Monthly Summary – July 2016
On July 13, I had my spinal surgery and that effectively splits my year into two pieces. Before surgery and after surgery.
In the 6.5 months before surgery, I swam a ton, got myself back into running shape, and was fairly consistent about doing strength training and stretching. When I realized that I’d be having surgery in July, I decided that between January 1 and the date of my surgery I wanted to have swam at least 300,000 meters and run at least 500 miles. The way my year had been going, I figured that the swimming goal would be easy and the run goal would be a stretch. In the end, it worked out the opposite. Part of that was that I probably set the run goal a little too low, especially once the running started clicking again for me, and part was that both of “my” pools shifted to summer hours in mid-June, which drastically reduced the opportunity for swimming. Anyway, I managed both goals.
By the afternoon of July 12 (after finishing a fun run up and down Mt. Baldy – pc: Molly Kassouf), I’d swam 303,980 meters and run 550.5 miles. The 303,908 meters is more than I’ve ever swam in any year, let alone 6.5 months!
As I wrote last week, the surgery was a huge success. The surgeons managed to get more of the tumor than they expected, which should give the radiation that I have to do this fall a better chance for success. (The goal of the radiation is to stop any future growth of remaining tumor cells and the smaller the remaining tumor or the fewer remaining cells will give radiation a better chance of success.) The surgeon told us this week that the tumor they sent to pathology was 4.2 cm x 2.2cm x 1cm. That seems pretty huge to me, and doesn’t include the bits that they just scraped or vacuumed away and didn’t send to pathology. Pathology also confirmed that it was benign. We were assuming that, but it was sure nice to get confirmation.
My row of 21 staples came out on Tuesday afternoon, which was a huge relief. The incision itself hasn’t been painful but the staples pull and pinch and made finding comfortable positions pretty tough. As soon as the staples came out, I was able to drive and that night I went to a happy hour to say goodbye to Elan before he moves to Berkeley and then went into the office yesterday for a lunch and some meetings. I knew I was pushing a bit, but I definitely went too far and have been paying the price today. Big time. Lesson learned. I hope.
I’m giving myself a break from those goals that I’d been tracking every month. Training (obviously), sleeping and eating all went out the window when I had my surgery.
On the other hand, being stuck at home means that I had extra time for reading. I read 4 books in July; two fiction and two non-fiction. This month the non-fiction were the better ones. It probably had something to do with the fact that I was having neurosurgery, but I thought Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery, by Henry Marsh, was excellent. It was fascinating to get the surgeon’s point of view on some pretty amazing surgeries – both successful ones and terrifyingly sad failures. Second was The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It, by Neal Bascomb. This was about the quest for the first sub-4 minute mile. Other than the fact that Roger Bannister was the first to do it, I didn’t know anything about this story and Bascomb tells it great. Sure, it’s a book for running nerds, but if you’re reading this blog, there’s a chance you fit that description! Third was The Faithful Spy, by Alex Berenson. For this genre, I liked I am Pilgrim (which I read in June) better, but The Faithful Spy is a fun, exciting read and a slightly different take on the usual spy/thriller. It was also a perfect book to read post-surgery while I was still on some fun drugs. The fourth book I read, Nexus, by Ramez Naam, was decent near-future sci-fi, but I really failed to connect with it. I didn’t love the characters or really get caught up in the wow-factor of this future drug that connects people mind-to-mind. I liked the beginning and end of the book much better than the middle. It’s the first in a trilogy and I’m still debating whether or not I’ll read the next one in the series. Connect with me on Goodreads!
Besides the boredom of mostly being stuck at home for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been fighting some pretty serious adrenaline envy. Badwater was this week and AC100 is tomorrow. It’s been fun to watch friends race and crew/pace at Badwater and I’m excited for my friends gearing up for AC100 tomorrow, but it is a little tough to be this sidelined while those special events are going on. I know that those races aren’t going anywhere and there will be plenty of opportunity in the future to participate.
Now I focus on recovery. If all goes well, next week, I should be able to get in the pool for some light pool exercises and lap swimming. I can also start some hiking. It’ll be a few more weeks before I can run or do anything else too intense. I’m fine with that schedule. Well, not fine, but at least I accept it. And once I get back on my feet, I’ll just see what the rest of 2015 brings.
Here’s July by the numbers:
Swim: 11,475 meters
Cycling (outdoors): 0 miles
Run: 61.9 miles
Total Run Elevation Gain: 17,125 feet
Strength Training/Yoga: 2 sessions
Approximate monthly total training time: 18.25 hours
Weight: 159-ish (I think I’ve lost a couple pounds since surgery)