Just thought I would share how I outfitted myself for the cold, from top to bottom.  I wore a fleece hat over a ski mask that has holes for my eyes.  I had on a short sleeve shirt, a mock turtleneck half zip long sleeve shirt and a light running jacket.  One pair of super warm gloves, so warm in fact that I actually ran for 10 minutes in the middle of the run without them.  On my legs, I wore a pair of non-insulated tights.  On my feet, just one pair of normal low cut running socks and my shoes.  I will say that my legs were a little frozen when I got back but I did not really notice during the run.  Other than that I was dressed just right.

Next, I am working on a training page.  Since this blogs inception I have not done a good job chronicling my training.  It has been a logistical problem.  I just could not find a format that was simple enough to update daily.  Well, I broke down last night and learned some basic HTML language so I have created a page that will be going up tonight.  For you wonderful people who follow my blog you will finally be able to follow my training as well.  Hopefully there will be a lot to follow in the coming months. 

Wednesday I was having some knee pain during the day and was just sure my run that night was going to be bad.  I was pleasantly surprised when I ran 3 miles almost completely pain free.  The use of a strap worn just below my knee might have been partially responsible for the favorable run.  Whatever it was it was great.  I took yesterday and today off and will be back at it again tomorrow.  Right now I am taking it slow. 

I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what my schedule will look like once I get healthy.  I can't wait to get some races on the schedule.  I am not going to push it but the thought of running healthy seems to good to be true.

Lastly, Gene had to ask about my makeshift roller.  I was using an olympic size barbell.  I thought it was following pretty much the same premise but I now realize it was not even in the ball park. 

Several weeks ago I made a makeshift roller, don’t ask.  I have used it sporadically, and gave up, thinking it was not really helping.  Yesterday I picked one up thinking I mine as well try the real thing.  To my surprise it is much different than what I had created, and I cannot believe how badly it hurts.   Hopefully I am working some of the tension out.  I am going to add the use of it to my routine for a while and see what happens.  My routine consists of rolling, icing, stretching, cross training, taking meds and taking it slow.  I don’t really think there is much more I can do.  I plan to run 2 or 3 times this week and cycle 2 or 3 times.  I won’t be running more then 4 miles until I feel that I can run 3 without any discomfort.  I hope to increase my cycling time a little more rapidly but I won’t push my luck.  I remember what it was like to think that anything less then an hour wasn’t even a workout, I can’t wait to get back to that.

It has been raining all day today.  I really wanted to run on a trail close to our house so I went anyway. 

I slipped around a lot while running the trails, the key is short calculated strides.  I did not experience any discomfort for a little more then 10 minutes today which was a new record, I keep progressing slowly.

Today's Run:

Approximately 3 miles on muddy trails

Today's Workout

35 minutes on the bike trainer

high intensity and no pain!

After the nurse requested that I slip into the paper-like shorts, the ones designed to fit anywhere between a 28 inch to 60 inch waist, I knew what was next.  Further instructions were given to wait for the x-ray tech to come get me.  Are you kidding me, x-rays for an inflamed tendon?   That is something I am not fond of about the Dr.’s office.   We all knew I did not have a protruding or broken bone.  There is not suddenly something wrong with my skeletal makeup.  They paid a lot of money for an x-ray machine that has been paid off for 10 years now and they bill for every use.  Genius if you just want to make money but I am not convinced it is necessary for every patient, perhaps they could save a little radiation.

Despite obvious distain for their methods, I walked down to the dark room with my head hanging.  I was half mad at them but half mad at myself for not suggesting we forgo the x-ray.  My fear was that suggesting the absence of the x-ray might cause the motion of the earth to stop.  I was not sure how often someone makes that suggestion and was afraid I would be labeled as a heretic, cast out as if I had spat in the face of modern medicine.  So I walked, down to the room and frowned as the waves of radiation passed through my body revealing the perfectly normal status of my skeleton.

The Dr. came in and asked the problem.  I had rehearsed my answer and was prepared with a succinct story sure to hit all the necessary points.   He obliged and heard me out.  Pushing around on my knee some he was unable to find a point of irritation; I explained the only way to illicit pain was to run.  He confirmed my belief that my IT band is in fact the problem.  Looking back at my x-rays, hung on the light box, he confirmed the obvious, my bones were fine. 

