health

Over before it began

Blog kitt decided around 17:16 on 18 July 2008 to publish this:

You know, I've had my share of injuries over the last decade and a half of playing ultimate. I've rolled my ankles more times than I can count (and enough times that I don't donate my crutches, even months after I've healed). I've had discs thrown at my face. I've been crushed by male players, and broken my ribs under some. I've had my knees crushed, my hands kicked, my feet stomped on, my shoulder broken, my back seize.

This one, however takes the cake.

Early in this season (you recall, the season I "took off" by becoming a practice player so that I could concentrate on my confidence, my skills, my fitness and my health), I started having problems with my left achilles heel. I didn't think much of it, to be honest, having had pains with one or the other achilles tendon off and on for the last few years.

Lisa purchased an ankle stretching aid for me four or so years ago. It was one that Ben thought was dumb, given that it was only a piece of nominally unneeded, shaped plastic, he thought. "Just use the wall to stretch your achilles!" he'd say, but I loved it. I used it regularly that season, and ended the season with some other bizarre injury.

You know, I think it's to the point that people I've known for years will meet me on the sidelines and ask, "So, what is it this time?" with the understatement of, "why didn't you retire when it was still fun?" I can't say I'd think differently for anyone else.

So, this season, I've been struggling with my achilles. I figured the problem was with my shoes. When I originally purchased the style of cleats I wear now, the heel cup was so high that it pressed against my achilles tendon and caused some horrible pain. I figured out that issue fairly quickly, and cut a V into my cleats, removing the achilles hot spot. I do that with all of my cleats now, so I knew that wasn't my current problem.

After a few practices having the pain in my achilles, I started putting topical analgesic on my achilles, and kept playing. Clear case of "ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away." I mean, haven't all the other problems eventually gone away? Ribs heal, bruises heal, ankles heal, it all heals, just give it time, why not this one, too?

I gave up last week, and decided to have it looked at. I described the problem to my doctor. A few pushes here, a few prods there, and I was diagnosed with a crush injury to the ligaments and tendons around my achilles. "So the decision to continue playing on it was probably bad, eh?" I asked. "You could say that."

Since the problem is recurring, over many years actually, the doctor suggested I consider different shoes (since the thought of stopping playing ultimate wasn't even suggested, even by the doc). Originally, he told me to lay off running for three or so days, and start again after that. That was last week. When I couldn't walk at all the morning after this Tuesday's track workout, he told me that all running was out.

So, here's my recovery process, what I'm supposed to do to heal my achilles, given that ligament healing takes longer than muscle healing and this is going to take a while:

1. Stop running. Stop sprinting. Stop jumping. Stop all ankle impact exercises.

2. Keep the cool looking kinesio tape on as long as I can (wondering what kinesio taping is all about?), probably three days.

3. Heat my achilles for 30 minutes every 2 hours. That's a lot of heating.

4. Walk. Swim. Exercise in ways that not only don't hurt, but also don't aggravate my achilles.

5. Lots of vitamin C.

6. Wear sandals.

7. And stretch, as long as it doesn't hurt and doesn't aggravate the injury. Any discomfort at all and I'm supposed to stop.

That, and in 3-4 weeks, and I can try running again.

Three to four weeks.

THREE to FOUR weeks.

That's 21 to 28 days from now.

No running.

No, this isn't going to be hard, why do you ask?

I've been trying these last few months to go with the flow of life. Instead of forcing things to be the way I want them to be, I've been trying to accept things for what they are, to make things as good as I can given the way things are outside my control.

For the record, I need to say I've been trying this without much success. This injury is an example of how I just couldn't accept that I was done for the season, this time in June. I didn't want to believe it, I refused to accept reality, and managed to make my injury even worse.

And now I have to accept it, because I can't walk from my bed to my desk in the morning to get to work. I struggle to the bathroom in the middle of the night, knowing that any step in going to wake me up fully with a rocket of pain up my leg. I need a long time to get going after sitting for any time greater than fifteen minutes, as my ankle stiffens up so quickly.

