Michael & Liz are Bloggable

 With the 3rd trimester well on it's way, I can't help but mark how different each trimester has been. Pregnancy really is perfectly divided into 3 sections, 3 very very different sections. Here is my assessment of how those trimesters have gone.

1st Trimester - The Paranoia Trimester:

The first 90 days are full of paranoia. The baby is incredibly small and vulnerable and almost anything can happen. The end of the first trimester is marked by a significant decrease in risks to the baby. Liz was always sick and tired during that time and we were always analyzing every issue to see if it's something to be concerned about. This first trimester, full of paranoia, is my least favorite. It may contain the excitement of finding out your pregnant, but that's the only thing to be happy about during that time.

2nd Trimester - The Fun Trimester: 

The second 90 days are the most fun. The baby is growing big enough to poke out of Liz's belly. The baby will start kicking for the first time. The exhaustion that occurred in the first 90 days is completely gone and energy returns to a normal level. It also includes the first ultrasound along with the discovery of the baby's sex. Now that you know the sex, you can get right into picking the baby's name. This was definitely the best trimester.

3rd Trimester - The Anxious Trimester: 

Anxious as in, eager and antsy, not anxious as in worried or fearful. While we are barely halfway through the final trimester, it is difficult to handle all the excitement as Liz's belly continues to move around and grows so big. It's as if we already have a baby, we just can't play with him yet. We have a name picked out and we can't tell anyone about it. We have baby clothes, a baby room, and all the baby things ready, and yet no baby to occupy those things. There is a date that used to be far off in the distance, but is increasingly becoming a tangible date on the calendar. Liz, and pregnant women alike, start to get uncomfortable with the size of their belly. An old movie line of "just get this thing out of me", is a phrase that makes a lot of sense to me now.

Yesterday was the first time in the pregnancy where the baby and I interacted. We were in baby class, and he was kicking hard. That's one thing we certainly will remember about the pregnancy, is how active he has been. Liz could feel him kick at 16 weeks and all he does these days is constant somersaults and flailing inside her belly. I like to think he's already starting to develop his soccer skills. Anyway, I found the spot he was kicking, and pushed his limb back in. With an abrupt reaction, he kicked Liz right back to the point where she jolted around in her chair. It was very comical.

We have all the preparations made for life to change, and yet we still have all this time to wait. I almost equate it to having bought a house, moved all the furniture onto the front lawn, but told we won't get the key for another month. So close and yet so far. We also don't have any control over the future either. The baby will arrive when he wants to arrive, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. I keep looking at the calendar in March and thinking to myself, which day are you? Which day have we been waiting for? Which day is going to be one of the greatest days in our life? It's so exciting and yet all we can be right now is antsy.

So anxiousness, that's all the 3rd trimester is consumed by. Hopefully March gets here sooner, rather than later. It's starting to get tough to wait.

So why not just throw something else on this blog that makes me look insane. This week I signed up for my 2012 ultra marathon. Here's a link to the site: http://www.hinsonlake24hour.com/

The race lasts 24 hours. You start at 8AM on a Saturday morning and you go until 8AM on Sunday morning. There is no finish line, just an end time. It's a 1.5 mile loop and you go as far as you possibly can during that time.  It's been called a tailgate with some running. This may sound ridiculous and outrageous, but 9 months away, this sounds like it will be a lot of fun to participate in.

My goals:

• Don't stop except for normal stuff like food, bathroom use, and stretching. I want to see if I can keep walking or running for the entire 24 hours. 
• Cover 50 miles. Compared to previous year's totals, 50 miles in this race is small potatoes. For example, in 2011, if I ran 50 miles, I would have finished 100th place out of 254 people. But I have never run an ultra before and never run farther than 26.2 miles. I think 50 miles is a reasonable goal. 

So at this point I need to figure out how to train for this. I think I will initially just start training like I would for a marathon. Medium runs in the week and long runs on the weekend. Then once I get comfortable with marathon distance long runs, I'll start extending those even farther and include walking in there to get used to that. It will not be easy and I am not naive enough to act like I don't have any concerns or doubts.

I'll keep you all up to date with how I'm doing in training. Right now I'm kinda bummed because I have a pulled or tight muscle near my right calf that just won't go away. Can't wait for it to go away so I can put in some serious mileage. This is certainly a daunting challenge, but I like challenges, so bring it Lake Hinson.

I have been a nutritarian for 11 days. A what? The book "Eat to Live" by Joel Fuhrman, talks about the concept of being a nutritarian. It's eating foods as high in nutrients as possible. The plan he proposes boils down to eating as a vegan for 6 weeks while also completely cutting out sugar, oils, and as much salt as possible.

