Hokas.

Man how I hated to spend $170 on a pair of shoes.  But it would be foolish not to try out the Hokas, given that a lot of old farts swear by them.  And since I've got all these back/hip issues, it would be doubly foolish to keep on trying out all of my old Adidas, Avias, New Balance, etc., etc., or even to keep on wearing exclusively all of the great Newtons that I've gotten over the past year.

So, introducing the Hokas.

The name itself is off-putting to me.  I'm sure it means something.  But Hoka One One?  And then there's the Bondi B part.  I hate stuff that doesn't say what it means.  Like maybe they should call it pillow-shoe or something.  Anyway, there they are, looking really galumpfish.

Here's a different angle.  Look at how much flat-part there is at the bottom.  (Flat part = another technical term).

Finally, here's me in the shoes at the metroparks parking lot with Penny Panasonic behind me, wondering when it's her turn.

I guess I'll keep them, even though they make my feet look like barges.  (Hey, my feet ARE barges.)  They have a lot of cushioning but are still supportive.  I think I had the right shoe laced up a little too tight, because the forepart of my foot (the ball?) felt a little pinchy after a 25 minute walk/trot.  But overall, I felt a little springier, if that's a word.  My brother used to think that you really DO run faster with new tennies.  Maybe you really do.  Yknow?

I'll take them to St. John tomorrow and try to get some easy trail time in them.  When I get back, the plan is to ramp stuff up as my body will allow.  Hopefully a week in the sun and salt water will work magical healing powers.

Looking back over the years (decades?), I imagine that I've probably been feeling this way -- borderline breaking down -- for a long time but managed to numb out the pain with various and assorted alcoholic concoctions.  Not being numb?  There is more of a perception of pain.  But now that we've identified it as radiculopathy (pain radiated from my lumbar vertibrae), it's easier to deal with.  My hip doesn't really hurt.  It only thinks it does.  It's really my back that demands healing.

So maybe the Hokas will provide a little more shock absorption.  I know I'm a heel-striker, and there's definitely more absorption back there than in my minimalist shoes.  I'll swap everything out in rotation.  The law of averages will swing my way from time to time.  And I have so many daggone shoes at this point that I won't be repeating a pair in rotation for probably two weeks.  Serial.

I say this.  I am grateful for second, third, fourth, and four-hundredth chances.  Not looking back.

Onward!

~~ kate

The Motley Crue.

T drove me over to the pain doc's shop this morning for spinal injection number two.  The first one worked relatively well.  The combination of the chiropractor cracking me and the pain doc numbing me is allowing me to keep on with my mild aerobic trots without a whole lot of fits & starts.  Hopefully, all of the lumbar herniations will disappear and I'll be as good as new.  If NOT, let me tell you about the parade of horribles in his office this morning:

Okay, first there's me.  It only hurts when I try to train for Ironman.  I'm not complaining.  If I were to sit on the couch and act like a normal human being, I probably wouldn't even be there.  I'm quite aware of who I am and what I'm doing.  But then there's these other guys:

A woman my age comes walking in making funny inverted hiss sounds, like she's sipping something really hot in a straw.  Each step brings another sssssp! sound from her mouth.  She's on a walker, slowly slowly, each step obvious agony.  She sits down, ever so gingerly, next to me.  Of course, me and my big mouth:  what's the matter?  Can I help you?  So I get her life story of pain.  Three weeks she's been like this, her g.p. won't give her any meds, she can't stand it, she's going crazy.  Her husband doesn't look much better:  he's got five herniated discs, and they're so bad that the docs won't/can't operate.  He's all hunched over.  What a mess they are.  The pain is just radiating out of them, bright yellow and sharp.  My heart goes out to them, but there is nothing I can do except to sit with them.  This is hard.  They are radiating their pain all over the place, like splashing paint.  It hurts to be there.

Then comes in this other lady, in a wheelchair, with her hubby wheeling her.  Her DH looks like Humpty Dumpty, mad as hell at the docs who did this to her.  He tells the story of how she was going in for some bone graft in her back (?) and they were harvesting bone from her hips (?) and when she was under anaesthesia they laid her hips out frog-like and according to the DH "snapped them just like chicken bones." So now not only does she have an effed up back, but she's got two broken hips to boot.  She started to talk in this sweet southern drawl, maybe Kentucky, but the pain was too great, and she closed her eyes and sat silent.  She was the quintessential definition of longsuffering.  My heart was breaking for her.

