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%

ANSWERS?

Not my knee, but it looked like this.

So I made an appointment and went back to the orthopedic sports doctor about my knees. This time we had x-rays done before the appointment to rule out some of the things that could be causing my troubles. So, for the first time in my life other than my teeth, I got an x-ray. It was an interesting experience. Always concerning when you have to cover your balls with a lead apron, but I'm sure they're fine.

Anyways, once those were done I met with the doctor and... everything looks normal. Based on his physical examination there is no tear of my meniscus, and based on the x-rays there are no bone spurs or deterioration of the meniscus that would be causing any issues either. He said the x-rays looked completely normal. Pretty much like the picture I included, which is a top result for "normal knee x-ray."

He doesn't seem to think an MRI would really reveal anything other than inflamed meniscus behind the knees, so that was the diagnosis. Based on my symptoms, pretty much everything lines up with that. Now, normally the inflammation goes down with rest, but in my case progress has been glacial at best. This was something, the knee stuff, I was struggling with for a long time if you look back in my blog. So I built it up over time. That, coupled with the fact I seem to be a slow "recoverer," whether it be muscle soreness, a scab, or inflamed meniscus, has led to this point.

Another issue is that your everyday life continues to irritate the meniscus if it is already irritated. So just day to day walking and going up stairs is enough to keep it from healing very much once it is bad. So what's the next step? Knee braces. I am the proud owner of nearly $400 worth of knee brace technology. Now, I really only have to wear these during physical activity, but since I have gotten them I have pretty much been wearing them all day. Can't hurt, and I wasn't healing much, if at all, when I was a total coach potato.

Sexy, right?

The braces basically take a majority of the load that would normally put stress on my meniscus. I don't know exactly how, but instead of that pressure going to my knees, it is transferred to the brace. My knees do feel better with them on. I purposefully flared my knees up over the weekend before the appointment, and in the doctor's office a squat which was super painful without the brace was now doable with the brace. Same with the stairs. Instead of walking down like an old man, I was able to walk down normal. It didn't solve 100% of the issues, but it took away 95% of it. So that was nice.

Long story short, we are trying this. In fact, I have even been cleared to run with them. I'm not super eager to start running right away, I'll probably test a little bit, but we'll see. I don't want to really start running until the inflammation goes down for a while. The next step is cortisone shots in my knees, which would probably help, but I'd like to avoid if possible. Don't wary fair readers I'll keep you in the loop!

FIVE MONTHS

The Portland Marathon was last weekend. I kind of missed it.

It's been about five months since I stopped running due to my knee weirdness. Is anything better? It's hard to say. A little perhaps. The random muscle soreness has gone away. The leg muscle pain was always after activity, so I think it is pretty clear that was tied to whatever was going on with my knees. I did have some muscle soreness after some activity recently (I think it was when I played tennis) but it was minor compared to when I was back running. The only thing that really remains now is the knee stuff. So I think it is clear the knee stuff is really the root of all this.

Still zero answers in the knee deal. Per the doctor request, I've been taking it easy. VERY easy. Two months of very limited activity other than walking for my normal life. The frustrating part is my knees are still sore. Is it better? Ehhh. Hard to tell. It definitely "flares" up... there are days where I feel almost normal and then there are days were it is bad. When it is bad walking down stairs or down an incline really can hurt. If I "warm" my knees up though it gets better, not gone, but better. I should probably start a spreadsheet to track how my knees are doing because the progress might be incremental enough that I'm not noticing. Still though, it's been FIVE MONTHS and I am still having the problem.

The next step is to go to the doctor and get some sort of imaging done. Considering I'm 70% of the way to my $1500 deductible I should probably do that soon. In fact, I think that'll be my next step in a couple of weeks. Could I continue on my current course and have things get better? Maybe. However, in the end I still wouldn't know exactly what was wrong and if it would happen again. So I really would like an answer. I would like to get back to running, maybe next spring if I can get well, so I don't want to do that and just have this crap all happen again.

