TWO MILES MORE

Old picture from 2012 maybe?

Saturday I decided it was time to go for another run. The first one seemed to be a success, so I looked forward to building on that. Matt and Katie were kind enough to humor me for two miles at a slow pace so we ran a little jaunt from Matt's house that took all of 22 minutes. It was a little slower than my first run back, but it definitely felt easier and I was still able to talk and hold conversation until the very end with an uphill finish.

Anyways, after my first run my knees felt fine, no noticeable effect, but I was very sore afterwards. I likened it to running a half marathon pretty hard back when I was in shape. I'm happy to report I was barely sore at all after this run. So improvement there! A tinsy bit sore, but 95% better than last time. Knees felt the same too, no ill effects whatsoever from the run. Those two miles didn't put a cramp in my style at all. So that is encouraging.

So hopefully the knee braces are working! I haven't had a bad flare up since early November (after wearing the braces during most of the day). They have definitely been sore and whatnot at times, but it hasn't been too bad. So that's a little confusing. It's encouraging, but the knee thing still seems like a mystery. There is a lot of weird auto-immune shit in my immediate family, where your immune system starts attacking your own stuff, I'm almost wondering if the knees are related to that. That's probably a huge leap, but also kind of makes sense given the random nature of the flare ups and the fact they hung around even after doing NOTHING for months on end.

We'll see. Overall I feel things going in a positive direction. So that's encouraging. If I never get back to sub 1:40 halfs and 3:35 fulls I'll be okay. I had my time being "fast" and whatnot, and it was great. If I could just run (more like jog) for basic health I would consider that a win. A few miles a few times a week. Maybe if I am able to do that and my legs starting feeling good again I can slowly ramp it up and see what happens. I'm not super fixated on that though. I just want my body not to be in revolt.

I already signed up for the Miami Half Marathon in January just after finishing that race ten months ago. So I have two months to prepare for that. Luckily, I've been wanting to do it with my friend in Miami and he usually does about 2:45, which is 12:30/mile. We'll likely have another friend joining us looking to run that pace. So I think if I can get a small baseline of fitness back by then, maybe run five miles as a "long run" once or twice, I should be able to finish with them. Actually kind of looking forward to that, it would be a lot fun to do the race with friends.

That's the update. I'll try another run here in the next few days. The weather has turned really crappy so I might do it in the gym, who knows. Just going to keep proceeding cautiously until something changes.

RUN RESULTS

Your knees are shitty. Pretty, pretty, pretty shitty.

Well, five days have passed now since I did a two mile test run, and I'm happy to report that run did not cause any significant issues with my knees. I repeat, I WAS ABLE TO RUN TWO MILES WITHOUT MY KNEES BLOWING UP. Yay?!

After the run last Wednesday, I was just waiting for my knees to react and do their normal thing. However, to my surprise, they did not act out in a noticeable way. Normally, I would start feeling their wrath on Friday and by Saturday would be hobbling around. However, here it is Monday, and I am still kicking. Now, I wouldn't say my knees feel fantastic, they definitely felt a little worn and slightly sore, but they did not react in the major way I would expect.

Do this mean I am out of the woods? Absolutely not. Even when I was still running while battling the onset of this issue, I could run a couple of times before my knees would react and say "no more!" So, I am still worried about that issue. Sure, I can run two miles after five months of rest, but what happens when I try to run ten miles in a week? That is the next question. Am I able to scale this mini success at all?

Also, my muscles were definitely super sore. To their credit, after five months of nothing, I would expect them to respond "wtf" to actual activity. I likened my muscle feeling to that after running a half marathon hard back when I was in shape. Basically really sore muscles and slight hobbling the next few days after the run. Hopefully that soreness will lessen with each successive run. However, I am not entirely confident it will not increase with each run as the rest of my body compensates for my craptacular knees.

Anyways, that's all for now. Long story short, some hope, but I have been burned many times before and am not optimistic at all. I'll try running again here soon and continue to assess. I'm ready to get back out there!

