See Diva Run

The Great Urban Race came to Seattle on June 7. It is part race, part scavenger hunt, part obstacle course and all fun. To participate you must have a 2 person team. Each team needed a digital camera and some kind of Internet access. We signed up as Jasmine’s People. Our son and daughter-in-law signed up as Mario’s people. On race day, Jasmine was still in the critical care unit, and my heart and head were not fully in the event, but I still had fun.

We met at a sport bar in downtown Seattle, picked up our packets, and waited until the noon start time for the clue packets to be distributed. The packets held 12 clues. Some were puzzles, some were things to find, and the rest were places to go and take a digital photo. The 12 items could be done in any order, and the first team to complete them all (actually you only had to complete 11) and return to the start was the winner.

We didn’t take the most organized approach to our travel, which had to be on foot or by bus. Teams that ran finished faster, but I doubt they had much more fun than we did. We started out by pumping gas for a total stranger (it was that or get a photo of someone in a Mariners shirt. Nobody wears Mariners shirts these days!). The nice man who let us pump his gas even supplied us with the location of the statue of a fireman holding a chain saw. This was huge as Google had not been all that helpful.

We waited much too long for a bus to take us to the Public Market, but we used the time to solve the puzzles. I thought I was so clever in solving some of them that the competition would be left behind. One of the puzzles was pretty tough, but most teams chose to let that be the one they skipped. Rats! Oh well, up to the Public Market to pose with a salmon. How Seattle! At least we didn’t have to throw it, but we smelled like fish for the rest of the afternoon.

We walked/rode around the city finding landmarks and taking photos. We even got to share a slice of pizza at Mad Pizza on First Hill (some of the best in Seattle!)

And pose with a Seattle icon

We had a lot of fun. In fact we had almost 2 more hours of fun than the teams that finished first. Everyone agreed that we would do better next year. The Great Urban Race takes place in cities across the country. Be sure to check out their site, http://GreatUrbanRace.com to see if they are coming to a city near you.

Check out the race results for more great photos from the Seattle event. Visit my photo gallery for all of the embarrassing photos we had to turn in. You can see our route at http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5913323 We might have has a faster finish time if we didn’t spend 45 minutes standing still!

Hiatus

When we brought Jasmine home from the hospital, it was like a dream come true, but the dream turned into a nightmare a few days later when she fell and injured her hip. It is very painful for her to lay down or get up, so in addition to heart medication she must also take pain medication. She is still reluctant to lay down and often falls asleep on her feet. She needs a lot of care and supervision to make sure she doesn’t do more damage to her hip, so we are living in my office (sleeping on the futon) so she doesn’t have to climb any stairs. We do spend a little time upstairs in the evening, when Mr Diva is home and can carry her up and down. Her hip will heal in a few weeks. Her heart will not. The damage that caused her congestive heart failure will continue to get worse. The cardiologist predicts that she has 6-18 good months left. We want those months to be as good as possible, and were devastated when she injured the hip. We are doing everything we can to keep her comfortable and happy, and that has become a full time job. It doesn’t leave any time for workouts or blogging, so this will probably be my last post for a while. Best wishes to everyone for good runs, good health and good times with your friends, family and loved ones until we meet again here in the “blogosphere”.

It’s Take it and Run Thursday at The Runner’s Lounge. The topic this week is Finish This Thought: “As you start your marathon (or half marathon) training, don’t forget… I’ve learned many lessons from running, and all of them the hard way. There was a time when running was just a way to accomplish my health and weight management goals in less time than it took to achieve them with walking. That was several thousand miles and nearly 20 pounds ago. Those would be pounds I gained, not lost. At some point, running took on a life of its own. I needed more calories to train harder, but I ended up taking in more than I needed. I didn’t do other forms of exercise because I had limited time for fitness and i wanted to devote it all to running. For a while it worked. The more I ran, the more I could run. As my endurance improved, so did my speed. This all affirmed my notion that I didn’t need to do anything but run.

The problem in that logic is that we assume that the more we train, the stronger we will get. I thought I was getting stronger, but I was really putting too much pressure on my weaker parts, and the result was chronic injury. Now that I’m contemplating a future that may not include running, I’ve realized that I need to get back to the place where overall fitness is my goal, and not just running as much, as far and as fast as possible (but it was fun while it lasted!). I’ve experimented with a lot of different core training and cross training programs this year, and learned that I was too weak to keep up with most of them. How could that be? I guess I ran myself into the ground I have found ways to stay active, but not as active. I’m afraid my “license to eat” has been revoked until Wii Fit stops calling me overweight. I have to be careful with rowing, walking and core training, because I have trouble telling when I’m working hard and getting stronger, and when I’m working hard and breaking down.

