Bagdaddy: February 2013

Welp, another month in 2013 long gone. February was a somewhat dull month for me except for my trip to Tasmania at the start of the month. I meant to write a long, drawn out trip report about the mysterious place, its people, and my experience getting two flat tires at the same time on a desolate dirt road. But I am such a procrastinator and I am lazy and I am so far behind on sharing my adventures and there are not enough hours in the day to do everything that you want and so on. One day I will make time to put together my Cairns video, Tasmania Trip report, and Tasmania Trail running video. For now, I have nothing but a few pictures to share.

Tasmania. The thing about Tasmania is that no really knows anything about it. Australians do. To them it is their country's red headed step child or the American equivalent stereotype of West Virginia. The average Australian has never been to Tassie and has no plans to. Why not go to somewhere more exotic like New Zealand or Japan. Most Americans have no idea where Tasmania is. I didn't either until I moved to Australia. Some seem to think it is not a real place, that it is an imaginary place where the Tasmania devil comes from. I suppose that is the appeal of it to me- that no one knows anything about it. And the fact that 1/3 of the island is protected as national park and world heritage area.

PRP. Platelet Rich Plasma. My running nightmare continues. I got an injection of this stuff in my back and hip to treat that symptom I am having. Insurance covers it here in Australia so I figured it was worth a shot. The doctor doing it for me said “I wasn’t special.” Meaning that a lot of people have similar type of degenerative damage in the lower back. After my third visit, he changed tune after reviewing the other issues I have been having in the shin, mid femur, and even my ‘loose’ right shoulder. It is not a simple fix. I still don’t know what specifically the culprit to my running problems is after 2.5 years of doctor visits and scans and needles in the back. So the nightmare continues…

Picture a Day. I have still been keeping it up. Most of the time I forget to take a picture and just take a quick snap shot of something I am walking by as I head off to dinner. It is really starting to get hard to take interesting photos at work because it is all the same routine- the same trail to run or bike on, the same walk to dinner, the same bedroom, office, gym. This little project will definitely test my creativity and force me to open my eyes a bit in pick out something new in areas where I have walked past countless times.

Keep on Keeping on. The first quarter is winding down now. More and more people keep telling me how fast this year is going by. I agree. Time seems to be flying by for everyone but it feels like it goes twice as fast with the roster I work. I basically get one weekend every two weeks which I have adapted to but still have trouble communicating it to people. I prefer the six day weekends but sometimes I feel like I could jam more into two 2-day weekends. It forced me to be more intense and planned out with my time off. With six days off, I tend to do no planning until the first day off. I should have them better planned to maximize my time off. Most of my co-workers use weekends to take it really easy and recover from the long work week. I tend to use work as the recovery period but I am finding it more and more difficult to recover from the long 8 day workweek especially as I gain more responsibility (stress) and work longer hours. So I almost need that day or two during my break to “recover” from the work week. I am not even running at a high volume either. I have done a handful 100 mile/50 hour workweeks before when I was fit and working a Monday thru Friday roster. I think it would be nearly impossible to string together 100 mile week during my 8 day on cycle of work. However, I think I could train the house down during the 6 days off running twice a day, every day and hit a 100 relatively easy. The bottom line is I think it is harder to train consistently and intensely working 8-6 verses a 5-2. But I can’t even think about that yet. I just need to find my running rhythm again before I start into that.

March. March is should be another mellow month. I am doing one more PRP treatment so I will just be relaxing and hope to have time to catch up on the blog and some videos. Mom and Sister are coming late in the month so I am throwing together some plans for that. So far, it is looking like it will be difficult to find places to stay during the Easter weekend. We might have to stay in the Car. Haha.