health

Starting over

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 20:24 on 16 April 2007

Continuing in last night's conversation with Tyler, Kris and I talked a lot about ultimate and Mischief, me and my injuries. I commented how frustrated I was practice, and how I hadn't played well. I must have been particularly whiny, because he turned to me and commented, "Look, you've been injured for the last two years. You essentially haven't played ultimate for two years."

Yeah, put that way, I should give myself some slack.

In my effort to start over, I went for a run today. Even off days can be days of improvement. I went the Bernardo route, which is a fairly easy route, in 23 minutes. Last year, I ran it consistenty under 18, I think, so this is definitely a long road ahead of me.

Yeargh! Finger crushing!

Blog Posted by kitt at 17:22 on 24 March 2007

I smashed my left middle finger today and broke it.

Not a clean break like my ribs, but squished like my collar bone back in 1998, a few months before Kris and I started dating. Kris and I were cleaning the front yard, as we have been doing every spare minute for the last, what, five years? I moved from the blueberry patch to the front rocks, ripping weeds out and avoiding the one or two flowers that somehow survived.

Why I thought I could move a twenty pound rock, pull the weeds out, and put it back without difficulty, is beyond me. Yet, strangely enough, a belief not really foreign to my mind.

I dropped the rock the last centimeter, the point of the rock landing straight across the top of the second joint on my left middle finger, crushing it. Of course, like all truly great crushings, it didn't hurt until I couldn't get my hand out from under the rock.

And then it hurt like hell.

I managed to melt two ice cubes icing the joint before I could move my finger again.

The smooshing made me think about the other bones I've broken: four ribs two years ago, another rib back in '94, another rib broken sneezing back in '90, my collar bone in '98 and maybe a toe when I was in the sixth grade.

At least it was my left hand, and I can still throw.

Hamming the string

Blog Posted by kitt at 22:02 on 19 March 2007

After avoiding the subject for about two months, I finally went to the physical therapist for help with my hamstring. I've been playing on it since Kaimana, but not at top speed, and not without pain and a lot of worry. I knew vaguely what I needed to do for rehab for a normal muscle pull, sure. But the pop I felt/heard when I pulled it the last time, coupled with the seemingly long recovery time, gave me pause.

Apparently for good reason.

Instead of pulling or straining the hamstring muscle, I also pulled it off the bone. Similar to a shin splint, where the muscle's connective tissue to the bone becomes inflamed or begins to separate from the bone, the pop I heard was, according to the diagnosis I received, the disconnection of my hamstring from my pelvis at the insertion point.

This is bad.

Depending on the severity, the injury can take two months to six or more months to heal. The worst possible movement for this type of injury just happens to be explosive moves, say, sprinting and quick acceleration.

Greaaaaaaaat.

I'm supposed to stretch my hamstring ten times a day for the next six weeks as a good start. And work on abductors and adductors, as well as some gentle hamstring strengthening, during that time, too. Fortunately, I've been doing most of what I'm supposed to do for the hamstring to heal (minus that sprinting thing, and, oh, say, playing ultimate), I just need to do more of it (minus that sprinting thing, and, oh, say, playing ultimate).

Starting out a season with an injury has to be as bad as ending a season early because of an injury. Well, maybe. Since this is the first time I've had this happen, we'll see if that's valid. That, and if the 80 grams of protein I've been trying to eat a day will do more than just go to my middle.

24 hours of meat

Blog Posted by kitt at 10:22 on 24 February 2007

I don't eat much meat. If I know I need protein, I'll actively seek some meat in my meal, but for the most part, I'll eat vegetables, dairy and some breads. I'm not vegetarian, I'll eat meat, I just won't crave it, or eat it by default.

Friday for lunch, however, was a little different. I was cold, the day blustery and overcast, so I ordered soup at the local Vietamese restaurant. Changing from my usual order twice, I ordered the egg noodles with beef balls pho. Doyle looked at me when I ordered. "I wouldn't order beef balls. You don't know what's in them."

No, I don't. And in retrospect, shouldn't have ordered them.

In the evening, Kris was heading out of town to spend Saturday with his parents in Southern California. Since he was in a hurry, we defaulted to grabbing a meal at McDonalds. I don't know why we ever go there. Except for the ice cream cones, the food is always suspect. And stinks.

Yet, I ate a cheeseburger, just waiting for that moment where the sweet ketchup, bun and pickle overwhelm the "meat" pattie for that one tasty bite that almost makes the rest of the cheeseburger worth it.

An hour later, I was on my way to pick up half the players from the women's team I'm coaching, to drive them to this weekend's tournament. The fields were changed at the last minute, from Stanford to Stevinson, California, 100 miles by road east-ish. One mountain range kept the distances from being only sixty miles as a straight shot.

In the morning, I found myself back at McDonalds, wondering what to order. The $3.50 charge on my credit card, all of my cash in my bookbag at home, paid for the sausage egg McMuffin™ on my plate. I managed to eat half of it before I was overcome with disgust at all the fake meat I had eaten in the last twenty-four hours.

I stopped eating, and threw the rest away.

