• In January, we traveled to Florida to visit my paternal grandfather, my last surviving grandparent. Two weeks later, he died at age 88.
• Got our biggest snowfall in Macomb yet–14+ inches on Feb 1. Snow fort time!
• I enjoyed a fantastic Computers & Writing conference in Ann Arbor, with a great blogging panel, From A to <A> getting the Computers & Composition book award, and time well spent with good friends.
• With Neil Baird, I began a writing transfer research project which is helping me to kick-start my research into ease. In May, we got approval for our IRB protocol and a $7,800 internal grant; since that time we’ve build a strong set of case study data to work from, with 10 participants sharing their transition to writing in the major with us this this fall.
• Erin and I decided to road trip in summer 2011, covering 2,000+ miles on a three week trip which began meeting my brother in Arkansas, then heading west to New Mexico and Colorado. Chama, Ouray, Denver, Gunnison, and points between.
• As part of my sabbatical retooling, in August I traveled to Hanover, NH for the Dartmouth Seminar in Composition Research. Being away from the girls for two weeks was very hard, but the seminar very much worth it.
• Madelyn started school, in Mrs. Bear’s kindergarten at Lincoln Elementary.
• On September 12, we said good-bye to The Big Kitty, returning to a pet-less house for the first time since 1994.
• Some family issues I don’t wish to share caused us some serious aggravation.
• Obviously, the low point of the year was rupturing my Achilles tendon playing football. To be specific, the bottom came about a month after that, when I ran out of good cheer and struggled to cope. But now that I’m a month into physical therapy, hopefully the worst is behind me.

Here’s hoping for less not-so-great stuff in 2012.

76 runs, 316 mi
68 bikes, 705 mi
21 swims, 18.6 mi

Total 165 workouts, 1,040 miles. That’s 66 fewer workouts and 685 miles less than last year–closer to my 2008 numbers.

Two goals for this year:

1. Rehab my Achilles. My next appointment with Dr. White is January 11, and we’ll find out what our next steps are. Right now, I’m working on flexibility, carefully stretching my repaired tendon, as well as my foot, ankle, and toes, and keeping up massage to avoid a repeat of last week’s cramp.
2. Build my upper body and core strength. With pushups and swimming, I’m already working on that, and it’s easy to see the difference in my arms, back, shoulders, and chest. That’s part of a larger goal, necessary for rehab, of better strength and flexibility overall.

My only major setback came early Sunday morning 12/18. About three am I woke to a full-on cramp in my calf. Agony. Obviously, I couldn’t straighten my leg to release the cramp. I tried massage, and that helped, but it still hurt like hell. The pain was so bad I was shaking. I was too wobbly to use my crutches, so I crawled to the bathroom for some hydrocodone and a hot washcloth. I went back to bed, stretched my calf as much as possible, and decided I’d call 911 if things didn’t get better in ten minutes. I guess I passed out. Next thing I knew my alarm was going off reminding me to submit final grades. (More on that later.) I was still in pain but it was tolerable as long as I wasn’t standing. Upright, even with my leg bent at the knee, the pain was intense. I was worried something bad had happened. Another pop? No, no, no, I hoped not.

So I stayed in bed and tried to keep calm. I called my doctor the minute his office opened. The receptionist put me on hold immediately and got Stephanie, his nurse, who ran through a bunch of questions and assured me it didn’t sound serious: Dr. White was in surgery but would get back to me soon. About noon, his nurse called and said White thought I was just having a spasm because of muscle atrophy. She called in a prescription for Valium (“We aren’t going to fool around with Flexeril,” Stephanie joked) and Jason Covert kindly delivered it to me. Immediate help. The next morning, I saw Dr. White and I was relieved to learn everything was okay. In fact, he suggested I could be more aggressive about stretching than I had been. He got down on the floor with me and showed me some ways to work my achilles safely.

The next few days, the pain wasn’t as bad, but I still had a tough time. I fell a lot. I was no help around the house. But I kept up the hot baths and massages, and figured out how to wrap a heat pad around my leg for nighttime. Things slowly got better.

Friday 12/23, Erin took the girls to the Y to swim with Amelia while Madelyn had a lesson. I eagerly joined them. I had to crawl from the locker room to the pool, but I didn’t care. And it took a while for me to feel confident about moving around without my leg unprotected. Thankfully, the pool was nearly empty. I chose a lane close to the lifeguard (just in case). Joan, Madelyn’s teacher, suggested using a buoyancy belt in addition to a pull buoy. I swam two or three laps at an easy pace and stopped to check my leg and make sure things were okay. In the next lane, Erin and Amelia were smiling at me and saying “Go, Daddy, Go.” I was smiling and weeping too. How good it felt to exercise. How much I had missed it.

