Being at the Mercy of Mother Nature

One of the major issues we have to contend with when writing blogs for academic credit or work in a college class is dealing with technology. Sometimes the technology is at fault: I can't say how many times I've punched my laptop or slammed down the screen in frustration or despair when it freezes. Contending with the limitations of technology means that we have to work within its constraints, even when I have a brilliant idea that must be rushed. If I've overloaded my computer, or haven't defragmented it recently, it's likely, then, that, according to Murphy's Law, my computer will freeze; my Internet connection will break down. I'll close without saving, or click away from the screen...

So often it's human error that causes the problem. If you look at science fiction books (and movies of the 1980s), who was really at fault? Was it the humans or HAL in 2001, A Space Odyssey (I blame both society and the programmer)? Who really was at fault in dealing with the zenomorph in Alien (the Corporation)? The humans, of course. We are not perfect beings, and we create as much cacophony as we create harmony. Blogs invite cacophony due to the potential in voices and interaction, but also the technology, which is so instrumental in connecting writers and the world, can get in the way. And so writing a blog means that we're trying to do quite a few tasks in a 3D environment. We're writing argumentatively; we're hoping or expecting RORI (return on reader investment, through comments and interaction); we engage with the world through the one technology that is evolving faster than any one blogger can keep up.

And so what happens when Mother Nature gets added into the mix? Events like Hurricane Sandy recently have proven that the power of the environment is much mightier than any human has control over. Here in the Washington, DC, area, many of my students lost power, and a few have asked for extensions on their weekly posts. There was no way I could say "no." While I didn't lose power, I'm not immune to seeing the news and hearing the stories of those who did, and it's pretty horrifying. Will we ever be able to revert back to pre-technology writing situations?

Blog writing allows writers to connect to the wider world, but it does take us out of our writing element. How many people write by hand anymore? What happens without a quick save of a file? A lack of a comment? I must acknowledge that blog writing can create writers who are overly focused on the technology; and, at the heart of things, technology isn't always our friend. Writing that is good must stand on its own, be it in hard copy form or even written by hand on a napkin from the local BBQ Chicken and Beer. All the hyperlinks, graphics, and fancy images in the world will not suffice for a little bit of Mother Nature. Students must be prepared to get back to basics. To unlink. To write by hand. To try something old. It can be new again. So when the next Frankenstorm hits, they'll light a candle, whip out a notebook, and get on with Plan B (the to-do list for a Zombiepocalypse).

How to Blog about Your Content Community

As I was reading my weekly motivational dose of "Mr. Money Mustache," I noticed that he does a fine job of highlighting his content community members in different posts. Mustache's Guest Post, "Guest Post: Why You’ll Become Busier After Retirement," by Darrow Kirkpatrick, highlights others on the Web who are willing to report their financial tricks and tools with the goal being earlier retirement.

After reading the October 6 guest post, I then scrolled down through the comments and found a link to Kirkpatrick's own blog, "Can I Retire Yet?" His August 31st blog, "Don't Miss These 6 Investing and Retirement  Blogs if You're Serious about Financial Dependence" is a serious summary and analysis (in short form) of current financial blogs with the same goal as Kirkpatrick and Mustache. Not only does Kirkpatrick summarize blogs like "Financial Mentor" and "Oblivious Investor," but within each entry he highlights important articles and topics on each blog.

One of the keys to good blogging is highlighting our content communities. Both Mustache (through guest blog posts) and Kirkpatrick (through highlight posts) show the breadth and depth of financial and early retirement discussions taking place in real time on the Web. Mustache is the more radical blogger and financial activist: but Kirkpatrick has been blogging longer. Each have broken down their sites with FAQs, about, and searchable sections to make finding subtopics for the reader even easier. Their sitemaps are user-friendly, and their goal is the same: to share their stories and knowledge and create fun but educational blogs to help readers learn to save, invest, and have a potential future where work isn't a necessary evil but an option that one can fit into a lifestyle filled with financial security.

Follow how the professional bloggers refer to and create content communities in your own posts. It will only enhance the community "web" and allow you to potentially expand both your knowledge base and readership. I would never have found Kirkpatrick if I hadn't read Mustache; use the hyperlinks from one community member to another to really take journey within your topic on the web. There are so many blogs out in the blogosphere now; use your expert sources to guide you to new ones.

