Term Limits?

ounce wrote:I enjoyed being a trainer and had I talked to the trainers at TCU about the cocky football players, they probably would've said that doesn't happen and I would've seriously considered getting a scholarship, even though science wasn't my forte.  I liked the medical aspect, which I've continued to keep curious about.

And you're spot on about high school reunions.

-30-

This morning it was another 80 degree morning.  In an effort to extend the length of the pier during a long run, I decided to reduce the cadence from 164 to 160.

7 miles, 1:40:32, 14:21 pace, 137 avg bpm, 161 max bpm, 153 avg cadence, 0.73 m avg stride length.
1.  14:36, 119 bpm, 159 spm, 69 sl
2.  13:57, 130 bpm, 160 spm, 73 sl
3.  13:57, 139 bpm, 159 spm, 73 sl
4.  13:58, 141 bpm, 153 spm, 75 sl
5.  14:33, 146 bpm, 151 spm, 72 sl
6.  14:43, 143 bpm, 146 spm, 75 sl
7.  14:43, 144 bpm, 147 spm, 73 sl

HR zones
zone 4  144-161 bpm
zone 3  126-143 bpm
zone 2  108-125 bpm




A 3.29 mile pier.  The red dots after was due to going under a railroad trestle.  So the pace slowed on the way up.  You'll note the HR was higher than past runs at 164 cadence.  Why? you ask.  Well, I figure my heart had had it too easy for too long.  Running longer at a ~160 cadence caused the heart to work harder and at a higher HR.  That's fine.  The overall run wasn't too bad, except when I fell at mile 6.5.  Received a big bobo on that.

I was fearful that 160 would be too slow a cadence to return to 164 in the Fall, but I think it'll be fine, now that I've done it once.

On the medical front, the return trip today caused 2 injuries that won't affect running.

The first one (keep in mind I'm on blood thinners) occurred as I brushed by a rose bush.  Ten minutes later, I noticed my right ring finger had a trail of blood running to the tip.  Evidently, I hit a thorn.  The bleeding didn't stop for an hour, including the 30 minutes after the run.

The second one at mile 6.5 was a fall that I wasn't expecting.  I guess a couple of long weeds grabbed my shoe, as I stepped up off the street to a sidewalk, over a strip of grass.  I fell onto my upper, left forearm (the fleshy part) and my torso rolled my forearm against the sidewalk.  Annnnnnd what does a runner do, once no major injury has occurred?  STOP THE WATCH! 

I have never seen a bruise blow up as fast as this one.  But it had very minimal bleeding, which was a surprise.  My rolling my torso over the forearm was like a rolling pin on biscuit dough.  There was zero bruising on the bones and my forearm looks like Popeye's.  I could post a picture taken about 30 minutes after the incident.

I think I'll not do any weight lifting, this week, with the arms.  Back in February, when I had the gigantic bruise, I had worked out the day before I checked in the hospital.  Even though it's different, it has my respect.

Thanks for reading.

ounce wrote:I didn't workout at all, this morning.  In fact, I went to bed early to catch up on yesterday morning's lost sleep.  I woke up about 15 minutes past where I should have to get to the gym.  So, I slept another couple of hours.

My arm was still limber and had full range.  The bruising or swelling had expanded up and down the arm.  Now, it's halfway up the upper arm and 2/3rds down the forearm (3 fingers from the wrist).  I'm not concerned.  It looks bad, but in two weeks, it will look much better.  Well, checking out a picture of Popeye, it doesn't look like his forearm.

ounce wrote:Went off to the gym, this morning.  Not a whole lot to do at a gym, when you can't do what I've been doing and am running in the morning.  I couldn't do any planks because the bruise had occupied some space on my ulna bone, mid-forearm. 

However, I did work on my squats.  A week ago, I worked on them because all of the little muscles in the hip were tight and I wasn't able to squat low enough.  I've worked a couple of times in the past week and today, I gotten much lower.  Not quite as low as the person in the photo, but about 3/4ths of the way.  Before a week ago, about 1/2 way.


I'd like to be able again to squat low enough to check the bottom row of a shelf at the grocery store.

Did some other stuff, even restarted lunges!  But I was done in 30 minutes.

The left arm's swelling has slowed and I was able to carry grocery bags without pain.  About 17 pounds or so on that hand.  I think it'll still be 2 weeks before it's back to baseline.

Tomorrow will be running.  Something between 4 and 7 miles.

ounce wrote:
Looks like an avocado under my skin!

ounce wrote:Well, the run didn't go as planned.  1.55 miles instead of 4 or 5.  Cadence was dropping shortly after mile 1.  The outside parts of my thighs were beginning to whine.  I had nothing to lose. 

But, my arm bobo has become familiar territory, now.  The area that was the epicenter (see the above photo) has become hard, like that hematoma under the shoulder blade back in February, but smaller.  Additionally, blood had pooled on the underside of my arm and is about 14" long.  Both symptoms are indicative of leakage/not clotting of blood.  I figure the pooling happened while I was sleeping.  Gravity does things like that.

So.

So, I'm going to do what the doc did in February.  Stop the Plavix and aspirin in order to give the platelets a chance to clot and not do a whole lot of anything for a week.

This is sort of frustrating, but this 2nd instance has told me to not take aspiring after an injury of some sort.  This time, the Plavix and aspirin have stopped after 3 days, whereas February was 6 days.  That'll help.

y'all have a good weekend.

ounce wrote:In March, he saw my bruise and he was willing to d/c the Plavix because there was data suggesting that 6 months was long enough after a stent.  We decided to wait until August or September to d/c it.

Since I'm 11 months next week for the stent, he might d/c it now.  I think the aspirin is the culprit.

I can say, this evening, the hematoma area is looser at the base.  So, the platelets are doing their job and the cleanup has begun.  

The lower arm bruise is a little longer.  The swelling at the wrist has increased a bit, but i expect that to 'flatten' so to speak.

ounce wrote:The knot that is the hematoma is there and will be for a while, but is movable to some degree.  Akin to how movable the kneecap is when standing up.  And, like the kneecap, is not movable in another position.  

The Cleanup Dept is hard at work cleaning up the broad and purple bruise.  Its process is definitely FIFO and lightens an area first, rather than cleaning the entire area before moving on.  So there are different teams doing cleaning.

The sheetrock dept has patched, taped, and floated the small laceration.  Now it needs to be textured and painted.

The swelling at the wrist has increased a bit, day over day, and the bruising has passed the wrist and is now about 2 fingers width down the top of the hand.  I'm not concerned.  I still have full and painless range of motion, although planks are not possible due to a hurtful bruise along the mid-point of the ulna, but not on the bone.

Tune in tomorrow for another episode of This Old House.

ounce wrote:I was going to run on Thursday, but I overslept the alarm.  This morning, then, I wanted to run 4 miles, but only could do 2 miles.  It was 80 degrees.

Before the run, I was curious if a loss of hemoglobin would cause me to feel as if I had just donated whole blood, like it did in February.  Since the hematoma on my arm is much smaller than the one below my shoulder blade, it was not as bad.  Actually, the lungs exerted more effort than the heart.  The legs were groggy, since it's the first run in 10 days.  I was headed to do 3 miles, when shortly after 1 mile, the legs wanted to go home.  Okay.

The bruise, swelling, and the hematoma are getting better.  I can also feel the edge of the hematoma and a little under it, due to the skin being looser.  The hematoma is 4 finger widths long by 3 fingers wide.  The shoulder blade hematoma was 5" x 8".

I'll post the splits later.  Thanks for coming by.