Warrior Dash, Toe Shoes and My Nerve Injury
A couple of years ago, Juan (a prior Borders coworker) told me that he was registering for the Warrior Dash. I had little idea of what it was at the time, but he explained it to me and suggested I also attend. Now, Warrior Dash is a 5k (~3mi) obstacle course race. At the time I completely and utterly hated running with a passion and would never do it. When Juan returned from the Dash he told me all about how awesome it was, and I felt a little left out and mad at myself for balking at the thought of running. I was teased as a kid about how I ran, because I suppose my scoliosis made me look strange. In either case, it caused me to have a deep-seated mortification as regards running in general.
Fast forward to last spring, when I was certified as a Tae Bo instructor. One thing I realized when at boot camp was where my weak points were: cardio (I ran out of breath long before my muscles had maxed out -- in fact my muscles never gave up on me thanks to my intense strength training), hypoglycemia, stomach issues, and my feet cramping up. As a result of my need to train my cardio, I tried out the INSANITY program as recommended by a few other Tae Bo instructors. While it is GREAT plyometric cardio strength training, it's ALSO in parts quite a Tae Bo ripoff and unfortunately the form is pretty weaknut, thus heightening your chance of injuring yourself while performing the whole thing. Now, what I did was just adjust the Tae Bo knockoff parts to Tae Bo form and in any other areas where I felt I needed to adjust, I did so.
Another thing I began last summer was a walk/run interval program. Walk/run intervals are GREAT for training your cardio, and moreover would help ease me into perhaps getting over my dislike of running. When I attended July camp to help out, my cardio never once failed me. Although I still had hypoglycemia and stomach issues, these were reduced in severity from my first camp as I'd learned to manage them better. I also bought a pair of custom NikeID's, which helped reduce the issues with foot cramps.
I suffered a pretty severe leg issue on my left leg in August and had to stop the walk/run intervals. Something about either my footfalls or my treadmill.
Fast forward again to January of this year. Due to the chaos of the holidays, my moving apartments, and also my having a new relationship as of last August, I'd slipped away from training for a couple of months. In January, however, I also began to teach Tae Bo to some of my coworkers. In February I also added a yoga class due to the interest among my students. I needed to get back into shape and train my cardio and strength back up, so I resumed intensive training. I began walk/run intervals in March.
However, at the beginning of April I had my C8 spinal nerve injury. Two of my fingers went numb in my right hand and I lost mobility in my right arm. It was scary. I began going to a chiropractor and was instructed to stop training for awhile to keep my muscles from tightening and pinching the nerve. For a month and a half to two months I was unable to train and had to cease teaching.
When I was finally released from care at the end of May, I'd gained some weight. Around the time I was free to begin training again I tried on a pair of pants that had fit previously, and the pants weren't having any of it. Three weeks or so after that (i.e. a couple of days ago), I tried them on again and although I can button and zip them they are still a bit tight. Even so, I'm nearly back where I was before insofar as size goes. Just about the muscle definition now.
I'm in a weird limbo of trying to recuperate from my injury (my neck still consistently hurts, and I highly suspect that a large part of that has to do with how I sleep as it hurts more when I wake up), and training for my recertification camp for Tae Bo, which I had to reschedule to August (it was supposed to be in June). I've started walk/run intervals again, this time with the intention of finishing the 13-week program as I haven't been able to yet, and my left leg started hurting in the same place that it did last August when it got so bad that I was more or less laid up and limping for a week. So, no walk/run again for a bit. When I resume I will see if running on a level surface changes things. Additionally I am now suspicious that perhaps I ran for too long a time without a proper cool-down directly thereafter and that I may need to adjust my cool-down time. I have not given up.
Because of my foot cramps, which have resumed even when I wear my custom NikeIDs, I finally broke down and took up on several peoples' suggestion of buying Vibram FiveFingers. Let me say that I think they're ugly and although I'd been recommended them for perhaps three years now I'd resisted basically on basis of that very fact. However, they're functional, and if they reduce my foot cramps I'm all for it. So now, I'm the quasi-unwilling not-so-proud owner of toe shoes.
I'm not accustomed to them yet and on one foot they actually hurt the sensitive skin between my toes. Hopefully at length this will go away or I'll form a callous or something. They're very light and it's really like not wearing shoes, which is great because I like training barefoot. If they work out for boot camp, perfect. I have Tae Bo Kwon to learn.
