Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Escape from Alcatraz..... Im in, now what?

A couple of weeks ago, I foolishly read MJ's blog and decided to click on a link, which took me here and then I clicked the enter button for the lottery for one of the coolest tri's in the US, and today, I got this email (below) ..... DAMN! Now I have to train for a super hard race with no flat sections to speak of....

Congratulations DARREN SMITH!
Your registered email address is: [Email]Your registered date of birth: 2/3/1966
Please follow this link to register for the race:
https://secure.escapefromalcatraztriathlon.com/index.cfm/override/92,1,1-E6FEDD6A694668ABB91FF2F9ABA0C202.htm
You are one of the exceptional triathletes that has been selected as a Random Drawing Winner for the 2009 Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. As a Random Drawing Winner, you receive a slot in the 2009 Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon to be held in San Francisco on June 14, 2009. You have until January 9, 2009 at 11:59 pm to register for the race and pay your registration fee. Your slot is non-transferable and will be void on January 10th. We recommend that you register right away to make sure that you are able to complete the process, don’t wait until January 9. On June 14, you will get to jump off a perfectly good boat into the frigid water of the San Francisco Bay, swim with 2000 of your best friends from Alcatraz to Little Marina Green. You will climb out of the water and run (with or without shoes) one half mile to the transition area, jump on your bike and ride 18 miles (most people say that it is all up hill) and then run 8 miles under the Golden Gate Bridge, through the sands of Baker Beach, up the infamous sand ladder and back to Marina Green to the finish line. What a great way to spend the day! If you need any assistance please e-mail registration@escapefromalcatraztriathlon.com and give us a description of what you need and we will have someone contact you.
We look forward to seeing you in June,
Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon Event Staffwww.escapefromalcatraztriathlon.com
You are receiving these messages as you have previously participated in The Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon or have recently signed up for a race or the random drawing. To ensure that you get future messages, please whitelist all email coming from the domain "escapefromalcatraztriathlon.com". You are currently subscribed as "drdsmith@hotmail.com". If you need to update your email address or would like to opt out, please contact:
registration@escapefromalcatraztriathlon.com


So, now Im trying to figure how Im going to do this since Stacey has Boise 70.3 on her schedule and it coincides with EFA.... Not only that but this is a hell of a race, no AWAD category so Im going AG but it wouldnt matter anyway, looks like for me, its going to be a survival thing.

Running on the beach with my ankle might be a tough one, climbing stairs, riding up silly 18% hills could be tough on me. It might be my A race for the year for triathlon at least since I want to be a bike racer next season and try and make the Canuck team. Who knows, but I really want to do this race so Im hoping I can do it.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Its that time of year..... Part 1, work

Yep, time to reflect on the past year and all the things that have gone right, wrong, and in between. I will start with my year in work and follow with my year in sport and if I confuse you, as they say in la belle province, c'est la vie.

I spent the first part of the year being a stay at home dad, working a few hours a week doing physical exams for a trucking company. On top of the PE's, I had to give them pee tests as well. Yum, that was fun. I learned that truckers, as a group, are the most unhealthy people I have ever met. All of the people I examined were newly hired employee's but not all were new to trucking. I tried to give advice to all of them about smoking, walking/exercise, and eating habits, but with the short time I had with them, Im not sure how well it worked. As gas was creeping up in price, it was costing me more to go to work than I was making so after making no headway to get a gas allowance from them, I resigned.

A few months ago, I found out that I would have been layed off anyway as the company HQ in Nebraska, hired a new medical officer and he said he didnt want chiropractors doing the PE's. Old school MD, wouldnt even listen to reason and the company backed him up on it even though it cost them a ton of coin in the long run to have MD's doing the exams. Oh well, not my problem... ok, I have a problem with closed minded health care professionals of any sort but I wont get into that.



In early April, my friend Molly connected me with Lisa Hunt, the director for the Value Act Capital women's pro cycling team. I agreed to work for the team at the Tour of the Gila in Silver City, New Mexico and I was gone for 8 days. Longer than I had ever been away from the family before. Thats was a great experience for me and I agreed to do additional races with the VAC team later in the season. Turns out, that was the only race I could do with the team but I keep in touch for possible future work.

Not long after I got back from NM, I had an offer to work with the men's pro team, Bissell, at the Mt Hood Classic. Another great experience, but I was away for almost another whole week. I love doing the work but it doesnt pay as much as I should be making to justify being gone from home for that long. At the time, however, I wasnt working much in an office as a chiropractor so this was fun and it paid me a bit.

In mid May, an acupuncturist friend of mine asked if I wanted to work in the office he was in. They were looking to replace another chiro that wasnt fitting in very well and since Terry and I had worked together before, I came out to look at the office. After talking to the owner, I agreed to work with them. Its been a long process to get used to the way things work in that office but after 6 months, I think Im getting the hang of it. The clinic is Russian owned and staffed and we market to Russian's that get into auto accidents. Myself and Terry are the only native english speaker's in the place so that is tough at times with my lack of knowledge of the culture and language.