You Say Tomato...

Writing a blog has never been easy, at least not for me. I do it not for fun (although at times it can be quite enjoyable), but I do it to show my writing students what conversations can be had in the blogosphere. I have reminded myself time and time again that there is one subject, both on blogs and in the papers that students write, that comes up. And that's this: how do professors deal with controversial topics in the classroom, ones in which students and faculty might align themselves on opposite ends of a discussion or issue? What can you constructively say when you think the writer is wrongheaded, or stubborn, or clearly ill-informed?

This happens to me every semester.  I read and evaluate a students' argumentative texts (be it essays, blogs, or even classroom discussions), and it is my job is to evaluate the strength of their arguments based on argument structure, evidence, and so forth. In Aristotle's On Rhetoric, he outlines three distinct types of persuasion: pathos (appealing to the emotions of the reader), ethos (the character of the author), and logos (the data and details that can make an argument credible), and I think his categorization was pretty spot-on and relevant to this day, even in the era of the technical online writer. I often find in my freshman students' writing that we get a wide variety of all three: there are a lot of emotional appeals to readers in an attempt to reach out and relate. For example, students in one of my online ENG 3 courses happen to write about U.S. health care reform, and often they use anecdotal evidence of their experiences with and without health care coverage. These circumstances can often be harrowing to read, especially when a student talks about his father's heart attack or another her mother's drug overdose and the type of health care responses that followed. Pathos allows these students to share feelings and thoughts with readers, and to let readers "empathize." Students often write with ethos in mind when they highlight their career goals and ambitions and describe their own experiences in their field. Ethos in writing can range from a cover letter highlighting the credentials of the writer, to an essay writer keeping their tone controlled and congenial and not overly aggressive when writing for a wide range of readers on a hot topic. Finally, every semester I cajole students into providing supporting information through the use of logos: those bits of reliable data and details that scaffold an argumentative position. 

So, if students have these three persuasive tools to choose from, how is it that sometimes I just am not convinced, no matter the data delivered, the emotional appeal provided, or the credential of the author and their expertise satisfied? I wonder if it is in human nature to disagree? (Of course it is.) I think of the political power couple of Mary Matalin and James Carville, both strategists for the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively. If they can stay married knowing their own political polemics, how hard can it be to accept the validity of a student's written truth, even if that truth is far and away not a truth that I can accept?

It comes down to understanding, I think, that the very heart of an argument is a thesis: the arguable position one takes. Persuasive tools aside, a student writer/blogger must make their case, to support that thesis with rational, reliable evidence. And to do that with ethos, they must use the best and freshest, most credible sources and examples they can find, through in-depth research, which we must model in the classroom learning space. Students should use pathos sparingly: it works in small doses and can enhance the connection and dialogic between writer and reader, but overkill can mask a lack of ethos and logos. And, above all, students must be able to understand good data, and that there is a difference between data. How does one create a survey? Who is surveyed? What type of test, or participant-observation, or interviewing, or historical research was done, by whom, and for what reason? Does this data really fit the student's argument? Where could it be flawed? 

I think it is easier for me to accept the work of a student with whom I fundamentally disagree, for example, if the student has paid attention to choosing reliable sources, verifiable data, and evidence both personal and of-the-world. These students are welcome to come to alternative positions on the issues. Don't economists? Don't lawyers, and doctors doing tricky surgeries or trying new modes of treatment? Don't historians interpret the events of our shared pasts in a wide variety of ways?

We do not have to agree with our students to help them to make acceptable, nuanced arguments. Based on my own research and understandings of the world, just about half the time I won't agree with a conclusion. And if the conclusion is flawed in a way that I can help the student (by finding better data, by evaluating the credentials of sources, by having additional sources or by thinking of an issue from many opposing sides), I must speak up, out, and pitch in to help the student find firmer ground on which to stand (Hurlbert). We have not had the experience of our students, nor have we shared in all of their research and thought processes. The place from where they "stand" is quite far apart from our own. But if a student puts thoughtful effort and research and comes up with a plausible argument that puts him or her on another side of an issue I am on, I just hope to learn more from them. And, maybe, be invested in the potential of continued dialogue. You never know. Sometimes you can change someone's mind, or at least open up the possibilities...

