Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

Ran the the gym. 20 minutes elliptical, 10 minutes bike. 2x20 adductors @ 100 lbs, 2x20 abductors @ 90 lbs, 1x50 leg press @ 130 lbs. Ran home.

Logan and Jon came over to play this morning. I took them over to my playground at the Logan High Rec fields, and we ran endless loops in the grass. Joy. I actually felt pretty good, considering today equals the rest of my weekly running mileage. I decided that I am now on the "Benjamin Training Plan", which consists of two miles/day running, with an occasional longer run of 10K or more. 7:27/mile average pace for the run today.

2 miles in the grass in Wayne, MI.

Ran laps in the park near Stacy's house in Wayne, MI. 

Watched the 25K Championships in Grand Rapids today. It was rather bittersweet, as I really wanted to run this race, plus the field looked pretty weak and I think I would have had a shot for top 10 if I had been in the shape I was in last fall. Too bad about all the injuries. On the upside, I saw a lot of friends from college, several who ran quite well. Also, got to cheer on blogger Trashcan Annie in her 3rd place U.S. finish on the women's side. Definitely a big boost to her resume as well as pocketbook. Brian Sell ran away with the men's title, averaging something like 4:49/mile for 15.5 miles. Utah master Dennis Simonitis came away with another big race, finishing in the top 20 and averaging under 5:20/mile. Not bad for a 45-year old.

I rode my bike to the hospital and back for another alcohol injection into my foot. It's about 3 miles each way, so I figure it's worth a couple x-training miles. The shot hurt a little bit more this time, but 10 hours later, my foot is feeling better than before. Some of this may just be local (temporary) numbness from the cocktail I received, so I'll know more tomorrow. But the alcohol injections supposed start having an effect as early as 2 shots into the series, although it's more likely that I'll still need a few more shots before I get any benefits.

Ran to gym. 20 minutes on elliptical. 2x20 adductors @ 90 lbs, 2x18 abductors @ 90 lbs. Ran home. Foot feels about the same as it did before the shot.

Weighed myself at the gym and found that I had gained 4 lbs over vacation. Half a pound a day, for you math nerds. I think it's some sort of weird osmosis effect from being in Detroit for that long. At least I didn't take up smoking too. 

Rode my bike to the doctors office this morning. I saw a sports med guy named Dr. Lyons for my neck and SI joint, which have both been hurting pretty bad since February. He is definitely the best doctor of any sort I've been to in Logan, and would recommend him for sports injuries (he's in the Canyon View Orthopedics office, Budge Clinic). Mostly my favorable review for him comes from the the amount of the time he took with me (not in hurry), the thoroughness of which he explained and educated me, and also the fact that he's the first doctor I've been to that's given any respect to chiropractors and LMT's. It also helped that he is a marathoner.

Anyway, after some x-rays, he said that I probably have facet arthrosis in my neck, which sounds worse than it is. Basically my neck is supposed to curve, but instead it's straight. Bad for the shock absorption, I guess. He said it's also kind of a cartilage issue, and very similar in some ways to having runners' knee in my neck. He also noted that my joint and ligament flexibility is unusually high, and my muscle flexibility is too low. Many people have point out my poor muscle flexibility, but he's the first to talk about a different type of flexibility. Unfortunately, this combination may make me susceptible to injury and misalignment, perhaps explaining why I've had runners' knee in both knee at different times, chronic SI pain on both sides, and neck pain for no apparent reason.

I had told him that ibuprofen was effective in easing the pain. He thought that was a good sign, but rather like dropping a glass of water on a large fire. He suggested something more like dropping a large bucket on a fire, which of course means cortisone. So now I'm taking oral cortisone for 6 days. This is the most powerful anti-inflammitory available, so it may just snuff out the fire, and allow my neck to relax or whatever it needs to do. But if the cortisone doesn't do it on it's own, he also prescribed physical therapy (yea!). So I'll see how things go through the weekend, and may or may not start PT next week. Of course, I also have Josse's magic scraping tools on the way, so I have high hopes for those too. I'm really sick of PT, and don't want to go back. If the PT doesn't work, he said that the next step would be doing a blood test for some condition or disease that I may have symptoms of, but I honestly forgot the name. I think he said it goes by A.S. for short.

A habit I'm trying to get into is asking for a DVD of any x-ray I get, or any ultrasound my wife gets. I figure it's my body, so I should have a record of this stuff. And the hospital staff seems ready to oblige, all you have to do is ask. For your blog amusement, here's the image of my too-straight neck. Note that I do indeed have a brain.

Haven't done any workouts since Wednesday...if you call biking for transportation a workout. However, I've been sleeping like a baby every night thanks to the joy of painting. We are redoing our bedrooms and hallway, and pregnant wife = husband does the entire job. Very exhausting, and every waking moment not at work is spent doing this project. But it's coming along well. I am not a good painter, but in any case it's better than what was there before.

