Adarq.org

early morning, was beautiful outside. (but don't worry vag, we'll catch up to you soon.)

haha, i hope you won't
but i see it will approach 100F next week there.
Today is the hottest day of the year in Greece, there is prediction for 45C / 113F in a couple of places wtf!

wife's ACL is torn. i took her to get an MRI yesterday and the doc followed up today to confirm it. looks like she will be able to have surgery next week. she is understandably devastated: exercise in general and running in particular are very important to her and she suffers when she has to sit still. she sobbed when she got the news, and tbh i cried, too, right then and also later, by myself. it absolutely sucks, and the timing could almost not be worse. we're moving on saturday, we're trying to have a baby, we're supposed to go visit her family in south dakota for july 4th... fuck.

part of what sucks - a small part, relative to her being badly hurt and grieving - is losing, even if temporarily, my training buddy! getting excited about running, climbing, mountaineering, all of that stuff is out the window for now because even though i can still do them, i don't want to do them as much without her. it's a source of joy and intimacy for us. and i can't be sharing progress or making plans or anything because it'll make her feel bad. got to figure out what to do about that.

wife's ACL is torn. i took her to get an MRI yesterday and the doc followed up today to confirm it. looks like she will be able to have surgery next week. she is understandably devastated: exercise in general and running in particular are very important to her and she suffers when she has to sit still. she sobbed when she got the news, and tbh i cried, too, right then and also later, by myself. it absolutely sucks, and the timing could almost not be worse. we're moving on saturday, we're trying to have a baby, we're supposed to go visit her family in south dakota for july 4th... fuck.

part of what sucks - a small part, relative to her being badly hurt and grieving - is losing, even if temporarily, my training buddy! getting excited about running, climbing, mountaineering, all of that stuff is out the window for now because even though i can still do them, i don't want to do them as much without her. it's a source of joy and intimacy for us. and i can't be sharing progress or making plans or anything because it'll make her feel bad. got to figure out what to do about that.

Hey you should look into cross bracing about this. It only came about in the last few years but its a way of healing the ACL naturally without need for surgery. The only thing about it is you have to implement its procedure within a short time span of the injury, so you would have to look into it soon. It also might avoid some of the risks of surgery. Sounds like a really unpleasant problem, I hope it works out!

operation went "perfectly" according to the surgeon. crucially (no pun intended), she didn't have any meniscus damage to speak of, so she can start putting weight on the leg right away. means recovery will be much faster. i have to say, the whole experience this morning was really impressive: everything was smooth, everyone was professional and friendly, from the tech who put in the IV to the anesthesiologist to the people working at the information desk. surgery was scheduled for 7:30 and they got her in the OR at 7:28. with recovery time and post-op instructions and stuff, we were home by noon. she has been in pain since but not an unbearable level. the US health care "system" is insane and unjust on so many levels, but if you're lucky enough - as we are - to live in a big city and have good insurance, it's hard to imagine getting better care of this kind. i'm tired (got up at 4:00 this morning so we could get to the hospital two hours early) but happy things went well and that she's feeling okay now.

was able to get out for a short run this evening.

- run x ~5k, time ??
watch still not unpacked, lol. T+DI 154 but on the way home there was a little breeze and that helped.

so far, so good!

yesterday

- warm up
-- jump rope
-- mobility

- bouldering x 90 mins
not great, not terrible. it was crowded and i ran into a friend of my wife's who is a more advanced climber than i (up to v7 or so). consequently didn't spend as much time as i should working on technique on easy climbs. it's okay to have some harder stuff to work on but i'll get better, faster, if i focus on technique. in my defense, it has been a long-ass week.

- strength circuits x 2 each
-- A push up x 20
-- A TTB x 5
-- B pull up x 5
-- B fingerboard hang 3 x 5s

shoulders, back, and neck a little sore today, but it's hard to tell whether that's from climbing or all the general twisting and lifting and so on. and the stress, which i do a good job of minimizing but is definitely there in the background.

monday

- run 48:54, 8.06 km
much, much nicer day out

yesterday

- warm up

- bouldering x 2 hours
one of the people who reports to me is an avid climber and belongs to the same gym, so we had our weekly check-in at the gym and then climbed together afterward. he is better than me at climbing and was able to help me figure out a couple of moves i was blocked on.

- run 5.65 km, walk ~4.5 km
a friend came over to help us move some furniture around now that wife is able to go up and down stairs, and he's a runner so we decided to head out after. T+DI was near 170. he was gassed from a yoga/fitness class earlier in the day and also is not as fit as me i guess, so meant to do ~6 miles and ended up cutting it off at ~3.5 and buying a couple of gatorades.

wife is progressing, the PT unlocked her brace to 70 degrees of flexion yesterday and hopefully after her appointment tomorrow will be cleared to use only one crutch and use the exercise bike. that means she can start going back to the gym. in her reading - she, even more than i, gets obsessive about fitness hobbies - she's been learning about the potential for ACL tears to lead to earlier-onset arthritis in the affected joint, and how weight lifting can mitigate that. dynamic movements are out for her for the next several months at least, but in the meantime she is planning to start working more seriously on strength. because i love having her as a training buddy, and because i've been mentally gesturing toward a return to weightlifting for what feels like four years, i'll start reintroducing weights.

i'm also planning to sign up for a couple of races this fall. the philly half marathon is right after my birthday, and the friend i ran with the other day is doing the baltimore marathon a few weeks before that, so i might sign up for the concurrent 10k as a tune-up race.

running + climbing + lifting = my own personal crossfit! means i'll probably progress more slowly on each than i would if i focused, but i don't really care.

once she's working out again, it'll be easier to motivate myself to train 5-6 days per week. something like:

day 1: long run
day 2: run to and from gym or short easy treadmill, + climb + squat/lower pull/upper push
day 3: easy run
day 4: speed/tempo
day 5: run to and from gym or short easy treadmill, + climb + squat/lower pull/upper push
day 6: rest
day 7: maybe climb, maybe go for a hike, stand up paddleboarding, any other kind of movement