ISO A Guy With Initials After His Name

(EDITORIAL COMMENT: MY USE OF THE MASCULINE FORM DOES NOT MEAN I AM A MALE CHAUVINIST - USE OF MALE FORM ONLY MAKES FOR EASIER WRITING.)

Spent a few minutes after getting my weekly Six at Six beat-down talking to Mark. He asked me what I knew about chiropractic, & whether I had ever been treated by a doctor of chiropractic. I had to admit a certain degree of ignorance about the benefits of chiropractic; while I've read much in the running world about athletes being adjusted on a regular basis, I also had to look past some formerly/deeply-held (religion-based) convictions. I'm not in the mood to get into the theological side of this, so I'll stay with the semi-scientific side.

I spent 14 years working in the medical field, as an administrative person (transcribing doctors' orders), a file maintainer/receptionist & a transcriber (history/physical examinations, ER visits, progress notes, discharge orders, treatment notes, and so on). During that time I had close working/personal relationships with most of the relevant medical professions (doctors are willing to engage in some back-scratching to get their work expedited), which gave me the chance on many occasions to ask 'what's the difference between...?'

So, if I were to place the three forms of medicine on a spectrum, I would consider osteopathic medicine (practiced by doctors of osteopathic, or D.O.'s) at the center of the spectrum. Chiropractic, Homeopathic, Chinese and Ayurvedic would be on the left side; allopathic medicine (practiced by doctors of medicine, M.D.'s) would be on the right.

A V.A. friend of mine is a D.O. I would visit him on occasion in the Rehab Medicine department when I had an issue, or just to ask 'what would you do in this situation?' I always found his approach to medical issues to be pragmatic & holistic. He was more likely to try something outside the box than fall back on more traditional methods of treatment. I decided to see what Wikipedia had to say about osteopathic medicine, and whether I had gone far afield with my description to Mark.

Wiki says: "...osteopathy has been considered a form of complementary medicine, emphasizing a holistic approach and the skilled use of a range of manual and physical treatment interventions in the prevention and treatment of disease. In practice, this most commonly relates to musculoskeletal problems such as back and neck pain. Osteopathic principles teach that treatment of the musculoskeletal system (bones, muscles and joints) facilitates the recuperative powers of the body."There's a time & place for pharmaceuticals in the treatment of medical issues, but I'm always amenable to something a little more on the natural side. Mind you, the most important issue is not so much the type of initials after the name as much as whether they are compatible to your needs.

I have spent more time over the past two years in dental offices than doctor's offices, so it wasn't that important to me. However, after my episode in Panama City I knew I did not want to visit the general practitioner near my home. There's nothing worse than being an athlete who has a medical issue; a physician's visit usually leads to the typical 'stop running/cycling/swimming altogether' advice. I also could tell from the first visit the practice would not be compatible; contemporary religious background muzak & copies of Christianity Today are not preferred waiting room material for a recovering fundamentalist.

Fortunately for me, I was able to get the contact information for the physician my friend Steven sees. The guy's a masters' swimmer & does some of our long swim events, so he recognized me right away when he came into the examination room. Right away, I knew this would be a fairly comfortable fit.

And when it comes to your life, your health & your avocation, comfort is darn near everything.

The Mother... of Invention

Absolutely the best possible reason for owning and using an iPod or a good MP-3 player. I've always fervently and vehemently opposed the use of those gadgets while running races or track workouts, but given personal experience, I can understand why some will use them. One thing the MP-3 player does do is protect the user from earworms, such as seen above. However, the song above is not the worst breed of earworm. I think Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry, Be Happy is the most dangerous of earworms. Just ask Jeffrey Crane. I shoved that one deep into his head during a track workout years ago, and I bet he still hasn't got it out of his head. In fact, the last time I saw him at a race (a little over 19 months ago) I started whistling DW, BH and watched his Marine Corps-trained butt run away in horror.
HOWEVER, I learned this weekend of what obviously has to be the most fantastic invention provided by the Almighty to man since the inspiration to brew beer. You have to love a shoe-maker who designs a slide (sandal) with a church key (bottle opener) embedded into the sole. If someone had told me such a device existed I would have thought them a little crazy. However, I saw one for myself during a swimmer potluck this weekend.
Some of the gang brought in classic (non-screw-top) bottles to the party, myself and my wife included. I keep a fold-up church key on my keychain, and a larger church key on an insulated bag we take to social functions. I thought I'd be helpful to one of my fellow swimmers, until someone called out to Mel and asked if he'd loan out his sandal for a second. Mel took the sandal off his foot, popped the top, then returned the slide to his foot. Those of us who didn't know anything about the device were in awe, and rightly so.

