Hmph.

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Migraines: 10
Menstruations: 4

Emergency rooms: 0

Each of us has a burden.

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Number nine yesterday. Number god-damned fucking nine yesterday day. I'm fucking 35 years old. I should be done with these horrible things. I run. I exercise. I eat all the good stuff I'm supposed to eat. I don't smoke. I don't drug up. I don't toke. I have problems consuming bubbly drinks or even caffeinated ones. Why the hell do I have these totally fuck-up-your-life throw-you-down-and-step-on-you stupid mi-fucking-graine headaches. I'm tired of them! TIRED.

My grandfather had them. My father had them. How did I become so lucky as to inherit them from the male side of my family? My grandfather outgrew them. My dad lost the pain of his. Of course, if we go back another generation, the migraines come from my great grandmother, my dad's dad's mother. Argh.

I guess we all have our burden. We all have that one quirk that makes us who we are, that one burden that shapes our lives. I have my migraines. Kris has his Crohn's. Chris has diabetes. Everyone has something. If we don't, we probably make it up.

My friend Robin Saxen (who I've sadly fallen out of touch with) and I were once comparing childhoods. I thought mine was bad, then heard hers. I consider hers much worse and said as much. She replied, "We all have our burdens. Who's to say which burden is heavier than the next? We have them, we carry them. Your load is never more than you can handle."

Yeah, I miss Robin.

I'd like to think I chose this burden. That, before I was born I was given a menu of fantastic features I could have, with the associated burdens that go with them. That I chose all my good qualities, and thought to myself, "These headaches? I can manage them. I can bear them, because I know the gifts I have in compensation."

Because my gifts are many. And my blessings are more.

Migraines: 9
Menstruations: 4

In another life, we'd be friends

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On my journey to mom's house for the weekend (a girlie weekend! Whoo!), I flew out of San Jose to Phoenix on Southwest. Kris hates them, I like the free trips. Go fig.

At any airport, there are little things that happen that, well, shouldn't annoy me, but so often do. On most trips even.

As I was walking to the security line, another passenger was walking in front of me towards the line entrance. Usually, I'll just cut under the rope, as the distance to walk is shorter. This time, however, since there was another passenger in front of me walking to the entrance, I would be jumping in front of him by cutting under the rope. So I walked around. Turns out, the passenger I would have been cutting in front of wasn't going to the security line, but I had no way of knowing that.

So, into the line I started walking. From the entrance to the end of the line is all of maybe 10 yards. When I was about five yards from the end of the line, two people cut under the rope and step in front of me. Great.

Another I can comment, but not condemn sort of situations. Here they are doing something I do all the time, but not being any where near as courteous about it. Grrrrrrr....

Fine.

I can be an adult about this.

So, I wander through the security gates. (And didn't get searched! Holy Jesus how I've been blessed! I didn't get searched! A record of one time for me now!)

Did you know you have to present your boarding pass to exit the security gates now? Yes, that's right. Present your pass to enter the checkpoint. Present your pass to be scanned through the metal detector. And present your pass to leave. I'm so glad we don't live in an occupied militaristic society. How unfortunate that would be that you would have to present your papers to travel.

Off to gate A5 and into the A line. Southwest has this really nice "print your boarding pass from home at midnight" feature, so I had already "checked-in" to my flight. Thank goodness, as I arrived at the airport at 11:00 am for my 11:35 flight!

As I'm waiting at the end of the A line, after talking to various people about which line was the correct one, and discovering several B-group passengers were deliberately standing in the A-group line so that they could move to the front (clever they, one of them called me Canadien), I set my stuff down at the end of the A line.

A few minutes later, a women came up, asked the people in front of me which line was the A line, and plunked her crap down in front of me.

What the?

The back of the line is after all the other passengers, not just the ones you talk to.

As my usual vindictive self, when the A line was moving and crowded funny (because the B-group people in the A line stopped moving forward because they weren't in the A boarding group), I walked around the crowd and cut back in front of the line-cutting woman.

The tragic part, I think, is that she was someone who I would normally approach and start a conversation with. She was about a decade older than me, but seemed easy going and approachable. shrug

My favorite part of the journey? The kid kicking my chair in flight. Let me tell you how joyous the thump, thump, thump of little feet is on the back of an airline seat can be.

Thump, thump, thump

What the?

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Much to my surprise, I had a date with number 8 yesterday. For those paying attention, that's two in two days. Two less than 30 hours apart. Two moments of blindness so close together.

I went to practice yesterday evening. I didn't play particularly hard. I couldn't: my ribs hurt, my left shin hurt, my head hurt, and I'm woefully out of shape.

Still, I played as hard as I could. My defense was sorely lacking. I was able to anticipate fairly well, but couldn't quite turn sharply enough to keep up.

After practice, we came home and I started doing a little work on the UPA site, catching up a bit on the problems.

After a bit, I noticed I couldn't see very well. So, I went out to talk to Kris, asked him to look at a site bug for me, popped another codeine (did I mention I'm almost out?), and went to sleep.

