day 260: chowdah and a diene

THE IMPULSE

by: Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Twas too lonely for her there,
And too wild,
And since there were but two of them,
And no child,

And work was little in the house,
She was free,
And followed where he furrowed field,
Or felled tree.

She rested on a log and tossed
The fresh chips,
With a song only to herself
On her lips.

And once she went to break a bough
Of black alder.
She strayed so far she scarcely heard
When he called her–

And didn’t answer–didn’t speak–
Or return.
She stood, and then she ran and hid
In the fern.

He never found her, though he looked
Everywhere,
And he asked at her mother’s house
Was she there.

Sudden and swift and light as that
The ties gave,
And he learned of finalities
Besides the grave.

As lonely, as wild, as free as I am, I would never ever leave.

This life is too good, this man is too wonderful.

Robert Frost was from that great state of New England, also home to the best chowder ever made. Yes, yes I know New England isn’t a state but boy is it something else. When we lived in Rhode Island, we attended a chowder festival where hundreds upon hundreds of homemade chowders were served to us in little piping hot cups of creamy flavor. They even had a section of Manhattan chowder. It stands out as one of the best days of my life.

Today, in a desperate and ultimately fruitless search for a decaf almond milk latte (never had but oddly craved), I walked by Whole Foods’ soup bar. Front and center was a clam chowder that smelled like heaven but might as well have been poison for as much as I wanted to eat those oddly named fillers.

I’ve found some good recipes but am loath to try them considering my recent kitchen failures. The count is in the double digits, and this in just the past two weeks.  It’s getting expensive. Anyway, I’ll report back with the results.

In other news, I crushed my nomenclature exam today. It’s good I finally learned how to name chemicals, it’s making MCAT examining far more comprehensible. Today I am studying Chapters 13 through 16 for an Organic Chemistry test on Saturday. Dienes were the final topic of the night. So fun.

Tomorrow is another sleeping-in sort of day. Yes I realize I am a gym loser but sleep is sweet, and gym-my days will come.

KT

out

day 190: give your injury a swift kick in the pants

**NOTE 1: FOR NON-DEBILITATING INJURIES ONLY**

**NOTE 2: I am not a medical professional**

So, you’ve been injured.

You’ve been sentenced to the dull realm of not-making-progress-toward-your-mission-of-combining-the-strength-of-a-grizzly-and-the-suppleness-of-a-leopard-into-one-super-human-that-happens-to-have-your-face, also known as not-CrossFitting.

To avoid spending listless afternoons in crushing un-productivity and poopy self-pity, read on. Take it from someone with 20/20 hindsight.

Step 0. ADMIT that you have an injury.

Hint: if you are swollen, bruising, and limping five days after you wiped out on a box, you probably hurt yourself. Don’t be stubborn. Stubborn is stupid.

My foot/cankle five days later

Step 1. Figure out what it is.

Go to a doctor if you can. If you can’t, ask your friends, coaches, and budding anatomists if they’ve seen your symptoms before. Google with your best google-y concentration and persistence–don’t stop at hits from answers.yahoo.com.

Some references for after you’ve driven yourself to tears from reading about all the scary side-effects of your newly diagnosed injury on webmd:

• the excellent mobilitywod.com
• the foot-oriented sock-doc.com
• the comprehensive and controversial savingyourself.ca

#whatwhat

Step 3. Figure out how to fix it.

Approach your injury with the attitude that it can be fixed. If the kind doctor from Step 1. told you you’ll never lift again, smile, nod, and get out of that office. Attitude is everything. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Can you tell I’ve been scouring the “inspiration quotes” tags on pinterest? Here’s another

don’t let any news hold you down

Healing is injury-specific, but Steps 4, 5, and 6 are general guidelines to getting back to being awesome

Step 4. Rest and mobilize.

Straight from the thoughts of one BAMF:

“Bourne concentrated on rest and mobility. From somewhere in his forgotten past he understood that recovery depended upon both and he applied rigid discipline to both.”

The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum, p137

How long should you rest? As long as it takes.

How much should you mobilize? Until your eyes bleed.

