Flu-Landia

Russel Hiatt, you've just run your first marathon now what are you going to do???

I'M GOING TO FLU-LANDIA!!!

So here it is a full week after the marathon and I am finally feeling back to my old self. There were a few dark signs early on that something sinister was afoot like a tickle in my throat last Friday night and the beginnings of an irritated cough as a result of the tickle. But I managed in finest Zircon style to hold those symptoms at bay at least until Saturday night. After the mararthon we headed home to relieve Amy's folks who had been watching Carter and Gracen for the day. I then proceeded to take an hour and a half nap. Then woke up had some yummy Mellow Mushroom pizza, and then head to bed by around 7 p.m.

Some time during the night I woke up feeling hot and ran my fingers through my hair to find my entire head sopping wet like I was in the middle of a long sweaty run. Gross I know, I fell back asleep and woke up probably a couple of hours later in the same situation. Ok definitely not a good sign but again I fell back asleep with the fever broken and I assumed over. I woke up the next morning and felt reasonably able to make it to church. We went to the early service with me walking gingerly but still managing. The cough from Friday night had returned with a new strength. We made it through church and I thought I was still doing reasonably well. We headed home to let Gracen nap and then we actually went back out for groceries. By the time we got back from the store I needed to rest on the couch. Still no major alarms going off here, I had a reason to feel tired. By that evening though there were other signs appearing like cold chills preceeding fever spikes. Now I actually started measuring my temps. I definately had a low grade fever above 100. I crawled into bed early again and by Monday morning I knew I was in trouble.

Throughout the night I re-experienced fever cycles and by the morning I could barely sit up. The cough was getting worse. I got up and called for a sub and quickly organized some plans which I emailed in. Then I went back to sleep until around 12:30 or 1 p.m. Amy had called sometime late morning to check in and I was still asleep. When I got up I was between fever cylcles and actually felt hungry. I was able to eat some leftover pizza and begin re-hydrating. I had done a decent job of keeping the fluids coming all of Sunday and didn't want to get into trouble on Monday so I kept it up. By the end of Monday I knew I wasn't going in the next day either so I went ahead and called in to extend the sub.

After another night of the same feverish cycles and a worsening congestion and cough I was worried enough Tuesday to head to urgent care. I had a fairly miserable two hour wait for them to finally tell me that I had the flu even though they had just run out of flu tests. I got my lungs checked out and a strep culture that came up negative. They sent me out the door with a prescription for Tamiflu and advice to drink lots of gatorade. I filled my prescription and hung out on the couch dozing off and on.

Whatever is in Tamiflu it works. By Wedn morning I was already beginning to feel better. The fever cycles reduced to almost none and my appetite was returning. It didn't hurt that we had a snow day also. I was really able to lounge around with my lovely caring wife taking care of the kids. By the afternoon I was ready to be up and was having a hankerin for a Chic Filet sandwich. Amy didn't need her arm twisted too hard so we loaded up and headed down the hill for a short drive to be out of the house.

Thursday I was actually able to head in for the better part of a snow day to start to get caught up a little and leave some new sub plans for Friday. As it turned out I was actually able to use that for Monday since the middle school was able to go on their ski trip. I had really hoped to be able enough to go, but it was a better thing for me to rest and be ready to go today. I had been given orders by the doctor not to return to school before Monday.

By the weekend I was really starting to come back around. My Dad came up to visit and we had a nice low key weekend. Now it's back to the grind. But hey only three weeks to Spring Break and then time will really start to fly. Still gonna give myself an easy week this week before really getting back into running.

Cheers... Zircon...

Marathon a Mystery no more!!!

