Ribs! I’m sure this is difficult news for a runner of your caliber but your attitude about this is a model of sanity and good judgment. Thanks for your post. I’m very glad you have apparently discovered the source of the problem and will be getting such good care addressing it. Best to you and the Saint as you figure this out. And, of course, keep us informed! Holly—no geese here either. Tim—I got the same e-mail. I only had to send $1000 to facilitate the transfer. I haven’t heard back yet, but I’m sure it’s just a momentary delay. As he notes, Mr. Paul is a busy guy. JLyyne—ouch. Be careful. Take the time to rest this. My own—rather trivial by comparison—doc report, which I’ll keep as brief as possible. Colonoscopy yesterday. Two polyps removed; doc says almost certainly pre-cancerous (waiting on biopsy). Good thing done. No running today again but back to short runs (3 miles) for the rest of the week beginning tomorrow. The idea is to avoid too-vigorous exercise triggering bleeding where polyps were removed. Sounds extra-cautious to me, but I had this as a cut-back week anyway, so I’ll lay low. Hope that’s not TMI. It is yet another reminder to get these unpleasant medical visits done to hopefully prevent worse things later.

No Tramps, that is not TMI if it helps one other person. I have colon cancer in my family. My brother died of it and my sister had it and is in remission, so I have had that procedure quite a few times. It is an inconvenience but I never complain about it. Your doctor will tell you the frequency for this procedure going forward and I hope you will stay with his plan. That they snipped a couple of polyps will only encourage you to stay serious about it as I know you will. Thanks for your kind words today. Twocat, the doctor has as one of his patients one of the Dallas Mavericks and he commented that treating athletes is a whole different ball game. He said to me, "You're kind of a tough case to figure out," and mentioned that the running issue makes the cardiologist and other treatment professionals look at things in a different way. You brought up a good point and thank you also for your comments. And while I am on that, I didn't want my issue to occupy the thread today. I knew you would want to know so I posted it and now you know. Let's move on to other topics: how do we beat Mainerunnah? how do we get Tim a hot date? how can we clone Mariposai's son? Those ought to be our topics today! Spareribs

Hey Mainerunnah - are there in trout in your Saco River???

The Saco River runs 134 miles from Saco Lake, in New Hampshire's White Mountains, to Camp Ellis in Saco, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. In New Hampshire, the river flows quickly as it drops 1,515 feet over 45 miles. The river is slower in Maine, due to the slight elevation change — 383 feet for the entire state — and the six hydropower stations along the river. The river has exceptionally pure water and fishing on the river is excellent. The Saco River provides drinking water for the two cities, and water quality is protected by the Saco River Corridor Commission. A major salmon restoration initiative is under way, with fish ladders and elevators being built to permit the fish to pass by several dams. For now, fishermen must be content with fishing for the trout (Brook, Brown and Rainbow) that the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife stocks upriver, the smallmouth and largemouth bass in the midsection that replenish themselves, and the striped bass that nature stocks at the river's mouth. We live about 8 miles down from Skelton Dam and about 3 miles before the Cataract Dams where the river flows into the Atlantic Ocean. These final dams maintain the separation between the fresh water of the Saco River and the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean. The nice thing about living between these sets of dams is that for the most part it tends to keep the recreational boaters away. We get very few power boats and jet skis along our stretch of the river except for those who live along this stretch and even a limited number of canoeists and kayakers since they tend to stay on the upper portions of the river, we just love it here!

I'm back from Hawaii...

Oh now that just hurts a girl... On the upside, I get to go running at 3:30 pm today! Babysitter is coming through for me yet again! Yippee! Oh and BTW, SR, if I knew you better, I'd be making all kinds of cracks, such as "Wow, they actually found a heart" and all that stupid stuff. But, I'll leave that be and just say I'm hoping everything goes as smoothly as possible for you.

. At least now I can look forward to fixing this the right way and leading a normal and healthy life, which by the way, includes logging on here and making sure I keep everyone else on the up and up and the wimmin faithful to me. You know, thinking of the glass as half full, when I woke up this morning, I thought that if I had not been a runner, I might never have noticed these symptoms, because when you run, you always have performance benchmarks to measure. Others don't always have it as good as I do, and they often don't have caring friends like you. Spareribs

This is exactly what I wanted to hear from you Spareribs, now we know the culprit, you will get a second opinion, you will find treatment,you will recover from the treatment and then you will be running again before you know it. Meanwhile you will keep logging in here to make sure you keep everyone else on the up and the wimmmin faithful to you. Great attitude my friend. Please know that each one of us care deeply for your health and for the well being of your family. Butterfly hugs to the Saint also as she walks with you through this. Last night was call night for me. I was up most of the night so when my alarm went off at 5 to go for a run, I got up, put my clothes on...but my body and mind were just too tired...so wimpy me went back to bed. I just proclaimed today as a rest day...but yoga last night was just perfect.

Wow Ribs, aren't you glad you moved the appointment up? You must feel some relief to now KNOW the reason for the fatigue, even though the solution involves surgery. And I agree with eveyone else, being a runner may have saved you from the valve getting worse before you would notice. I had a great run last night! Quite proud of myself. It was 80F out at 6:30pm, but who cares? A bit too hot for speedwork. I decided to do a 12 mile out and back. I was thinking of Perch's strategy, go out slow the first 6, turn around and come back faster the second six. I figured with the heat, going slow the first 6 would be very easy to do, and then hopefully the temperature would start to drop and help me make it back faster. This is a hilly route (I should really sign up for motionbased or sportstracks to generate the nice elevation graphs to show you all), but at the turnaround point it is probably just a few feet higher than my house making the net elevation change about the same on the out portion as the return portion. Out: 10:48 11:04 10:36 11:20 11:06 11:32 (avg 11:04) Back: 10:20 10:27 9:41 10:19 9:14 9:45 (avg 9:58) It was 75F when I returned. Believe me, it felt a lot better than 80F!

Mainerunnah - I am so jealous. My ultimate goal is to retire and live on a trout stream - especially with the privacy you describe. It's too cold in Maine, though, so I'll have to settle for the White River in Arkansas or Taneycomo in Missouri.

Greetings to all. And Good Luck to 'Ribs, now that you have a definite diagnosis. Maybe not fun, but much better than the alternatives. Guess I haven't adjusted to summer running as much as I thought. out at 5:15 this morning and it was already 75 and humid. Took just under 30 minutes for the 3.2 lake loop, with copious amounts of sweat, much of which seemed to come AFTER the cool shower. Glad the car has AC for the commute. Since I just signed up for a 5K that will be around the same route for this coming Sunday, I spent most of the run thinking "Why did I sign up for a race in this weather?" It goes off at 8:30, so am hoping for some cooler overnights. Kevin