Unstable heath and a race that tried to kill me.

 A few weeks ago I felt off. Really off. The downside of not having been to a doctor in a few years is some things just creep up on you. To be I have had bad luck with doctors. In 2018, the nurse practitioner (not a real doctor. Sort of.) I was seeing told me, with days to go before my first half marathon of the season, that if I ran the half in Carmel, I was going to die. It got in my head. At Carmel, I thought about dropping to the 10k. My name was already printed on the half shirt though, so... with the pseudo- doctor's words in my head, I hit my second worse Half time of 3:54:55. A month later, I did a bit worse at the Pig. It would be 4 years before my next attempt at a half, a painful 4:35 at the Foot Levelers. I remember using the port-o-pot late in the race and not being sure I could make it. I was taunted by my playlist going rogue, with ever-loving songs such as "It's a good day to die" and "I pulled my Groin." (The latter had a rather good beat, but damn it, I was really in pain. In my groin. It was mocking me.)

So, my health has not been the best over the last few years. And with the last doctor I went to refusing to even give me blood pressure medicine because I wasn't treating my sleep apnea... (I went to try to get an ENT referral because my throat was closing up while I was walking around outside. Not like allergy, but like airway sealing shit and needing to kind of "pop" it back open...) So... he became obsessed with the apnea and then didn't do anything about my BP. (I had a prescription for BP medicine that had run out.)

Anyways, in the middle of January I was really feeling off, and I knew something was very wrong. Brain fog, pain, issues with standing up and balance, nausea, chest pain, and general ennui. I could barely keep my lesson plans caught up day to day. I had a rare flicker of clarity (barely a flicker at that) and realized I needed to check my blood pressure right then. And... my school didn't have a monitor. I don't know if that is a surprise or not, but I got online and ordered one from Best Buy, picking it up on the way home. 

182/104

Half an hour later, 192/110

The next day, as it jumped to 196/99, I decided I needed to deal with it. So... I walked to the urgent care. (Yes. I am aware that 190 is well into the call for an EMS range. That's why I walked, so if they made me go, my car wouldn't be stuck there. And it is like halfway to the new hospital for what that was worth.) By the time I got there, they read my BP as 179, so... I at least got a new order of Lisinopril. After a week of that, my BP finally stopped hitting 180 regularly. 

That is when it got weird. I took the day off for a doctor visit (it was scheduled before I checked my BP the first time, but new patient takes a month to get in.) By that evening, I hit 116/77. It was back in the 140's the next morning but has generally been better. 

And then... I did a 5-mile race. I was about 2 minutes slower this year compared to last, but after finishing the race, I could tell something was wrong. I was not quite right. I was seeing what looked like spears of fire going out like a wheel in my vision, and a quick birthday lunch at Red Robin didn't help. We went over to the mall, and I still wasn't stabilizing.  My (new) watch wasn't able to get my SPO2 reading and was struggling with my pulse. I had my wife drive home, and once there I found my BP had his 97/66 (which the BP monitor said was ok, but was actually listed as Hypotension, and my heart rate was staying over 100. Yeah‽

It eventually got back to the hypertension of the low 140s (uh, somehow better?), which makes me feel a bit more normal, and my mind a bit sharper, but... Overnight my HR was ranging about 10 bpm higher than normal, and even now, sitting down, it is resting at 100 and my BP is still volatile. I pushed too hard with 5 miles, perhaps. It doesn't change that I have a half marathon in 2 months. I have more foot-miles in so far this year than I've had since 2019, and I should be in a better position when I get to that race. Still, I'll just need to overcome my own health in the process. 

Buckeye Trail (St Mary point 2 towards 3)

 I needed a hike today, especially as I needed more distance in general as the spring race season is right around the corner. For whatever reason, I headed up and hit Lockington Dam, and this time, the gates were open! (The parking lot, not the dam itself. Those floodgates might have been, I don't know.)

I got my hiking pole out of my trunk, thought I broke the lower segment, fixed it, and followed the blue blazes out of the park. I have to admit, it was one of the clearer hiking areas I've seen in some time, and was a good mix of being off the grid and then suddenly almost in someone's backyard just to be in the middle of nowhere again. And it had some great surprises.

Like this. Halfway between the dam
 and the next road.

I really did enjoy the randomness of this section, even if I did have to do some climbing over trees. 

They were easy enough to climb.

I once heard it said that they leave trees like this to prevent ATVs from being on the trail. I don't know if that is true, but it does make it interesting. I still remember hiking at a state park and finding a tree had fallen onto a bridge in such a way I didn't feel safe climbing over or under it. Thankfully the bridges were clear of trees. 

But how it got here is another matter.

I noticed that the far end of the trail (where the trail would follow the road, and I instead turned around) had a sign about being a trail for the Miami and Erie Canal. (I think that is also listed on a bike path section near Sidney, though that is not part of the Buckeye Trail.) On my return, I almost missed my turn off the path to my car. I saw it, wondered about it being access for something, and forgot that was actually the trail itself, where I had started the hike. So... yeah. It was really clear going forward, but I needed to turn. (Or did I? My watch said to turn...)

I saw this sign where I turned around.
Not where I started.

I got back to the car, updated the hike info on Strava, and decided to head the long way home. From the road I could see out my car window that had I not turned I would have come out on the road, next to another similar sign, as well as one saying that the Miami and Erie Canal Trail was an Eagle Scout project. Good to see, and even if it overlaps an established trail, it seemed nice. Either way, it was nice to get out and hike. Its been far too long. 

A new year

 I stepped away from my blog last March, somehow I half-finished a post on the Dublin Pub 1 miler, and then... never finished it. (I am going to blame the realization that I had just switched to iPhone and realized the formatting was not great. And I didn't want to try fixing it at the time.) I actually got a phone call that day to start a long-term subbing position, and then, everything got busy. There was a fair bit of travel, a half marathon, and Coastermania at Cedar Point, and I started a new job teaching in my own classroom. It has been a very busy year.

Right now, I'd say most of my adventure is centered on a pair of guinea pigs. I actually got two of them just before Thanksgiving, and one of them got sick and died. I had to wait to get a second one to make sure the first wasn't also sick. And since that would take making sure the new one didn't fight the first, it took a few extra weeks to get the second, and boy was there a size difference. So... they did get along. Rather quickly in fact.

Yes, the little one gets along great and is growing fast.

I will say that the ordeal with getting the replacement has left a sour taste in my mouth for Petco. I had a grant (Pets in the Classroom) to get the main setup, but because I had a discounted animal, when they had to replace the one that didn't make it, I couldn't just get one from another Petco, it had to be the same store. And... they ran out when the quarantine was up, so... 

There is a lot planned for 2023, and guinea pigs are not the main thing. (No matter what they tell you.) I have two half marathons scheduled through May and a few other races. But I needed to reboot the blog, so here we are. 

Don't let his innocent look fool you.