First I’ll apologize for the random order of most of these shots. All except the first two shots that is. WOW what an experience. The whole day was surreal. In the pre-start photo where everything is still dark it still hasn’t fully hit me yet what I am about to do. Unlike any other race I have run I was so disconnected at the start. Maybe it was the abstract becoming real, maybe it was getting up at 3:45 to make it to Black Mountain, maybe it was the start of the flu that has completely layed me low and left me even today less than myself, or maybe it was the fact that for the first time in a long time I was entering into something I had very little first hand experience with (make that zero experience). Whatever it was I found myself looking at a very supportive Amy in the pre-dawn and actually admitting that it was just then occurring to me what I was about to attempt. She stayed positive told me she was already proud of me and before I knew it, I was running up Cherry Street past the Town Pump and My Father’s Pizza and into what? I wasn’t exactly sure of. The first few miles I settled into a leisurely pace and listened to the conversations around me of marathoners and challengers reconnecting, sharing course info, and general early race chatter.

Through the stone arched entrance to Montreat we streamed and then soon uphill to the beginning of the single track. It was gorgeous trail conditions temps already above forty and the sun soon began peaking at us over the ridges as we climbed gradually on a humanely mild ascent on single track. I tried to stop a few times in the first hour or so to snap a pick or two but the camera just wasn’t going to do any of the sunrise scenes I witnessed any justice. I was chugging along pretty good dropping to a walk occasionally but for very short stretches and hanging with various groups. I had not studied the course map as laboriously as I had for Shut-In and so was pretty clueless most of the race except at the turn-around where I was. It was a little frustrating not being able to mentally tick off distances. Whenever I’d ask someone around me, I’d get a prediction that was always well below what I had hoped (not necessarily inaccurate just disparaging). Needless to say I stopped asking. After the first aid station we gained the Toll road. The grade was still mostly tolerable but nevertheless almost entirely uphill. It was not far into this stretch that I began to feel a familiar tightness in my calves. I shortened strides and accommodated the legs resistance but not long after felt the twinge of potential cramps yet again. I immediately dropped to a walk to feel things out, kept my stride even shorter and weight as centered over my feet as possible. I was roughly an hour and a half into this race and now began wondering when my calves would just out and out begin cramping as they had on Shut-In. Somehow they never did. Perhaps it was my friend Annette’s NUUN Tablets that kept the electrolytes flowing all day and staved it off. I’m still not exactly sure how I avoided it considering how long the race would eventually take. The other interesting thing was there were people around me taking a similar pace and attack of the course. I’m sure for most of the marathoners, they would translate that into a much more aggressive downhill run, and for challenge runners they had even more uphill to go. But for the most part I found myself with a fairly consistent group of people on the climb. At about two and a half hours in the first marathoners began passing us on their way down. I saw Annette with beaming smiles and was met by all who passed with words of encouragement. As I neared the last couple of miles before the parkway I was able to get back into my short strided shuffle run for more consistent stretches. In the hour leading up to the turn-around I had struck up a conversation with a challenge runner. He asked me where I was from and I mentioned Boone. Turns out he was the husband of the secretary at Amy’s school. Charlie Brady was his name. What a small world. We ended up at the turn-around checkpoint at the same time and I got our picture snapped together by one of the very gracious aid volunteers. He continued on to the challenge while I mercifully was able to turn around and head down already more than half-way done.
The turn-around was colder as the sun ducked behind some clouds. I refilled my camel-back with Nuun and water, grabbed few goodies and gave myself a good 10 minutes of walking recovery back towards the trail. I had made it there in 2 hours and 55 minutes and overheard a few runners commenting on how a sub 5 hour run was still in the cards. I though maybe it was still a possibility for me too and began making all sorts of mental calculations on what it would take to make that happen. I started with a strong 20 minute stretch of running followed by a short 3 minute walk, then probably my strongest 25 minute stretch of running short strided shuffle over the rocky upper toll road. As I eyed my watch and felt the tightness in my legs refusing to go away I felt everything begin to slowly slip away. Or maybe it was just the acceptance of reality, that this was not like an 11 mile run all by itself, the first fifteen were an uncomfortable and unavoidable influence on my current condition. I pin-balled between groups for a while before the walking stretches began getting pretty long. About an hour or so into the descent the mental wheels began to come off. Even though I could rationalize to myself that the more I ran the sooner the overall discomfort that was beginning to saturate every sense would be over. I tried the internal i-pod. What Kind of Cat Are You? Got me through about a mile. On the drive down that morning a random radio station had played Copa Cabana by Barry Manilow and I had joked with Amy that this would more than likely be one of my trail songs and it was. Barry got me through about another mile of rocky wet toll road. But soon even that strategy went by the wayside and I was left with my own thoughts about what in the heck I was doing.
The trail seemed to keep stretching farther and farther in front of me. Finally I made it into the next to last aid station and got the first exact mileage beta of the day besides the turn-around. I knew the heinous downhill was just beyond these tables and then an almost more scary flat 3 miles to the finish. This was the most entertaining aid station. They actually had one of those mini-kegs of what I believe was Heineken tapped out into little Dixie cups. Oh that I had been brave enough but I politely declined their offer grabbed a handful of chex-mix and headed into the downhill. I was still under five hours at this point but was painfully aware that the ship had sailed. The downhill was something I had read about in other runners accounts and had been dreading but I was actually able to let myself go a little on this section and actually run most of it I guess because it required very little effort on my part to put one foot in front of the other. A little over a mile later I hit the final aid station grabbed some potato chips and an orange slice and did my best shuffle run attempt. It didn’t last long of course. I found myself in a group that seemed to be in about the same shape as I was but that didn’t last for long as I soon found myself left to my walking/ occasional shuffle run pace. Soon we were on a nice little trail beside a stream and then it climbed up a small hill-side. I thought that they had to have been joking at this point. Soon enough I was on the road side doing my best to maintain a decent walking pace with an occasional ten step shuffle thrown in every few minutes. I pretty soon just decided to save any running I had left in me for the final lake lap. People were passing me by in a continuous trickle but I really didn’t care. I just wanted to be done. I had found my personal limits a ways back on the course. Coming into that final portion of the run I was actually able to hobble my way around the lake and through the finishing line. The smile on my face in the finishing photo is one of complete relief and is genuine. That shot and the one of Amy and I together were taken by our friend Carrie Kahn who was gracious enough to come all the way from Hickory just to cheer me on. Thanks again Carrie.
But my favorite shot from the bunch is the one with my biggest fan and supporter through this whole adventure, Amy. I know she doesn’t have even a remote desire to do something as silly as this, but that didn’t stop her from supporting me the whole way through to this finish. I lerve you babe. Russ...