So I've been doing it for 11 days now and I must admit that this has got to be the healthiest I have ever felt in my life. I'm rarely tired, I have lots of energy, and losing weight isn't very difficult. I can hardly claim that I'm starving myself either because I'm stuffing my face with fruits and vegetables. I've lost roughly 11 pounds over the last 20 days and the rest of the weight coming off is just a matter of time. With that said, here are a few things that I've learned over the last 11 days:

• I have always been so concerned with what I weigh, but while eating the right things and moving down the right path, I've begun to not care. Weight really is just a number, but it's how you feel and your health inside that counts. I can really feel myself improving in health. I donated platelets the other day and my heart rate was 52 and my blood pressure 110/72. I'm psyched to see my weight drop, but I just really don't care how fast at this point. It'll settle where it wants.
  
• Walnuts are really good. I used to think they were dull and boring, but it's a very under rated nut. Super healthy and delicious.
  
• Without eating sweets, clementines have become my new dessert. They are so sweet and delicious.
  
• Now that I've freed myself of the toxic habit of fatty foods and overeating, random hunger suddenly doesn't bother me anymore. There was a time that missing a meal or not eating enough would cause me to get a headache.I truly believe that overeating is an addiction, and I really had a problem with withdrawal. That should never happen. Terrible.
  
• Taco salads are awesome. Throwing some beans, corn, and salsa on top of some lettuce is freakin' delicious.
  
• "Don't sweat the small stuff". It would be easy to go crazy on this plan. For example, salsa's 5th or 6th ingredient is salt. I'm not supposed to have salt but when I'm doing so many things right, I'm not going to drive myself crazy by caring that my healthy taco salad has a slight bit of salt in the salsa. Not to say I'm careless and not following the rules, but that's nit picky. Who cares. 

I could go on, but I'll stop there. Do you want to know the 2 main reasons why I am giving this plan a try? Dr. Fuhrman has many patients who cure their allergies by following this diet plan. I can't imagine living Spring through Fall without allergies. My life would be much happier during those times, so the first reason is to see if that is actually possible. The second reason I am trying it is to get faster at running. It's about time I put in the same effort into my food as I do with the training in my running.

This should be the best year of our lives, can't wait to see what happens.

This is my 5th year in a row doing new year resolutions on this blog. It's time to make some pledges to accomplish some new resolutions in 2012. Here are the links from the previous years:

• 2011 New Year's Resolutions
• 2010 New Year's Resolutions
• 2009 New Year's Resolutions
• 2008 New Year's Resolutions

Last year I went 2 for 3 on my resolutions, here are the results:

1. Operation Reese Cup - This totally failed. The goal was to lose 26 pounds. The good thing is, I began 2011 at 187 and finished the year at 187 (as of this afternoon). The Reese Cup is still in the freezer today. The day I hit 160, I will eat that treat, hopefully it's not freezer burned. 
2. Complete 4 house projects. We completely made over our Sweet Room, I re-did the landscaping in the front of the house, expanded the attic by 40 square feet, and wainscot and painted the second bedroom to prep for our new baby boy. The only 2 projects I haven't accomplished yet is staining the deck and putting up hanging shelves above the garage door. I don't know when I'll stain the deck, but I've already bought the wood to hang shelves in the garage. 
3. No carbonated soda. I had an addendum that I could have some if I stayed up between 2-5AM, but I didn't even do that. I was actually excited about having a soda in 2012, but I've decided I just don't need it. I think I've given it up permanently. 14 year old me just said "ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!?!"

So what am I doing in the New Year. I would argue these are my 2 hardest new year's resolutions I've EVER made. Check them out:

1. Go vegan for 6 weeks. Yep, that's what I said. Vegan. Recently I read a book called "Eat to Live" by Joel Fuhrman about health and nutrition. It has blown my mind and my opinions on how we as a society eat. Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma really blew my mind with how we eat and how we should treat the preparation of our food. Joel Fuhrman takes it one step further and throws a TON of science behind it about how our body processes food.
   
   He proposes a 6 week plan to go entirely vegan and I'm going to do it. My Mom and sister Annie are doing it as well and we're encouraging each other. It's especially tough on Liz because she does most of the cooking for dinner, but since this is my choice and my burden, I am going to start contributing and even preparing dinner for us. I don't know what to expect out of the plan other than to lose weight and break free of my food addiction. I will write a book review to explain my thoughts and feelings later, but basically this is one of my new year's resolutions is to accomplish this 6 week plan.
   
