Training Log Archive: Bash

A cautionary note today... A friend's Mom banged her toe, and it stayed discoloured over a period of months. Her toenail split in two during this time, but neither she nor the docs got too concerned because of her traumatic injury. It took almost a year before someone recognized it as a melanoma. Her big toe has been amputated, and she awaits results from lymph node tests to see if it has spread.

A lot of us bang our fingers and toes on a regular basis, but make a note to keep an eye on any dark marks under your nails. Apparently, subungal melanoma tends to look like a streak, and it is often under a thumb or big toe nail. If you can't remember an injury, or if a dark spot seems to be getting larger, see a doctor.

Peak-2-Peak race on a fantastic autumn day. (Although you gotta wonder, should it really be possible for people to stand around in sleeveless tops in Canada in late October?) I haven't orienteered much this year, so it was great to get out in the Dundas Valley and get some practice before RTH. Unfortunately, I got a heart arrhythmia just after #4, so I walked much of the way to #5 with the usual feeling of doom. It occurred to me that I was wearing my HRM for a change, so I glanced down and noticed that I was up to 220. When walking and deep breathing didn't do the trick after 5 minutes, I finally tried Valsalva, and that stopped it immediately. Interesting to watch the instantaneous drop to 124 on the HRM. After that, I was feeling cautious, so I ran, but didn't push it. (Hard to do in a race where the entire point is to find controls on hilltops!)

This isn't the first time it's happened, and when I had all the cardiac tests a few years ago, they insisted that they found nothing interesting, even though there were hints to the contrary. The cardiologist said she couldn't guarantee that endurance exercise wouldn't kill me, but she figured that giving it up was more likely to be harmful to my health, so she wouldn't advise me to stop. Regardless, I'm doing some googling on arrhythmias and hoping that it's paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia, which sounds bad but is supposedly "not usually dangerous and tends to occur in young people - can happen during vigorous exercise". Not that I'm terribly young, and not that I was exercising that vigorously, but maybe by medical standards, I'd qualify for both.

I'll be looking back on my log entries if this happens in future, so here are a few possible factors - just getting over being sick, coffee in a.m., poor warm-up.

Other than that annoying, scary incident, it was a fun day out. Great to see good friends and practise navigation in more difficult terrain than I've been in recently. In spite of the heart thing, I wish I'd signed up for the long course, since I could have used more practice.

Rail trail run with 'Bent (on bike) and BulletDog (who was basically towing me to keep up with 'Bent). This was a first attempt to stay within the 60-70% (Karvonen) heart rate range, which is supposed to improve endurance through physical changes such as increased capillary density, mitochondria proliferation, etc. (This is from the book "SERIOUS Training for Endurance Athletes", recommended by Urthbuoy.) As expected, it felt a bit slow - as the book said it would. Supposedly, many endurance athletes spend most of their time training at a slightly higher intensity than this, which is too fast to get some of the physiological benefits, but not fast enough to get the benefits of higher intensity training. Of course, really I should have gone for longer than an hour, but it's my first time running since my cold started to ease off.

Still no details on 'Bent's MRI other than the isolated words "grade 2-3 tear". We may have to wait 9 more days till the surgeon appointment, but we're hoping for some news sooner. In the meantime, he's gone back to light biking and hiking to stay mobile.

Boo, hiss, still sick. This week I really want to train, but my lungs are telling me to avoid the aerobic stuff a little longer. Tried a sauna and it seemed to help. Maybe some yoga later...?

Canadians with Paypal accounts, take note. Paypal "improved" their computer system sometime in August, and this included the conversion of some Canadian credit cards to U.S. dollars, seemingly at random. Took me awhile to track this down after seeing a $23 overcharge (admin fee + conversion loss) on my credit card for the recent FAR adventure race. FAR didn't get the extra money - my bank did. And now I've told Paypal that they need to refund it to me...

This felt great, but I can see how much work is needed to get my strength and flexibility back to where it was last spring. That's OK - winter is a good time for that. I think the cold is fading away - should be able to run tomorrow.