P.S. Congrats to Annette Bednosky for winning the women's marathon with a time of 3 hr 54 minutes and my new trail friend Charlie Brady finishing the Mount Mitchell Challenge with a time of 8 hrs and 37 minutes.

Some toll road shots

Charlie Brady and me at the turnaround

Reflections on the journey thus far

I was talking with a friend last night, and with Amy over the past couple of days about the process of readying myself for this run. With the final test still looming it is easy to overlook the gains I have made through this experience. Among the many ideas of why I might do something like run a marathon, several are smaller goals I have already attained. I’ll list a few below.

-getting in better shape
-dropping a few pounds
-challenging myself physically
-having a goal
-learning something new both about the sport and myself

There is still the pressure of achieving the goal, and yet as I really think about it the achievements above surpass the goal itself for me. No I’m not dropping out of the race. I’m just trying to put this in perspective for myself. I have long since accepted that due to unforeseen circumstances I am not precisely where I thought or hoped I would be in my preparation. But I am at peace with that, I couldn’t do anything about that anyway. I asked a lot of questions during the last half of my long run on Saturday. They were and still are important questions for me. Who am I really running this for? What constitutes success in my eyes? Is this experience valuable? Who really cares? What really brings me joy and happiness?

I was sharing with Amy how nice it was running with John on Saturday and how fun it is running with Steve, Shack, and Wayne. Most of the things that I do for fun involve a social aspect and running it turns out is no different. Experiences in general from my life’s understanding at least, are almost always enhanced when shared. I was lamenting the fact that for Black Mountain, the idea of running a race with strangers was a bit of a bummer. She reminded me I was running the race for me anyway. It was a good reality check.

