Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Hard to believe someone is going to be attempting a 2 kilometer long pizza, but I have to admire the thinking! It would be perfect at Tiomila.

C • mmm...pizza... 4

Continued streamering at Remarkable Flats. There was some chillier breeze out of the east, and lucky for me I had an extra windbreaker in my truck. So it was long sleeve t-shirt, light jacket, windbreaker, and a knit cap. With that, I was just about warm enough when the sun was out.

Continued streamering at Remarkable Flats. There was some chillier breeze out of the east, and lucky for me I had an extra windbreaker in my truck. So it was long sleeve t-shirt, light jacket, windbreaker, and a knit cap. With that, I was just about warm enough when the sun was out--which it was, part of the time. April is the cruelest month around here, but sometimes May is not far behind.

C • Remarkable 1

I'm pretty much fucked.
That's my considered opinion.
Fucked.

I had gone out to Remarkable Flats to start streamering for Neal, and had rather promptly run into a hunter, who was not happy and had his shotgun leveled at me.

Well, not actually--ha! Some of you may recognized those lines as the opening lines from "The Martian", which Tom Overbaugh had kindly suggested I might be interested in reading while getting better. I had heard of the movie, but had no idea it was based on a book, much less any idea the book might be any good. It only took a few pages before I knew I was going to really like the book.

But I did go out streamering--the first time I have been up and out since crashing--and I did in fact meet a hunter. He was out looking for turkeys and we talked for a bit; he was quite a nice guy. I told him I had never once seen or heard a turkey in the area (Remarkable Flats) he was in, and pointed out some nearby areas where I had seen and heard turkeys in the past.

It was quite a nice day out with just a bit of breeze, and it was fun to be out with a map again, looking at control locations, even if I was only walking.

C • the martian 6

A new record for post-crash inspired volume this morning of a little bit over 4000ml. That compares with when I first came home from the hospital, when the best I could do was about 1500 ml, so a lot better now.

C • PR 4

Yay--my home oxygen equipment is now all gone--another sign of progress. Funny thing with oxygen that I never knew: if you get put on oxygen in the hospital and are sent home with the service, you can't (at least not here) go off the service yourself--a doctor has to discontinue the service by order.

So I had to wear an oximeter overnight, and then, when the readings weren't high enough to completely satisfy my doctor, I had to convince him I didn't need the oxygen. I pointed out that I was feeling enormously better over the past week (true), that my day time oxygen levels were normal or better now (true), that while there might have been some night time dips, there was no way to know I didn't have those dips before the accident and that it could well just be part of my broken ribs limiting how long I could remain in a good sleeping position during the night (I've been getting up several times each night and usually spending at least some time in a sitting position on the sofa) (also true), and that I've started up with some small amounts of exercise again (also true) and felt I could do more as soon as I got the okay on my shoulder to do more. But the point that I think won him over was telling him I wasn't using the oxygen anymore anyway (also true.)

In my estimation having to worry about the clear coils of death (the tubing) at night when moving around and the possibility of tripping and re-injuring myself much outweighed whatever tiny benefit--if any--I was still getting from the oxygen while I was using it.

Set a new post-crash PR of 3750 ml of inspired volume this morning. I still have no idea what I could normally do, but at least things are moving in the right direction. O2 saturation has been good today, too.

Also picked up an overnight O2 saturation monitoring "watch", which, if the collected results are good enough, will mean the oxygen equipment will go away. It's been a while since I've used any oxygen at all during the day, and I've only used it sporadically at night. I can't tell that it does anything for me at all anymore (and really couldn't tell it did much even when my breath was shortest, during my brief stay in the hospital), and it's more a hassle than anything, what with a long plastic tube trailing behind me at night, meaning you always have to be careful not to trip over it or have it get hung up and have the end ripped off your face, etc.

Someone asked me earlier if it wasn't really great getting that pure oxygen, and referencing to seeing how sometimes football players are getting oxygen during the middle of games to help them recover when they're "gassed" (I guess). But, I don't know that the machine is delivering pure oxygen as opposed to air with a higher concentration of oxygen, and, at any rate, as I alluded to above, I never have been able to tell any real difference; for all I could tell it could just as well have been regular room air being cycled through some mystery box that makes various noises and sounds more like anything else like a fish tank (since the oxygen gets bubbled through a water container.)

C • O2 2

For those of you who might be coming to Laramie this summer for the Rocky Mountain O' Fest, should you drive around town, there is nothing you could see that would suggest Laramie had been part of the pre-recession "bubble" economy. And it wasn't.

Nevertheless, from an recent article about the city's current budget, sales tax collections are *still* running below the pre-recession peak of 2007. This is despite many homes and apartment units being added over the past 8+ years, some retail (not much though), and student enrollment growth at the university along with a number of major capital construction projects completed.

Thus, it can be inferred that what happened in the frothier real estate markets (huge amounts of mortgage refinancings with cash taken out as home appraisals rose along with home equity lines of credit taken and maxed out, second mortgages, etc) took place in Laramie, too, albeit to a lesser degree. And that inference is supported anecdotally by a constant number of foreclosures taking place over the past four years or so, at a fairly steady rate of 1-2 new foreclosures being listed each week, versus practically no foreclosures in the years leading up to 2008.

Did 24 minutes on the trainer today. As a sign of some progress, 24 minutes today felt noticeably easier than 10 minutes felt in any previous session since the crash.

Woke up this morning to a renewed Laramie winter wonderland. A reprise of the (much bigger and colder) snowstorm that took place on the same weekend last year. Spring time in SE Wyoming!

Neal Barlow was up this weekend streamering and looking over control locations for the O' Fest, and while he got a lot done on Friday, he was shut out yesterday by dense fog and rain up top that lasted 100% of the day, and I imagine with all the new snow on the ground he headed home this morning. But once he gets done re-jiggering courses and controls based on the work he did on Friday, he should be sending me updates and then, once the weather gets back to spring, I expect to be heading up top and doing some walking around with a map in my hand, and hanging streamers for Neal.

Somewhat ironically--in light of the snow--it was just on Friday that aspens and other smaller trees started budding out leaves.

I have noticed two other odd things going on since la crash.

1) Normally, when I put my contacts in, I can wear them comfortably as long as I like. Even on those rare mistaken occasions when I have foolishly assented to doing one of "those" 24 hour racy things. But for the past few weeks, I've noticed that quite consistently by around the 12 hour mark, my contacts start to feel like they drying out and they start to irritate, and they either have to come out, or I have to re-moisten them. For the life of me I can't see what this could have anything to do with a bike crash, but there it is.

2) Since winter moved on about a week or so ago, I've spent a fair bit of time outside in the yard doing light gardening work. If I stoop down to pull out weeds or whatever and stay down for more than, say, 30 seconds or so, and then stand up, I am getting the most intense head rushes. Very odd, and I hope this isn't a sign that hemoglobin has dropped over the past few weeks. I know it was okay when I went to the ER for shortness of breath (because of blood tests run then), but I don't know that it was okay by the time I left (because I swear they took more blood for all those tests than a whole swarm of hungry vampire bats would have.) Plus. surgery afterwards must have meant at least some amount of blood loss. If I *have* dropped to the low end of acceptable hemoglobin levels, well, the blood thinners can't be helping matters.

Well, now it's 16:48 and it is snowing like it is winter all over again! But that didn't stop me from finalizing my "indoor" designs for the first three "Daze" of the Rocky Mountain O' Fest. I would be there's a pretty decent chance I won't have to move a control, once I inspect the sites in the field. But you never know, and especially it could be some trees have come down on top of a control site, rendering said site undesirable.