Okay, seriously, you should mobilize every day for at least 100 repitions through a safe (not necessarily discomfort-free) range of motion. You want the muscle-tendon-ligament-joint complex to remember how it’s supposed to work, but it has a certain threshold beneath which it won’t retain the information. If you don’t surpass the threshold in each sitting, all you’re doing is making pretty circles in the air. Rinse and repeat.

soooooooo supple

Step 5: Eat real food.

This goes without saying. You should do this all the time. BUT it is especially important when your body is trying to heal from a traumatic injury. If you’re not getting high-quality fats and enough of them, change that (fish oil babyyyyy). Now is not the time to bury your face in a pan of paleo brownies, even if your self-pity is like Rowdy Ronda Rousey and you’re poor little Julia Budd.

promise!

Step 6: Become the happiest person alive.

I’m being serious. Don’t succumb to pain and panic. Fear and anxiety can hinder the healing process. I’m not saying this as a new-age hippy, I’m saying this as a Jedi. Okay, okay, a Padawan. Watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwd-wLdIHjs#t=8s

I get it: being happy at a time like this is a Hurculean task, especially if increasing your work capacity across broad time and modal domains makes you your happiest.

Here a list of get-happy strategies

• Be nice to people. Especially people you don’t like. You’ll feel good about yourself. Feeling good about yourself makes you happy.
• Work on your weaknesses. Celebrate your strengths. Physically, this means you should use your time off to build that hollow-rock position, work on that strict pullup, open up your hips and limber up your calves. Pick something that doesn’t aggravate your injury and do it. Make your weaknesses strengths and your strengths stronger. It might prove boring but, hey, you’re bored anyway.
• Go outside and sing at the top of your lungs. (Make sure nobody is around or you’re likely to face embarassment.)
• Give your puppy a hug. Repeat often.

If you don’t have a pup, you can hug mine

Step 7: Get back to the box.

Everybody misses you.

dear old Trident

Don’t stop practicing Steps 4, 5, and 6. If you’re not well enough to get back to pre-injury activities, be smart about it. Chriss will probably make you write “Hard is easy, smart is hard” on the board 20 times in your best handwriting. Write it on your heart as well. Don’t reinjure yourself.

Our coaches are the best, and they will come up with substitutions for you if you let them know what’s happening. Don’t be shy. Says the shy-est girl evahhh.

Step 8: Prevent injury. Move well.

Injuries happen because you’re not moving correctly. Poor mechanics indicate 1. laziness or 2. physiological inability to attain a good position. Fix it.

When Andrea tells you your knee is caving in on your squats, free your hips/ankles before you put another pound on the bar. When Matt K tells you to land softly on the box, pretend your a kitten for a day (or however long it takes). When Jerome tells you to keep your core tight, lock it down.

And when Marcus tells you to take a rest day, take a rest day.

Listen to your body.

If you respect movement, it won’t hurt you.

It’s good to be back, Trident,

KT

out

day 112: a weekend on a tuesday

I skipped Trident today, on purpose. (Not to be confused with porpoise; we don’t have any porpoises in these waters. Or porpi for that matter.)

It’s all odd: my weariness has been oddly heavy these past two days. I’ve had to sit down at my stand up desk. I chuckle when I picture how odd I must look with bum planted, neck craned, and shoulders awkward to reach that computer oddly stacked on all those boxes and books. It was for my ultimate well-being though, for I was not confident I could keep my feet about my odd self. My odd seated posture would have nothing on the comical prowess of an oddly spontaneous pass-out/wipe-out. Say odd ten times fast. (It’s not hard…it just makes you sound odd.)

Anywho, though I didn’t go to dear Trident, I did have a productive afternoon. I completed all those tasks I would normally delay to next weekend but which I should have done last weekend. Oh the life of a hustler…those Sats and Suns can seem just like the Mons.

I’m a rambler tonight. Not ashamed, just listening to my thoughts roll slowly by as Edward Sharpe serenades and claps at me and boomer adds her sweet syncope with snores and sighs.

Gee ain’t it just a good old day.

That’s almost at an end.
Love to you sunny folks out there.
Love to you stormy and sleepy ones too.
Love love love (sing it you singing fool)
KT

day 53: if you’re reading this

If you’re reading this and you need a good cry for something that matters:

 

I heard it as I drove to pick up A.

 

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BTIW: I gave my body rest.

A reminded me that a wise man once told me: “It’s easy to be hard, hard to be smart.”