Sweet Jesus.

I was by far the healthiest one there.  I felt guilty -- almost like an impostor, a poseur --  for being there with my great medical insurance and for having such high aspirations.  These folks were just, at a minimum, trying to live in their bodies without going insane.

Then Humpty started talking about how we're all screwed if Obamacare goes through, and I asked him why he thought so, and he started talking about this great government conspiracy to have access to all of your health records, and what the IRS was going to do with them.  Unfortunately, the nice anaesthesiologist lady from Jerusalem with the lyrical voice called me in to be put under with this stuff I can't remember the name of, you're fully awake during the procedure but you can't feel anything and when it's over, you're right there.  Very strange drug.

Anyway, the procedure went well but I was starving:  don't like to eat before hand just in case of aspiration.  Of course, there was nothing on the way to work but fast food, so I ran through Wendy's and got two grilled chicken breasts, plain, and a DP.  It was enough.

Tonight:  a half an hour walk in the metroparks.  Plane leaves tomorrow at 6 am, so we've got to get up at the butt crack of dawn to get to the airport timely.  Sux.  But Ts ready, so we're doing it.

St. John, here we come, swimming or not!

Stay well, count your blessings.

~~ kate

Parking in Skankytown and Other Training Aids.

So glad to wake up this morning and feel pretty happy about life.  Weird, but I so look forward to checking my inbox and see what Coach has lined up for my workouts each day.  He's cut way back on the swimming because of my screwed up right shoulder, so today is run and bike.  I'll run at lunch & bike after work.

Actually I ride my beater bike (Penny Panasonic) partway into the office just cuz I hate to pay for parking.  Yeah, it's one of my peccadilloes.  Don't mind shelling out a hundred bucks for some pink speedplays, but I refuse to pay $6.25 a day for the privilege of not having to make any effort to get to the office.  Parking out in the skanky part of town has its problems, too, though, but so far nobody's ripped into the convertible or taken off the bike rack.   Kind of surprising, honestly, cuz it's so desolate out there.

I would bike into work from the house, but rush hour is frenetic in Cleveland and I'm becoming more and more risk-adverse these days.  Any wipeout could kill IMAZ, and so I'm doing a cost-benefit analysis on just about everything these days.  The Endurance Nation folks would call it "return on investment."  Me, I'm calling it trying like hell just to reach the start line on November 17 healthy and fit.

Speaking of which:  TODAY IS SIX MONTHS EXACTLY TILL IMAZ.

Also speaking of which:  TODAY IS NINE MONTHS EXACTLY OF SOBRIETY.

And so I really do like my simple everyday routine:  wake up, feel good, eat right, give the boss a full day's work, do the workouts, check in with the DH and da pak, sleep, repeat.

Life, friends, is very good indeed.

My cup overfloweth.

~~ kate

Back Into The Groove.

Coach said everything would heal up okay, that it was just a matter of time, and of course, as always, he was right on the money.  I can move again.  Shoulder's still arguing with me.  I think I probably have some herniated cervical discs but we can worry about that later, on return from St. John.  Nothing I can do about it now except suck it up and minimize stuff that aggravates it.

The Great Shoe Adventure continues.  Here's the latest iteration of shoe possibilities.

These are men's Avia 5020, pretty old but not much wear on them.  They're fairly cushy.  We did a 30 minute run/walk yesterday downtown, and they held up pretty well to the concrete sidewalks (yeah, I know) but I probably wouldn't want to run long in them.  

I also tried out this thingy I got after I stepped on the Dr. Scholl's foot analysis deal at the Wal Mart.  They were fifty bills.  Endorsed enthusiastically by the cashier at the Wal Mart express lane.

Here's a picture of today's shoes.  New Balance 767, also from back in the Stone Age but with very little wear on them.

I'm not exactly sure how I'm supposed to know if a shoe works for me or not.  I'm just relying on intuition.  If it feels okay, and my back's not screaming, maybe it's an okay shoe, I dunno.  I'll wear these for my walk today at lunch with the Wal Mart puppies and see how it goes.