I woke at about 1 am and worked again on the UPA site, until 3 or so.

Sigh. Migraines winning 8 to 4.

Fast track to fitness

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Lisa is so awesome. She knows I need to get back into shape for Regionals, and so has designed a workout to help me as best as possible. I'm so lucky to have friends like Lisa.

Date:    Thu, 16 Sep 2004 10:21:52 -0700
From:  	 Lisa Timmins
To:  	 Kitt Hodsden
Subject: massage & intervals

Hi Kitt,

Couple of things:

I have some time during the day tomorrow (Friday) -- if
you're available for massage, let me know.  I'd love to
promote the healing of your ribs!

And, along those lines, I thought I'd share with you some
ideas for jump-start-you-into-uber-ultimate-shape track 
workouts.  As I mentioned the other night at dinner, I'd 
focus on mid-length intervals (400's and 200's) for now.
That way you can focus more on maintaining a faster pace 
than you would in going out for a 2-3 mile run.  By giving 
yourself minimal rest in between intervals (i.e. not allowing
yourself to recover fully), you are actually boosting your
cardiorespiratory capacity as much as you would by doing
longer endurance runs.  Not to mention that you're doing
so at a race pace that's much more similar to ultimate 
(i.e. fast!) AND increasing your recovery capacity as well.

All workouts begin with 2-3 warm-up laps, light stretching, 
high knees & butt kicks, etc., and a couple 50m accelerators 
(get to a sprint by the end).  They end with 2-3 cool-down 
laps and light stretching.

Stay healthy!  Monitor your injuries and don't put yourself 
over the edge.

Aim for a 90-second pace on the 400s, a 65-second pace on
the 300s, and a 35-40-second pace on the 200s.  Run the
100s as fast as you can move your legs.

I'm listing 3 progressive workouts here, with the idea that
you can squeeze them all in before Regionals (every 5-7 
days) and still have time to "taper."  You can do alternate 
fitness stuff (Gino, easy run, etc.) on the other days.

 
TRACK WORKOUT #1
Warm up.
4x400, rest 75 seconds between each 400.
Break for 2:30.
4x400, rest 75 seconds between each 400 .
Break for 2:30.
4x400, rest 75 seconds between each 400 
  (third set only if you feel like you can handle it).
Cool down.

TRACK WORKOUT #2
Warm up.
4x400, rest 75 seconds between each 400.
Break for 3:00.
4x300, rest 55 seconds between each 300.
Break for 3:00.
6x200, rest 45 seconds between each 200.
Cool down.
 
TRACK WORKOUT #3
Warm up.
4x300, rest 55 seconds between each 300.
Break for 2:30.
4x200, rest 45 seconds between each 200.
Break for 2:30.
4x200, rest 45 seconds between each 200.
Break for 2:30.
4x100, rest 30 seconds between each 100.
Cool down.

Remember that these are pretty tough workouts, so if you're 
feeling like they're not that challenging, either a) you're 
not running hard enough, or b) you're already in good enough 
shape!  I'm not going to say "no pain, no gain," but do 
realize that you have to push your body outside of its usual 
comfort zone in order to achieve results.  Give 'em a try 
and see what you think.

-Lisa 

First ASA class in 3 weeks!

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Given my migraine today, working out at ASA was probably the least intelligent action I've taken in the last year. Well, that coupled with the lack of complete rib healing.

The workout was a fairly easy one, as these things go. I didn't want a hard one. And I didn't want one with a lot of jumping!

We started with ladders. The usual, nothing new this time.

We then progressed to hopping over hurdles for form running. The plan is to run with the feet cocked to minimum lost of momentum on foot plant and extend. My left foot tends to point out, so I concentrated on bringing it in. Despite clearing the tall hurdles by 3-4", I still twisted my left foot in or out.

We did two sets of both feet step between each hurdle, right foot first, then left foot first; then hopping with both feet together; then hopping sideways left foot first, then hopping sideways right foot first, then one foot between each hurdle, starting with the left, then starting with the right.

That might have been better in a list format.

Next came hopping over the hurdles, followed by sprinting forward quickly. Sometimes the bounding felt good, sometimes I knew I was off. I did 10 jumps (5 each way) over the 6" hurdle then sprint forward, repeat 5 times. Kris had to jump over the 12" hurdle 20 times before sprinting.

We alternated the drill of jump up with a weighted ball between and catch the ball at chest level with the drill of jump down from a 12" box landing with both feet and springing up to a 24" box. We did these two drills three times each, alternating, adding the weighted ball on the second and third box hops.

A short shuttle run was next. We started at a cone, then sprinted to the right 5 yards, stopped, turned around and sprinted 10 yards back, then stopped and turned around to sprint back 5 yards to our starting point. Kris' times were around 4.7 to 4.3. Mine were 6.0, 5.8. 5.7, 5.3 and 5.7.

Last we had abs. I was unable to do most of them (read: 95% of them) because of my ribs, so I did what I could, which was little. Kris, on the other hand, caught the full force of the abs and was exhausted at the end.

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