Earlier this week, I had my annual checkup with my regular physician. Among other topics, I spoke to her about my left knee, and how I still experience some pain at times with it. She checked me out in-person (it was over the phone last Feb), and I initially thought I damaged a ligament below my knee. After examining my knee, she diagnosed me with patellar tendinitis. It seems the tendon connecting my quadriceps and my left tibia has not fully healed, and thus I’m experiencing pain due to inflammation.

Her advice was to forgo any cycling, take Alleve (an anti-inflammatory) twice a day, and ice my knee up to keep the swelling down. She said running on the treadmill is okay, but no stationary bike, and no outdoor cycling. For how long? Four weeks.

I mentioned that, um, you know, I have this bike thang in late May that I need to train for, but she was adamant about the four weeks. I asked her if she thinks i’ll be 100% again in the future, but she gave a weird look and said hesitatingly, “Maybe. You never know.” I always thought I was invincible, but this isn’t proving my argument.

I don’t know exactly to do. I don’t want to further damage my leg, but I won’t be able to complete the 85 mile ride in three weeks if I never get on the until that actual day. There’s no way!

After considering my options, my plan is to continue to ride, but keep the pressure off my knee as much as possible. I think I can do this by avoiding tall hills, and going slower during rides in the next two weeks. This will give me some time in the saddle, but also gives my tendon more time to recover before May 21st.

Tags: fitness, injury

24 days to go until the MS Ride, and I haven’t even been on one training ride. My training has primarily been around strength-training and cardio at the gym. At least I’m regular about it. This weekend, there’s an initial team ride at the Laurita Winery, which looks to be an interesting place. In anticipation of the new cycling season, and because recently celebrated my birthday, I got some new cool upgrades to my bike. Before I get into the upgrade details, let me recap my upgrade history.

The bike itself is about 9 years old now, but that’s, like, 2 in bicycle years. Since purchasing it in late October 2002, I’ve upgraded it a few times. My history on the bike has been spotty, which I freely admit:

• I didn’t get to ride it more than 1-2 times in 2002.
• In 2003, I remember tooling around like a novice in regular shorts and the original toeclip pedals (which I despise), but eventually upgraded the pedals to SPD type in June 2003. I also got decent road cycling shoes.
• In 2004, I was the most serious about the sport. I rode 1-2x a week. I started wearing the right clothes, and added a cyclocomputer in March 2004.
• From 2005-2009, I didn’t do much riding, due to the kids being, work, travel, etc.
• Last year (2010), I got back on the horse, and I rode about 258 miles, which isn’t a personal record by any means, but it was an improvement over the last four years. I paid for some much-needed replacement of worn-out parts, and I upgraded from a the big cushioned saddle to something more respectable. I also ditched the pocket-protector of cycling — the kickstand.

This year, since I’m serious about cycling, I got some serious new upgrades. I purchased a new, more stylish helmet, to replace the worn out unfashionable silver Bell helmet I purchased back in Oct 2002. I purchased new Shimano 105 SPD-SL pedals, so I’ll be trying a new pedal model that should give me better support and power with each stroke. Finally, I purchased new Specialized road shoes to replace the Pearl Izumi road shoes that I bought back in June 2003.

Of all the improvements, the biggest are the pedals and shoes. While the old SPD pedals are easy to clip in and out of, they don’t provide much support. Sometimes my feet would experience a little pain in the arches, as I am working off these tiny platforms. With the SPD-SL pedals (and the new shoes), I’ll have wider platforms to provide support, and the new shoes will give me the rigidity to support my arches. This particular cleat set provide a little “float”, which gives me a little wiggle room and eases the pressure on my knees.

I picked up the helmet last week as a gift for my birthday, I bought the shoes and pedals this week, and I had the pedals and cleats installed today. I also had the saddle height adjusted for my height. What’s left? Cycling sunglasses that won’t cost me an arm and a leg. I’m on the hunt for them now, before Sunday’s training ride.

Tags: bicycle, cycling, fitness

There used to be a show back in the 90′s called “Thirtysomething.” I never watched it (I was too young), but it was an American television drama about a group of baby boomers in their late thirties. I think I officially qualify as “thirtysomething” since I’m now 35 years old. I find it ironic that I’m well into my 30′s now. Growing up, your 30′s always seemed so far off in the distance, yet it seems to have snuck up on me. Geez, I’m 35 years old. Frankly, that’s nuts, yet it is true.