Work Cited

Hurlbert, Claude. “A Place in Which to Stand.” Relations, Locations, Positions: Composition Theory for Writing Teachers. Ed. Peter Vandenberg, Sue Hum, and Jennifer Clary-Lemon. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2007. 353–58. Print.

Writing in an Everywhere Space

Like my students, I have had to transition into blog writing from a more "traditional" academic space of masters and doctoral English classes. I am fairly skilled at MLA style, argumentative structures, Toulmin's model for Argumentation, and the like. But what about writing in a 3-D space, one that invites dialogue, disagreement, and what I would like to call "live" writing (writing that has not ended because its potential through a blog and through continued potential audience interaction allows it to continue to "breathe" on the Internet)? What can students learn from blog writing that will benefit their academic life? And what from their academic life can benefit the blogosphere?

Take the advice of master fictioneer Stephen King. In his Second Foreword in On Writing, he suggests that On Writing is short ecause "most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about what they do--nor why it works when it's good, nor why it doesn't when it goes bad" (11). I think that King could be talking about nonfiction writers in academia, too. I remember most of my work back in the day, up to and including the very recent present with my final dissertation defense. I know what environment I set to write that text (Centreville Library cubicles, laptop, a heavy bag full of books and a Diet Coke, and T-minus three hours until I was back on baby duty). But I don't know how I did what I did, really. I cannot look in on my brain and decipher step-by-step actions in the writing of academic texts. Really, all I can do is share a feeling that I was setting the stage in an appropriate way. I worked with feedback from my director, and went back to the library. I would research and read mostly at night, in bed before I fell asleep; and I would write in the mornings and during the quiet afternoons when my daughter was asleep. Sometimes at home I'd work on it with a big glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. In the end it worked out.

That text said a lot about how students writing blogs was a good thing; that students created "artifacts" that continue to speak to those who interact with those artifacts. So now I encourage students to write blogs in my ENG 112 classroom. I tell them to choose a newsworthy and researchable topic (as the best topics I've found are those that the authors are interested in but aren't experts--not yet).

So what works with these online artifacts? 

1. They can absolutely be academic. By the very nature of topics chosen, students can quickly link to current trends in IT, in neuroscience, in healthcare policy, in the environment. 
2. Students can write conventionally; they can choose academic phrasing and structure, making their texts more like academic papers than newspapers or social blogs/social media Twitter responses.
3. Blog discussion can fuel an edit and an enhancement of text, which mirrors peer-to-peer or instructor-to-peer classroom feedback on early drafts of academic papers.
4. Blog writers can learn burgeoning Web technologies that will help transition them to real-world writing experiences (because, really, not all student writers will land careers in academia).
5. Blog writing is the great equalizer: there is no peer-review, and fresh ideas can be published by anyone with access to the Internet.

Of course, there are issues with online writing, too:

1. Students can adopt the writing of the personal on the Web. Slang, misspellings, fragmented sentences, and a lack of clarity of argument can fill the spaces of a blog post. Student writers can forget audience and imagine that they are writing an online diary and not an academic text.
2. Freedom in blog design can support some students but throw other students off (those without an "eye" for pleasing design. Strange blog layouts, color combinations, small fonts (all the creative, visual things an academic paper strips from students' work are available on blogs) can distract from even the best argument.
3. When students don't research well (the first few hits on a Google search is quite different from a real in-depth research of Lexis-Nexis or other a college's educational databases), their arguments can seem trite, "too safe," or just plain ill-informed.
4. Student blog writers can find argumentative blogs to emulate that have no real substance, creating a never-ending loop of false support. 
5. While blog writing is the great equalizer, a lack of peer-review can affect not just the quality but the quantity of texts one has to wade through. Making quality works more difficult to find in a saturated blogosphere.

I'm confident that students blogging can overcome these negatives and come up with a series of texts that dig deeply enough on a topic that they will have gained benefit from their research and writing. I don't know if I can tell a student how to write a blog any better than I can tell them how to write an academic essay. Each student has to grapple with context: What is the topic they chose? What position do they take on the issue? Why? What don't they know about the issue? What can an audience be educated about so that they can be persuaded ethically? These are the questions writing professors can and should ask. But it doesn't really change when writing for the Web. Those questions are still important. The benefit, though, is that students get an audience with potential, much wider than that of a 16-week college classroom. The benefits of those online audience members, and of the potential academic artifact, expand into possibility.