FIRST RUN SINCE JULY

After my two miles yesterday.

Yesterday I ran for the first time since doing the 5k with Brandon on July 10th (man, I meant to write a recap of that). Before that run, I hadn't run in six weeks, on May 21st. So needless to say, it had been a while. Now that I have my new expensive fancy knee braces, I thought it would be a good time to take them for a spin.

When I got the knee braces I started wearing them a lot, during most the day really. I thought that could help some of the daily stress I put on my knees from going up stairs and walking around. I had a nice placebo effect for a few days before my knees blew up again. It was pretty frustrating. The only thing I could think of that triggered it was trick or treating, when I went up and down the stairs a dozen times to pass out candy. However, I was wearing my braces during that time, so I couldn't determine for sure if that was the cause.

And that's the thing. Even when I was doing nothing I would have these flare ups. Sometimes I could blame it on something, sometimes it was completely out of the blue. It would go in waves however, I would have a few good days, then the knees would flare for a few, then they'd calm down for a week, then they would flare again, etc. On and on. So did I trigger them or this is just something they are going to do?

Well, the Halloween flare up had calmed down and my knees felt good, so yesterday, when I got home from work and it was gorgeous outside, I decided to give it a whirl in my braces. If the knees flared up after, then I knew I was hosed. If they were fine, then... maybe the braces worked? Maybe I'll just continue to have random bouts of inflammation for a while that will slowly die down? Maybe if I wear my braces when doing activities, I can reduce triggering these episodes and they'll gradually fade, even if I am exercising some?

Who knows. I will tell you I'm sore as fuck after running. But that makes sense after about six months of being totally inactive. My legs kind of feel like after running a half marathon when I was in shape. I'm not worried about that though, I'm waiting for the knees to flare up. It's been 24 hours, usually the flare ups some 48-72 hours after the activity. So we'll see how it goes. Did the braces help and I won't have a flare up directly related to my run? Or will they do the usual and I'm $1500 in the hole with no answers?

As for the run, it went great. It felt good to be back out there and running didn't feel weird or painful or anything. It felt like hopping back on a bike after not riding for a while. I'm proud to report I was able to run two miles, nonstop, at 9:58 pace. Not bad. I wasn't sure I could do one mile, let alone two. Toward the end I was about to die and the run was totally exhausting and humbling, but I was able to do it. I did have a TINY bit of baseline fitness left.

So we'll wait for the results! If I can run without a direct effect on my knees, maybe I can run a 2-3 times a week for 2-3 miles without much issue. If my knees blow up though, it's back to the drawing board. I'm only 30... I shouldn't have to be inactive for an entire year or sometime for my fucking knees to calm down. Spoiler alert: this isn't going to work.

WOW

Boy was I wrong! LOL. Ugh.

2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION PREDICTION

Map courtesy 270toWin.com. Disappointed in you Ohio and Iowa. Not cool. Trump? Really?

So far I am 2/3 (67%).

I'm not sure how this became a tradition, but in 2004, long before 538 and those projection websites, I took my own stab at it. I failed pretty bad. In 2008 I did pretty well and in 2012 I nailed the EVs. To be fair, it has become much easier, as you can look at different websites and really get a good feel for the race.

This election is hard to call with the high undecideds. I'm posting this early, the Saturday before the election, because I have a few differences from 538 and it is just so easy to copy that, so I want to get credit for these states if they end up flipping light blue. Right now 538 has NV, NC, and FL all red. Close, but red. I think they go the other way. They also have the final margin HRC +3, I think it is more like +5.

Anyways, we'll see Tuesday night!

Electoral:

Clinton/Kaine     323
Trump/Pence      215

Popular Vote:

Clinton/Kaine    49.8%
Trump/Pence     44.5%
Johnson/Weld     3.5%
Stein/Baraka        0.9%
McMullin/Finn      0.7%
Others                  0.6%