His answer was stretching, icing and anti-inflammatory drugs.   I have been doing all three already, though I had recently run out of my prescription.   He told me that just about anyone trying to do what I am doing lives on anti-inflammatory drugs.   He said that I may just have to take them all the time.  I don’t really want to do that but I will try them for a while and see if I can get healthy.  He ended up spending about 30 minutes with me and I asked him a lot of questions.  He explained to me why he thinks endurance athletes are better in their 30’s then in their 20’s.  In short his explanation was that our tendons take a lot longer to adapt to stress than our muscles.  This was music to my ears.  I hope that my tendons are getting stronger and more used to punishment.  I know I can’t avoid injuries altogether but I would like to spread them out a little more and recover quicker. 

All in all I really like this particular Dr. and I appreciated the time and attention he gave to me, it was a good visit. I do feel I am on the road to recovery and am almost back in the saddle again.

 Last night I went for another run.  A half mile in, I was not experiencing any pain and began to think I was putting this injury behind me.  This sense of excitement brought a chill over my body.  I began to think of a post about the resurgence of this dream.  Theatrical music played in my head while I envisioned a fighter getting off the mat prepared to pummel the opponent responsible for his fall.  Just a couple of minutes later, I began to feel the tightening of my knee begin.  Before I reached the two mile point I was dealing with a lot of discomfort, enough that I began to wonder if I was re-injuring myself.  I stopped at about 2.75 miles beaten up far more mentally then physically.  I knew this dream would have plenty of setbacks, I just did not think they would come this soon and I really hoped they would not be an injury. 

This weekend I went on two hikes, as seen in the cross training post before this one.  I needed to explore, I needed some excitement.  I got far more than I intended with my accident. What I have realized is that in an effort to deal with my present ailment I had been stifling how much this injury really sucks.  The enjoyment I got from the adventures of this weekend gave me a taste of what I am missing.  This taste has led to a longing for what I had.  A longing forced to be dormant while I wait to heal.  On Friday I go to the Dr. and I really hope he has something profound to suggest.  I need to get going again.  I need to jump back into this dream and pick up all the broken pieces that have been strung out over the last 2 months.  I want to open up this cage and start dreaming again.

Today's workout  30 minutes on the trainer, no pain!

As I descended into the bottom of one of the smaller ravines I noticed a lot of vines and started scouting out a good swinger.  I have not swung on a vine in years and was pretty excited about the proposition.  I found one that was about the size of my forearm.  I gave it a couple of pretty good tugs before testing it with my weight.  It seemed to be pretty stable so I swung out a couple of feet.  It passed several small tests and I was thinking about what a wimp I was for testing it so thoroughly before giving it a whirl.  When I was younger, I would have just gone for it.

This time I pulled the vine back as far as I could and started to map out my swing.  I shoved off and was swinging.  I picked up a pretty decent amount of speed and was really having fun, then it happened.  Without any warning, the vine broke.  As I started to fall, I was thinking wow I have a long way to go, long enough to think about how long it was.  Also long enough to prepare for it a little bit.  I landed facing the hill almost upright.  This part of the ravine was so steep that even though I was almost upright, my chin met the ground.  I was shocked by the force of the ground against my chin and I froze.  My initial thought was that I had broken my jaw and I was scared to open my mouth in fear that I would not be able to.  I gathered the courage and gave it a try.  Not only did it open, it really did not hurt that bad.  Next, I ran my tongue across me teeth to see if they were all in tact.  Not believing what I found I did it a couple more times.  All my teeth were accounted for and secure. 

All that was left was my chin.  I put my glove to my chin and pulled it away to reveal some blood, though it did not seem to be much.  I considered just getting up and continuing my voyage but the force of the impact had shook me up some.  I humped it back to the car anxious to get a look at my chin.  Once I arrived at the car I took some pictures of the injury still thinking it was just a little cut.  When I arrived home I went up to take a shower to clean it off.  As I reached up to clean the wound I realized I could not feel any chin hair.  I realized at that point that it was laid open, and started to see how much it was bleeding.  Somehow, I had not noticed that my clothes from the hike were pretty covered in blood and that it had in fact been bleeding pretty badly. 

I went downstairs and told my wife I thought I needed stitches.  There is an Urgent Care less than a mile from our home, so I walked in and asked if they did stitches.  The three ladies at the front desk just looked at me and one finally said yes, with a confused look on her face.  At the same moment the lady next to her said "oh, I just saw it".  Then they leaned in to see the damage.  "What did you do?", they asked.  A little embarrassed and a little proud, I explained the incident.  One lady laughed and then they apologized saying it was the most interesting thing they had seen all day. 

In and out in thirty minutes with 8 stitches.  Now, that is what I call service.  Building an igloo was next on the agenda, so as soon as I got home I went to work.  I think I am going to be pretty sore for a few days but I guess it could have been a lot worse.