Work Cited

King, Stephen. On Writing. New York: Scribner, 2000.

Blog Writing: Coming up with a Workable Idea

This semester is another one in which my students are diving into blog writing for our semester in ENG 112 (second semester composition). I have seen a variety of topics over the years, to include politics, the environment, cultural differences ("fish out of water," stories, for example). The paranormal, movie reviewers, and South Asian entertainment have also been tackled. What drives students to these topics? How do they choose them and sustain them over the course of a semester? Some students key in on a topic they're comfortable with, something that they read about or watch or study in their spare time. That was true when I did my semester blogs on home improvement and personal finance. Others choose a topic they want to learn more about, allowing them to benefit their personal interest by tying it to an academic assignment.

One of the main goals I try to drill into students is that when they have a choice in the topics they write, they should choose a topic that has personal interest to them. But I also want them to be challenged. If a student is into fashion, I don't want a basic fashion blog. I want each student to challenge their understandings and assumptions of fashion and write about what they don't fully know about. For example: for the fashion student, how hard would it be to get a design off the ground? What time, tools, education, connections, luck, finances, and skills would a designer need? This student could also research how fashion magazines key in on trends; how having celebrity spokespeople helps or hurts a brand; even the commodity of fashion could be discussed. 

Any blog writer must be determined to build their archive of posts to show a depth of discussion, time studying the topic, an understanding of a dual audience (classmates and those interested in their topic), both academic and real-world writing conventions (citations/references for academic-style posts, and hyperlinks and clear citations for the blog-oriented posts). Writers should encourage discussion and debate and build additional posts based on these dialogues. 

Remember: blog writing is community-oriented writing. Your audience will appear; they'll make themselves obvious through their comments, and they'll let you know what they think about your content. You can make that a benefit and continue to grow as a writer through all of that interaction. Take a chance with blogging and see what comes of it...

Back to the Grind...

My husband and I are in a competition for April: whomever does the most running/walking mileage wins. I don't know what we're shooting for, but I think he wants a Kinect and I want to get bikes so we can cross-train. Either way, we're still working out. But I realize now that I, at least, have to be working out differently so that I can continue to run throughout and beyond this time of injury.

What keeps athletes going through an injury? Is it desire to win, or an addiction to the "runner's high"? That's not even a fiction. According to Gina Kolata, in her article in The New York Times, she suggests that

The runner’s-high hypothesis proposed that there were real biochemical effects of exercise on the brain. Chemicals were released that could change an athlete’s mood, and those chemicals were endorphins, the brain’s naturally occurring opiates. Running was not the only way to get the feeling; it could also occur with most intense or endurance exercise.

The problem, though, was that to test runners on this, researchers would do spinal taps (think epidural but testing fluid from the spine, not injecting numbing medication), which for some reason cannot be performed immediately prior to a workout. But Kolata notes that German researchers 

using advances in neuroscience, report in the current issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex that the folk belief is true: Running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood changes, and the more endorphins a runner’s body pumps out, the greater the effect.

The more some people run, the better they feel. Kolata reports in her article that the researchers, who studied long-distance runners, could "even see it in [the runners'] faces"--that the runner's high was not only psychological but manifested physically as well. But not all researchers interpret the "high" in the same way. According to Lenny Bernstein in his article "Endorphin-Fueled ‘Runner’s High’ Is Taken as Fact in the Gym World. But Is It?" in The Washington Post, he notes that

Researchers then blocked endorphin receptors in some subjects but found no difference in the effects of exercise on mood changes. Others tested the blood of subjects after strenuous exercise and discovered lots of endorphins, which are also produced by the adrenal glands, Raglin said. The problem is that these hormones don’t effectively cross the barrier that keeps most of the blood supply out of the brain. And there are other hormones, as well as temperature and blood pressure changes, that may be part of unusual feelings after a hard workout.

So it could be endorphins, or it could be "an increase in body temperature" (Bernstein), or any of a variety of factors. The truth of the matter is that "runner's high" is a combination of our present mood, succeeding a difficult workout, body temperature, endorphins, and the natural mixture of our very individualized chemical make-up. 