In the summer, I do a lot of work with the Oregon Youth Soccer Association and their Olympic Development Program (ODP). I provide medical support for the ODP tryouts throughout the year as well as a couple of tourney's, one is during Memorial Day weekend in May. This coming January, when its cold and wet here, I get to travel to Phoenix for a regional ODP tourney. It will be a very long weekend but should be a nice break from the dreary weather here in Oregon.

My friend Jonathan and I have done medical for the Premier 50, a soccer camp for the top 50 high school girls in the country, for the past 2 years. This year, due to some politics that I didnt understand, they cancelled it and put a 7 on 7 touch football tourney in its place. This was a good experience for football as we had a few more injuries than I normally get at the Premier 50 camp.

I was asked to work at the Cascade Cycling Classic in Central Oregon for the UCI Pro Continental team, BMC, but as I had been gone for so many days already this year, I had to turn them down. This is the first year since 1998 that I have not worked at the event for one team or another.

The annual family trip to Mexico was pushed back from the normal winter travel time to June, after the kids were out of school. Stacey's brother Andy was deployed to Iraq with his Air Force Reserve Unit and since he was gone until April, we postponed the trip to June. That sounded redundant but you get the point. Andy is a Major (then Captain) and an engineer with the 557th Red Horse Squadron and they basically build stuff (sorry, dont really know what they built). Anyway, thankfully, Andy returned home safe and sound with all the ammo that he was issued with when he left.... The trip was great, a welcome rest that came immediately after I did World's. I was still training for Ironman Canada so I was trying to swim and run when I could but having never run in extreme humidity (extreme for me, 80%), it was very difficult. Swimming, my strong suit, consisted of maybe 3 short swims but more on that later.

For the past 8 seasons, I have been the team chiropractor for the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League. This season, the team was up for sale, and in late October, they were sold to a Calgary businessman. The new owner cleaned house, fired the head coach, one of his assistants, the head trainer (he had been there 32 years), and some of the front office staff. He hired all new staff, all with NHL experience. The new trainer had worked with the NY Islanders and the Olympic team in Bejiing this summer. I went to meet him and left him a resume. Not to 'apply' for a job, but more to let him know what I was all about. He said he would call me later that week. He never did. I tried to get him on the phone but had no luck so at the next home game, I showed up, like always, and was prepared to do what I always did on game day. I wanted to find the trainer first but by the time I finally found him, all the guys that wanted to be adjusted, had to get dressed for warm up. He didnt recognize me from our first meeting (first bad sign) then he says "I dont need you to come to games anymore".... Um, ok, what DO you want? Im not sure he says, I will be doing most things in house and referring out. Okay, so, um, Im still confused. Anyway, long story short, after reviewing my resume with me (obviously he didnt read it before) he said he would come to see my office later in the week and then blew me off to talk to someone else that had interrupted me. Again, he said he again that he would call me and visit my office later that week. Its been 5 weeks and I still havent heard from him. i have given in to the fact that I wont be working with the club anymore but who knows. I havent contacted him either but if players are in need of an adjustment, I would think I might have received a call.

My impression of him is the same that I have of a lot of ATC's (not all) and PT's that work with elite and professional teams; they feel like I am somehow going to step on their toes (usually because of a bad experience with a chiro) and they put their ego in the way of the health of the athletes they are paid to protect. As a side note, I saw a chiro that I had worked with before, a real prince, coming into the arena one for a game and given that he went to Bejiing as one of the Team USA chiro's, Im sure he knows the new trainer, and it could be the players are now going to see him. I havent found that out for sure but it seems to fit since said chiro always told me he doesnt like hockey and yet, he was at a game, hmmmmm.

Anyway, you know, all in all, I had a good year with work. Better than last year in general I would say. Im looking forward to 2009. As I said, the work year starts with a trip to Phoenix where there is a very good chance that I will be seeing the sun.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

and I ran to the end of Greenbough County......

.......... and I just kept running. Well, unlike Forest, Forest Gump, I can't run that far or that fast but I did manage two short runs this week. I havent got to write that letter yet today but Im working on it.

On Monday, I took the husky and ran just over two miles in 24 minutes and change on the Heritage Trail. Yesterday, I got to the school early and ran the block around the school a couple times. I didnt time it but I figure it is about a mile per lap as my run time was 24:20. Unlike Monday, my knee didnt hurt at all. Monday was pretty cold though so that might have been part of it. Yesterday, I felt great and probably could have squeezed out another lap but I didnt want to be waiting with all the other parents while smelling so poorly.

Anyway, Im going to give this running thing another go. Simon Whitfield is going to be here on Saturday and although I have to work, I really want to meet him. MJ said he is a great guy, not to mention we have the same jacket from World's. Simon will be leading a run from Athlete's Lounge, our team sponsor, and although I would love to, I wont be able to keep up, but I certainly can try for a bit anyway.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Weather, Beavers, training, traveling, writing, running, Jason Lester, Meyrick Jones....

