2013-52 Week 14

Well that was a bit of a rough week or two. I’m not even sure where to start. Still waiting on the test results for my food allergy, so I’m not even dealing with that yet.

Well, I guess we’ll start with immediately after that test and go roughly chronologically. Jess and I were heading to the store after going to the doctor and then to the X-ray place and lab for them to draw my blood for the allergy test. Amazingly enough we were able to accomplish all three in less than an hour and a half. Sadly, that put us going north-bound on Corbin just before proceeding into the intersection at Nordhoff when a white car started to make a left turn in front of us and then stopped . . . in my lane . . . with me about to enter the intersection. Thankfully I anticipated this when I saw that a large truck was turning left from our direction and I couldn’t see the left turn lane coming towards us to see if there was a car in it (and because I don’t trust other drivers). So when the little white car popped out from the lane I couldn’t see and stopped, I was able to hit the brakes and stop in the intersection before hitting their car (mind you, the light was green this entire time, it didn’t even change to yellow until we got out of the intersection). What I couldn’t figure out, however, was why our tires were screeching so bad even when we stopped moving. It was only after the crunch of something hitting our back bumper did the pieces fall into place (and judging from the amount of screeching we heard, the brakes on the older gentleman’s 2001 Sentra were original to the car). After navigating to a parking lot on the side (and the woman in the white car taking off, that’s twice a white car has caused me to get rear ended by making an aborted left hand turn and leaving me stranded in the intersection, only to take off afterwards. Next time I’m just ramming them . . . I’m kidding . . . mostly).

Thankfully the damage was minimal, but both Jess and my shoulders and neck were achy, and considering my history and Jess’ recent disk fissure, I decided to report it anyway in case we had medical problems down the road. Ice and rest abated most of my symptoms by the next morning, with Jess a little worse for the wear. She set up appointments with our chiropractor the next afternoon, and appointment I would likely have cancelled but I saw it as an opportunity to ask if he could do anything for my knee, as my general practitioner merely noted that it made a clicking sound it’s not supposed to and sent me for x-rays as a precursor to an MRI. I mentioned that I hurt the knee last week and sadly it hasn’t seen much improvement since. After getting all of the neck and shoulder check ups out of the way, the chiropractor contorted my knee for a minute before rendering a diagnosis, my quad was too tight on the right side and was pulling my knee cap out of it’s groove, causing irritation where it was rubbing the wrong place. My exact words to Ellis were, “I HAVE to run in TWO weeks!” I was told a simple tape job would help me get exercising again. Did I mention that our chiropractor is also a sports doctor for our old high school? If you need a chiropractor in the San Fernando Valley or adjacent areas, I recommend ours, Dr. Russell Ellis. I tried the tape job and ran a couple miles, and it did help, but the fancy tape I got sweated off. The super fancy tape that is used for swimmers arrives today from Amazon, so I’m going to give that a try.

Unfortunately actual healing is not progressing nearly as quickly as I would like. Jess points out that it’s only been a week and a half since the initial injury, but, if you know me, I HATE being injured. The idea of not being able to jump up right now and knock out a few miles really bothers me. Probably why I have not been tested with too many injuries in the past couple years. Even worse is that Ragnar is coming up in just over a week and a half, and I refuse to miss it, even if I have to drag my leg behind me. It has forced a sad decision on me, however, in an attempt to give myself the best chance to be ready for Ragnar, I’m going to have to lay off karate for a while, which means I will miss the next test in the beginning of May. Probably for the best since I currently can’t jump on my right leg, and two of the combinations I have to perform are helpfully titled “Jump Linear” and “Jump Circular.” The next test will be two months after that, so hopefully I’ll be healed by then.

So I’m going to settle for a shorter entry this week, as all of the stories I’ve related, the allergy, the car, and the knee, are all in limbo and will play out in the coming week. And since I’ve spent most of the past week dealing with them, I don’t have much else interesting to add.

Weight: 226 Loss: 4 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 178.2 miles (+4 miles) Last year-to-date: 86.7 miles – Words-to-date: 25655 (+918)