Although chronologically the next thing to happen was as regards my nerve injury, I want to finish up my story about Warrior Dash first. Kristine, another Houston Tae Bo instructor, did Warrior Dash last November. I'd seen the photos from it and felt like perhaps I would like to do it, too, sometime. Then Dionne, who was certified with me at my boot camp, said SHE had signed up for it, too. I told her that I wanted to sign up, myself, once I knew my neck was recuperated well enough. And, I posted about it on Facebook and informed the world that Kyle would be doing it with me (but he didn't know it yet).
When I saw Kyle after that and told him all about it, although he was jokingly overreacting to it, he said that it sounded like fun and we should do it. Although I'd intended to commit him to the Dash, I'd thought perhaps next March. But, the next Dash is in November, and he seems interested in participating, so it seems we may be going to the Dash in November.
Warrior Dash course for November 19-20, 2011, in Central Texas.
It'll require a LOT of training. But, Kyle said at the onset of 2011 that he wanted to get into better shape this year. However, since the beginning of the year he's gained ~10lbs due to stress and so on. So, having this as a deadline and a goal will really help galvanize him and get him on track. Also, it will therefore also keep pushing me to train, too.
I told a few people at the office about it, and Angie said she's interested in participating, too. She'll have to convince her husband to do it though, so it might not pan out. Another friend, Brandon, said that he's game; Kristine also informed me that she's going to the Dash in November. We may have some company.
This will be a challenge for me. Although I no longer hate running, I am by no means a runner. However, my modus operandi is to intentionally do whatever I hate to do insofar as training goes, until I no longer hate it. When you get better at doing something, you don't hate it. ;) So, perhaps by the time the Dash is over I will LIKE running.
On to my neck...
Memorial Day weekend saw the advent of a visit from my uncle Carlos and aunt Patty. I hadn't seen them in years. My uncle is a doctor, and when he heard about my nerve injury he suggested that I go to my general practitioner to see if there was any tissue damage. I'd already had it in mind to go see my GP, but was waiting for my boss to get back into town to go.
When I went to the doctor, she pretty much said this:
* My chiropractor rocks
* An MRI (to check for soft tissue damage) would be expensive and expose me to unnecessary radiation and in her opinion I didn't really need one
* I rock for being into fitness and teaching it
* I need a Tempur-Pedic pillow
She also requested to see the x-rays from my chiropractor, so that was an extra couple of trips but she will have a radiologist at the clinic read it and give a professional verdict on the state of my neck vertebrae as Dr. Burleigh (my chiropractor) had told me that my neck is all crunched up as if I'd suffered neck trauma (Dr. Lemming, my GP, said that as I have scoliosis it may very well be curvature from that in my neck). As I stated earlier, I feel as though how I'm sleeping is messing my neck up more because it hurts when I wake up, but I have to wait until I run back to the clinic for my x-rays to get a prescription from Dr. Lemming to get the pillow (I have to have a prescription in order to buy it with my HSA, and as I don't have money otherwise the prescription is a must).
Now, there is one thing that Dr. Lemming said that I more or less am refusing to believe.
"Your neck's gonna bother you the rest of your life."
I say that I disbelieve it for a couple of reasons: first, she stated it in an offhanded way as if this is just conventional wisdom; second, to quote Lina from Slayers, "If you have a 1% chance of winning but convince yourself you're gonna lose, that 1% becomes 0%. That's why if we fight...we'll win."
Simple things like diet, yoga, meditation, and so on have proven themselves time and again as effective as cures or coping mechanisms for things that doctors claim are incurable or insufferable. And I simply am NOT going to accept that I am going to be dependent, at age 28, on a chiropractor for the rest of my damn life. A doctor told my mom when I was born that I'd be mentally slow. That doctor was wrong. When my scoliosis jumped from 30 degrees off to 15, a specialist had no explanation at all.
Is not the will stronger than the body? Can we not transcend to a certain degree and heal ourselves to a certain degree, once we find the keys we need? I've confounded doctors before. I'm pretty damned determined to do it again.
That being said, I am, irregardless, very discouraged at the lack of flexibility in my neck at present and also by the pain that won't go away.