UPDATE - I'M NOT ON THE VERGE OF DEATH

Well, I guess I'll finally give you guys an update. I got my results from the blood work about two weeks ago. The good news is it all came back normal. And after roasting in the sun for a week on vacation, I'm sure my Vitamin D levels are good now too. So no weird auto-immune thing or early MS or something crazy like that. Not even my self diagnosis of arthritis! Drat! So the mystery continues.

One thing I did notice though is once I stopped doing the PT, I felt immediately better. I haven't done PT for almost a month now and I've felt almost back to normal. I haven't done much exercise either, other than general walking, but it's nice to feel normal. It took about a week after I stopped for it to really kick in, but I am able to walk down stairs now and my knees feel almost back to normal. I've even been able to do a couple very minor physical things, like walk around Hershey Park all day, walk 18 holes of golf, etc. and have nary a complaint from the legs.

Now, if I were to go on a three mile run or something I would probably feel it. However, after discussing with the sports injury doctor, we are going to try a new approach. Since we haven't determined the cause yet, I could have just really irritated the "tissue" (I forget what it is called) behind the knee. It could have caused a lot of my symptoms and it takes a while to "flare down" after being irritated, and the PT kept irritating it. I think the random muscle pain was throwing off both the PT and sports injury guy, but I think that may have been from really overcompensating for my knees. I honestly don't know. Maybe some of it WAS the muscle weakness my PT worked on and if I were to go back to activity those symptoms would be gone.

I'm not going to start doing anything though until I know for sure my knees are better. And while I feel almost back to normal, I can tell they are still a little irritated. I'll rest until next spring if I have to. I'm honestly in no rush. So the goal now is to just rest. I'm not opposed to going on a walk or playing golf or whatever, but I'm not going to force myself to be active when it could be hindering my recovery. I'll just eat a little less and call it good. My pants still fit exactly the same as they did a month ago, so we'll call that a win.

So that's the update. I really do miss running at times, but overall I'm okay taking some time off. I've always wanted an excuse, and now I have it. I really hope I can run again at some point, I love the races and the social aspect, so we'll see where this goes! For now though, just enjoying not being in chronic pain.

PT UPDATE... ONTO BLOOD WORK

Updated self portrait.

Well, turns out there is not much to write about on a running blog when you are not running. I will write the recap of the 5k I did with Brandon a few weeks ago. In the meantime, I'll give you an update on my physical therapy and trying to get back to running.

Basically, the physical therapy isn't working. All the muscle groups we were targeting were getting noticeably stronger and yet I was having the same issues. The fact that I haven't been running at all for three months now (spare that one run with Brandon) and that I am still getting the weird leg stuff is eye opening. I thought if I stopped running it would basically go away (until I ran again). That seemed to be the result when I would take breaks earlier.

Well, I'll get super sore for practically no reason now. My calves, hamstrings, quads, and glutes often will get way tighter than they should with any physical activity. However, when I am doing nothing my knees also flare up. They are just swollen and sore feeling. It hurts to walk down an incline or walk down stairs. If I "warm them up" they feel okay, but I still don't have the mobility or agility I should have as a 29 year old. Basically, my PT is stumped. I don't blame her.

So I've been referred to a sports injury doctor who specializes in leg crap. Basically he agrees with the PT and would have done the same thing. However, now that PT has been shown to not really be working, we have to dig deeper. And that includes a lot of blood tests. So I'm currently awaiting the results of those. Hopefully it's nothing fucked up. The doctor didn't say anything, but arthritis kind of hits some of the right notes. Which would be pretty fucked up! So hopefully it's not that! Hopefully it is some sort of deficiency/imbalance in my iron or Vitamin D or electrolytes or something. He made it sound like he was leaning that way as opposed to anything more "major" (probably to not scare me off and make sure I come back) so hopefully that's the case.