Being in my 30′s isn’t as bizarre or weird as I thought it would be. I’m a little wiser now, as I’m trying not to sweat the little hiccups in life — it is just not worth it. I’m enjoying life more, and less self-conscious about how I’m perceived. I’m married to a wonderful woman, and we have two great kids. We have a nice little home of our own that we have to clean up regularly. Life is good.

Of course, life isn’t perfect, but what is considered perfect anyway? Life is about overcoming new challenges, and reaching towards the next goal. For example, I’ve been overweight and living an unhealthy life for years, but now I’m doing something about it. We’ve struggled and survived through the early child development years, but there will always be new challenges as the kids get older. I have a few hundred different places that I want to visit, but budgeted money to do that will always be finite.

I think I’m rambling. I hate when I ramble. Let me summarize. A few years ago, I remember taking an online survey, and the results came back that I was “unhappy.” I don’t need a survey now to tell me that I’m happy these days. Life isn’t perfect, but that’s what keeps it interesting.

Tags: birthday, ramblings

With Josh’s first year in public school, we now get hit with all these holidays and breaks. This never happened when he was attending school in daycare. So while he benefits from many days off, his parents need to find out what to do.

In these situations, either one of us stays home with him, or I take him to the backup daycare center at my office. This week, he came to the office with me from Monday through Thursday. I think he had a decent time each day at the backup daycare center, and I took him out for lunch every day. I hope he understands why I get stressed out trying to get everyone out the door each morning, as he noted that I have ”a long time” in the car to get to work, as well as traffic each way. One can only hope. In any case, I hope he had a good time hanging out with me for a week.

Tags: joshua, spring break

Well, we’re now in week 4 of “The Great Experiment”, and it’s been a long tough slog. She hasn’t had any “terrible” accidents, but she is not a good judge of how soon she needs to sit after realizing she should. We’ve had four weeks of accidents in the bed, accidents in the bathroom, accidents at school, accidents in the living room. She’s trying, and we appreciate that. We’ll keep trying, and she’ll slowly get it. She’s improving every day. Until then, I’ll keep doing her laundry.

Tags: lily, potty-training

I’ve tried to lose weight every year for the past few years. I went back to look at earlier entries, and I’ve been historically excited about losing a pound or two after going to the gym. Using hindsight, it’s ironic to read how excited I was, but then note that the weight came back, and I was back to square one. I exercised, I lost a nominal amount of weight, but I reversed it somehow. At the end of the year, I would then vow to “finally lose the weight” next year. Lather, rinse, repeat. This would be comical if this wasn’t sad and pathetic.

What’s the problem? Earlier this month, I began wondering what was going on again. Here I am — I’m working out 2-3 times a week, I’m “eating better”, but the weight loss slowed to a crawl. A weight loss of 3 lbs in over a month is not that impressive. Isn’t there an old adage that the sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. I’m eating more salad and protein, less carbs, but the weight loss wasn’t dramatic. What was wrong with this picture?

I realized it was my diet. Every year, I start a workout regimen, but my diet never changes. I work out, and then undo the good work with overeating. A little less than two weeks ago, I realized how many calories I’m gorging on daily with abandon. I was going to take the kids out for dinner at Taco Bell, and I checked out the number of servings and calories in my favorite menu items like nachos and burritos. Perusing the nutritional info online, I was appalled by the number of calories. Volcano nachos, burritos, chalupas, etc, are loaded with calories. One order of volcano nachos or the grilled stuft burrito were nearly 1,0000 calories each. If I take into account the 2,000 calories a day guideline, just one item on the dinner menu would account for half of my calories for the entire day. JUST ONE ITEM!

It was my “Eureka!” moment. As a result, I recently re-examined my diet by using the 2,000 calories a day guideline, and come Monday, I checked out the nutritional info at other fast-food restaurants. You should try this sometime, and I guarantee you would be appalled and surprised.

• At Taco Bell, if you don’t eat off the “Fresco” menu, you’ll be in trouble.
• At McDonald’s or Burger King, if you get fries, you are in trouble.
• Mayo? Trouble.
• Sour cream? Trouble.
• You get anything with bacon, you are in trouble.

I thought I was so smart recently for eating a small chicken sandwich, side salad, and nuggets from Wendy’s, but even that is throwing out my calorie budget. I can’t believe how much I was overeating. No wonder I never accomplished much weight loss all these years. I would work out the night before, then go and eat a 600 calorie BK Whopper and a 400 calories in french fries at lunch the next day. Oh, and drink a Diet Coke. Add in calories ingested at breakfast, snacks, 2 servings at dinner, and maybe dessert. Consider that I can burn maybe 400 calories on the treadmill in 30 mins, and it’s all a recipe for weight gain.

