Cornucopia

Staying active while traveling for work can be challenging. Yes, most of my non-late-night training occurs when I'm isolated from the family life but not having consistent exercise venues often leads to creative heart rate raising techniques. 

I always integrate simple body weight exercises when on the road. Some days it's just one set of pushups to stretch out my airplane seat back slouch. Sometimes I put on my loaded work backpack and do squats to exhaustion. Multi-story hotels make for great stair climbs. Other days I'll go through a full yoga routine. 

For aerobic activity, though, I rely on running. I try to explore the city I'm in as much as possible by foot. I search for local running clubs and find their trails or parks. I go on MapMyRun and find public running routes. Sometimes I just walk out of my hotel and run away for a couple miles then turn around and trace my steps back. I've found some gorgeous urban parks (Cherokee Park in Louisville, KY), beautiful suburban trails (The Wissahickon in Philadelphia), and scenic river trails in cities where I least expected scenery (the paved river trails in Dayton, OH). I've admired downtown skylines from the Ohio Street Beach trail in Chicago, The Venetian Causeway in Miami and the Cherry Creek Path in Denver. I've stumbled across group runs who invited me to join (Chicago), was asked to join a hill-climb session where I almost vomited in front of 30 strangers (Louisville) and did impropmtu intervals with a complete stranger in Long Beach, CA. 

Unfortunately, fitting all of my cold weather running gear into my carry-on duffel isn't always possible, so for a few months of the year I'm relegated to hotel treadmills. Many hotels pride their "fitness center" listing on trip advisor, almost always including a photo of their gym that I'm certain was taken by a realtor that was trying to convey a sense of openness that you'd often find in residential home sale listings. But more often than not those same "spacious" fitness centers are populated by secondhand equipment and smell like the equipment room in a community pool. Elliptical machines that creak like old Ford Taurus doors. Recumbent stationary bikes that rock from side to side every time you pedal. Mismatched dumbbells and yoga mats that look like floor mats after a Minnesota spring season. And of course, second hand treadmills. Some that can't keep a desired pace. Some that only have one speed. Some that have a hitch in their belt that catches every third step. Some whose belts are crooked and start to smell like burnt rubber. That one that has a loud clang with every step. One that is jammed at an incline of 10. One whose television screen is stuck on the Hallmark Channel. The one that overlooks the hotel kiddie pool. 

I've seen them all. Some multiple times. But the worst is the hotel with just one treadmill. These hotel fitness centers are the Cornucopias of the corporate travel Hunger Games arenas.

I tried to use that treadmill five times during this 2-day trip. Three times last night, over a span of two hours, only to find three different people walking on it. One early this morning but was denied by another runner on his 5th mile when I peeked through the door. My final visit to the fitness center found it completely empty. Surprised, I inserted my key card and was greeted with the red light on the handle. Locked. I swiped it 6 more times to be sure and, sure enough, my card didn't work. 

I walked back down to my room (4 doors away) and just as I swiped my card to go in to shower in defeat the hotel janitor yelled "Hey bud, I got it for you!"

He explained that the key reader doesn't recognize anyone but hotel staff and he's trying to fix it today. I thanked him as he stuffed a blue-striped towel into the door frame and logged my first run of 2016. 

I've restarted my training regime a few times in the last couple years. Each time was met with a home sale or moving into our rental home or preparing for our home purchase or fracturing my foot or our second move, but with all of that behind us and now getting settled in our new digs, I'm back at it for the new year and have my sights set on re-losing this inch in waist size. 

Here's to finding new trails, tuning out the creaks of ill-kept treadmills and not splitting this pair of slacks before that happens. 

Reset Button

Six weeks ago this happened:

That's an x-ray of the arch of my right foot. If you look at the fifth metatarsal (upper pinky toe) right at the joint you'll see a complete fracture. 

This particular fracture is apparently common enough to warrant it's own term. This is called a Jones Fracture after a doctor named Jones who first identified the physics behind this fracture. Dr. Jones found that his patients often suffered this fracture near the joint when pressure was applied laterally to the outside of the foot. 

