Homeward Bound...?

Enjoy the puppy.

And good luck on your upcoming races!!

Oh how cute!  Ocoee, Mike - not you 

Glad to hear you are recovering and have your sites set on the Spring already - ambitious goals are always good!   

Wonder if I'll be swimming the portion of the Tennessee River that Haley is kayaking on in May?

Mike - I do not know my California geography, but hopefully the fires and everything else going on out there is no where near you.

Quick check-in re: fires...  nowhere near us in terms of danger of burning, but smoke from Sacramento to SF is pretty bad.  Race cancelled this morning a half hour prior to start.  Boo.

Mike MacLellan wrote:Quick check-in re: fires...  nowhere near us in terms of danger of burning, but smoke from Sacramento to SF is pretty bad.  Race cancelled this morning a half hour prior to start.  Boo.

Sorry to hear about the cancellation of the race but glad to hear you are in a safe area!

nkrichards wrote:

Mike MacLellan wrote:Quick check-in re: fires...  nowhere near us in terms of danger of burning, but smoke from Sacramento to SF is pretty bad.  Race cancelled this morning a half hour prior to start.  Boo.

Sorry to hear about the cancellation of the race but glad to hear you are in a safe area!

 Ditto

First, more pup pics for those who want them (feel free to follow if you have an IG; I've been posting relatively often):

https://www.instagram.com/bear.beer.beard/

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Welp, air quality still sucks and is getting worse here.  After the cancelled race (30min before the start... when the forecasts were showing poor AQI from about 8pm the night before...), the weekend kinda felt weird.  Getting up at 5am Saturday, driving 4-5hr (to race start, to breakfast, back home), and it only being 11am...  Weird.  

Ran the usual loop Saturday afternoon with plans to run a race effort workout on Sunday... but the body didn't want to anymore.  Gotta figure out what's going on with these side stitches.

Fortunately, Ocoee basically cuddled and snoozed in my lap yesterday and was a saint, so I was able to remember there are things other than running in life.  

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Still looking forward to Snowberry in a month.  This weekend might bring about a good training block, assuming the air clears up and my body decides to cooperate.  Hoping for 10/20/10/20 Fri-Mon.  Thanksgiving week probably pretty minimal training, so we're gonna bunch it all up on the weekend because that's smart.

Haven't run since Sunday.  If I didn't have a race in a month, I'd be okay with this.  I was supposed to be getting 60mi in between today and Monday, but smoke isn't allowing anything.  The gym is nice though.

Fairly certain this race in December is going to be downgraded to the half or I'll just DNS completely.  Ocoee's been vomiting every time he eats since yesterday.  X-rays came back clean (no blockage) but I kind of don't care about much else right now.

Mike MacLellan wrote:Fairly certain this race in December is going to be downgraded to the half or I'll just DNS completely.  Ocoee's been vomiting every time he eats since yesterday.  X-rays came back clean (no blockage) but I kind of don't care about much else right now.

So what is the Vet's treatment plan?

The original plan was to feed very small amounts of boiled chicken and white rice every few hours as long as he's keeping it down.  We decided to fast him for 24hr since his last vomit/meal (since he ate it all again and kept it down) and fed him yesterday at 1-2pm.  He vomited that up at around 6pm.  

We actually have a vet staying with us for CIM, as well as my brother coming into town today to crew her, so we're kind of in a "non-emergency, but need to figure this out" place.  Ocoee is still bubbly and happy and stupid, huge appetite, just can't keep food down, so the biggest concern is hypoglycemia for now.

It's looking like we'll be ending up scoping him at some point this weekend, since an intermittent stomach blockage (something foreign floating around in there that plugs the hole when his stomach tries to empty) is a likely culprit.  

Being a parent sucks.

Poor Ocoee - hopefully things are being figured out.  Dodger was a snarf artist as a puppy and would destroy toys and eat them.  He was scoped once and we were lucky that he passed everything but had major gas a lot.  We took out pet insurance and nothing has happened since.  Get pet insurance - it is worth it.

Ocoee's been scoped and anti-vomited (cerenia and zofran), which worked... except now it's the other end.  Been in contact with Dr. Jeff (brother) and have an appt with our local guy tomorrow.  He's still mostly normal, but starting to get a little lethargic.  

Just want the little guy to be better.  The only upside of all this is he's EXTREMELY loving and cuddly now.

Mike MacLellan wrote:Ocoee's been scoped and anti-vomited (cerenia and zofran), which worked... except now it's the other end.  Been in contact with Dr. Jeff (brother) and have an appt with our local guy tomorrow.  He's still mostly normal, but starting to get a little lethargic.  

Just want the little guy to be better.  The only upside of all this is he's EXTREMELY loving and cuddly now.