   By the way, my dinner tonight was a massive salad with sauteed onion, green pepper, Serrano pepper, and red hot chili peppers, and then some walnuts sprinkled on top. It was delish.
   
   
2. Run an ultra marathon. At this point the race I am aiming at is the Lake Hinson 24 Hour race in September. It's kind of a choose your own adventure type race. If you want to run 100 miles or if you want to run 30, it's up to you. At this point, my 2 goals in the race would be to (A) not stop for more than the time it takes to stretch and eat and (B) to travel at least 50 miles. I realize this is ridiculous, to say the least, but something inside of me is telling me to get it done. In 2010 I ran 1011 miles. In 2011 I ran 1061 miles. Hopefully with this new goal, I can blow both of those away.

Before getting pregnant, I thought naming our baby would be extremely easy. We started talking about baby names years ago, even before we were married. I think if we were having a girl, we'd have been done months ago. Naming a boy on the other hand, has proven much more difficult.

Imagine how many times in your life you say or write your name. It's kind of a big deal. I mean even on a day full of nothing, you probably have to say, write, or hear your name at least 10 times. 3000 times a year maybe? 54,000 times by the time you graduate high school. And that's on the low end of my estimate.

Nicknames, middle names, inherited names, names that flow, difficult to say names, names that rhyme with dirty words, initials that don't spell out something funny like "BUF". There's a lot to consider.

But I think Liz and I have finally come to a decision. We'll be keeping it a secret until our boy is born. Now we just have to continue to mull it over and decide if the decision we've come to is the right one.

Oh, and continue to keep it a secret, that won't be an easy task either. We've heard stories of people who start calling their baby by their name before their born, and then accidentally say it around other people. We are totally the kind of people to do that. We'll try and be careful.

I haven't blogged very much in the last month, and I don't know why. I guess I don't feel like I have much to blog about lately. After my last post I have decided that I really don't care about my injury.

Let me clarify that. I have decided that I am going to do what I want no matter if I get it fixed or not. Granted, it hurts. But some activities hurt it more than others. So far I have run 20 miles in the last 4 days and the only real pain I've had during this time is in the groin soreness immediately after, or the morning after, running. At a comfortable pace, the stomach pain is barely there.

Running is an activity that doesn't aggravate the injury as much as Soccer. Soccer may be out of reach for a while just due to the twisting and turning involved. I actually tested my ability to sprint today and the pain is far less than it was this Summer. So things are improving, I guess that's good.

I am still going to pursue getting the injury corrected, but I've decided this will not stop me from doing what I want to do. I refuse to let my body dictate my life's activities. In fact, I am a firm believer in the exact opposite, that your diet and physical activities will dictate how your body feels. The days I feel the best is when I eat healthy and exercise. I think at this point it would be easy for me to throw in the towel, become fat and lazy, and stop running or working out. Not happening.

So with that said, here's what I want to do. I've talked about it before and if there's anything that annoys me more, it's someone who talks the talk and doesn't walk the walk. I want to participate in an ultra marathon. That's any event farther than a marathon distance of 26.2. Now is as good a time as any.

The one I had in mind was the Lake Hinson 24 Hour Race. What I love about it is the concept of testing your mental will along with your physical. The race is a 1.5 mile loop, and you start at 8AM one morning and you run/walk however much you feel like for 24 hours, and it ends the next morning at 8AM. The reviews I've read call it a tailgate party with some running. I haven't signed up yet, but I don't know what I'm waiting for. It's in September, so it'd give me plenty of time to train.

I have to set a goal in the race because what's the point without a goal? It certainly wouldn't be to win. The winner last year finished just under the world record, going 163 miles in 24 hours. For me, I'd have 2 goals. The first would be to travel AT LEAST 50 miles, and the second would be to never stop. I could take a minute or two break for food or drink or to stretch, but I'd want to continue to move the entire time. I'm under no delusion that I'll run the whole time, so the "continue to move" would be running and walking. I'll have to come up with a game plan to prepare myself for what I'll do.

Back in college, I participated in Relay for Life which was a decent introduction to this kind of race. It started at 6PM and ended the next morning at 8AM. Apparently the point was to have a team and pass a baton or something, I didn't like having to do that. I walked the entire time without stopping. I even ran 9 miles with some friends as well. In those 14 hours I traveled roughly 27 miles according to my pedometer. Without that experience, I think I'd scoff at doing a 24 hour race, but to me, it's possible.

