Sunday, December 19, 2010

Ghosts of Christmas Past

I thought it might be fun to re-live a few of my past Christmas's and training experiences...so here goes.

This time last year, I was gearing up for working with the High Tech High School Track Team and just coming off shoulder surgery. December of 2009 was filled with a ton of bike workouts and some job searching to help knock off some surgery bills. December of 2008 looked like a fairly good month of training, given that all of November was basically a waste due to a rotated SI joint in my low back. I was also nominated for the December "Athlete of the Month" at the US Olympic Training Center, which was odd because there where no competitions going on at that time, I was told it was because I had the most community service hours ;)

December of 2007...actually December 17, 2007 was the 2nd coolest day of my life to date. December 17 was the day that I had the privilege of training with the Navy Seals. Its ironic, because as of that date this year, 3 years later...I met my neighbor, who happens to be a SEAL and found out that there are 3 other team members on my street. Good company to be around, and I'm sure they will be able to answer most of the questions that I have about my future when I'm done with throwing sticks.

Heres wishing happy holidays to everyone, until next time:
M++

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Déjà vu

... I have the feeling that I have done this before. Yesterday I had my knee scoped...again. I was just thinking shortly after my last blog entry, "maybe I shouldn't be talking so much about how healthy I am...I might jinx myself", oops!

Last Monday I twisted my knee in the weight room while spotting my training partner, Kara (http://karapatterson.blogspot.com/) I heard a pop and some cracking, but managed to continue lifting for about 10min before me knee went into lock-down. After the initial evaluations in the training room, I headed off to get x-rays the following morning and compared the x-rays to the images I had in September...there was 1 glaring difference, a piece of bone almost the size of a dime floating above my knee cap. The doctor said that that fragment was previously stuck in my ACL graph from the reconstruction in 1999 and they couldn't remove it because it would compromise the stability of the graph. It was bound to come out sooner or later, it could have come out in 10 years from now, or in the Olympic year, or this summer...but it was going to come out eventually and I feel blessed to have it out now. The surgery was a piece of cake and I got 12 hours of sleep last night and am in virtually no pain. All good news as far as I am concerned.

My thanksgiving weekend was pretty cool as my parents came out from Texas and we visited Catalina island. I think I can say that it was an experience but not a place we will visit again. The entire shuts down at 4pm and there is no transportation, so if your not where you want to be by then...good luck.

The High Tech High Chula Vista Bruins are still scheduled to resume practice for the 2011 season in January. Time will tell what kind of shape the kids show up in and I'm anxious to get started on Spring workouts with them.

In other news, In the Arena had its 1st couples hook up as Brain Gregg and Caitlin Compton got engadged this weekend. To see more details, photos and a super cool ring, check out his website at: http://xcskilife.com/

until next time: M++

(just some good memories from the past few upgrades ;)










(the infamous shoulder shots)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MifLldmqJLI

The Knee shots