But oh the irony.  Forty years ago I used to roll my eyes up in my head with  my mother's droning on and on and on about shoes.  She tried on every shoe in North America trying to find something to fit her bunioned feet.  Ditto with every mattress on the continent.  It was a constant source of irritation to me, her shoes and mattresses ad infinitum and ad nauseum.  Now, all that's on my mind is ... you guessed it ... shoes and mattresses.  I deserve a few bad karma points in the form of chickens, coming home to roost.  Sorry Mom.

Finally, here's the latest addition to my office wall.

The three panes on the bottom are pretty cool.  On the right is some random age grouper with his pants on the ground.  In the middle is Chrissy, huffing away.  And on the left is my favorite panel, hundreds of men in red caps churning away at the water.  The women -- far fewer of them -- have on purple caps.  Some look like they're just hanging out, others are flailing.  Gotta say, this picture scares the bejeebers out of me.

Train well, stay safe.

~~ kate

Side Stroking.

First, a photo of my lunch today:  grass-fed beef burgers, 85 percent lean.  Cooked with ten eyes staring at me and a stream of slobber on the floor.

Last evening was another session with Dr. Tocco, and then off to the North Olmsted pool for my first swim in a couple of weeks.  Sad to say, the right shoulder just won't cooperate.  The range of motion and strength are both poor, says the shoulder doc, and I'd concur.  Impossible to get the sonofagun over my head.   Even a big steroid injection won't calm it down.  In technical terms, it's shot.  The plan is to get a new shoulder after Ironman Arizona, during the winter, and then rehab whilst the weather is too nasty to train, anyway.  Learned a lesson from the Birmingham hip resurfacing:  do the bionic replacement stuff during the off season.

Oh, this swim camp in St. John next week could be a real PIA.  I may have to bag the coached sessions if the coach is a pinhead.  So far, all I've gotten, with less than a week out, is one cryptic e-mail saying something about how this camp is all about "the group" and not any one individual.  That doesn't bode particularly well.  (Aah, the sad sad sound of dollar bills taking wing.)  Oh well, a week in the Virgin Islands with no responsibilities?  I'll take it, swim camp or no swim camp.   We can figure something out.

So I did the side stroke last night at North Olmsted.  Nobody started screaming.  Nobody came in and pulled me out for Unauthorized Stroke.  Nobody swum over and slapped me upside the head for violating all  bounds of normalcy.  Noperz.  Just swam maybe 20 x 25, nice and smooth, trying to figure out how to get the most bang for the buck in terms of propulsion and efficiency.  There's very little written about doing the side stroke.  Some about combat side stroke, but I don't want that.

Curious.  It's such a relaxing and effective stroke.  Wonder why it's so disfavored, almost anathema?

This from Tom Knoll, one of the 15 original Ironman contenders in the first Ironman in 1978:  "I went out and took it easy on the swim, because I figured if I got through that the rest would be easy. I really took it easy and of all 15 who finished the swim I came in last with breaststroke and sidestroke." 

Adapt and overcome.  If it was good enough for Tom Knoll, it's good enough for me.  :)

And I must say, my shoulder is thanking me for it this morning.  Soooooo nice to wake up the morning after a swim session and not have it roaring at me.

Onward.

~~ kate

Miscellanea.

I will be so glad when Terry gets home on Thursday evening.  I've been chasing my tail in small circles for a while now, trying to keep everything together.  Another human presence chez Kosar will make a world of difference.  Esp. since it's my Marine.  And the other almost-humanoid presence with him, Mr. Jay-Dog, the Fatteh.  My boyz.  T's a no-oil vegan a la Esselstyn, and I'm a meat and low glycemic veggies person.  We're gonna have to negotiate space in the fridge for the stuff that separates us:  T's got all kinds of whole grains & legumes, which are verboten for me, and I'm sure my delmonico steaks are off limits for him, as are all my nuts.  About the only thing we hold in common here is kale and tofu.  :(

OK, then.  On to what I've been doing.  First, a picture of my "rehab bike, " Penny Panasonic, a tried-and-true upright mixte with a Cane Creek thudbuster, sheepswool saddle cover, and randonneur bars.  I use her to get moving when everything in my body says to stop.  She keeps the blood flowing regardless.  Yeah, I know she is too small, but pre-hip resurface I could wiggle my left leg through.  Notice the cheapo Wal Mart bike rack with the jerry-rigged foam thingy upside the license plate.  I've used that sonofagun for the last 20 years easy.