An even more exhausting job is peeling wallpaper. We have three layers of wallpaper plus multiple layers of paint caked on our bedroom walls. That's what we get for living in an 85-year-old house. I rented a steamer today, and it worked reasonably well...but certainly no magic tool. I still have a lot of chipping to do, then repairs and other prep.

So how does this convert to cross training miles?  

The painting continues...It's been more scraping recently. 85 year-old house = 4 layers of wallpaper. Yuck! It's taken a week to get to the point of caulking, which I will finish tonight, along with skimming the surface with all-purpose compound to even things out. Tomorrow I'll do a once-over with some sand paper, and then...primer! The real fun will start Friday with two coats on the trim (good date-night activity), and conclude on Saturday with the easy, fun stuff. This is my life. The carpet goes in Tuesday, but I won't do any of that.

Fortunately I'm keeping slim thanks to my vigorous painting schedule and eating more vegetarian than usual. Today I even got a psuedo-workout in. I scheduled a free consultation with Dr. Kingston in North Logan, who practices the Pettibon method of spinal correction. Stacy and I went to a seminar last night (free meal at the Iron Gate Grill), and were fairly impressed, enough for me to decide to learn more in person and get a quote. I biked out there (in the rain) to the office, about 3 miles each way, and fought a nasty headwind on the way there. I was quite winded. The receptionist was a bit surprised that I biked, as I was quite wet and miserable-looking. "Who can afford to drive these days?" I asked. What she doesn't know is that runners thrive on misery, so I was quite happy to have the chance to suffer in a non-paint related setting.

I gave the Dr. Kingston my three-page injury background, starting with getting rear-ended at 50mph back in 2000 (something that I never thought about before now). Amusingly, Kingston knew who Sasha was, so I guess Sasha made an impression on Dr. Jex.

Kingston could tell that I was messed up just from watching me sit there, but then again, I could tell that as well, so that's not too impressive. He took some x-rays of my neck and spine and figured out the angles. A normal neck has an arc angle of 45 degree, although anything above 28 degrees is okay. My neck is 18 degrees. It would be even less, but my shoulders are compensating. My lower spine also has no arc, as it is compensating for my neck as well. And the lowest vertebrae doesn't have enough space, meaning I probably have a bulging disc. Hence the SI joint and lower back pain. It is all 100% fixable according to Dr. Kingston, using the glorious Pettibon method.

He says that Pettibon has a 98% success rate in his office and that it is a permanent solution. I asked him if patients need to come back for "maintenance", like typical chiropractic. "No." was the reply. Once people are done, they never need to see him again. His personal story was that he used to practice "traditional" chiropractic when he started out, but was frustrated that patients had to keep coming back again and again. He could make people feel better for awhile, but it was just putting on a patch. Now I can see why he puts on seminars, dinners, and goes to expos, because he can't retain repeat patients like a normal chiropractor. Once someone is fixed, they are truly fixed and don't need him anymore. I must say that I like that idea. I've been a big fan of chiropractic for a while, but am coming to realize that it doesn't fix anything, it just allows the muscles to relax for awhile.

The question is, though, whether I want to spend $2200 on this. This amount would cover all of the office visits (36 of them), the equipment, and the follow-up x-rays for 6 months. If I get better faster than that, I get the prorated amount of money back, and if it takes longer, the doctor eats it and keeps treating me. Alternatively, a round of physical therapy at the hospital would probably cost me around $1200-$1500 out of pocket. But there is no way physical therapy will correct my neck or lower spine. I've been there, done that. So I'll have to think about it and see. Until then, more painting.

(Thursday) 

Looks like I'm accidently a day in the future. Oh well. Roll with it.

I started the Pettibon treatments today. Writing a check that big is never fun, but on the other hand it's only money, and I'm exchanging it for health, which is priceless. I'll write an update every few days.

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(Friday)

Rode my bike to Dr. Kingston's office and back. Treatments are going pretty well. I have a lot of range of motion back in my neck already. I can now tilt my head back and look up, and well as check my blind spot well driving/biking with only minor discomfort, something I haven't been able to do for a couple months.

Took a break in installing ceiling fans to go to the gym. It's been awhile since I've been there. Did 30 minutes on the elliptical, then 2x15 adductors @ 90 lbs and 2x12 abductors @ 90 lbs.

Biked to the podiatrist and back for another injection. However, I've been starting to doubt the initial diagnoses of the mortons neuroma lately, and described and pointed out my current symptoms to the doc (swollen, inflamed toes, swollen top of foot, reduced range of motion). He thought arthritis could be a possibility, so I went and had some blood drawn for several tests. I will get the results back on Monday.

Might be time to try Dr. Stucky's laser. 

Biked to the gym. Did 20 minutes elliptical, 7 minutes arc trainer, and 2x10 4-way hip @ 80 lbs. Biked home.

Rode my bike to Dr. Kingston's office and back.