Not so good, actually.

Pitiful monthly total: 19.8 miles. Even for me, that's way below normal. At a minimum, I should be doing twice that. Had I not substituted several runs w/ workouts at the gym, perhaps my mileage would have been closer to 30. But it should be there anyway, including gym workouts.

Today, the shin splints hit hard. I did a little warmup around the block, stretched well, then got going on the run. I thought it was going well until the shin splints came on. Jeesus. It hurt even to walk. It means I need more stretching, more often. This is pitiful.

I have nobody and nothing to blame but myself. I've certainly had the time this month to make a meal of it, instead of a snack, but I shy from the cold and shirk my conscience. As I search for something to pin my lack of progress on, I begin to wonder if the last round of IVs - four weeks' worth of antibiotics - haven't made my tendons rather more brittle and less stretchy. It's a known problem, after all. But then I think I'm just using that as a scapegoat - no one can sit around all of January and do nothing more than 3 miles at a time and not detrain, not get tight, not have some kind of shin splints or IT band problems.

Speaking of which, I decided to double up my nebulizer meds so I did them before I ran and am doing them again now. I just spent ten minutes stretching while doing Pulmozyme and am now doing Aztreonam while I type. And now that that's done, I'm going to hit the foam roller for a few, then probably pop out to the grocery before showering.

Hope to work out tomorrow, but it looks like I'll be rushing to finish my syllabus before teaching begins tomorrow night. Yeah, it's true - I STILL haven't solidified this semester's syllabus; mostly because it isn't just a matter of changing dates, but updating the course content to match the new software, ditch some old exercises, invent new ones, etc. Some of that I can put off for later, but some of it has to be done now so it can be in the syllabus for tomorrow.

getting BG under control

My blood glucose readings have been consistently 50 points higher than I'd like to see. For a while I suspected my meter was off - but why would it suddently stop reading correctly? Now I suspect that the Lantus I'm taking is not really getting in. I'm prescribed 3u Lantus daily. Do you know how little that is? It's like one large drop of fluid. The plunger travels very, very little to produce this. But this fluid must be forced out against the pressure around the needle - and frankly I don't think enough pressure is made inside the insulin pen to force enough lantus out into the fat. Also, I've observed that the pen will weep after an injection for some time - more Lantus comes out of the needle. So if its coming out after, then its not coming out during. I suspect that I am not, in fact, getting 3U Lantus. So this morning I'm trying 5U Lantus under the assumption that at least 2u just aren't getting in. We'll see what this does to blood sugars.

The other thing I could do, admittedly, is cut out pudding at night before bed. But I had that accounted for and under control - and now its not. I guess I'll call my nutritionist Monday or Tuesday and check in with her about this.

Patrick Hayes memorial run

Back in 1998, I spent a good part of my summer in Las Vegas helping Grandpa take care of my newly-disabled Grandma, Harriet. I recall one conversation we had one night in which my grandmother grumped that life wasn't worth living anymore; she'd done everything she wanted to do and most of her friends were dead and the last few were dying. I vaguely understood her position, but didn't understand why she didn't take more joy in her husband, children, and grandchildren.

These days, I understand some of that much better. Since November 1st, I've lost four acquaintances, three of them from CF. Now, in the world of CF, very few of us actually know each other in person - contact is discouraged because of cross-contamination issues. So we make our communities online and in emails, newsletters, and pictures. We can become very close that way. So losing both Tom Hubin and Deron Arnold in November was quite a shock.

This morning I found that a fairly close internet friend, Patrick Hayes, passed away last night while waiting for a transplant. To be sure, the picture was grim, and the dry run earlier this week raised everybody's hopes for a moment. His passing isn't altogether unexpected, but a lot sooner than anybody thought. He was a great voice in the Great Conversation and I'll miss him.

So is this what life is? What getting older really means? That you make fewer and fewer new friends each year, but lose more and more old ones? This isn't getting any easier. I'm glad it's not! Because if it became easier, what would that make me?

I've been staring at this post for 15 minutes. I don't know what else to write. Things just feel a little useless right now.

After I read about Patrick and the responses to that news on the CF list, I went for a run. Great weather; just...perfect. Absolutely perfect running weather. This was a pretty good run, for me; though still full of walking and ultimately very slow. I'm never going to be happy with that. But for now, it's better than the alternative. I gotta keep it up so I don't end up like Patrick; and I know Patrick would be encouraging me to keep going out there and clearing out my lungs and invogorating my entire body. Maybe this is why I'm not racing right now - trying to find the real motivation, the actual reasons I should continue to run.

Patrick was younger than me. He was 36 years old.

elliptical again

Good 30 minutes workout: 5 minutes on the treadmill to warm up, 20 on the elliptical, 5 minutes on the treadmill cooldown. stretching, foam roller, pushups.

Improvement

Much better run this time. Sunny, 38 degrees.

I did a gym workout yesterday. I tried the elliptical for the first time ever and did 15 minutes. Continuous! It was ...hm, well... a lot harder than I'd supposed. No wonder the women who are dedicated to that type of exercise are in such good shape. More importantly, a lot less impact. I didn't think it would make much difference, but it does. My shins didn't hurt, my joints didn't hurt; nothing. A little burn in the muscles, but that's to be expected. And my heartrate! I wasn't sure if I should believe the machine or not. 160 bpm didn't seem right; maybe next time I'll stop and jump on the stationary bike and see if it corroborates. iPhone needs a pulse ox/heart rate monitor plug-in thingy. Any inventors out there? Oh... I know one who has medical patents, maybe I'll drop him a line.

Anyway, I then lifted weights for 45 minutes after the elliptical. So I got a good workout and really felt it today in my obliques. Hopefully I can find the willpower to keep this up and hit the gym twice a week or so.

So today's run was following that and it felt a little easier than Tuesday's run, which was an awful, miserable mess. The shin splints are still haunting me, but maybe getting a little better. I didn't go as far today, but will endeavor for a complete loop of the cemetary on Saturday. I need to get my distance up past three miles on a regular basis or I'm never getting out of the "warmup zone."