     My custom depends did survive the 10k, I'm worried about Lone Pine in 2 weeks, as the 10 miler will be a little tougher, longer, and I may still have a cough to deal with. 

A bunch of us posing with our cool shirts on the rock at the Tejon Horse Facility, where my kids played 15 years ago

     It seemed like a lot of us won awards, and they are really cool. The finishers medals and age group awards were made in the shape of the Tejon brand. We had a really good time listening to the music and having a couple of beers with our friends. 

Gil Karson and the Karson City Rebels playing for the runners after the race

     In retrospect, I think the race start and finish needs to be moved closer to the registration area. The whole thing was way too spread out. It was a long way from parking to the bathrooms, registration, and the start/finish area. The race could also benefit with some vendors. My Nike shoes were great, they felt good on the uphills, downhills, and sand. I will be testing them again in 2 weeks when we go to Lone Pine for the Wild Wild West 10 mile race.

My age group award on the left, and the finishers medal on the right

Going Backwards

    Well, the past week I figured out how to go backward in my rehabilitation, and use up all the extra depends diapers I still owned. Last Tuesday, I did my best hill repeats so far post​ surgery. Wednesday night, everything changed. I noticed that I was feeling tired, and it hurt to breathe. By the end of the workout, I was sneezing, coughing, and filling up my depends pad to the overflow point. At first, I thought it was allergies, but no, I had caught a cold. All the progress I had made with my incontinence issue was gone. If I sneezed or coughed​, I more than dribbled. I even ended up going to the depends underwear for sleeping. I did all the usual stuff to get rid of a cold, and the symptoms improved quickly, but I still have that nagging little cough, it just won't go away. 

     Now before surgery, I would have been running again already, as I always found running to​ help clear things up. Now I'm waiting longer, I want to be able to run and not overflow my depends too quickly. This is something that I never considered as a potential problem. I know losing a week of training is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but it has been very frustrating. It seemed like things were improving quickly, only to be stymied by the common cold. The bright side is I will be well rested for the Tejon run on April 22nd. 

Physical Therapy Had Me Seeing Red

 Well, Robin went with me to physical therapy yesterday, as we wanted to visit with a sick friend that's in the hospital just blocks from where I was being treated. We arrived about 4:10 for the 4:30 appointment and this place was much quieter than the one I went to the first time. I completed my obligatory four pages of paperwork for a first-time patient, sat back and watched a Laker's rerun on the waiting room TV while waiting for my name to be called. My name was called within 10 minutes, I was excited. I got to the door, and was told: "sorry, we don't have a room for you."  I thought, here we go again. I retook my seat next to Robin and continued watching the Lakers rerun. Eventually, I was called, and into a room number one, I went.
     An aide came in and asked all the necessary questions, she specifically kept asking if I was in any pain, and I kept telling her no, no pain, I'm here because I pee myself. She left when her laptop died, came back with a power cord, finished all her questions, then left again. Soon she was back with some stuff in a box and a backless gown. I was told to disrobe except for my underwear, sit on the bed, and wait for the doctor. Eventually, I started to nod off.
     About twenty minutes later in came the doctor. She had a European accent and said she was going to attach electrodes to me to monitor my pelvic floor muscle contractions. I immediately wanted to know where this would be attached, as a number of unpleasant scenarios went through my head.  She said they would be attached between my scrotum and anus, and these little lights on a small box at the end of the electrical cords would tell me my kegel strength. This is known as biofeedback. Since this was my first time having physical therapy for anything, I had never heard of it. The doctor gave me a quick synopsis of how it worked and then told me to take off my underwear so she could attach them. Apparently, I have gotten used to people playing with me, because this didn't bother me much, plus I got to hold the little gizmo with the lights. I was told green meant relaxed, red was the pelvic floor muscles tightened, and yellow somewhere in the middle. She asked me to do a kegel for her, then she yelled "harder", and "lift" over and over. I never got to yellow, and it was all I could do not to laugh and pee on everything. She had me relax, and I explained that I had already done my 30 kegels for the day, maybe I was tired. After a few minutes of explaining how to lift my pelvic floor muscles, and letting me relax, she had me try again. She commenced with her loud commands, and this time I saw red on the gizmo. She informed me that I must be doing my kegels correctly, maybe just not giving myself enough rest between sets. We went through this routine 3 or 4 more times, each time she gave me 3-5 minutes rest. I saw red some more, so I felt a little better about my rehab so far. She said we were done and removed the electrodes from me. I found out I have hair down there, as some came off with the electrodes, kind of like a band-aid when you yank it off. Now I could say I was feeling pain, if only for a moment. She wants me to come back to check on my progress, so I made an appointment for three weeks down the road, looking forward to seeing red again.

