Mary's Peak Trail Run in Blodgett, near Corvallis.

 

Erika - What is wrong with your dad's foot?

What's NOT wrong with it would be more appropriate. And note, I am paying attention here because a lot of my foot problems are hereditary from dear old dad. Both his feet are a mess, but the right one is the worst with a collapsed arch, hammer toes, separating metatarsals and tendons that are pulling his toes under. Hard to explain, and that's not all of it (lots of arthritic damage too), but it's affecting his balance and mobility and he was hoping someone would offer an "easy button" or something like that. I don't know. The orthopedist on Wednesday said he'd done joint replacements on knees and hips that are not as bad as dad's, but since he's not in a lot of pain he didn't recommend that. They determined that the foot problems were causing a lot of issues up the leg so referred us to the foot/ankle specialist. At his age, (almost 91) no one wants to recommend surgery but they started with that as the most invasive/longest to recover from option. He agreed to try a new kind of brace, so now we have to see what we can do to find one or order one from here. So... long story but that's the gist of it.

And yeah, I'm thinking Falconfixer will do just fine this weekend.

4.03 miles on the elliptical (35 minutes), 2/3 mile walking on the track, planks, squats, lunges and "bird dogs" and I'm done. Leg feels pretty good so will try a run tomorrow.

Hey y'all, (sort of) quick post.  6 easy (mostly) but a few sections approaching (hopeful) marathon pace.  A lot of time was spent with the two folks I mentioned yesterday so times were a bit slower--which was what I should do.  Just under 6 miles total.

Slowcat, without going too far into it....the history of the Air Force PT test is (since I've been in--1987), initially a 1.5 mile run.  After some deaths, they went to an "ergocycle" test.  That actually penalized fit people based on how the protocol was written.  After that experiment, and still concerned about deaths, they went to the 3 mile walk (happened during the 2.5 years between my leaving active duty and joining the reserves).  I never got a good explanation on why you couldn't run it, just that you had to have 1 foot on the ground at all times.  When Iraqi Freedom had been going on a couple of years, Air Force leadership was beginning to be embarrassed by our average fitness compared to the Army/Marines.  So the fitness test was changed to include:  waist measurement, push ups in a minute, sit ups in a minute and a 1.5 mile run.  Over the years the weightings changed as well as some of the scoring numbers (and we went from 5 year increments to 10 year increments).  Current weightings are:  Run, 60%; push ups and sit ups 10% each, waist measurement 20%.  There has also been a cultural change.  The number of runners on an Air Force installation was low when I was active duty; over the years seeing more and more people out running.  Longer answer than you probably wanted, and there are a lot more details that could be added but I'll let it go at that.

Coastwalker, I'm sure you're right (about the walking) but I also think a lot of it had to do with only doing it once/year--and the pace to make the time was closer to 13:00/mile---ugh!  Always a miserable experience for me.  As you said, just getting close to 14:30/mile is hard enough.

Holly, thanks and I hope you're right.  Nice work in the pool.  I keep saying to myself I'm going to get back to swimming.....and I keep not doing it.  I think because when I'm able to get to the Y, all of the swim teams are practicing so lane time is tough.  But I'm rationalizing!

Evanflein, FIngers crossed, I hope you are right.  I hope you are able to get in a run tomorrow.

Have a great night everyone!

Hello everybody!

I did 6 miles before going to a funeral of a mom of three kids who went through the cross country program.  The kids all talked about the support she gave them no matter how they did.  She was a runner herself and a very nice lady....she was only 55 years old. It was a very nice service.

Okay--that's it--gotta go.  See ya!

erika - glad you dad's got some non-surgical options.

As you might appreciate from the time we were at the local Phiten shop in Seattle back in ought'8 or so, I finally had to have an appointment with such an unsympathetic foot'n'ankle quack up on First Hill last summer that I haven't gone back. Maybe we had the same great-grandfather⁸ back before Norway and Sweden became two countries.

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wildchild - good luck in not getting roped into your friends' future longer-and-longer ultras.  If you can do 50K at 15-16m/m, 100-miles at 22m/m isnn't that bad, . . . in fact, it's a lot, lot better.

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jay - have you ever fallen asleep at a meeting?

After the most intense first three days of a week for a long time, took a break today and yesterday at a two-day/all day conference with about 500 other similarly-minded folks.  Surprised myself by staying awake, . . . <<<(ed note: most of the time)>>>.  I used to get paid to attend all day meetings to make sure the right things were said (and not said) but this afternoon's finale, kind-of-tedious-but-by-no-means-boring, panel was the first time a speaker fell asleep, . . . while he was speaking!  He joined in with all of us having a good laugh when he jerked back to consciousness as he started to slump forward, . . . . especially delighting when one of his partners took a cup of coffee up to the dais for him.

Speaking of feet, did mariposai”s make it back over the Cascades after her meetings here last week?

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You can cash in your sick leave when you retire? Sweet, but hey, it's meant to provide income protection while you're working when you're too sick or hurt to go to work. You might have a family medical leave case (we'd start there) to let you have either full time off or partial time off while you recover, and it could extend into a temporary ADA accommodation (Americans with Disabilities Act) to let you work with a different workstation, extra aides or supplies or a different job for awhile as you recover. We don't get any credit at termination for unused sick leave so there's no incentive to not use it (which IMO you shouldn't have that incentive), but check with your supervisor and/or HR rep on what options are available to you.

Thanks, Erika.  FMLA is to take off work without pay, so I don't want to do that. Actually I can't take off work without pay if I have PTO.

About cashing in our PTO and unused sick leave...when we leave employment for the City,  for severance we get all our unused PTO and a percentage of our 800 hour ESLB (extended sick leave bank) put into our Health Care Savings Plan sponsored by the MN State Retirement System. It works like a HSA to pay for medical expenses in retirement. Each group of employees, i.e. Union, salary, part time etc., decides the amount they want to contribute per pay period to the HSA, along with the negotiated severance by the employer.  It is a win/win for everyone and I have a nice little investment fund to use when I retire, even for my health insurance.

When I started working here we got 15 sick days a year. Any unused hours accrued in ESLB up to 800 hours.  After that, you would basically lose any unused sick pay.  Now we get six of those 15 days added to our PTO every year. The first 48 hours of sick leaves every year must come out of your PTO, unless you are hospitalized when it starts immediately. The ESLB still has a cap of 800 hours but it is nice to have those extra days when you are healthy.  This younger generation seems to think that they are using their "vacation time" when they or their kids are sick..

Thanks for the info. My two weeks will be up on Friday but I suspect the doctor will ask me what I think about going back to work. My supervisor will be on vacation next week and the general manager doesn't have much to do with customer service as long as the work gets done.