It'll be interesting to see how my crap smells in the next couple days.

Yeah, yeah, don't talk about poop.

Whatever.

A well know fact is that vegetarians' body odor smells better than meat-eaters', so the smell of the bathroom when I done with it will be different than normal in a day. I haven't eaten such a large amount of crappy meat in a long, long time, so I do have to wonder how much the room will really stink.

Pop goes the hammy!

Blog Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 20:16 on 5 January 2007

As usual, we went to Velocity Sports tonight for our Friday night date, er, workout. We warmed up as usual with the rollers, followed by various warmup exercises including jumping jacks of various forms, 50% sprints, and walking, dynamic stretches.

The bulk of the workout consisted of sprints. With eleven people in the class, the instructor, "the short white dude," had to compensate by having us do shuttle relays. Two groups of four offset one group of three, as we did alternating shuttles. I was matched up with another regular, one who regularly matches up with another regular, so I wasn't sure how I matched with him.

When we started the sprints, he was consistently finishing the 20 yards sprints 2 yards in front of me. Sure, it was less than two steps in front of me, but that distance frustrated me, partially because I knew one of those steps was from the start: he started before the returning sprinter crossed the line. The other step was because he was faster than I. So, I kept trying to run faster and faster and faster.

The third set we did was my closest step. The continual sprinting was wearing him down, but helping me out. Yay, ultimate.

Fifteen yards into the sprint, I felt my left upper hamstring pull. I immediately started slowing, but the next step caused a full POP! as my hamstring gave way. I stumbled the last three steps to the end of the sprint, and hobbled off the track as I tried not to vomit, nausea overwhelming me.

The pull/strain/tear was right at my sit bone, much higher than my usual hamstring injuries, so it's going to take some time to figure out which muscle this is, if it is even the hamstring.

All I'm thinking about at this moment is how do I heal and recover to rock at the tryouts this next season?

Wow! He's fast!

Blog kitt decided around 22:32 on 29 November 2006 to publish this:

In these last few weeks, I've come to realize that, yes, I need structure for my workouts. I certainly have the best intentions when it comes to exercising, but the lure of sleep, or fixing one more bug, or reading another chapter in King Solomon's Mines, via Daily Lit (which I highly recommend as an easy way to read a book, less than five minutes a day to literature bliss). Or, heaven forbid, it's cold out. Cold and dark, bad combination for my evening workouts, to be sure.

ASA Baseball was great for structured workouts, the small class size (that would be two: Kris and I) also helped. Gino was fantastic. The facilities were ridiculously close. Yeah, I miss those workouts. Miss them, and have spent the last year trying to find a good replacement.

A couple months ago, Paul Youn made a mention of a sports training facility, Velocity Sports, in San Carlos. Based on the various injuries I had during the season, waiting until after the season ended seemed like a good idea. Now that the season is over, I followed up on Paul's suggestion and made arrangements for Kris and I to check out Velocity Sports.

The facility is two blocks away from the San Carlos train station, and about 20 minutes away from work by car for Kris. San Carlos isn't terribly convenient, but the location is somewhat workable. I trained up, Kris drove, and we had our first class.

When we showed up, there were ten other people already in the lobby, waiting for the class to start. I followed Kris in, and we joined the rest of the class to go over a roller-stick warmup, followed by walking dynamic stretches, crouch-extend-crouch-jumps, step-ups, sprints and situps. The class size made addressing specific needs difficult, but I thought the trainer did fairly well with what he had. Normally, classes are limited to 10 people, but three people showed up unexpectedly (Kris and I were both expected).

Honestly, looking at the description of the classes, I was expecting to have a hard time with the class. I was expecting to jump into Gino's fourth month classes, with ladders, med ball throws, upper body impossibilities like clapping pushups, and six minutes of intense abs. What I wasn't expecting to be the fourth fastest person in the class. Kris says fifth, but I'm convinced I could beat one of the guys he thought was faster.

We did the sprints as shuttles: we divided into two groups, each group standing in a line thirty yards apart, facing each other. One person would sprint the thirty yards toward the other group. The next person in the opposing group would start sprinting when the previous person crossed the thirty yards next to him. We did six sprints total.

After three sprints, several of the people in my group turned to me when Kris ran past on his sprint. "Wow!" they exclaimed, "did he run track in college? He's fast!" Confused, I looked around, and realized they were asking about Kris. "Oh, no, he played baseball in college, but we both play ultimate frisbee." "OH!" they all exclaimed. Apparently that explained everything.

When I told Kris about the story afterward, he laughed. Yes, he was the fastest there, but clearly the bar was set low if he was, "Wow, he's fast!" fast. We continued to laugh most of the way home.

I think we'll be signing up for the offseason workouts there. The train makes the deal. The morning sessions have fewer people, so we'll probably try those.

Velocity Sports also has team training, where a team can rent the facility for an hour for group training tailored to its needs. The rate is reasonable ($175/hour), so I'm going to suggest offseason training for the team. If we can get 12 people signed up for 10 weeks of training once a week, it'll be $120 per person, but tailored for us. Could be fun.