Next up are pictures of some of the shoes I've been trying out lately.  Figure maybe a different shoe would help the herniated discs, but I'm shooting in the dark.  Oh well.

Also bought a pair of clearance K-Swiss which are half a size too short.  Don't know if I can return them or not.  And a pair of Hokas, which I've yet to try b/c it's been wet outside.  THOSE I will return, too pricey not to, unless they fit perfectly and help out.

Might as well throw in a gratuitous picture of my Diadoras, which I plan to wear on race day.  They tend to splay outward.  I have some little sole angle things somewhere I can stick in them.  But at some point I need a fit, so I may wait to have the guy look at it.  Problem is, to be brutally honest, I don't like the guys here in Cleveland.  Too snotty for my taste, all into the elite biker thing.  I need a common blue-collar wrench with uncommon ability to do the fit.  The Buddha says that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  I am ready for my fitter to appear.  Hint, hint to the universe.  :)

Before I show you the new tri bike, named Grace, I'll show you the new bike rack, which I needed to buy because Grace's geometry is too narrow to fit on the Wal Mart Bell rack.  Actually, it's a good idea to get the Saris Bones, because it fits perfectly over the spoiler.  Poor Big Bertha (my last-stand-before-surgery Koga Miyata dutch commuter bike) still won't fit.  Sigh.   Took her for a two-week camping tour on the Katy Trail, but can't get her on the back of my car.

And now ... Ta Da~! .. my new (well relatively so) tri bike, a quintana roo dulce named Grace, which I bought off of e-Bay from a guy in Buffalo.   I finally get to take her out for a trial run after dinkering with cleats & speedplays & xlab & hydration systems & rear cassettes & derailleur limit screws & crack pipes & iBike mounts & speefil hoses and other stuff too picayune to mention, including an impossibly sticky right cleat which required literally two miles of circles in the parking lot at the Marina to loosen up.  It was okay, cuz I'd just come from the doc and was feeling like me & Grace needed a little getting-to-know-you time before heading out on the roads.

I'm not sure how totally inane this is, but the Hed site has new decals for the Hed.3 that have pink trim.  They also have skewer parts made in pink.  One of these days ... a reward for something well done ...

Here's a picture of the "cockpit" of the tri bike.  I don't like it, but I'm not sure how to make more sense out of it.

And a picture of the xLab bottle & tool holder thingy on the back side. (That orange thing is a post in the ground, not part of my bike.)   Shout out to Josh at Century Cycles for managing to install this thing.  It's still low enough that I can swing my left leg over the whole shabang, carefully.  Any higher & I'd not be able to do it.  Thanks, Josh.

It needs a skinnier black bag to hold the tube, crackpike, tire levers, patches, & cell phone.  I've been looking around.  This one does the trick if you squish it all up, but it doesn't look all that hot.

Here's a final random picture of my lunch before the walk on Saturday from the Giant Eagle salad bar.  Nice place to pick up something fresh.  No dressing.  The sweetest thing in there was a few teeny beets.  Om nom.  This is about all of the carbs I'll ever have in a day.  Still, no weight loss.  Picked up some of those ketostix at the grocery, I'm well into ketosis, but my body doesn't want to shed pounds on a diet of protein and fat.  I can't figure it out, but I'm doing the best I can here.  If Gary Taubes is correct, I should be burning my own fat for energy.  Felt good out there this weekend with my almonds and water, so I'll keep on keeping on down this road.

Guess that's about it for today, off to work.

Take care of yourselves, train hard, and be sure to give a happy hello to the person you see looking back at you in the mirror.

~~ kate

Dr. Tocco

I've been around the block a few times.  There's some significant tread wear, okay?  I generally know what people are about.  OK Dr. Brooks, the Birmingham hip guy, was a gifted and compassionate alien, I admit.  I hadn't a clue wtf he was saying to me, but he was sending out huge healing beams, so how could you not trust him?