Hope Ocoee continues to improve.  That's tough on both of you!

So, Ocoee took a slight turn for the worse this weekend.  Back to liquidy poops, somewhat urgent and more often.  

To which my brother (a board-certified vet surgeon) asked: "Is he on a probiotic and metronidazole?"  

Why no, no he wasn't.  Why?  No idea, but apparently this means our vet is a "fucking idiot."  I'm a little incensed.  The vet who was in the office on Sunday sounded very shocked that our vet hadn't put a possible recommendation of these meds on Ocoee's chart.  Yep, apparently "wait and see" is a shitty plan.

I'm still salty about this.

We paid (waaaaaaaay too much, lesson learned) for these meds and today Ocoee's about 20% away from normal.  

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Oh, I biked a lot last week.  I didn't run at all.  I have a half marathon Saturday.  I'll either win it or do really shitty.  Should be fun finding out which way it's gonna go.

And I see that you won!  Congrats!  Is Ocoee better?

Mom - I did win.  The guy who should've beat me was ~1' ahead by 1.5mi (his ultrasignup results list is extremely intimidating) but got lost multiple times due to poor course markings.  I've run the route maybe 5 times in the last two months, and thank God, because about 3 miles of it was nearly impossible to navigate without experience.  

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Seems like "get stressed, eat and drink a lot, get fat, and stop running" is a good training plan.  Cool.  I'm glad to be done with this race and glad to have done well.  I feel like I ran it at about 95% of my ability but paced extremely well, so I'm happy with that.  

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I interviewed for a staff interpreting position yesterday and all signs are pointing to me starting at the beginning of next semester.  That's neat.

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Ocoee's been mostly regular for the past couple days.  Behavior has gone back to completely normal (no more fatigue, monster-mode is back).  We brought him with us to the race today, so the excitement gave him a little tummy trouble, but I think it's a one-time thing.  He's used to snoozing most the morning until lunch, so he's out like a rock right now.  

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Kind of entering an off-season/transition time.  Not sure what 2019 brings.  Just gonna listen to the brain and body and try to stay in relatively decent shape until I find something interesting to train for.

Gratz on your win...however it happened.

And good the medium sized monster is getting his shit together.

Well, the holidays end today.  I'll be heading back to Folsom after a 13 hour travel day from CHA to SNA yesterday (shoot me).  Ocoee was super excited to see me, which was nice.  Missed the little shit - wanted to be back 3 days ago.  

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Ran decently in Chatt.  A good uptempo 10-miler with 2mi "moderate fast finish" at sub-7:00 pace and the annual New Year's W Road "not race" run put on by the local track club.  W Road features a 3mi climb up Signal Mountain with just over 1000' vert, the whole run being 5.9mi with ~1300' vert, ending at Haley's old HS XC coach's house.  On this one, I sat about 50m off the chase pack (2 dudes went off the front - pretty sure one was pro) thinking I'd close the gap on the final SUPER STEEP switchbacks or the last 2mi of "flat" road on the brow (spoiler alert: it wasn't flat)...  Yeah, that didn't happen.  Felt like I was running all-out and just couldn't close the gap AT ALL.  Some strong guys in that club.  Either way, I finished in 44:xx with an average pace of just under 7:30 and was 6th to the house.  Ran a couple miles back to find Haley and jog it in with her for 9mi on the day.

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Less fun: I've been having a slight heel niggle this winter break.  Medial calcaneal tuberosity - where most pictures show a heel spur being.  I have no idea how I'd randomly develop one, and it tends to go away after a day of rest and never gets above a dull 2 on the pain scale... and never really hurts at all while running.  Just walking around on hard surfaces after.  Feels crunchy when palpated/massaged. 

Fortunately, I have no real races or goals coming up until the fall, and will probably keep 2019 that way.  Too much going on with a still young pup and new jobs for both of us.  I think the goal is to just keep baseline fitness until summer break, as we'll both have 10 weeks off and can travel/climb mountains a bit.

Yeah, Signal and Lookout Mountains do have some steepness.  I love going to Point Park on Lookout Mountain, when I get to Chattanooga.  And Krystal hamburgers.

Enjoy your healing.  I've learned that it's really good for the body, but the mind...not so much.

Nice racing, even if the strategy didn't quite work out. You were at a disadvantage to runners who already knew the course, for sure. Next time, you'll smoke 'em!

Is the medial calcaneal tuberosity tender when you palpate it? If so, that'd be a sign of plantar fasciitis. If it feels crunchy, you might get one of those foot therapy balls and do a little targeted rolling and see if it breaks up the gunk. Worth a try, maybe. 

Glad you're settling back in to life in Folsom. Enjoy your winter break from race training, but keep that basework up!