Sandals. Like my feet aren't already cold enough.

Going to be more sore tonight

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 13:45 on 12 May 2008

In continuing with the pain of movement from yesterday, I went up to Velocity Sports at lunch today for another workout. If I keep this up, those extra 20 pounds my knees are complaining about should be history in about 124 days, give or take 2 days Gee, and only 21 days to make a habit. Joy.

Kris didn't go today, something about "work" and "projects" and "sleep." In reality, I think he wanted to mutter "world" and "warcraft," but stopped when he saw the look in my eye. Who needs daylight to work? That's what evenings and nights are for.

The workout was as always, a long warmup followed by a workout. This particular instructor is a big fan of the 3 rounds of 5 exercise stations, each station for 60 seconds, 45 seconds and 30 seconds for the first, second and third rounds respectively. Today's stations were:

Squat jump with weighted ball
Pushups with one arm cross stand
75% running on the track
V ups
Supine row

The squat jumps were with a medicine ball: I used the eight pounder, having learned my lesson last week with the ten pounder. From a squat position, with the ball resting on the floor, held between both hands, stand quickly, moving from a half squat position into a jump, lifting the ball overhead in the jump. Land SOFTLY, and return to a squat position.

Pushups with one arm cross stand started with a normal pushup, but from the top of the pushup position, rotate the torso 90°, lifting one arm up to the ceiling, and looking up at that hand. Basically, in to a cross position. Hold for a count of two, then return to the pushup position, then lower back to the floor. Repeat, rotating the other direction.

Supine row was done with a barbell on the rack about a yard off the ground. Lying underneath the bar, reach up and grab the bar. Then, keeping the body straight, in a sort of reverse pushup, pull the chest up to the bar. I managed maybe three in the first round, before the instructor suggested I bend my legs, in order to maintain good upper body form. Made it much easier.

With the progression of the three rounds, I did progressively better, as I figured out what I was supposed to be doing, and how to do it. I managed in the second and third rounds to keep the two guys in my pod from passing me in the 75% runs by actually running at my 75% effort level, instead of just running with no focus. I think one of the guys was a bit annoyed that he couldn't pass me. Felt good to annoy him.

I also managed to increase my supine rows from 8 to 10 by the third set, which isn't bad, as I had half the time to complete that number in the last set, when compared to the first set.

So, I did okay in the workout. The warmups were more interesting to me. They're usually a workout in and of themselves. This particular instructor's workouts always seem hurried, like he has so much he wants to get in that he rushes everyone. I felt the same way last week, too. He doesn't wait for the slower people, to the detriment of their warmups. Like my warmup.

However, today, he pulled out the ladder, so I lined up first in line when he moved to it. No way was I going to be behind someone who slowed me up on these things. I hadn't forgotten how much I really like warming up with ladders, and by golly was I going to be first!

And, by golly, was I happy I was. Most of the class (read: all but one other person besides me) were inexperienced on the ladders, expressing beliefs that the instructor was making up the ladder drills to do. He wasn't. I recognized all of them, but one. I also surprised the heck out of him, when I followed him through the ladder, as quick as he had been, with fluid motion that clearly indicated I had done ladder work before. I even accelerated a few steps after the end of the ladder, broke down my run, and turned back to run back to the starting line.

Only to wait for the other 9 people in class to go through the line.

Probably good that I had to wait. I would have tired myself out too quickly without the rest.

What I found interesting about this particular part of the warmup was the lack of experience on the ladders that several seemingly athletic people in the group had. I would have expected them to have ladder experience. Or at least more coordination at learning new skills than they had.

What I also found interesting was the lack of speed one of the other women had. I expected to have difficulty keeping up with one of the athletic women in the class, during the 100% acceleration part of the warmup.

I didn't.

Maybe she doesn't have that first five steps quickness. Maybe she's injured.

Maybe, just maybe, I psyched myself out unnecessarily. AGAIN.

I don't know. I just do know that my 100%, inspired by a desire to keep up with her, was faster than her 100% for those two warmups.

