While today started out roughly, it ended smoothly with me feeling for the first time in a week like a bus hadn't just run me over.
I woke up with a headache. As I blew my nose into the sink while washing my face I experienced a major bloody nose. I used to get bloody noses a good bit as a kid but haven't in a while. This one was brutal. War zone in the sink. Probably lost 1/4 cup of blood. It was just so fast. No doubt the result of a week of antihistamines drying out the nasal passages and me blowing my nose a bunch.
The headache persisted until I broke down and drank some coffee. I skipped coffee yesterday and thought maybe my body had given me a Get Out of Addiction Free Card. Sometimes it does that... but not today. I am still off of the cold meds though.
Mid-afternoon I felt better for the first time. I mean, I still have ringing in my ear and a terribly cough. I'm not yet ready for company. But the extreme pain in my throat is gone and I'm finally able to see that I'm on the mend.
Jeeze. That took long enough. I'm sure it'll be another week before I'm back to 100%. I'm getting a little antsy to get some workouts going. My bike has dust on it.
Decided not to take any pseudoephedrine sulfate or guaifenesin today. And no caffeine either. Just too many symptom-masking things lately. I wanted to see where I was without them.
Answer: worse. More coughing, drainage, pain, etc.
I did find some old amoxicillin and started taking it. I think I have 6 days worth. Which means I should go get the remaining 4 days because you're not supposed to stop an antibiotics treatment halfway through. They say that the antibiotics rarely help the actual symptoms but they do help to prevent more advanced and dangerous symptoms from developing. We'll see.
I'm now at the seven day mark and while today was better than yesterday I'm still really feeling like crap.
Yesterday I thought I was on the mend after a Thursday loss of voice. I still couldn't speak well but I was starting to get it back. Then in late afternoon things turned again. My mom called to warn me about inner ear infections. I've probably got one because of the ringing in my ear. It's been persistent. Tinnitus, like Lars from Metallica has. My mom wanted me to head to the doc but my doc closes the doors on friday at 1pm.
About that time I started to feel a new itch in my throat. Over the next few hours using a flashlight I watched yellow and white bumps grow in the back of my throat. By midnight I was unable to swallow without a lot of pain so I headed to Kroger for some cough drops and throat spray.
Heather's got just about identical symptoms.
Strep is a possibility because my cold symptoms haven't really ever been prominent. No runny nose or congestion. This whole thing has been dry, from the start. It's also getting worse after six days. I'm now on the seventh. Well, it also got worse after the third day.
I've completely abandoned my typical anti-pill stance. OTC, I'll take it. Pseudoephedrine sulfate, guaifenesin, ibuprofen, acetaminophen.
At this point I'm thinking that I'll give it until Monday and then I'll head to the doc.
I spent yesterday unable to talk. Trying to have discussions with my partners. It's very hard to interject opinion in a heated debate when you can't talk. I could often get a word or two out but then would find myself cut off as my voice faded. Whispering worked but didn't grant my ideas much gravitas. Luckily my partners are very understanding and tolerated my whining well.
Leaving voicemail messages when you can't talk is a fool's errand. I left one for Sam and he emailed back "you sound like sh*t!" Agreed.
Alex asked "if you sound like a 2, are you really feeling like a 6?" I was probably a 5 yesterday.
The gunk made it to my lungs and the harking of loogies commenced. Painful coughs in the morning. And you know what that means... guafennisen. Works pretty well for me.
The night before I started having earaches. Pretty bad. I had to clear my ear but it kept filling up. All day I heard an echo in my right ear. It's as if I heard your voice in the left ear normally and then about 1/2 second later I'd hear a mini version of you in my right ear. That's how my brain visualized it. A tiny you standing inside my ear.
By 3:30p I was home and only had a few things to get out the door. I haven't slept well all week and it's really adding up. But I can't sleep during the day because I'm on Claritin D 12 hour which has a stimulant in it. And coffee.
Really can't wait for this thing to turn the corner. I'm sure I'll start feeling better over the weekend.