It was kind of like that with Dr. Salvator Tocco.  He was from Noo Yoahk.  He is very Italian.  He is also extremely gifted and understated in his approach.  He laid stuff on me that I'd never heard of before.  A stimulation machine with built in ice?  Is that what that was?  And the TENS stuff receded in intensity over time but it felt like it was going in deep into my spine.  And then the ultrasound, without all the mess and big circles, no heat.  What was that?  Never experienced anything like it ~~ and that was all just from the assistant.

I was in for an amazing ride.

I'm laying on my belly feeling entirely at peace with the world (due, no doubt, to a totally liberated work day and a prescribed doubled dose of Nucynta) on this guy's little table that splits in two.  In he comes, splits the table in two, and starts stretching something really really gently with teeny little motions , like you're pulling on Turkish Taffy (oh oh oh it's Bonomo ... Caaaaan-dee).  Over and over again, like a millimeter's difference, stretching sideways and up and down (technical terms).  He tells me it's this guy who developed it, showed me some pictures, none of which I'd ever heard of before and, of course, none of which I can remember the names of.  Next time.  He commented that it was so little, and so gentle, but it opens up the facet joints (?) and lets the nerve roots pass unimpinged.  I think I heard him say that the guy developed the technique by using fresh cadavers, pre-rigor, so that he could actually measure the efficacy of the motion.   Dude must have some magical relationship with the morgue.  Pre-rigor cadavers?

Next step:  PNF muscle activation.  That one I got.  I'd vaguely heard of it before, other than my heroine's initials.  Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation.  Otherwise known as twisting your thighs into a mild pretzel and pushing on em to the point of a good ole heavy duty stretch, and holding, then doing this reverse thing where you put your entire leg on his shoulder and push while he holds your knee.  Hmmm.

Get up and walk, he says.

I felt like Lazarus.

Or the guy with his bed.

Take a few tentative steps ... hmm ... holy moley, where'd the hip pain go?

Look over, he's like nodding his head as if to say "well yeah, that's what you do."

He and Dr. Salama (the pain guy) apparently respect the dickens out of each other and play tag team keeping ersatz warriors like me in the game.  You beat yourself up, Salama gives you some good dope to keep the pain from being immobilizing, and then you toodle over to Tocco, who unwinds you good & proper, so you can go out & beat yourself up again.

Sounds like one helluva good plan for me.

I am, friends, entirely back in the game.  Body, mind, and spirit.

He gave me a couple of good stretches.

Avoid anything flexy.   It pokes out your discs unnecessarily.  Of course, I've been doing the exact opposite. Good lord, the amazingly counterproductive power of ignorance.  And the understory of my life, think you're doing good, but you're not.  So confusing.  I'm believing that I'm just now beginning this process with half an eye now open.  Such a baby, so uninformed, operating under such long-held but misguided principles.

Back again Monday afternoon for another dose of strange but effective cure.

Oh the magical celestial powers of true healers.  It's sorta like kissing a bazillion frogs in order to find the true prince.

Keep your head together, and keep on keeping on.

~~ kate

Screech! (the sound of a 180 degree turn)

This morning was an appointment with the shoulder guy, Dr. Gobezie, at University Hospitals' Westlake campus on Clague Road.

He totally understood what I'm about.

Right shoulder's wasted, switch to side stroke if the pain gets too bad, your left one's still racked up but not out of commission.  Get a new shoulder when you're not training, after IMAZ.  You can still do freestyle with a new shoulder.  In the meantime, do some PT if you like, but your shoulder's still shot.  Set up appts for PT later in the month.

Great big cortisone shot takes away the pain.

Woof!

Got a few free hours, then off to see Dr. Tocco for the lumbar thing.

Sorry not to do TOSRV, but Coach called it right:  too much risk for too little reward.

Weather looks good for a nice easy ride & nice long walk this weekend, maybe a little something or another in the pool?

I just have to post this picture which exactly captures my optimism at doing IMAZ after Krysa overcame the Asswipe.  Thank you Allie Brosh.  You are pure genius.

Train well, stay out of hopeless bullshit mode.

~~ kate