So no matter what the combination, if you feel better after a workout, you can call it whatever you like. I prefer to keep mine "runner's high," and I'll probably never know the exact reason it happens, just that it does often enough to keep me working out for 6-8 hours a week in my laundry room. I think "runner's high" brings injured runners back to the sport, including myself. There is something to be said about getting up, going into my laundry room, and running for two hours a pop that doesn't generally make a lot of sense unless there was a reward of some sort. The lighting is dingy and fluorescent; I stare at shelves; the laundry is often loud and knocking around. And it's pretty hot in there, too. But I run, now, 20+ miles a week (last distance: 9 miles). If it's not runner's high, then, what could it be?

Works Cited

Bernstein, Lenny. "Endorphin-Fueled ‘Runner’s High’ Is Taken as Fact in the Gym World. But Is It?" Washingtonpost.com. Washington Post. 14 June 2011. Web. April 7, 2012.

Kolata, Gina. "Yes, Running Can Make You High." Newyorktimes.com. New York Times, 27 Mar. 2008. Web. 7 April 2012.

There Are Plenty of Options...

Yesterday I had my MRI review meeting with my orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Andrew Parker. I brought in the MRI, and we went over the radiologist's interpretations before Dr. Parker showed me the actual MRI images of my right knee.

There are multiple issues at play: (1) bits of cartilage have broken off and are floating around (but they're quite small at the moment); (2) I'm losing cartilage, esp. behind the kneecap; (3) I'm developing osteoarthritis; (4) I have a lot of fluid build-up all around the patella; and (5) I have scar tissue buildup from my previous 1,984 other knee surgeries (slight exaggeration on the number), in addition to some calcification of tissue around the kneecap. 

Dr. Parker suggests that this means: my knee is an utter and absolute mess. But I have options. They are: (1) knee replacement (not quite yet--like "killing an ant with a bazooka"); (2) arthroscopic surgery to clean out debris, calcification, and some of the scar tissue (but this won't guarantee lessening of swelling and/or pain); (3) injections of OrthoVisc, a "joint fluid treatment" that treats osteoartritis for months at a time; and (4) taking Glucosamine Condroitin and Aleve (for inflammation). 

As you can see with the above list, I've organized it in order or horrendousness (worst first). But the good news is that I start with (4), move to (3) in a few months, and keep repeating (3) for the next few years. I have been told I can continue to run. But, alas, I cannot run "a lot": maybe 20 miles a week, or 25. But I'll never marathon or ultramarathon, the real hope I had when I started blogging on this topic. 

It's funny: in the last ten years I've had no problems with my knees whatsoever. I knew I had these surgeries and I have the scars to prove it. But I had bounced back, and I felt a bit bionic. I laughed when my mother cringed as she asked me, "how many miles did you run today?" As if it was all a dream, the previous injuries. But at my age (38) it was just a matter of time. Those injuries would eventually come back. I think this is akin to hearing my grandfather-in-law, at 93, just this week was diagnosed with lung cancer. He quit smoking in the 1950s, but it eventually caught up with him.

In my research I've found plenty of articles on overuse injuries for ultraendurance athletes. Consider the article by O'Toole et al.: Overuse Injuries in Ultraendurance Triathietes from the American Journal of Sports Medicine. The injuries to the athletes were common and random (not all athletes had the same injuries). The bad news is that I am not an Ironman competitor: my last actual elite sports competition was in 1994. 

The good news is that these athletes, who do dangerous and outrageous sports feats, keep doing it. So I might have to get injections with a horse needle into my knee every couple of months to keep running. And I will.

All the Excuses in the World...

All the excuses in the world won't get a runner ready to be an ultrarunner. Excuses of mine so far: injuries. Time. Dissertation. Family. But there are plenty of runners out there with families and jobs and injuries who become world-class (or even just consistent) ultrarunners. For me, injury has been the key interrupter in my training.

Roy Stevenson, an exercise physiologist and writer for ultraRUNNING online, says of DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness), "It is very common for out-of-condition or beginning runners to experience DOMS. Its severity depends on how much and how intensely we exercise, and whether we have performed that exercise before. But it’s not just beginning runners who are susceptible to DOMS – even well-conditioned runners who’ve been training consistently for several years can experience DOMS after a race or vigorous training session, especially a lengthy downhill-running workout."