Let's review. Sunday 3am, awakened by a sore throat. Sunday, miserable. Monday, painful but tolerable. Tuesday, same, maybe a little better. I thought I was on the mend, even considered a run.
Then that evening my throat started hurting a lot more. And a dry cough kicked in. And congestion. But not the normal congestion, just really thick gunk instead of the slimy stuff. Overall I feel dry, dry, dry.
Up all last night. Maybe an hour or two of sleep. Coffee and pseudoephedrine zapped me into high gear this morning for a long day of production in front of the computer. Deadlines looming, there's simply no time to take a sick day.
Meetings from this afternoon and tomorrow morning moved, thanks Alex, Mark, Greg and Rob. Trust me, you don't want to be around me.
Over the course of the day my throat pain has diminished somewhat. But now I can't talk.
Heather's got the same thing but her symptoms appear to be a day behind. So she's gonna have a rough night. It's rather abnormal for me to get something before her.
This is like, what, our fifth snow of the winter? In Atlanta? Very un-Atlanta winter. I love it, by the way, and have always missed the depth of the seasons that you get up north.
So with afternoon meetings and snow pouring down I figured I'd better get out of the neighborhood in case it iced up. Ten miles worth of gas in my tank. And our bank account accidentally hosed and, shall we say, unresponsive. So I was left spending the final 8 bucks in my pocket on gas.
Made it downtown. Snow kept coming. Had a few hours alone working. Then Alex and Michael got back from a meeting and we all worked together on a few things. Some legal structure and filings. Some project work. Some prep for the afternoon meeting.
Lunch at OK Cafe before the meeting. Meeting was promising... an exciting potential client. We need to adjust our presentation a bit... this was our first chance to get feedback.
Back home on a now wet but not snowy evening. I want to turn it all off and rest... I'm still feeling like total crap. But there's stuff to do so I'll probably spend a few hours working and then doze off with some tivo action.
Still no workout today but I am investing more in situps. Last few seasons I've always found that getting back into things is easier with a strong core. Wind before the storm? Prolly not. I started thinking about running 35 miles on March 20th but ultimately decided that I'm just not up for a goal on the horizon yet. Who knows, maybe I'll give it a go on zero training. Now that's extreme.
Enjoy the weather Atlanta... spring's gotta be just around the corner. Right?
So let's try this daily blogging thing again, shall we?
What went down today? Well, not me. I'm feeling like crap but I managed to put in a good day's effort.
First off was a meeting with a client who wants us to bid on a new project. Always nice to finish something up and have them come back for more. Fun group of people and I hope we can work with them more. It's a car thing, that's all I can say.
You may recall that I was worried about being able to make said meeting given my surprise flu from the weekend. I woke up feeling like dog butt. Luckily with some cold meds and coffee I was able to mask the nasty outward symptoms. Which left me looking and sounding normal but generally feeling like crap. No hug for B.A.... sorry!
After that Alex, Michael and I dug into our deliverables for the week. Some web and brochure work is coming along well. Some bizdev deliverables. We took care of some internal accounting for rent and office expenses.
In the afternoon we had a call with Mr. X who's investing in and building a Project Y with us. It'll require a NewCo LLC so we're discussing structure, ownership, rights, etc. Worked on some updates to the operating budget. The great thing is that we're moving forward. It's an exciting social media project and we've invested heavily to flesh out a concept to make it happen.
I hate that so many things in my life can't be discussed publicly. It's one of the reasons my blog's been so empty lately. I can bore you with repetitive workout entries. Or I can bore you with business stories about unnamed entities and persons.
I've long been considering assigning fake names to clients and people so that I can blog about them. But most of them know about my blog. I'm not worried about saying something they wouldn't want to hear... I've been doing that for years with real names. It's just that a lot of our stuff is business development and involves some degree of negotiation. Once we're through that part I think I could share a bunch. But even then, many of the things are top secret developments... things that can't go public until a launch date.
Behind so many secret things are really great stories and lessons. I'd like to be capturing them all. But capturing the essence of the lesson takes more energy than telling the story. Telling the story can be a quick end-of-day activity. Extracting the lesson and abstracting the story takes time. Which is in low supply these days.