I always have so many things on my mind, usually when I have no computer to bang out my thoughts on so, even though I really should be doing other things (I am the reigning king of procrastination), here are some things I want to talk about.

Weather: I live in Oregon, I shouldn't complain about the weather, but I always do. In some ways I wish it would snow. As I look outside today, however, its beautiful so I guess I wont dwell on that subject too long.

OSU Beavers: Watched the Civil War game on Saturday. It was a mess! The Beavers looked like a high school team, at least their defense did. I don't mind the Beavers loss so much as who they lost to, the freakin' Ducks. Duck fans have an excuse for losing and a superiority complex when they win. I know I wont be able to wear my Beaver's shirt without some Duck fan rubbing it in my face about the win last week, regardless of how long since the game was played. I would love to see UCLA beat the Trojans next weekend. Not to gloat about the Beavers making it to the Rose Bowl, should that unlikely event happen, but to shut up annoying Duck fans.

Training: Haven't done much. About two to three times per week is all I am able to motivate myself to do. Today is Monday. I started out the day with a 25 minute run. Not sure how far I went, probably about 2 miles, but at least I got out, no excuses. I just have to get over the pain in my knee so I can do something again tomorrow. I want to train, just unsure what I'm training for at this time. I want to try and do some track stuff so I can try and make the national cycling team in 2009 but I also want to race XTERRA events. I had a coach lined up but I told him I wasn't going to use him this year. he is a tri coach, a good one, but I think I need a cycling coach. I have a friend that is a cycling coach and I might use him hourly since he is pretty pricey per month. Having said that, should I spend more to get a good cycling coach because of my lofty goals?

Traveling: I'm supposed to go to Las Vegas this weekend for a seminar. Its worth 18 hours. I need 24 by the end of the year for my sports medicine degree, but the hours required for my state licenses are not due til February. Financially, it is going to be difficult to get it done by the end of the year. Going to Vegas will be relatively cheap however I will miss out on a couple of things, half a day or more of work due to flights, working this weekend at a soccer camp (more money out of my pocket), food etc in Vegas (lodging is free as I will stay at my mom's place) so now that I type all this out, I'm thinking I'm not going. I can do another seminar locally, not miss work, but miss out on an easy $400 for doing the soccer event. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Writing: Not writing things like emails and blogs, but writing as in pen and paper. How many of us do this anymore? Even Christmas cards etc, some of us get pre-printed cards. I thought about this the other day and dammit, I'm going to write a letter the old fashioned way this week. I will keep you posted on that one. I do write chart notes but that definitely isn't what I'm talking about since my chart notes are usually in my own version of short hand and its not legible to anyone but me and hopefully most insurance adjusters.

Running: Like I said earlier, I ran for 25 minutes today, maybe 2 miles. I took the husky with me which perhaps took me faster so maybe I went 2.2 miles in 25 minutes but it hurt. My left knee hurt, my right low back hurt, and my right glute is tight and sore. I remember early last season, I went through a lot of pain and discomfort but once I got back into it again, the knee pain went away. I'm going to go with that until I figure that isn't the case and then perhaps rethink the whole running thing.

Jason Lester: Jason is a guy I met at World's this year in Vancouver. He was representing the USA in the AWAD division. His coach is one of my Ironhead team mates and told me about Jason before I met him. We have talked about getting together to put a proposal together for local race directors to have an AWAD division put into some of their events. He has an injury to his brachial plexus from a bicycle/car accident and is unable to use his right arm. Yesterday, Jason finished Ultraman Hawaii a little over a month after finishing Ironman world championships and winning the AWAD category there. Ultraman is a tough event, 6.2 mile swim and a 90 mile ride on day one, a 171 mile ride on day two, and on day three, they get to run a double marathon. Jason swims with one arm and on day 1, he swam through a school of jelly fish, got stung, had trouble breathing, and got pulled into the rescue boat. After hearing the doctor say he was going to get a medical DQ, he rolled into the water and kept swimming. After battling jelly fish, massive cross winds, a whopping headache, and 100 degree heat, Jason finished in 24th place at 32 hours and change. Pretty amazing guy. I wouldn't even think about attempting something like that. I don't like swimming that much :)

Meyrick Jones: Another guy I met at World's in June. Meyrick is a below the knee amputee (BK) and is on the Canadian tri team. He is hoping to make it to the 2010 Paralympics representing Canada in the Nordic Skiing events. MJ is one of the best ambassadors for disabled athltetes I have ever met. He started the Momentum Foundation (website is still under construction) and has been working on getting it off the ground along with raising three children, being a husband, training, being an advocate and motivating people (able bodied and disabled alike) to push themselves beyond what they expected (not sure if that comes out right, but he is one hell of a motivator), and traveling around parts of Canada doing some kick ass things. Not bad for a kid missing part of his wheels eh? I'm writing about him not only because he motivates me but because his writing is amazing. I like to write, MJ LOVES to write so I encourage you to read his blog, he is very insightful.

OK, I'm done with my writing to make up for last month, I hope to write more sometime soon. With a pen and paper........