Monthly Archives: January 2012

Strassburg Sock

29 Sunday Jan 2012

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Don’t laugh.  I wore this sock to bed last night.  Paired with my flannel bottoms and cotton T, I made quite the fetching bed partner.  As I was in the Boulder Running Company’s store yesterday buying a new pair of running shoes, this sock was an emotional purchase in my desperate attempt to cure my plantar fasciitis.  I am more interested in using a “boot” but saw this and thought I’d try it out.

Having read online reviews this morning of the Strassburg Sock, I wish I’d have performed more research first.  The reviews are almost entirely unfavorable of the sock and instead suggest use of the Night Splint.  I intend to order a night splint but will continue to wear this sock to bed until the splint arrives.  After one night I can’t say I noticed any improvement in my heel pain, but can say it seemed to loosen my tight calf.  Overly tight calves are one of the causes of plantar fasciitis – although not in my case.  But since I started running less on my heel and more on my fore foot, my calves have tightened considerably.  It would be nice to wear two of these socks to loosen them both but these grossly over-priced socks don’t come in pairs.  Apparently runners don’t tend to experience plantar fasciitis in both feet at once.  It would be insult to injury for the poor bastard who does after having to fork over $70 for a pair of these socks.

Basketball Jones

27 Friday Jan 2012

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Who  doesn’t like high school basketball?  Basketball was so big in my hometown as a kid in the ’70s that Cheech and Chong’s Basketball Jones was the top song of the year.  Going to the high school games in small town Iowa was the equivalent of Friday night lights in Texas for football – the gymnasium would be packed and the atmosphere raucous.  Having my older brother play on the team made it that much better.

I’ve gone to a couple of Niwot High School basketball games this season to watch my neighbor Henry play.  The crowd is a bit thinner than my memories as a kid in Iowa, but then that’s usually the case in Colorado as everyone is outdoors performing their own activity.  At this time of year that would be snow boarding or skiing.  Tonight though was special.  The crowd was larger than average because Niwot was playing cross town rival Silver Creek.  These two teams are fairly evenly matched.  Niwot is maybe better on paper however all but two seniors are injured making the teams more on par.  In fact, Silver Creek is visibly taller and they have a couple of football players.

Silver Creek completed half time with a small lead.  And by the end of the third period had a ten point lead.  But the fourth period was Henry time as he scored ten points and led Niwot to a one point victory.  The lead changed like a million times in the fourth.  Well, maybe less considering the final score was 49-48.  But it was back and forth.  It was so exciting all the fans were standing and the student section rushed the floor at the final.  Karen and I sat with Henry’s parents and several neighborhood couples.  We all went together afterward to the Pump House for drinks and dinner.  Great live sports night!

Oh Dada

25 Wednesday Jan 2012

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That’s what Ellie says when she doesn’t know what else to say to me.  When she thinks I’m being silly.  When she’s caught on to my joke, which she can do with an uncanny ability.  She said it tonight and Karen called attention to it as sounding so sweet.  I can’t reproduce her cadence in speech without playing audio in this blog, but it’s pretty sweet.  And I love hearing it.  I was a bit down at the end of the day and it made my night.  Ellie says it with a fair amount of frequency and nothing makes me feel better.  It’s the equivalent of her telling me she loves me – which she also does often – but it’s more sentimental.  It’s Ellie saying she feels good being with me.  There’s nothing sweeter.

Brittany did something similar.  She would call me Daddy.  Ellie calls me Dada and Karen Momma, while Brit always said Daddy and Mommy.  But Brit always spelled it Dady with one “d” instead of two in the middle.  I think she was in high school before I called her on the misspelling and she informed me that she was well aware of the grammatical error but she’s been misspelling it for years to purposely continue the cuteness of it.  When did it switch from being cute to me to being cute to her?

This picture to the right is from Ellie’s first day of 1st grade – 3 years ago.  She’s matured so much since I can’t describe.  Her vocabulary is nearly on par with mine.  I can sense the sophistication forming in her.  Has she already reached the point like Brit to where she purposely says things knowing it will make me feel better without me catching on?  Do I think of her as a 1st grader when she is oh so much more schooled?  When do kids start playing their parents?  Doesn’t matter I guess when it’s all with best intentions.

Run Austin

19 Thursday Jan 2012

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I registered for the Austin Half Marathon today.  That makes 3 half marathons between now and April 1st.  Register for any more and I won’t have to train in between – I’ll stay fit simply from my weekend events.