But one thing that has always held true is that even when people tell me I can't do something, even when I myself suffer doubt or fear, even when I have no support at all, is that I do not waver. I might be slowed down, but I never stop.
I will get my prescription, get my Tempur-Pedic pillow, do my yoga over and over and over again until my flexibility returns, and then I will go to my doctor and show her that she was shoveling a load.
Fast forward to last spring, when I was certified as a Tae Bo instructor. One thing I realized when at boot camp was where my weak points were: cardio (I ran out of breath long before my muscles had maxed out -- in fact my muscles never gave up on me thanks to my intense strength training), hypoglycemia, stomach issues, and my feet cramping up. As a result of my need to train my cardio, I tried out the INSANITY program as recommended by a few other Tae Bo instructors. While it is GREAT plyometric cardio strength training, it's ALSO in parts quite a Tae Bo ripoff and unfortunately the form is pretty weaknut, thus heightening your chance of injuring yourself while performing the whole thing. Now, what I did was just adjust the Tae Bo knockoff parts to Tae Bo form and in any other areas where I felt I needed to adjust, I did so.
Another thing I began last summer was a walk/run interval program. Walk/run intervals are GREAT for training your cardio, and moreover would help ease me into perhaps getting over my dislike of running. When I attended July camp to help out, my cardio never once failed me. Although I still had hypoglycemia and stomach issues, these were reduced in severity from my first camp as I'd learned to manage them better. I also bought a pair of custom NikeID's, which helped reduce the issues with foot cramps.
I suffered a pretty severe leg issue on my left leg in August and had to stop the walk/run intervals. Something about either my footfalls or my treadmill.
Fast forward again to January of this year. Due to the chaos of the holidays, my moving apartments, and also my having a new relationship as of last August, I'd slipped away from training for a couple of months. In January, however, I also began to teach Tae Bo to some of my coworkers. In February I also added a yoga class due to the interest among my students. I needed to get back into shape and train my cardio and strength back up, so I resumed intensive training. I began walk/run intervals in March.
However, at the beginning of April I had my C8 spinal nerve injury. Two of my fingers went numb in my right hand and I lost mobility in my right arm. It was scary. I began going to a chiropractor and was instructed to stop training for awhile to keep my muscles from tightening and pinching the nerve. For a month and a half to two months I was unable to train and had to cease teaching.
When I was finally released from care at the end of May, I'd gained some weight. Around the time I was free to begin training again I tried on a pair of pants that had fit previously, and the pants weren't having any of it. Three weeks or so after that (i.e. a couple of days ago), I tried them on again and although I can button and zip them they are still a bit tight. Even so, I'm nearly back where I was before insofar as size goes. Just about the muscle definition now.
I'm in a weird limbo of trying to recuperate from my injury (my neck still consistently hurts, and I highly suspect that a large part of that has to do with how I sleep as it hurts more when I wake up), and training for my recertification camp for Tae Bo, which I had to reschedule to August (it was supposed to be in June). I've started walk/run intervals again, this time with the intention of finishing the 13-week program as I haven't been able to yet, and my left leg started hurting in the same place that it did last August when it got so bad that I was more or less laid up and limping for a week. So, no walk/run again for a bit. When I resume I will see if running on a level surface changes things. Additionally I am now suspicious that perhaps I ran for too long a time without a proper cool-down directly thereafter and that I may need to adjust my cool-down time. I have not given up.
Because of my foot cramps, which have resumed even when I wear my custom NikeIDs, I finally broke down and took up on several peoples' suggestion of buying Vibram FiveFingers. Let me say that I think they're ugly and although I'd been recommended them for perhaps three years now I'd resisted basically on basis of that very fact. However, they're functional, and if they reduce my foot cramps I'm all for it. So now, I'm the quasi-unwilling not-so-proud owner of toe shoes.
I'm not accustomed to them yet and on one foot they actually hurt the sensitive skin between my toes. Hopefully at length this will go away or I'll form a callous or something. They're very light and it's really like not wearing shoes, which is great because I like training barefoot. If they work out for boot camp, perfect. I have Tae Bo Kwon to learn.