And yeah, I'm being stupid. They were WARMUPS. Yeah, yeah.

After the workout, which was done by 10 until the hour, the instructor offered "mud ball," which is a game of passing a swiss ball (those are the 36" inflated exercise balls) among team members, without travelling or handoffs. Six catches makes the other team do six pullups.

Given my experience last week, I declined to play, opting to stretch out my right hamstring, which has been giving me problems when I don't stretch it out regularly. I was very glad, two minutes into the game, that I chose not to play.

The first incident had one classmate lunging too far to block a pass, and flying with the ball in front of him onto a wall mounted rack, puncturing the ball, and bouncing him back. Not five minutes later, two other classmates were jostling for the ball, and went over, landing on the wall, bouncing off, landing on the swiss ball and sliding off, all while missing the sharp corners of a jump box by maybe 2". Maybe.

During the game, I saw with some satisfaction, more of the frustration I had last week, of some people playing under certain expectation of play (a restart after a contested play, no travelling, more than 6" passes that look like handoffs, things that annoyed me last week). I commented to another classmate sitting out that the rules are so ill-defined, no one should be surprised at any contest. She said, yeah, we kinda make them up as we go along.

"Mud ball? Bah. We should call this Calvinball."

First practice

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 22:31 on 11 May 2008

I went to my first Mischief practice for the season today. It was at Baylands and, well, Baylands kept up its reputation by having just the best, gusty winds. I headed over late because, well, uh, can I just say some stupid game distracted me at an inopportune moment and leave it at that? Yeah, stupid game. I hate it.

So, when I arrived, and saw a big "Park Closed, Private Event" sign, along with a long line of cars out of the park entrance, I was simutaneously annoyed (the park is NEVER closed for a private event, you can reserve the picnic areas, but not the whole park; the sign was deliberately misleading to keep "undesirables" out), and worried (I was late, and needed to get to practice, and I was late, and Andy doesn't like when people are late, and did I mention I was late? Yeah). So, I pulled a yooey (sound it out), parked across the street and ran.

Now, the nice thing about running over is that you're warmed up when you arrive at the fields. I'm reaching here, to find SOME good benefit of being late. On my run over, I decided that, regardless of what happened at this practice, I would forgive myself any errors. Having spent all of these years criticizing myself for bad plays during ultimate, instead of immediately trying to figure out what I should have done instead, visualizing the correct action, and moving onto what I needed to do next offensively or defensively, I've decided that this season I'll be more proactive in what I think, instead of destructive. I figure, what I've been doing hasn't worked, why not try this?

Out of breath, and in a hurry, I dropped my stuff, pulled of my pantaloones and hoodie, exchanged shoes, and dashed out to warm up with the team. I noted the people who crossed the street in front of me, but didn't hussle over, had to do a warmup lap to get their legs going before jumping into the warmups. I admit to being pleased at my hussle-double-duty.

As has been the trend over the last 2-3 seasons, the practice was well organized, thought out and well run. We started with a series of warm-up cuts in a box, then progressed to a review (for returning players, and an introduction for new players) of our pull plays. We then ran them for a while.

Next up was 8 pull, where each team receives the disc and has one chance to score, the defense having one chance to score on a turn. I think the end score was like 2-4-10 or something for dark / light / and neither scoring.

At this point, I was tired. Not exhausted, but definitely feeling my lack of fitness. The next drill, however, focused on isolation cutting, and whoo-boy, did I not realize I how tired I was until after this drill.

The drill consisted of a receiver and defender in a 8 m x 8 m box, and a thrower about 3 m outside the box with a defender on him. The receiver can cut and move anywhere in the box he wants. The thrower needs to throw to the receiver by the end of a stall count starting on 5. The defender and marker are, of course, trying to prevent the completion.

When partnered up with Adam Leventhal as my thrower, crap, I could do no wrong in my cutting. With Adam as the defender and my marking, he could do no wrong. I had problems throwing to Adam, completing only 2 of my five throws. My iso defense wasn't as strong as I would have liked, blocking only 2 (might have been 3) of the throws. I really liked receiving from Adam, though he did zing one throw in hard enough to leave a nasty bruise. Need to up the vitamin K, I think.