This is a call out to all my friends in Austin to join me.  I’ll be down there for most of February hanging out at my mom’s house – spending quality time.  And no doubt washing windows.  It’s not an easy course.  In fact, it’s a ball buster if you’re not in shape.  Think hills.

At a high-level, it’s 5 miles up slope, followed by 5 miles back down the same slope, although on a different street.  And the final 3 miles are over the rolling hills west of downtown Austin.  While I don’t consider myself in good enough condition to run the full marathon – at least not without pain – I suspect I’ll run this in 2 hours or less.  I’ll treat it like a workout by starting out slow up South Congress.  I’ll unwind running down South 1st Street.  Then focus on maintaining good form over those final hills.  Should be a good beer drinking day.  Having run the full last year I can tell you this is a well run event.

The Foot Strike

15 Sunday Jan 2012

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I was talking to Chris, someone I’ve recently met, while watching the Broncos get blown out of the playoffs last night.  Chris is 41 but looks like a competitively fit 21 year old.  So we were talking about running.  Chris and Dave share a similar injury with strained calf muscles.  I tried to trump them with my plantar fasciitis.  No one ever wins these “I got more scars than you” contests but they are fun nonetheless when you’re drinking with the guys and watching football.

I got some value out of it when we began discussing the effect from running with either minimalist shoes or low profile shoes.  I’ve personally received a healthy dose of advice recommending them as a cure to my pronation.  I understand the argument, although I’m not deep enough on the topic to confidently explain the difference between low profile and minimalist.  The link I share in that last sentence though is full of good information on the topic.

I’m curious enough now that I suspect I will eventually buy a pair.  Likely low profile.  The REI article I linked above suggests that barefoot running or minimalist shoes are not good for runners who over pronate – which I do in my left foot.  But I’m not committed and question whether these new style shoes are as important as simply changing one’s running form.  Chris, Dave and I all agreed that if it’s a matter of your heel strike vs a mid-foot or ball-of-foot strike, you don’t necessarily need these shoes for that.

I tested this theory on a 7 mile run today.  I focused on maintaining a mid-foot strike on the ground.  This route has about 2 miles of pavement and the rest is trail.  It’s necessary to shorten your stride a bit when doing this.  And there’s a tendency to run faster with a shorter stride and mid to fore foot fall, but with proper attention you can slow down your cadence as well.  I feel like I did a great job maintaining this form throughout the run.  I did run faster but have been improving my conditioning lately and was able to handle the faster pace.  Four hours later my left foot feels better than normal after such a distance.  I can’t say anything definitive yet but I intend to work at this new foot strike and will report on my progress.

Most of my focus is on fixing this nagging injury because I have a full running schedule planned for 2012.  I’m already registered for the Moab and Boulder Half Marathons – March 17th and April 1st respectively.  Those are target runs to motivate me to train through the winter.  The picture above is of the Boulder Reservoir where that event takes place.  After those warmups, I aim to run mountain trail half marathons.  Haven’t booked any yet but have a list of them to consider.  Let me know if you have run some cool trail races up in the Colorado Rockies.

Middle Aged Prime

14 Saturday Jan 2012

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I forget the context but a friend on facebook recently called me middle age.  Ray called me a couple of other things too which I didn’t debate but I did ask him to define middle age.  He responded over 40.  Hmm.  Then I read a story in the WSJ this morning on mid life crises and related nuances of my age.  What’s weird to me is that I just never feel it.  Of course I’m middle age but I don’t spend much time looking at myself and if it weren’t for the reminders like my symphysis pubis arthritis and friends like Ray, I’d be oblivious to it.

But now I’m thinking about it.  I guess that’s what you do with all the free time available to us pending seniors.  But Honey Badger don’t care.  Honey Badger don’t give a shit.  I find it ironic, and not the least bit vain, that Karen and I are in better shape than we were ten years ago.  That’s less true about Karen because she’s been good about maintaining her shape over the years.  She never let herself go as far as I did.  Friends and family constantly inform me that Karen looks so young for her age.  Perhaps because I tend to consider this a backwards compliment, I respond on how the 2′ x 7′ foot slab of double vanity granite in our master bath is a virtual shrine to the mid-life industrial complex.