As John Parker would say, necessity is the mother______ of invention. Some dude saw a need and invented. We can now bow in the general direction of Reef sandals and surfer Mick Fanning. You, at least for today, are our hero.

Enjoying The Journey

Athletic events, like life in general, are loaded with surprises. You save, you prepare, you get counsel and advice for every imaginable contingency, and boom shaka-laka (as my wife would say), something else pops up that you certainly did not expect. A water temperature that's much colder than you (or your wetsuit) can handle. A swim distance that's 200 yards longer, or rougher, than you initially suspected for the conditions. Shifting winds. One more flat tire than the number of tubes/inflator cartridges you are carrying.
I guess that's what makes sport - I used factors germane to triathlon, but running has it's own share of possible impossibles, such as floppy shoelaces, blisters, the severe need for a porta-john while the race is being contested, and so on, and so on - so much fun. You train, you plan your races, get your gear set up and tightened up to within an inch of its life...and life (for those of you who know John Lennon's music, I won't go further) happens.
I had my moment of 'oh, my God, if I am swimming like this, how in heaven's name will I get through a swim three times the distance in three weeks?' the other weekend. However, once I got on the bike and past the first 2500 yards of the ride - about the time it takes me to realize I'm back on terra firma (and as they might say in Boston, 'the more firma the less terra') - I begin to relax and know my body and my training wouldn't necessarily let me down.
Sure, I'm a terrible swimmer. But I found I was doing much better than many of my contemporaries in the wave. I was the one pointing out dangerous situations to the rescue swimmers as I breast-stroked by. I began, at that moment on the bike, to enjoy the journey I was taking.
It's something I didn't do last autumn as I trained for the marathon. I was so focused and fixated on that elusive goal of running in Boston in 2008 or 2009 I hadn't tapped into my own well (figuratively) to check whether my source was clear and sweet or brackish. Only in late November had I realized I was drinking from a poisoned well, so to speak. By that time it was beyond too late to fix the damage.
One of my athletes has finished two Ironman-distance triathlons and is presently training for a third. He's meticulous in his planning and his training. His employment, fortunately, allows him a great degree of flexibility in scheduling workouts. He's blessed with a wife who also is smart and athletic, so he has no lack of training partners. We talk on Friday evenings over beer and dinner, sometimes about travel, sometimes about sport, and sometimes we just talk. He reminded me, as I began to lay out my training plan for this spring, to enjoy the journey. It sounds like some sort of cop-out, especially to a guy who is used to picking up hardware at local and regional races if he's in physical and mental shape for racing. But when it comes to endurance events and multisport endurance events, if you're not an elite, the odds are very good you're going out to prove something to yourself. In the grand scheme of things, a 17-hour Ironman-distance triathlon experience is a droplet of spittle in the pool when compared to the nine months or more you'll spend training. Same thing for most marathon plans. An 18-week training build-up will probably total 800-1000 miles, all for a single-day's effort of 26.2.That is a lot of time for things to go right, or to go wrong. You can make it drudgery or fun. It's your choice. Odds are good the fun factor isn't going to adversely affect the outcome, so you might as well do what it takes to make the training fun. Don't judge the success or failure of the training necessarily by the outcome on race day, either. If you do that odds are plenty high you're going to be sorely disappointed.

But I bet if you look at some of the objective stuff on the way from the beginning of training to the race day, you're going to find you're tougher, stronger, faster, fitter, maybe even smarter about your body than you were before it all.

And being smarter about your own body will make you focus and appreciate what you can do more than focus on and kvetch about what you cannot.