Anyways, I'll probably get the results sometime later this week. We'll see what happens!

2016 RUM RUN 10K RACE RECAP

The new starting line this year at Big Al's in Beaverton. The start of a hilly adventure!

This recap is way late and is going to lack detail because I was basically just running this race for "fun." I had decided a few days earlier that my knee situation was not going to resolve itself and I needed to get some help. I believe I ran at PRC on the Monday before and it really made me sore for a few days so I basically just rested up and knew this would probably be my last run for a long while. By this time I was getting out of shape and with my whole leg situation... I wasn't going to kill myself.

Anyways, Katie was also doing the race but she was doing the 5k, which started later. So I drove to the start line and picked up my bib and waited around for it to start. It was raining pretty hard for a while before the race, but luckily it cleared up for the race itself. When the race started I was happily toward the back of the pack and kind of just went with the flow. It was nice to have zero pressure for the race. Usually, even if I'm not trying to PR, I have SOME sort of goal. I literally had no goal for this race other than to finish under an hour.

No event pictures this year, so beer!

The location changed this year from Tualatin to Beaverton, which was kind of a bummer. I liked it being in my old hometown. That being said, it went from a 16 minute drive to a 4 minute drive, so that was nice. Unfortunately, despite Energy Events proclamations, the course was not "flat" or even "mostly flat." Motherfucker was hilly. Way hillier than the Tualatin course. It was fun-ish to have the new course, but in the end I prefer the old one. The parks of Tualatin/Tigard with the lake finish was pretty nice.

I settled into about an 8:50/mile pace and called it good. It wasn't the fastest pace I could have gone, but with my fitness it wasn't easy either. Starting at Big Al's in Beaverton, it quickly wound around some local neighborhoods before heading toward towards Roy Rogers and coming back on Bull Mountain Road. I told you it was hilly. Despite the very rolling hills my mile times stayed pretty consistent as the ups and downs seemed to balance out.

That is until Bull Mountain Road. I had a 10:18 mile climbing that thing. Not fun. Really wish I would have been in shape like when I ran a 1:46 at Bald Peak that one year. I would have sprinted up that thing no problem. Anyways, I got up it and didn't need to walk or anything like some of the people around me (who quickly burned me back on the downhill). I kind of enjoyed being back with the "common folk" ... it's a lot more fun! They tend to be chattier and you can distract yourself easier. Anyways, I couldn't take advantage of the downhills quite like I would have wanted because of my knees. Oh well.

Starting around mile four I had a really, shall I say, pressing, issue. I had to poop. Bad. Bounding down Bull Mountain didn't help. It got to the point where I was actively scanning for a port-a-potty. I was hesitant to go poop though because I knew my hour goal might be in jeopardy. I only had a couple minute cushion and that could make things very close. At some points I was checking out bushes and other areas I could dart off to. Around mile five I spotted a port-a-potty at a house with construction going on. I deliberated and even took a couple steps in that direction. I eventually decided I could hold it another nine minutes.

A very weakly poured mojito. Still good!

I was BARELY able to hold on. I had to slow my running down to keep it at bay. At one point I had to shuffle and clench. It was bad. I should have stopped. I was going to poop my pants. Luckily, I was able to make it to the finish line. I think I set a world record from the finish line to the back of the parking lot where the bathrooms were. Sweet, sweet relief. Once that was over I wandered around until I found Katie, who finished the 5k right behind me.

After that we had our beers and mojitos. It was fun. I always like this event, even when there are problems. Mostly I was just glad I didn't have an accident. Overall my running was alright. I averaged 8:58/mile and it was way harder than it should have been. I knew it was my last run for a while so I tried to enjoy it the best I could. In the end it was a fun time... I'm glad I did it and took a slightly easier pace and Katie was there to hang with afterward.

Official results: 55:06, 8:58/mile. 88/419 overall, 58/136 male, 5/11 M25-29.