Although chronologically the next thing to happen was as regards my nerve injury, I want to finish up my story about Warrior Dash first. Kristine, another Houston Tae Bo instructor, did Warrior Dash last November. I'd seen the photos from it and felt like perhaps I would like to do it, too, sometime. Then Dionne, who was certified with me at my boot camp, said SHE had signed up for it, too. I told her that I wanted to sign up, myself, once I knew my neck was recuperated well enough. And, I posted about it on Facebook and informed the world that Kyle would be doing it with me (but he didn't know it yet).
When I saw Kyle after that and told him all about it, although he was jokingly overreacting to it, he said that it sounded like fun and we should do it. Although I'd intended to commit him to the Dash, I'd thought perhaps next March. But, the next Dash is in November, and he seems interested in participating, so it seems we may be going to the Dash in November.
Warrior Dash course for November 19-20, 2011, in Central Texas.
It'll require a LOT of training. But, Kyle said at the onset of 2011 that he wanted to get into better shape this year. However, since the beginning of the year he's gained ~10lbs due to stress and so on. So, having this as a deadline and a goal will really help galvanize him and get him on track. Also, it will therefore also keep pushing me to train, too.
I told a few people at the office about it, and Angie said she's interested in participating, too. She'll have to convince her husband to do it though, so it might not pan out. Another friend, Brandon, said that he's game; Kristine also informed me that she's going to the Dash in November. We may have some company.
This will be a challenge for me. Although I no longer hate running, I am by no means a runner. However, my modus operandi is to intentionally do whatever I hate to do insofar as training goes, until I no longer hate it. When you get better at doing something, you don't hate it. ;) So, perhaps by the time the Dash is over I will LIKE running.
On to my neck...
Memorial Day weekend saw the advent of a visit from my uncle Carlos and aunt Patty. I hadn't seen them in years. My uncle is a doctor, and when he heard about my nerve injury he suggested that I go to my general practitioner to see if there was any tissue damage. I'd already had it in mind to go see my GP, but was waiting for my boss to get back into town to go.
When I went to the doctor, she pretty much said this:
* My chiropractor rocks
* An MRI (to check for soft tissue damage) would be expensive and expose me to unnecessary radiation and in her opinion I didn't really need one
* I rock for being into fitness and teaching it
* I need a Tempur-Pedic pillow
She also requested to see the x-rays from my chiropractor, so that was an extra couple of trips but she will have a radiologist at the clinic read it and give a professional verdict on the state of my neck vertebrae as Dr. Burleigh (my chiropractor) had told me that my neck is all crunched up as if I'd suffered neck trauma (Dr. Lemming, my GP, said that as I have scoliosis it may very well be curvature from that in my neck). As I stated earlier, I feel as though how I'm sleeping is messing my neck up more because it hurts when I wake up, but I have to wait until I run back to the clinic for my x-rays to get a prescription from Dr. Lemming to get the pillow (I have to have a prescription in order to buy it with my HSA, and as I don't have money otherwise the prescription is a must).
Now, there is one thing that Dr. Lemming said that I more or less am refusing to believe.
"Your neck's gonna bother you the rest of your life."
I say that I disbelieve it for a couple of reasons: first, she stated it in an offhanded way as if this is just conventional wisdom; second, to quote Lina from Slayers, "If you have a 1% chance of winning but convince yourself you're gonna lose, that 1% becomes 0%. That's why if we fight...we'll win."
Simple things like diet, yoga, meditation, and so on have proven themselves time and again as effective as cures or coping mechanisms for things that doctors claim are incurable or insufferable. And I simply am NOT going to accept that I am going to be dependent, at age 28, on a chiropractor for the rest of my damn life. A doctor told my mom when I was born that I'd be mentally slow. That doctor was wrong. When my scoliosis jumped from 30 degrees off to 15, a specialist had no explanation at all.
Is not the will stronger than the body? Can we not transcend to a certain degree and heal ourselves to a certain degree, once we find the keys we need? I've confounded doctors before. I'm pretty damned determined to do it again.
That being said, I am, irregardless, very discouraged at the lack of flexibility in my neck at present and also by the pain that won't go away.
But one thing that has always held true is that even when people tell me I can't do something, even when I myself suffer doubt or fear, even when I have no support at all, is that I do not waver. I might be slowed down, but I never stop.
I will get my prescription, get my Tempur-Pedic pillow, do my yoga over and over and over again until my flexibility returns, and then I will go to my doctor and show her that she was shoveling a load.