I can attest to having suffered DOMS. And Stevenson is right that those of us who think we're conditioned but are not. I was only running 25 miles a week when I pulled my right calf muscle, and that's not nearly enough mileage to consider a marathon, let alone an ultrarunning event. 

One of the most important things I can learn from Stevenson is that the actual damage done to muscles is real. Stevenson says, "Traumatized muscle is a war zone! Your leg muscles are under siege after repeated eccentric contractions and the descriptions of the damage sound horrifying. Here are some of the main protagonists: disruption to the muscle sarcomere; breaching of cell membranes; swollen muscle fibers; wear and tear on connective tissues (ligaments and tendons); calcium spillage from muscle tubules; cell inflammation and increased production of superoxide free radicals..." The pain we feel has a cause and can be medically identified; and so my month off, while it might not be the length of time required for full rest, was one of the smartest things I've done for my ultrarunning dreams.

Stevenson finishes by suggesting that "Apart from using the modalities recommended above as preventative methods (warm-up, ice, compression, some antioxidants, and post-training carbohydrate/protein mixtures), stimulating DOMS to a minor degree in training will prepare the runner better for DOMS muscle trauma." And this makes sense: runners, like all athletes, need to be fully prepared for the difficulties of DOMS during training and events. Knowing how muscle soreness feels and how to mitigate the damage will help me keep running even when DOMS flares up.

International Herald Tribune Blog about China and Censorship

Check out this article by Mark McDonald.

The Waiting Game

Some good news on the medical front: my injury to my knee is not major; so minor, in fact, that I've run twice this week. But the good news isn't great for one reason: I still have a scheduled MRI on Thursday. What the orthopedic surgeon saw on X-Rays and through mobility of my right knee is that it could be a small amount of scar tissue that makes me feel the "pop" behind my right knee when I climb stairs. That would be great news. The tissue will dissolve eventually and won't harm me in the long run.

But the potential bad news: it could be loose cartilage, in which case a minor surgery would be needed to remove any cartilage that's hanging out in there but not in place. As cartilage is the "cushion" for the knees and absorbs the impact of contact sports and the stresses of running, I need all I can get. So for many reasons I'm crossing my fingers for scar tissue. When in the world will I ever say that again?

There is also hope for me in that while I was informed that, at 38, I have arthritis in my right knee due to all the trauma of previous injuries/surgeries, that arthritis will not limit my running. "They're not incompatible," says Dr. Parker. And, if you think about it, running and staying healthy will help my joints by limiting weight gain (a real bear on the joints), creating endorphin rushes to help with mood, and work on my cardiovascular system, which supports overall health. 

The most amazing thing I learned at my appointment last week was that there is a new treatment for runners (NFL players, basket ballers, basically anyone who is super active and tough on their knee joints) called Synvisc. Synvisc is a joint lubricant that an athlete can get (injected into the knees, yes) once or twice a year to work in sync with the cartilage and to work as a "shock absorber"; it also does wonders for pain relief.

Now, the question is, to research Synvisc and runners; who uses it? What have been their results with it? Also, will my insurance cover the costs?

Health care is expensive; but I think it would be more expensive, in the long run, not to run...

References Cited

Parker, D. Andrew. Interview: March 9, 2012. http://commonwealthorthocenters.com/

Logical Fallacies

Check out "The Unapologetic Geek's" blog and see whether you agree with him about these Top "10" logical fallacies in our current political climate...

Bloggers in Harm's way

Hi Everyone:

Check this New York Times Blog link about a Syrian blogger who was killed during some intense shelling in the city of Homs.

Know Thyself

The aphorism "know thyself" should be tattooed on an obvious body part for anyone crazy enought to consider training for endurance sports events. In this blog I'm attempting to understand my psyche in an effort to not only be able to get through the exhaustive training elements required but also the psychological, physical, and emotional stress that a person puts on their bodies when attempting such a grueling endeavor like a marathon or other ultra-endurance event.

Here are my status updates regarding what should be week 5, with a 10 miler yesterday. Instead, I've spent the last two weeks nursing a pulled right calf muscle. Now I am learning that when one body part fails, especially a leg, runners can change their gait to protect the injured muscle. Doing this comes at a price, though. About 5 days ago I woke up to a swollen, stiff kneecap (the same one that I shattered in 1992 but that has been surgery free since 1997). Walking has become an orchestrated attempt at not bending my knee enough to cause a popping sensation right behind the patella. Thanks to a knee brace (found for $10 at Giant!), I can walk just fine, but bearing any significant weight is impossible.