With my preoccupation over the thought of middle age building, I did what any other average 49 year old with 4 wifi servers in his house would do – I googled middle aged runners.  I came across this cool blog that has a similar theme as mine but the writer probably does a better job at chronicling his races.  And apparently he runs faster than me.  But not by much and reading it motivated me to get in a good workout today.

I’m actually fine with the direction the second half of my life is taking.  I seem to be improving upon my areas of interest.  I’m reading more.  I’m focusing more on trading which for me is more about enjoying a hobby than about planning for retirement.  And Karen and I both are clearly putting much more time into fitness.  Karen doesn’t run, she’s my tiny dancer.  She likes to dance as an aerobics instructor.  This is not something one makes money at – trust me.  You can argue you’re not paying for a gym membership, but the appeal of teaching is that the time spent making a playlist, choreographing the routine and practicing serves as a much more intense and satisfying fitness experience.  Karen taught Jazzercise for over 5 years and has now moved on to teaching Zumba.  She compares them by describing Jazzercise as aerobics with a dance flair to it while Zumba is dance with an aerobics quality.  She favors Zumba.

So after having thought about what I’m doing in my middle years, I’m happy.  That I’m actually becoming more fit each year as I age is a blessing.  I feel fortunate.  The last few years of returning to racing and hiking in the mountains is like reliving the best times of my youth.  It’s a fantasy really.  I’m good with it.

The Bar Code Diet

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

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The new year has gone off like a gun shot.  Work is in full sprint with 12 hour days, lunch at my desk, and leaving little time for running.  But I’m catching up on my fitness regimen.  I got in 3 days in a row over the weekend.  And I started situps and light weights.  I feel my tone returning.  More importantly I believe I’ve established some diet discipline to counter the re-emergence of my belly over the holidays.  I’m limiting myself to only a single beer per day.

This is not to say I only drink a single alcoholic beverage per day.  I’m not insane.  I’m starting with some beer discipline and will expand into wine if warranted.  I will say not all beer, wine and spirits are the same in terms of calories.  I know this because I’ve started to scan the bar codes on bottles for their calories with my food scanner iPhone app.  Many beers are probably not as bad as you think.  A Guinness is only 126 calories.  And yet my scan of bar codes on several spirits showed that many and more for a glass of whiskey or gin.  Certainly more once you add tonic or other fillers.  Don’t think you’re sparing calories simply because you avoid beer.

I haven’t actually scanned my wines.  This is because I receive my vino in monthly cases as part of the WSJ wine-of-the-month club and those bottles don’t come with bar codes.  Or QR codes which are the more graphical equivalents like you see on the tomato in the picture above.  That one translates to “organic” in case you are interested.  From what I know, every type of alcoholic beverage adds up to roughly 100 calories.  Light beers might be less but most other drinks are perhaps closer to 125 calories.  Let’s not even talk about a frozen rita.

Point is that at 49 I have to both diet and workout if I hope to lose any weight.  I gained 10 lbs. at the end of 2011 and need to be back down to 180 for the Moab Half Marathon in March.  Which is totally doable, but not by simply wishing it.  I think I’m on track.  I feel like the discipline is in place now and it’s just a matter of time before I start seeing results.

Big Girl Pants

03 Tuesday Jan 2012

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Happy new year for some, but not for all.  My daughter is facing an eviction from her Denver digs due to the actions of another roommate.  The roomie threw an out-of-control New Years Eve party that resulted in unruly guests vandalizing the lobby.  You expect these things in college.

This is not how you want to start the new year.  Facing eviction, loss of your security deposit if not fines and even potential police charges.  Poor Brit came home shortly before 2am from her restaurant job to discover the party and did what she could to contain the situation.  But then one of her other roommates wasn’t even there and is equally a victim.  Regardless of degrees of culpable wrong-doing, four girls stand to start the new year off on a bad foot.

Brit is overwhelmed emotionally.  She’s never faced anything like this before.  And how is she handling it?  She put on her big girl pants.  She met with Detectives today to serve as a witness to the party crashers.  After being told in the morning by apartment management to expect eviction, she went out looking for a new apartment.  And before the day was over, she worked with the management team on another plan to only have the party-thrower evicted and allowing the three others to stay.  In 24 hours, she has turned this thing around.  She didn’t take it sitting down.  It’s not over yet but Brit has demonstrated she can take control of events seemingly out of control.  Dad’s impressed.