I used to tiptoe into the master's fora wherever I was online and peer around. But when I finally hit 40 in 2010, I was hardly running, so hardly spending any time talking about or discussing running...

Gallbladder removed a year ago, slowly worked back into it, and found myself looking for a way to deal with gps data associated with a running log...and ended up here.

I see some familiar faces from coolrunning and kickrunners, but don't recognize either of those places anymore, so I've been digging around here. 

Just thought I'd warn you all...this time I am actually over 40, am running, and so to the extent that I ever participate in anything, you might see me around here...

Troy Hamon

Did getting your gall bladder out make you faster?  ...'cause I'm not really using mine.............

 Are you sure you want to hang out here, rhoon?

Hey Troy! Welcome to the Master's forum for real! No more tiptoeing around here, ok? Any races in your neck of the woods I should know about?? 

MikeE, I've seen Ileneforward and evanflein in other forums...if they can hack it here I'm sure I can take it as well. Or at least I hope so.

C-R, I'll stay off the lawn...at least when you are awake...

evanflein, the International Mosquito Feast Marathon is June 30. So far it is just me and my brother, but we are looking for other folks willing to help us feed the local wildlife...http://www.runningahead.com/forums/topic/a575cf7d414045bcb65d1e14dcce95c5

Ileneforward, the gall bladder story is sort of long and probably incomplete...as I don't know how much it affected me before I started to really notice it. In 2007, I started having strange, unexplained, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach types experiences in the fall. Ran Honolulu in December and had a horrible bout before and during the race, a little better over winter set my PR at Lost Dutchman, then just kept getting slower and slower. Like really noticeably slower. Running immediately got me feeling sick to my stomach, legs were totally dead, etc. The following winter was trying to help my friend train for a BQ at Napa Valley and almost quit on her mid-winter, just couldn't get the runs in. It felt terrible. But I stuck it out, going to see docs to try to sort out the problem, and they thought I had ulcers. I didn't. Another friend wanted help training for her first marathon, but by June I just couldn't complete a long run. Had a five mile walk after a 13 mile run, during which I got to think about the problem and decide to really get it solved. 

Ultrasound, MRI, Endoscopic Ultrasound, HIDA scan...aha. The gall bladder didn't even work. During the HIDA scan every horrible feeling I didn't even know I was having was brought out into daylight...muscle pain, various horrible pains in the gut, etc.

So we got that puppy out of there and I started running a month later...but I don't get out regularly in the summer unless I'm really dedicated because of work schedules that make it tough. In mid-summer our little bugsmasher airplane got a bad engine health report, so I spent fall and winter rebuilding an airplane engine and getting in the occasional run. Finally started running regularly in March and am back at it now. My speed is faster than I expected, given the extra 20 lbs I'm lugging around. But until I drop those, I won't have a real sense of how my speed compares to before. I would love to learn the answer, as I'd like to run a BQ but the qualifying time is slightly (read for slightly...a huge amount...) faster than my PR of 3:50...so I'm hoping that the gall bladder slowed me down a lot...

 

Someone else will collect membership dues. I forget who

That would be me.  Cookies are the usual currency.  Any and all flavors welcome.

(no wonder I can never seem to lose any weight) 

Welcome!

Hey Rhoon - welcome to the wild and crazy masters forum!!