Ultimately I’m not exactly sure how I feel about next Saturday. Nervous, excited, unsure, semi-confident, yes to all. For the first time in a very long while I stand before a challenge that I cannot truly anticipate an outcome for. How will I do, what will the course be like, what will the weather be like, are all variables that I do not control. Next Saturday will be a true adventure in that the outcome is UNCERTAIN. I hope that I do well whatever that means. I know that I can finish barring major unforeseen occurrences. Waiting and anticipating are always the most difficult parts of most things.

Zircon

Countdown to Black Mountain

Saturday morning marked my longest and final long training run. Ready or not let the OFFI CIAL TAPER begin. No not the fake gimp induced three week slump but the real, still running only smaller distances taper into the final event. John Moore joined me for roughly the first half of the run at Moses Cone. We started at the Manor and did a tad over 9 miles in a wide loop finishing on the uphill. From there he dropped out with what sounded like Ketoacidosis (Steve calls me his bad luck charm) and I slogged on with much more walking punctuating the ensuing miles. I ran pretty solid until about mile 12.5 before dropping to a walk on a hill. The next 5.5 involved some walking but facing a long uphill climb after mile 18 I decided to walk the last mile and a half back to the car. I’m counting the full distance though as I will probably be walking sections of Black Mountain as well.
It was great running with John. Maybe it was his handicapped state, but the pace was manageable and the conversation kept my mind off of me and what I was doing. The last half of that run was definitely a ton harder all the more so without the companionship. Thanks to John for hanging in there as long as he did. He was also very encouraging when it came to the topic of my apprehensions about the first marathon. At the lonely completion of the run I was totally spent. I sat and had some Gatorade and a meal replacement shake. By the time I got home I was feeling pretty rough. As Amy would say, “DUH, you just ran farther than you ever had!” I took a short nap while Amy and Carter got out of the house and Gracen was down for her own nap. After that I felt a lot better and even was able to eat. By dinner I was ready for Mellow Mushroom Pizza and a big beer. I’m still nervous about the actual marathon. I’m hoping the weather won’t be too terrible on that weekend. I am looking forward to shorter enjoyable runs in the next two weeks. Just think healthy thoughts…

Zircon

Back In The Saddle Tentatively AKA Gimpy runs again

Went for a run yesterday after a hiatus since the last posting. The week prior to the last trail run Wayne and I did, I had begun to have some physical issues that culminated after that run into what has for the last few weeks been, a frustrating experience (to say the least).

The background: Somewhere during the beginning of the week of January 7th, I incurred an injury initially unbeknownst to me through cutting tennis balls with an exacto blade. I won’t go into the explanation of why I was cutting tennis balls here, it was for my classroom. Over the next couple of days my left arm started aching dully first in the bicep and then radiating down into the lower arm along the bones. (I have since been told this is a classic sign of nerve irritation). I also experienced some plantar fasciitis in my left heel, I believe these were ironically enough related signs and symptoms of a back beginning to tighten up. After a couple of days of a break and utilizing some stretches a friend told me about the heel issue went away and I felt bold enough to go for the Tanawha run with Wayne. (See previous post). What I did not explain in this post was the increasingly dull ache that accompanied the final few miles of the walk to the car and the recognition that the pain was now eminating from the center of my upper back just between my spine and left shoulder blade.

Russ’s Solution Take One: I have a recurring issue that hits about once or twice a year where I get what I call a crick in my neck or “Frankenstein Neck”. Suffice to say it usually works itself out within no more than a week. I figured this was a similar situation and would just give it some time and rest. Six days, copious amounts of vitamin I, and no improvement later I was beginning to get desperate. If anything it felt like it was getting worse.

Russ’s Solution Take Two: I broke down and went to urgent care on Friday after school. I was diagnosed with a muscle spasm, given a prescription for muscle relaxants and sent on my way. I spent the weekend largely on my back applying a heating pad periodically and watching the boob tube.

Discoveries made during this time.