Casa Super Hero 10k Bakersfield, Race Report #2

The reflection on the water prior to the start at Riverwalk Park in  Bakersfield

    Yesterday was my second race in the recovery tour. We did the Casa Super Hero 10k in Bakersfield on the bike path along the Kern River. We got there about an hour before the start, I'm still not doing the big warm up with the incontinence issues, and not running fast yet. We did the day of race sign up, got our numbers, and went back to the car to change, and wait for Andrea.
     After changing and collecting Andrea we headed to the start area. There was music, most of the people were in costumes, and some dogs dressed up as super heroes as well. All in all, the pre-race area was very festive. There was a celebrity race featuring local news personalities, and then it was time for us to go. The 5k was scheduled to start a few minutes after us. Before I go further with race details, I need to say something about my customized depends. Since I have been peeing less, I cut them smaller and wore my short shorts over some new running briefs. I even trimmed the bottom of the depends, hoping to avoid unnecessary chafing.
     Finally, we were told GO!!!, and off went the 10k runners. My goal was to run a negative split race, start out at 7:30 pace, and go faster as the race progressed. My first mile was 7:24, a little fast, but I felt good, waving and saying hi to people walking along the bike path, and really enjoying the Kern River full of water. Unlike last week, this course was smooth, so I hit the tangents as good as I could, trying to avoid the spandex Nazis on their bikes who had no respect for a race going on. Mile 2 was a little fast, 7:13, but I was still feeling good, even passing a couple of people in front of me. Soon the lead pack of 3 runners went by us heading the other way. As we got to the mile 3 point, we came to the second aid station, and there was a cone in the middle of the bike path. The guy I was running along with and I started to turn, but the aid station worker told us it wasn't the turn, we had to go farther along the path to reach it. Since my Garmin watch said we were at exactly 3 miles, I figured we should see the turn shortly. We continued on, my mile 3 split was 7:08, but there was no turnaround. We slowed, talking about the issue, turned around, and people were waving us back. Everyone behind us turned around where they were, and I instantly went from 5th to about 10th. Some of the air went out of my sails, and I was a little angry at the miscues of the race management. Runners really only need a few basic things to be happy with a race, and a properly measured and marked course is one of them. there was no reason to be mad at the aid station worker, he was a volunteer, and my wife told me years ago, I cannot be upset with volunteers, no matter how inept at they are at their volunteer job. Needless to say, my 4th mile was slower than I wanted, 7:21, but I dug down a little, determined to have a decent finish in spite of the issues with the race. By mile 5, I had picked the pace back up, and my split was 7:11. I was also zig-zagging through 5k walkers who had their back to me as I ran towards the finish. Them and the spandex Nazis on two wheels made for a most interesting last mile. My split for mile 6 was 7:14, and I'm sure some of the slowing was due to navigating the traffic. I finished the race in 45:48, a pretty decent time for not much training. I also ran 6.3 miles, probably the farthest of anybody in the race. I found out later that the first three runners turned around at the table, running only 6 miles.
      I grabbed a bottle of water from a smiling volunteer and went straight to the bathroom to change my race depends before going out to find Robin and Andrea. In the bathroom, I discovered that I had trimmed my depends a little close on the bottom, and those pesky little white balls escaped into my groin area again. I scooped them out, changed race pads(yes, I carried it with me in the race), and set off to find Andrea, then Robin. Andrea finished in 1:10, and Robin was not far behind in 1:13. This provided me with a decent cooldown. We all headed back to the car, got a drink then walked around, waiting for awards. Unfortunately, all of the race day entries had to be entered by hand, so there was a slight delay, but I eventually ended up getting second in my age group again.

Wonder Woman with me and my medal. I didn't know she wore Nike's

     The perfect place to go after a run at Riverwalk is Bj's Brewhouse, so off we went after collecting my medal. Being both old, and old school, there is nothing like pizza and beer after a hard run.We got their not long after they opened, and settled into a booth for breakfast and beers.

Breakfast pizza and beer. It doesn't get any better than that after a run. We finished the meal by splitting a pizookie 3 ways. Next race on the recovery tour is the Tejon Trail 10k on April 22nd.