I hope some day my various damaged parts will recover, and I will be able to run without agony. If that happens, I hope I’m smart enough to keep up with core strength and cross training, and let running be a part of a healthy lifestyle, and not an unhealthy obsession. If you are interested in a training plan that emphasizes cross training and rest days, check out the Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training

Thanks to everyone for their kind thoughts, good wishes and moral support in what has been a very difficult week for me. I’m happy to report that Jasmine is finally off oxygen and able to breathe comfortably on her own. She is well enough to come home, but since it is a long trip, and she needs to see the cardiologist tomorrow (he has been out for a week), she is going to remain hospitalized until tomorrow afternoon. I can’t wait to bring her home!

We’ve been riding an emotional roller coaster for the last 24 hours. Lately I’ve noticed some troubling changes in Jasmine’s behavior. She’s been anxious, clingy and moving more slowly than usual. I took her to the vet for an ear infection last week, thinking it was a combination of age and ear problems. Tuesday night she woke up hourly to turn circles and pant. Wednesday she followed me around the house panting. She seemed a little out of it, and when I looked into her eyes I got the feeling she wanted me to help her. She coughed a couple of times, so I typed the words “panting, coughing dog” into Google, and found a link to a site about aging dogs. Panting and coughing were symptoms of mitral insufficiency. Jasmine was diagnosed with a heart murmur a few years ago. She sees the cardiologist annually, but so far it hadn’t required any kind of treatment. I immediately called the vet and made an appointment for that afternoon.

We got to the vet and she was a bit anxious. She was breathing a little hard, and panting occasionally. The vet said her lungs sounded a bit noisy. She asked me to leave Jasmine there for an hour so she could run some tests. I needed to be back at work at 3:00. I ran a few errands and stopped to pick her up shortly before 3:00. Instead of bringing Jasmine out, they asked me to go into a room. This felt wrong. When the doctor came in, Jasmine wasn’t with her. This felt very wrong. The vet informed me that Jasmine’s lungs were barely functioning and that her oxygen saturation was very low. She said that her condition was very serious, and that we needed to take her to an urgent care facility 20 miles from here. Devastated, I rushed home, too late for my 3:00 work obligation. I was scheduled to support a test that was running until 8pm. I called a co-worker and asked if he could cover for me. Then I called Mr Diva and asked him to come home. I also called our son. We were afraid this might be our last chance to be with her, so we all went to the urgent care facility together.

The doctors at the urgent care facility were very nice and very efficient. They sent us to another little room, and then explained that she was experiencing congestive heart failure as her lungs were filling with fluid. They put her in an oxygen tent and gave her diuretics to help move the fluids out of her lungs. With heavy hearts we left her there, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. It was a long and tear filled night with no one to sleep on my feet or follow me to the bathroom. They called today and told me that she was responding to treatment, and that she appeared to be feeling better. They are steadily reducing the amount of oxygen they are giving her, and she seems to be breathing easier, but they took a second set of X-rays this afternoon, and while they were better than yesterday, they weren’t lots better. She is still a very sick little dog, but her chances are improving, and I’m feeling a little more optimistic. If I hadn’t listened to her yesterday, she might not have survived the night. If I had understood the message sooner, she might not have needed such urgent care. Our house is a sad and lonely place without her.

Did you know that there are different kinds of plastics used for plastic bags? Most grocery bags are made from #2 plastic. This type of plastic is in demand, and the bags can be recycled by taking them to most grocery stores. #2 plastic bags are usually somewhat transparent. The opaque plastic bags used by retailers like Target are made from #4 plastic. The #4 plastic is also recyclable, but they require a different recycling process than #2 plastic. They should not be dropped off at the grocery store. Since we are all good citizens now, we usually use our reusable bags, but every now and then you find yourself at the store without them, or you buy a little more than you can fit into your bags. I have a bag stash in my kitchen. Today I sorted out all of the #2 bags and stuffed them into my reusable bag so I could take them to the grocery store to be recycled. That still left me with a pretty good supply of #4 bags for lining the waste basket in the bathroom, and for “poop scooping” when walking with Jasmine.

Yeah I know, this had nothing to do with running either. But it was on my mind… I am sore and stiff and achy from all of my cross training, but I’m getting stronger, and when I return to running I am going to be a running machine!