I really liked the drill, as it gave me a chance to throw, throw, throw, granted in somewhat artificial circumstances, but it was still a lot of throwing in tight situations. I'm going to see if I can convince some teammates to continue this drill again some evening this week. Steffi expressed interest, so only 2-4 more people would be needed.

We then played a game to seven. Dark, my team, was up 3-1, before going down 5-3 to light. We brought the score back to 5-6, but eventually lost 5-7. The game was really interesting, though I was remarkably exhausted. I can't believe (well, okay, yes, I can) just how out of ultimate-shape I'm in. It's awful. The extra 20 pounds around my hips are definitely announcing themselves on my knees. I ate a fabulous breakfast this morning (vegetable scramble with cheese and a large odwalla citrus c), so now is a great time to keep up the good eating. Maybe I can get rid of those 20 in 10 weeks.

My hamstring, though announcing itself, wasn't too bad during the practice. A little bit of the topical aspirin, and I was running just fine.

The last part of practice was an elmination marking game. Essentially, two lines of players face each other, with the front of one line receiving, and the front of the other line throwing against a straight up mark. The receiver can't move (much) when receiving the disc from the thrower. Once a thrower throws, she runs to the front of the other line to mark, much like a three man marking drill.

Now, the trick of the game is, if the thrower overthrows, turfs, or is handblocked, she has to prevent a completed throw when she marks next. If she doesn't, she's out. If she does, then she continues to the back of the line. There are no penalties for the marker for a completed throw if she had a completed throw when she threw just before.

I managed to overthrow on my first throw, we were throwing upwind, which was the difficult direction. I then handblocked the woman I was marking, forcing her to block the next woman. Eventually, the chain ended and someone else was the first woman out (we split into men and women lines). I did well in the game, making it to the final 4 (I think, might have been 5), before throwing a crappy upwind throw that just went over my receiver. Liz Gannes won it all, having turfed her very first throw in the game. I really enjoyed this game, too, which should indicate how much I enjoyed practice today.

Though, I'm going to be really, really, really tired tonight. I'm happy.

Dark chocolate benefits

Interesting Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 13:53 on 16 December 2007

Lots and lots of news about the benefits of chocolate. Tragically, it refers to the dark version, which I can't say I particularly like.

Shape, December 2007, p 154

whine "I can't survive without something sweet every day."

Shape's response: Have an ounce of dark chocolate, which as just 150 calories, instead of your typical treat. "It's practically a health food," says Katz. Several studies have found that its flavonoids - a type of antioxidant - can lower blood pressure and improve circulation, two factors that may protect against heart disease. Dark chocolate offers about twice as many antioxidants and mil varieties - just an ounce boasts more of these disease-fighting compounds than 1 ½ cups of blueberries (one of the most antioxidant-rich foods), according to a USDA analysis. But pure chocolate is the way to go: chocolate desserts like brownies and chocolate chip cookies may contain dark chocolate, but they're also loaded with butter and sugar, so they aren't the healthiest way to get your antioxidants, says Katz.

At the supermarket, look for a chocolate bar made with at least 60 percent cacao - the higher the percentage, the less added sugar it contains. Don't like dark chocolate? You can get similar benefits from hot cocoa. Use natural cocoa; Dutch processed version (which will say " cocoa processed with alkali" on the ingredients list) have fewer flavonoids.

Constant soreness

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 19:09 on 18 July 2007

Last night, Brynne, Steffi and I met at the Foothill track to run in our own mini track workout. Our workout was short(ish):

2 x 400 m at quick, but not painful pace (which meant 1:40 laps)
4 x 200 m at accelerated pace (start striding, end sprinting)
2 x 100 m at fastest pace possible
5 x 5-10-5 shuttles, working on form, break down steps before turning
plyo mixup: stars, rockets, tucks followed by 5-10-15 or 10-20-30 shuttles
Abs

Having spent Tuesday morning in my pilates class, last night at the track was hard for me. This morning at Velocity Sports, however, wasn't so bad. I was actually able to sprint this morning, including pushing a weight sled. I had problems pulling the sled running backwards, but that happened at the end of the workout, in the last two minutes actually, so I was still pleased with the workout.