Obviously this has had an effect on my mental state: trying to prepare for a marathon and then having to wait for an orthopedic consult in three weeks before resuming any training is a lesson in patience, stress-management, and boredom (I've gotten so used to running that not running has left me in a foul temper).

Until I can run again, all I can do it eat right, get rest, and nurse my herniated, post-surgical husband, which means chasing down a wild 16-month-old daughter when she tries to jump on my husband's surgery site. Without running, of course. Idling my time, sure, but I can spend the hours that I would have been running finding a good physical therapist and diatician?

It's You, Stupid...

My last post left me wondering: did I have a particular personality that would cause me to continually become injured during workouts/training? Let's examine the evidence:

1. When I was a swimmer, I trained from the ages of 11-19 without injury; the only surgeries I had (on my knees at 16) were because of a genetic mutation in the plica folds behind my knees. Two weeks after surgery I was back to normal.

2. My Injuries started at 19 and 20 (swimming: rotator cuff tear, knee breakage) then again in my 30s at 35 (hernia, during gym workout), 36 (hip cartilage tear while running), and 38 (Achilles tendon pulls, left leg; calf tear, right leg) all in succession. Part of the problem, I know, was an oblivious coach who didn't notice stroke changes in favor of speed workouts; my association coach in high school would have easily spotted the problem that led to the shoulder injury. Swimming butterfly with hips low in the water--causes "dragging" of the lower body through the water, creating more resistance and, thus, puts more stress on the shoulders/rotator cuffs. The knee break was from an accident running stadiums and cannot specifically be attributed to poor coaching but a mix of distraction, condensation on the seats, exhaustion, etc.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I'm injured all the time. I need to buy stock in Icy-Hot and Aleve. So I keep wondering: is it in my adult personality that leads me to be injured all the time? I've read the article "The Influence of Psychological Factors on Sports Injuries" from The American Journal of Sports Medicine and author Astrid Junge suggests that through a review of the prevailing literature and research, that

A personality profile typical of the “injury-prone” athlete does not exist. However, several studies have shown a certain readiness to take risks (lack of caution, adventurous spirit) on the part of injured athletes.

So could it be my adventurous spirit? Possibly. But I'm not running at 4 a.m. in the dead of winter or solo hiking, so I don't know if that's it. A certain readiness to take risks? We're getting warmer. I also think there are aspects of my personality that lead to injury: I'm impatient, I'm undisciplined, and I have a tendency to ignore long-term plans for short-term adrenalin highs. For example: if like last week I'm running an "easy hour," I ratchet up the "easy" to "beat my time from X race." I don't think of the consequences because I need to see results that show improvement. I revel in pain, maybe because I'm used to it? And I attempt to run 100% when I'm not 100% ready, like I did today (but, hey, at least I ran .15 total this time, totally up from .10 a few days ago).

In the article from the Sports Science Exchange Roundtable, Daniel Gould and Linda Petlichkof suggest that "The stress of daily life and a lack of social support are more important than an athlete’s personality in contributing to the risk of sports injuries." Hmmmm. Sure, I'm stressed in my daily life: I have work, a 16-month-old daughter, a dissertation to finish, papers to grade, dinner to make, dogs to walk, sleep to attempt, and a dozen other actions to take in any given day. But I also have social support: husband, sister and brothers, mom, family, friends. So could this mean that my personality tics are so strong as to outweigh all other factors? Or is this in issue of "correlation does not imply causation"?

Another Injury Bites the Dust

Now that I'm on a running kick and doing more than 20 miles per week, I decided to register with a friend for the Monument Avenue 10K in Richmond, a race I ran before back in 2009. I've been following Runner's World's Marathon Training Schedule, and last week I was in week 3, with a long run of 8-8.5 miles coming up on Saturday.