In fact, the kiddos just made it home so I'm gonna go party with 'em! Daily blog post, over and out!
A sore throat woke me up last night and things have gone downhill since then. My head feels like it's going to explode, I'm nauseous and I have the body aches. Pretty sure it's a flu.
[insert lots whining here]
I could care less from a fitness perspective. I'm in deep off-season and am not really doing much anyway. That hole in my time has been filled with a new office and lots of meetings. Which means that I care a lot about work. Kind of amazing how that happens, eh? The grass isn't greener for non-triathletes who get sick! Six meetings, four of which aren't of the "let's grab coffee" ilk, in the next three days. And work to do to prepare for those. It's got me worried. BizDev's about perception and sick doesn't project strength and reliability.
Thanks to my father for making a Publix run for Gatorade... need to stay hydrated and nothing edible is palatable.
Pseudoephedrine and loratadine gave me med head all day and I don't think it really helped much. I may pull the trigger on some NyQuil (dextromethorphan) but I just hate the way that stuff makes me feel. It messes with the two good brain cells I have left.
Need to get back into the swing of regular blogging... one of my goals for the year. A Kindzia-esque post-a-day might be in order. As I always say, the first sentence is the hardest part. Btw, there will be no more Joe vs. Kindzia Blogger challenges... he's all MMA and would destroy me... my core strategy would have to be "run away!"
Ava very excitedly came home with a planets worksheet today. I love her enthusiasm for all things science. At night before bed I usually watch some Nova, she asks questions and I explain things. Not long ago, in fact, we watched one about the planets. I count it as a parenting win. At the risk of ruining the moment, I had to point out to her that Pluto isn't a planet. And Jupiter has rings. "Oh, ok," she said. But I don't think she really believed me. I mean, the worksheet's some pretty serious evidence.
For over a year I've wanted a Palm Pre. Verizon finally has them and in 10 days my New in Two program matures giving me a nice discount. But I don't think I'll get it. I've gotten hooked on the Android concept in general and the Nexus One phone in particular. Android is a Linux distribution made for phones. Java development for Android feels easy and at home. The screen is bigger and most other specs beat the iPhone too. Gmail/Google integration makes sense given my current usage.
Two downsides. One is the wait... no launch for Nexus One on Verizon scheduled. They say Spring 2010 and some rumors have it at March 23rd. After waiting 18 mos already I'm kinda ready for a new phonie. Downside number two is the keyboard. I've always loved my Palm keyboards. I've played with the iPhone software keyboard and never really liked it. But since everybody on the planet says you get used to it and eventually like it, well, I'll go with the flow.
As mentioned in a previous status update... not a big issue in life. Just something I've been noodling as the Palm Pre has appeared on Verizon.
Last night and this morning I wrote my first Android app. A HelloWorld sort of affair. Just as Marty the Party found, my laptop is too slow for Android dev. Handsets are quite capable computers these days and emulating them inside of a 5-6 y/o notebook puts quite the strain on things. My father recently sponsored the upgrade of my small portable lappy from 32-bit to 64-bit... and my main desktop in the same manner... but Eclipse doesn't seem to run very well (or at all) on 64-bit Windows 7. Which means I'll gut it out with the lappy. It's similar to Air development in that the editing of files is fine but the compilation/testing of the app takes forever (3-5 minutes), throwing a blanket on the iteration cycles. It'll do. It's not revenue generating (yet?)
Michael Beck mentions an Android framework called Titanium which I'm planning on looking into once I get some basics under my belt.
Can you tell I'm in Geek Mode more than I'm in Triathlon Mode these days?
If all goes well this picture post won't appear on Facebook (or in my rss.xml feed) for at least 48 hours. Found a little bug in the code that grants me this grace period between when I post with my camera phone and when I give the day's pictures a title and a description.
After a whirlwind week and a Saturday that just wouldn't quit I find myself on a Sunday morning. With some coffee. Doing some geeky research.