1. Laying on your back long enough eventually causes pain seemingly everywhere else.
2. Muscle relaxants don’t relax muscles in spasm or at least they didn’t relax my spasming muscles.
3. Intermittent back pain sucks
4. My wife suspects this is just a giant ploy to lay down and watch tv
5. My wife suspects that I am a big wimp when it comes to pain of any kind.
6. My wife could be right on both counts except when I try to sit up for longer than a few minutes and the pain shoots down my arm.
7. Thinking about the running I should be doing to be ready for my marathon does not improve my condition or outlook.
8. Intermittent back pain sucks.
9. In the realm of back pain my current condition probably amounts to something on par with a paper cut for most chronic back pain sufferers out there.
10. And finally I am a huge wimp when it comes to pain.

The weekend passed without change in my condition or position on the couch. A work day allowed me to ease back into the upright position. I thought I sensed a slight improvement but over the subsequent days left me in uncomfortable positions trying to alieve the burning aching sensations in my arm and back. I was beginning to become despondent. How long was this going to take? Would this ever get better? I know it was roughly a week and a half in two if you counted the day of initial onset. A patient man I am not. I figured I would give the muscle relaxants through the weekend before abandoning them. Saturday and Sunday I intentionally stayed in the supine position trying not to move any other muscle in my body. They all seemed directly attached to the one in my back and caused pangs that dropped me into even darker moods.

Russ’s solution Take Three: One of the guys that I run with is married to a Physical Therapist. I know I know why the hell didn’t I just harass this poor woman from the get go. Well after a couple of weeks worth of off and on suffering my resistance to bothering someone I hadn’t even officially met and who I’m sure gets this sort of , “ hey since you’re a p.t. can you check this nagging issue out for me” treatment all the time, was gone. I caved called Maureen up and after offering some thoughts over the phone she threw out the golden phrase. “I could check it out for you.” Twenty minutes later I’m in Maureen’s entry way with a pathetic peace offering of my last home brewed stout (well at least it was a full 16 ouncer).
Maureen gave me the once over and then started with her magic. She manipulated some of my vertibra and gave me some good stretches but most importantly encouraged me to go ahead and try some light running in the hopes that the movement would help loosen things up and possibly aid in the recovery.

Present: After giving myself a full day and a half to make sure the muscle relaxants were out of my system, I headed over to Valle Crucis park yesterday after school. It was glorious. Monday was kind of rough with some pain and discomfort throughout the day. Thanks to Maureen the pain had moved a little higher in the back but was much less intense and the stretches she had given me were helping. Yesterday the ache was much less pronounced and stretching throughout the day kept it at bay. During the run I felt no pain and it felt wonderful to be running again. Unintentionally I was cranking out 7:30 miles without trying to push too hard. After the run as I cooled down the ache returned but I feel it was with an even more diminished intensity.
Today the ache is still there but at least I know that for my run this afternoon I could be putting another nail in its eventual coffin.

Zircon…

A trail run sort of...

A gorgeous day for a trail run, ok jog walk, ok hike. The early shots are from the summit of Rough Ridge above Ship Rock about 4.5 miles into the 13 total. Notice the relatively fresh faces and smiles. The middle part of the Tanawha Trail runs like a dream. Especially if you do it from Beacon Heights towards Price Lake. It's basically a long gradual descent for a gorgeous 5-6 miles. You feel like a trail running hero on this stretch. Unless of course you get way spread out and one of your party gets off trail and mildly lost. Good thing I was doubling back because Wayne would have probably topped out on Calloway Peak otherwise. But seriously it was a gorgeous four hours in good company to be outside and loving where we live.

Zircon...

Big Lost Cove

Despite serious doubts about whether we would get a shot at this before it closed for Peregrine Falcons, Jasyn and I managed to get out Thursday and get on a well formed White Fang. Although it was leadable we elected to keep it simple with the old tried and true top rope. Besides Lynn Willis was not around for professional style photography and we all know Klamborowski won't pony up for anything less. Besides who wants to hump in all the extra gear. It was chilly but not uncomfortably so. Conditions should be cherry for Saturday when we hope to return with Jeff Kahn One for a more balmy and leisurely experience.