Last week, I weighed myself at back up to 202 lbs on Monday afternoon. I watched my calories intake and portions throughout the rest of the week, and I broke 199 by Friday. I didn’t even have time to work out all last week, but the cut in calories was monumental. These past two weeks, I’ve been sticking to the actual serving sizes for snacks, baby carrots with lite ranch or hummus dips as snacks, and serious calorie watching. Before I go out, I know where I’m going, and what I’m going to eat. 500-550 calories for lunch, and a lot less for breakfast and snacks. I’m doing my best a dinner to eat more protein and veggies, and just a fistful of rice. It’s tough, but I think I’ve figured it out.

Tags: diet, fitness

I attended a funeral for a distant relative who passed away from leukemia. We used to go to church together, but that church later disbanded. I haven’t seen the family in years, and was not aware that the father was battling cancer. After the funeral, I decided to spend a few mins to drive through my old neighborhood, see the old haunts, and maybe even check out my old house. I haven’t been to the old town since October 2008, but I had gone directly to a restaurant to meet the old classmates.

The old house looked the same, except for some minor cosmetic changes, including changing a tree, a new deck, and new shutters. The old neighborhood had seen some major changes, where I noticed that some of the small houses had been replaced with these gargantuan homes that filled the lot. New playground equipment at the local park too, but my old barber Tony could still be found cutting hair at his barber shop. Some things never change.

Tags: childhood, congers, nostalgia

I’ve never heard of a “curriculum fair”, but it’s supposedly an event that was discontinued seven years ago at our school district. The annual event was restarted this year, which I think is very nice for the community. Josh had some of his work selected to represent his kindergarten classroom, along with that of his best friend Kaiya. We met up with his friend family for dinner at a local pizzeria, and then we drove over to the high school to see the work on display. It was very crowded, but I’m glad Josh had his work displayed. Good for him. I found more pictures here.

Tags: curriculum fair, joshua, school

I found a deal floating around last week that one could get the Planet Earth BBC series on Amazon.com for just $24.99. It normally runs you around $75, so I was incredulous. This nature series came out in 2006 in England, but was later edited and shown on Discovery HD sometime later. I never saw either series, but the reviews have been glowing. It took five years to make, and is reportedly the most expensive nature documentary series every commissioned by the BBC, and the first to be filmed in HD. The series comprises eleven episodes, each of which features a global overview of a different biome or habitat on Earth.

Joshua and I watched two episodes so far — “Deserts” and “Oceans Deep”, and the video content and quality is pretty amazing. The audio is a lossy 5.1 surround sound, and I do hear some ambient noise on the surrounds, but it’s mostly front-heavy. At this price, it’s definitely a keeper.

Tags: bbc, documentaries, nature

My wife and I call Lily the monkey, but we’ve also made the disturbing realization that Lily is a lot like a cat. Specifically, a lot like our departed, long-term family member Missy. The big black hair, the running out of the room, the need for constant supervision. I swear to you that we even caught her once licking her arm for no apparent reason, so was she grooming, feline-style?

Missy also had some bad behavior issues, which included urinating on clothes, corners, bathroom mats, and beds. It was bad, disgusting, and we never were able to find a remediation for it. Finally, after researching and speaking to professionals, it seemed the bad behavior at her age was ingrained, and we wouldn’t be able to get her successfully adopted. Sadly, I had her euthanized in Oct 2006, and I still miss that sweet, stupid cat.

Since Lily turned three years old late last month, my wife and I have been attempting to potty train her. As I’ve learned, all kids handle potty training in their own way and time frame. A coworker of mine potty-trained her son at 18 months old, which I think is phenomenal. Josh had a few accidents, but he was basically potty-trained in a week. Lily hasn’t quite grasped the concept. Well, that wouldn’t be accurate. After the first week or so, she’s sitting every hour at school, and now she’s making it through the night without experiencing an “accident.” I think she still goes way too often, instead of holding it, but I don’t know if it’s because she’s small or a girl.

I say she’s not quite potty-trained, because she still hasn’t gotten a hold on estimating if she’ll have enough time between realizing she has to go, and making it to the actual toilet. She is still experiencing accidents, mostly in bathroom as she’s about to sit, though she’s left quite a few puddles in the dining room. Earlier this week, she had an accident on my wife and the couch, and also the bathmat. After spending the past two weeks blotting and cleaning urine from the floor, the couch, clothes, the and the bathmat, I experienced my Missy flashbacks.

My wife and I have constantly joked that the cat came back, reincarnated in Lily. I’m starting to believe it’s very true.

Tags: lily, potty-training