Felt worse today. More tea and honey. Maybe a sauna tonight to broil those viruses. Took BulletDog for a slow hike in the woods, and she rolled in something disgusting, so I had to bathe her when we got home. Dogs can be such animals.

On a more cheerful note, Leanimal and I are local celebrities today!

My new reading glasses arrived.
Thoughts:

1) Damn, I look intellectual.

2) Wow, I see why they call them "reading" glasses. I can't even focus on the other side of the couch from here. So much for reading a map and running at the same time. ("OK, I'm looking for a pit behind this hill - ooooOOOOPSSSS!! Yup, there it is.")

3) Can't believe I waited so long to be able to see properly up close. I've just discovered that I've been following Hansel's and Zoolander's logs and didn't even want to.
;-)

I spoke too soon. I stopped my cold prevention regimen on Monday around noon, and 48 hours later, I've got a sore throat and slightly murky brain. Perhaps yesterday's run wasn't quite what the doctor would have ordered for my immune system, even though I felt great afterward. I'm going back to Cold FX and Vitamin C, and I've added old-fashioned tea and honey to my arsenal. If you're in the neighbourhood, Crash, could I please borrow a thimbleful of that oregano oil you're using for cold prevention? Where do you buy it? Do you think I could do something with the acre of oregano that we are growing in our garden?

ThunderDog made it clear that we were going for a hike. That was about all I was up for today anyway. It doesn't count as training, except that it reminded me of how good the fresh autumn air smells, and I'll be inspired to get out again very soon. T-Dog made her feelings known by swinging her tail in a 180 degree arc pretty much continuously. The burnt forest looks more ominous at this time of year, and I'm sure it will look worse when all the leaves have fallen. Two people in the past few days told me about hiking around the burnt area on Thanksgiving. They weren't together and don't even know each other, but they both said the same thing - it looks a lot worse than they had expected, even after seeing photos.

BTW, I started taking Cold FX early Friday afternoon, and went through the full 3-day regimen. The sore throat and pre-cold feeling were gone by Saturday morning. I'm not sure that I missed the cold entirely, but any symptoms were fairly insignificant. I was also doubling my Vitamin C dose on the same days, so it's not a good scientific study.

Tuesday Gurlz Run with Leanimal. As part of my campaign to get 'Bent to go easy on his injured knee, I promised to give BulletDog a good workout today, so she joined us too. She fit in nicely, since she is one of the Gurlz, and she is more of an animal than even Leanimal. I was tempted to keep her on leash to help me up the HVT hills, but she was much happier running ahead of us to set the pace, with occasional dips in the Humber River, after which she shook all over Leanimal every time. (Good doggie to keep Mommy dry!) Wonderful cool weather today - great to be out!

I wore my HRM for the first time in ages, since I'm getting ready (I hope) for a slightly more formal training program for next season. Turns out it was out of memory, so I don't have the stats, but it seemed that I was in the 80-90% (Karvonen, for those who care) range for much of the run, with occasional uphills pushing me a bit higher and downhills dropping me a bit lower. So it's a good anaerobic workout when I run with Leanimal, which is ideal, since I don't tend to push myself that hard on my own.

Couldn't resist hanging 'Bent's MRI images on the window next to mine to see what a layman might notice. We think his meniscus looks a lot like mine - which is neither good nor terrible. ACL and PCL are in the right place. To my uneducated-but-well-googled eye, it looks like he's got fluid accumulated in the centre of the joint just above the ACL, possibly from the trauma. This might be part of what prevents him from bending his knee beyond 90 degrees - but I don't think it would explain the medial pain. Hopefully we'll have the report from the *real* radiologist in a few days.

'Bent has just been given an appointment with the surgeon in 2 weeks. Preliminary MRI report has already been received by Dr. Tarno's office - very impressive for an MRI that took place 48 hrs ago on a Saturday. Unfortunately, it was largely illegible to Tarno's assistant due to being handwritten by an MD. I cajoled her into reading me the few random words that she could decode, and it sounds like there's enough going on to make it worth seeing a specialist. Sigh. At least we don't have to wait long. Good thing - 'Bent is finally getting grumpy.