Some stupid injury is not going to stop me from doing what I want to do. I want to run.

I have a confession to make, I've been living the last few months angry. It probably doesn't make sense to some people because I'm really good at burying it. After all, life is going so well with a baby on the way. Life is great, but when it comes to athletics, I'm really angry. I have a sports injury and it's turning out to be more formidable than I expected.

You may not remember, but back in early June, I hurt my stomach somehow playing in a soccer game. I mention it here as an issue during the marathon training. Well that stomach pain has actually gotten worse. I didn't mention it in the post, but it was a combined pain, some in my groin and some in my lower pelvic abs. I gave it a month and a half to heal itself, when that didn't happen, I went to the doctor in July to see what he thought. I got an x-ray with nothing found, and the doctor said to see a sports therapist.

"Garbage" I say. I don't need some a sports therapist, I workout enough and know what to do for exercise. So I kept running and just "dealing" with it hoping it would heal. Well October and November rolled around, and with the pain in both groin and abs getting worse, I saw the doctor again who surprised at it not having gone away, recommended a MRI and a meeting with a surgeon.

I got the MRI done last Friday and that was an interesting experience. I learned I am *not* claustrophobic, in fact, I really enjoyed it. I had headphones on, and it was slightly uncomfortable not being allowed to move, but there's something to be said for staying completely still for 1 hour. It was very relaxing.

Then on Monday I saw the surgeon who gave me both good and bad news. I'll start with the good news first, he verified that I do in fact have an issue with my pelvis area that the MRI identified. I'll actually quote the diagnosis here:

There is parasymphyseal bone marrow edema. Mild fluid signal intensity is seen within the pubic symphysis. There is asymmetry of the distal aspect of the rectus abdominis, smaller on the right than the left. A cleft sign is seen at the inferior parasymphyseal region consisting with a partial tear of the origin of the adductor musculature. 

Constellation of findings suggesting symphyseal instability, consistent with the term 'sports hernia'.  

Super, sports hernia, that's exactly what I thought I had, but here comes the bad news. The surgeon takes off his glasses and looks at me all serious, and says "I don't know anyone in our area that can perform this surgery." Apparently this is not a common enough injury to have trained, available surgeons to fix it.

After a 20 minute conversation with him he describes a surgeon from Philly that comes down every January, flies in professional athletes, and does 20 of these surgeries a week. A quick google search of this Philly surgeon shows this is not a viable solution and he may be more of a crook. Ironically enough, the surgeon I was talking to actually said he thought it was a sham because he didn't know what the Philly surgeon does to fix it and it's expensive.  The Philly surgeon doesn't accept insurance and charges $15K up front. And if you know me well enough, I scoff at such a proposition. I would happily cut off the lower portion of my body than pay $15K. Get real.

So this is where I am angry. There is no next time in life. There's no "oops", fix it, and do it over again. No eraser on the end of life's pencil. How many times are you 30? To think I will never be able to kick a ball in soccer like I have in the past because I tore whatever, is INFURIATING. I run because I'm young and I can. I play soccer because I'm young and I can. To think that something I could do so easily a few months ago has been completely shut off to me, is MADDENING.

I didn't do this to myself. I didn't go out and do something stupid. I played hard in a soccer game on June 1st, tried my absolute damndest to score goals on a random night, and ended up tearing my stomach/groin.

Now granted, I have not tried very hard to find another solution. I talked to 1 surgeon, but in talking to him, and reading the reviews online from people with a similar ailment, my hopes are completely crushed. It sounds like "living with it" is what a large majority of people end up doing. I'll start calling around and seeing what else I can do, but I might have to face the fact that stomach/groin pain will be a staple in my life.

So what can I do physically right now? I can run but not very fast and not as far as I used to. Right now, if I run any faster than 8 minutes a mile, the stomach pain is too much. Which means sprinting of any kind in a sport is too painful to handle. That limits me in running the bases or playing outfield in softball. Also, if I run any farther than about 8 or 9 miles, my groin pain is too much and I have to stop. To be honest, I haven't tested the distance part too much, but I will soon. I refuse to allow my days of marathon running to be over.

Soccer? I might have to concede that that's a thing of the past for me. The twisting action of kicking a ball causes a sharp pain in my stomach and it's way too much to take just once, let alone 50 times in a game. I just can't take that.

So... angry, upset, furious, any other synonyms you can think of? That would describe my attitude right now when it comes to my body and sports. Throw  dejected and hopeless in there too. I got no happy ending in this blog, that's all.