Usually soreness takes a couple days to settle into my muscles. With the continual workouts, I have constant soreness instead. When is my body going to adjust to these extra workouts? I'm ready already.

Don't try this at home

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 22:42 on 10 July 2007

I am now in the workout-every-day phase of my season. My hamstring is still bothering me, but it seems to be okay when I consciously stretch it several times a day like I'm supposed to.

I may, however, be overdoing the workouts. I'm not sure yet, because Sunday's practice was so hard for me, with the heat and my hamstring bothering me. Sunday's practice was four hours long, followed by a fairly light Monday workout at Velocity Sports. It had to be light, I was able to finish it.

This morning, Heather and I returned to the Center of Balance, this time in the morning to try another instructor. I suspected that, well, since VS has the hard instructor in the morning, so maybe CoB also has the hard instructor in the morning: only the hard core people would get up early in the morning to work out, right? Right.

Heather and I both broke a sweat in the same place in the workout, about 3/4 of the way into the hour long Pilates/Yoga/Core progression, and near the beginning of the abs set. Once again, there were maybe two exercises I couldn't do, but, because of the much smaller class size in the morning (8 people vs about 30 in the lunch class last week), I received individualized alignment help.

After adjusting both Heather and I on a particularly difficult ab position, the instructor asked if we were both soccer players. Apparently our builds, strengths and weaknesses, all implied the movement of soccer players. When Heather said, no, ultimate frisbee, the instructors face lit up. Clearly, yes, he was close in his first guess, but yes, ultimate made sense.

He encouraged us to stick with the program for a month and see how much better our sense of balance is. I think that's a fine idea, since he teaches Tuesdays and Thursdays, offset from the VS MWF morning schedule.

Of course, this will make me a morning person.

In the evening, I went to track practice. The workout didn't seem too hard on paper: 1 mile warmup run, 2 sets of 200-300-400-300-200. Two steps into the warmup run, however, and I knew this was going to be a very hard workout for me. Not only were my legs total moosh, but my left achilles was shooting up flares of hot-white-poker pains.

I managed to make it through one set of 200-300-400-300-200 with careful running to minimize my achilles aggravation, before I gave up during the break and left early.

Since my legs were moosh, I decided an ice bath was in order, so filled the tub with cold water, skipping the ice. A few screeches later and a magazine later, and I was sitting in the bathtub, the really really cold bathtub. I kept moving slightly to prevent the thin layer of water next to my skin from warming up, which I'm sure made the whole process even colder. Lyndsay swears by these things, so cold water it is.

Three articles later, I was done with my 20 minutes in the water. As I stood up from the bath water, I realized I was about to dump all of this water down the drain, when all I did was sit in it. It may not have been clean enough to drink (or it might have been), but it was certainly clean enough to put on my plants.

After drying off, I wandered to the backyard for a hose. Guy had bought a potable water hose for me last week, as "potable" is the only type of hose I'll buy or use at this point, so I had one that would work for the syphoning I had planned.

After filling the hose with water, I kept trying to figure out how to get the other end out the window and onto the ground without letting air into the line. I gave up after about five minutes, threw the hose out the window, verified the one end was still submerged in the bathtub, and wandered outside.

My plan was to get the water out of the tub, onto my garden. The problem, however, was getting the water flow to start.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to use a 25' hose as a drinking straw for tub water?

It's hard. I bruised my lips in a circle trying to suck the water onto the garden. I mean, hello? How many people do you know have circle bruises on their lips? (Me? I know of only one.) Worse, done to save less than 2 cents of water?

Eventually I realized the suction was going to fail, and I ended up using a bucket and hauling the water from the tub to the garden the old fashioned way: by hand.