My Verizon New in Two plan matures on Feb 20th. Which means it's time to get a new phone. I've been eyeballing the Palm Pre since they announced it, what, a year and a half ago? Verizon finally started carrying them on Jan 25th. It's definitely the frontrunner.
But then Marty Trujillo goes and blogs up a storm about his Droid. I started looking into the Nexus One and like the notion of its many-pixeled screen and fab OS. It's not out for a while though. And its form factor is bigger than the Pre.
My laptop drive is again driving me nuts. It locks the CPU up and generally makes the CPU unbearable. It's my second SSD on the Dell d420 and last night I gave up on SSD after 3 years and was ready to roll out to Frys to get a new, standard one. My father was up for the trip.
This morning I woke him up on instant message and checked store hours. Also looked into the details of the drive I need more closely. Turns out it's hard to find and nobody in town will actually carry it.
Damn early adopter-ness.
Got onto chat with Dell... not in the mood for human interaction today. Took a while but found a 40Gb for $200. Most lappy hard drives are running $60 for 160Gb. But it has the hard-to-find ZIF connector and the Dell-won't-sell-separately rubber bootie that makes it fit into the case perfectly. Father was up for the spend so I started to place the order.
Then Sr finds my entire laptop on eBay for $300. With a 60Gb hard drive. Wtf? So I cancel the hard disk order.
And now we're in research mode trying to figure out what to do.
Still sipping my coffee, avoiding human interaction. Plenty of that coming up this week.
For years I've told people that "I'm not easily offended." But that's not an accurate statement. If you hit the right issue in the right way I'm terribly easy to offend. What I should have been saying all these years is that "I'm not offended by many things."
People take too many things too seriously. To many causes. To many us vs. thems. I like to pick my battles and if I don't have a dog in the fight I don't really care what you say.
Why the change? I told my dentist, Dr. Snyder, that I'm hard to offend. He raised his eyebrows and said that he's easy to offend. Which got me thinking. After a couple weeks, this blog post.
What are my issues? They usually boil down to respect for others. In life. In business. In politics. I'm quite sensitive to respect. Argue against somebody all day and I'm cool with it. But insult that person and I'm jumping in.
1 month 13 days ago | Posted to: Training Thoughts
Today I was struck (again) by the power of ingrained thought patterns in training. A little review: in the beginning I went short and hard... after a season or so I learned the power of base training and did a lot of it... after three seasons or so I learned to base train early and then turn towards speed/intensity later in the season... by the fifth and sixth season I was trying to maintain certain speed targets year round.
Which brings us to today. After a couple (few?) good solid years I've had a major lull in training this winter. Thought patterns contributed to this lull and have made it tricky to get out. I'm not sweating it but it's worth noting.
As the season ends I find myself pretty fit with a bunch of speed. I always... always... say that I'm going to take it easy. And then I always... always... hit it hard... every single workout. Which burns me out, spends through my base training bank account and leaves me a heaping pile of not fit.
But why? I know better. I know base training is what I should be doing. Heck, it's what I want to do. The answer is thought patterns.
It's deeper than just "what should i do today?" It's a drive. It's in the reptilian brain. I'll start off-season workouts slowly but I can just feel myself getting pulled into the speed and intensity.
Fast forward through the burnout and bottoming out of fitness to today. I start to get back into it. I have no time goals. No urgency. Just out to enjoy a pre-dawn run. But there's the drive to go faster. It's what I remember. It's the last training memory my reptilian brain has so it pursues it.
I also experience the reverse. When I'm All Base, All the Time and try to switch into the speedwork I find that I have to change my thought patterns dramatically. I go for speed but suddenly find myself at a base exertion.
Being aware of it should help me counter it. But I've been aware of it for a long time. It's a skill. A skill that needs to be honed. Mixing up base with intensity is something I don't do well. I get into one mode or the other. I should try to be more balanced.
I suspect we all experience this patterning in many areas of our life. Food. Work. Relationships. But in triathlon the undercurrents come to the surface a little more obviously thanks to the magic of heart rate monitors and gps. Relationship-o-meter anybody?
On the Clock: Workout Style