Dr. Jones was spot on. I would like to say that the lateral force was attributed to an extreme activity like doing parkour during my son's baseball practice or testing the new American Ninja Warrior course in my backyard. Maybe attribute some blame to stress fractures from recent marathon training or overuse injury. I'd also rather be able to blame the injury on an equipment malfunction such as breaking a pedal on my hardtail mountain bike while attempting a log pile climb. I'd even be willing to admit to just olain being a bit drunk and stumbling down some stairs.

But I can't honestly say any of those things happened, even to strangers on the internet.

A close friend from high school was in town from Maryland and another of our friends was having a barbeque for everyone to meet up rather than having her try to make dates with everyone separately. I did have a couple beers but I definitely can't place any blame on them. 

I kept my rolling cooler out on the front step so at the end of the night I went out to bring it back out to the car. I was barefoot and stepped down onto the front landing. I didn't really pay any mind to the welcome mat that was down there because, well, it was a welcome mat. They don't really require attention unless their artisitic or funny and this one was neither really. It was rather unnoteworthy save for one minor detail: it was over an inch thick.

I somehow managed to place my foot directly on the edge of the mat which caused my foot to roll to the outside. All my weight went onto the outside of my foot and I made it worse by reacting trying to catch myself. There was a loud onomatopoeius *pop*, I caught myself just fine and the host of the party who was standing right behind me asked "Was that your foot?!" 

I knew right away it was a broken bone, but it didn't hurt. It was that dull burning sensation you feel with a fracture and the fact that I felt the pop through my whole body that confirmed it for me. 

I played it down and just said that my ankle just popped from being stiff from running then just went on with the night while gugrly walking and trying not to limp. 

Got home, iced and elevated and waited to see what it looked like in the morning.

Woke up, swollen but not much color but I couldn't bend my foot in any direction without sharp pain. 

Here's what it looked like the following evening after a flight to DC for work:

At the point of this picture I knew it was broken by intuition but was still holding out hope via denial that maybe it was just a sprain instead. I iced it repeatedly [every time I woke up through the night] and laced up my formal work shoes gingerly in the morning to act as my cast until I got home.

I used the airport trolley for the first time in my life to get from security to gate at Reagan Int'l and felt every air pocket at 30,000 feet. 

The xrays were taken the next day with an order for an aircast and 6 weeks to heal. 

Here we are, 6 weeks later. I've been able to walk without pain or favoring my other foot for about two weeks and I started my own physical therapy sessions at home doing basic strerchinn and ankle exercises. I finished a 2-ish mile test run earlier this week and am happy to report that there was only minimal swelling and the only pain was felt in the surrounding joints that have atrophied a bit in my 1.5 month recovery.

Unfortunately, as my last post prominently announces, the reason I reactivated this blog is coming up in 3 weeks. I am VERY tempted to just wing it and give it the ol' senior year college try, but we've also just got approval to buy a house in three weeks so there's no chance that I'm going to risk my motor skills for a half-assed marathon attempt. 

The good news is that our new place is just a mile from my favorite running trails at Lebanon Hills. Cold beer will always be waiting for any running partners at the end of the trail. 

Motivation Hunting

Two posts in two days? On this blog?!

Yes. I went to bed with the intention of waking up at 6:00 for a short treadmill run. I succumbed to my routine over the last two years of hitting snooze twice and rolling over until my regular daily alarm went off signaling the morning before-school-circus was to begin. 

So I'll be running tonight instead. It's killing me that I didn't follow through on my "first run" so this morning I've been putting together motivation tools to get my ass moving. Nothing truly new for me. I dug up the flash drive with my old training log from the 70.3 training year and saved it to my laptop's harddrive for easy access with a brand new, bright and shiny tab labeled "2015". Did some retail therapy and bought a new pair of training shoes to kick off my new mileage counter (a new brand to me: Saucony Verrata). 

But what I just found to be the best motivator was digging through some things from my 'past life' (yes, it's just two years ago but it seems like forever).

I read my Almanzo 100 report from 2013 then kept scrolling to read my 70.3 report. Gasp...I forgot that I didn't write anything here about it. It never happened!

Luckily, Professor Boz hasn't deleted his blog. Boz was generous enough to show up and practice some of his writing skills using me as a subject back in 2012. He followed me around the course all day and made his own race report which he merged together with my own account and posted to his blog in daily installments. I had originally meant to post coincidentally with his posts but never did. 

Without further redundant explanation, here is Part I of our Chisago Lakes Triathlon race report.