So Thursday, I was 3.38 miles into my hour-long run, doing small inclines on the treadmill to simulate running outside (it's easier to run on a treadmill--no wind resistance, no uneven terrain). I told myself to go slow, of course, but I didn't. I was averaging 6.1-6.2 mph; I wanted to get under my Monument 10k time from 2009. So almost 3.5 miles in, I feel a strain, then a "pop!" in my right calf muscle. Agony. Imagine if somebody shot your calf muscle with about half a dozen BBs, all at once, and all in the same place. I immediately hopped off the treadmill and hit pause. I gasped for air. My eyes rolled dizzingly up toward where my brain should be. What was I doing? I turned the treadmill back on, slowed to 1 mph, and walked to 3.5, because I'm also a little bit obsessive compulsive. Well, I didn't exactly walk. I hop-limped my way another tenth of a mile.

Here's the amazing thing about doing Internet research; within minutes I was on my trusty computer looking up all the symptoms of the pain I had in my leg. Check out this website: Pulled-Muscle.com: an entire website designed to soberly educate me about my latest injury. I've iced the muscle, soaked in a hot tub, and forced myself to walk, very slowly, 2-3 miles a day. I will have to wait two weeks to fully run? If I have a "Grade 2" injury (moderate pain walking, no pain at night), then I'm supposed to wait 4-6 weeks to run again. I don't think I can do that. But if I don't, I might create so many injuries that running the Marine Corps Marathon in October will be a moot point. At one point yesterday I was hobbling-shuffling on the treadmill at 5 mph, but I could only hold the pace for less than .10 of a mile. Oh, the agony! I just signed up for a race and here I am in the injury column again. 

I think my next post will be about the psychological ramifications of being insane and not knowing when to stop, pace oneself, or make rational training decisions.

Ultraendurance Training

I have taken longer than I usually do to come up with a suitable topic for my blog this semester. I've been intrigued by many of the student blogs I'm seeing, from issues of single parenthood to discussions of athletic performance. There is a great variety of blogs in our classroom this semester.

And so this leads me to explore the topic of ultraendurance training. But a bit about me first so that this makes sense. I'm an English professor who, back in her heyday, was a competitive swimmer. From the time I was eleven I was in a pool, and by the time I was in high school, I was training twice a day. I moved away from home at 16 to train with a more competitive team, and I earned a scholarship to Florida State University in the early 1990s. My best events were the 200 butterfly and the middle-distance freestyles (200, 500, 1650). But we trained hard. At RSA (Raleigh Swimming Association), we did what is now called "garbage yardage"--sometimes exceeding 6,000 yards (or almost 4 miles) per practice. Add this to our running and weightlifting schedules, and you could say with confidence that I was an endurance athlete.

My swimming career ended abruptly after two back-to-back injuries. Rotator cuff tear (right shoulder) my freshman year, then a full-on accident running stadiums at Doak Campbell basically ended it all: I fell and shattered my patella (kneecap) and tore my MCL and ACL. I had to learn how to walk all over again. And after weekly visits to the sports medicine doctors to patch me up, I was given a medical release my junior year. What a way to end a career.

Fast forward 20 years (or thereabouts). I'm now in a sedentary job (college professor) and I have a 15-month-old daughter. I enjoy running (don't even ask me to swim--too boring now), but I get injured a lot. Funnily enough, it's not my knee that's the problem. In 2008 I had hernia surgery from working out too intensely with the crunch machine at the gym. In 2009 I had hip surgery to repair cartilage tears. Then in 2010 I had my daughter and another surgery: a C-section.

None of this is stopping me, and I can't say why. My step-mother, running addict who has recently completed 2 marathons, has challenged me to the Marine Corps Marathon this October. Can I do this? Can an injury-prone nutjob endorphin addict really get into marathon shape? And what comes after marathons? I'm currently reading Born to Run and it's inspiring me to bring back that old fanaticism of two-a-day workouts and really pushing myself. Before I hit 40, can I combat potential injuries and do something my 20-year-old self would admire?

 For this semester, my goal is to run 20 miles (at a pop, no stopping unless to hydrate) by April 30. Can we really get our glory back?

Blogging in 2012

I'm trying to decide which topic I should blog about this semester. I'll probably put together a poll. Politics? It's certainly timely. Armageddon myths? Timely as well. I'm still interested in personal finance, and helping others learn how to budget/save/invest is a passion of mine, one that I also think is related to being socially active, so I might have to consider that topic, too.

What's imperative for me to discuss? What keeps me up at night? What would benefit others with my research?

Here is a link to CNN's Money section.