I swam about 45 minutes Friday, Saturday, and today, and I hope to do the same every day for the foreseeable future. My parents are here now for Christmas, which is helping with the logistics. After nine-plus weeks with no cardio, I’m sore in a few places. I’ll take it.

• I’m still catching up from four very long and productive days at Computers & Writing. Madelyn got sick the night before the conference, literally; two times I woke to help her throw up, then get cleaned up, settled down, and back to sleep. (Poor girl. Something she ate, I think; she was better a day later.) So I arrived short on sleep, and did nothing to catch up during. A good problem to have: excellent sessions and conversation. Easily the best C&W I’ve attended. I’ll have a more complete post about the conference in a few days.
• The day before the C&C book award was announced for From A to <A>, we were #1,200,000 on their best-sellers. The day after, #141,000. So I guess a few people bought the book right away. Cool.
• In the next few days, I hope to put a few beers now in secondary into bottles: IPA, session pale ale, and spiced pumpkin honey wheat. The Saison Chris and I brewed May 7 is still fermenting away. After a week, it looked dead, but when I racked it, it woke up enough to build up a second krausen. I’ve read that’s typical of the yeast I picked (WLP 565): it has a tendency to stop and start. I hope so; the saison had only moved from 1.054 to 1.032 when I racked it after 12 days. I’d like to see it under 1.020 before bottling.
• My new profile pic on Facebook is this snap from our mothers’ day trip to the Peoria Zoo. We smile with our whole faces!
• We are in minimal child-care zone, now that WIU is out for spring and the girls’ day care is closed. Madelyn will be doing pre-K and YMCA day camp this summer in between our travel, and we’ve planned some playdate trading and babysitter time for the girls as well. For those of you in Macomb, we’re always looking for more of the former…
• Speaking of travel, we’ve planned a three-plus week road trip this summer. Arkansas, where we’ll meet my brother and sis-in-law to camp; northern New Mexico; Pagosa Springs then Denver, Colorado; Rocky Mountain NP, and maybe Rapid City after that. Many miles will be driven, trails hiked, DVDs watched, craft beers consumed.
• Madelyn and Amelia have been getting some grandparent time lately. Bits and Eric were here for five days or so last week, and my parents are coming next week. I’m very pleased about both visits, and I hope for more.
• My running injury troubles are returning, or continuing, depending on the way I think about it. Lately my feet have been bugging me. Erin was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis, so that’s on my mind. Suck. I think I need to start another cycle of swim and bike only pretty soon. But I want to finish being a Couch to 5K volunteer first. I haven’t made it out for as many runs as I wanted. Maybe half of them. Regardless, it’s been a lot of fun. Now if my body would just cooperate.
• I’ve been trying to update rsync on our Mac Mini today, which means I need to compile it. Which means I need developer tools. So, credit card in hand, off I go. No. fun. at. all. I can’t believe how shoddy Apple Store / Apple ID / Apple Developer / App Store / iTunes integration is. Trying to get an update for Xcode, I finally got a download started–then realized I had created a new Apple ID, rather than updating my existing one (despite using the same credentials). Great. Now I’ll have to log in and out to update different pieces of software.
• Making ice cream today, I overheated the custard. Gack, scrambled eggs. First time I’ve done that. Well, we get to see if Lebovitz’s prescription for that mistake–into the blender while it’s still hot!–is a winner.

I broke out the electrical tape, and thought I had a free (if ugly) fix. I did, for about two weeks. Then the unit started flaking out again. More research showed the waterproof 310XT doesn’t work that well swimming. And it’s pricy. So we sent the Forerunner off to Garmin for the $80 out-of-warranty refurbishment.

Here’s how that worked: they sent us back a new unit. Cool! When I opened the box and powered up the new 305, I laughed–the buttons felt totally different than our old, well-used machine. And the speaker actually works. So if your 305 is showing its age, and you’re not ready to pop for a replacement or upgrade, this might be a good idea.

I did an Olympic distance triathlon Monday with no problems. Tuesday I ran and biked a little, less than an hour total, slow and easy. Wednesday I woke up with a sore right knee: it felt like a bruise, or maybe stiff from sleeping on it funny, but moved okay. I decided to go ahead with my half-iron tri. Swimming went fine; in fact, by the time I was done, my knee wasn’t hurting at all. It was a pretty nice day (low 30s, little wind) so I suited up and started cycling outside. About five miles in, my knee started to hurt again. Nothing serious. I rode 20 miles outside and headed inside to the trainer as the wind picked up. After about 10 miles inside, things crossed over from “uncomfortable” to “painful” rather quickly, and I decided to stop. I iced my knee, and knocked my head against the wall a little. My knee was tender, but still moved okay. Later, I applied a few beers.

Thursday morning, my knee really hurt. It was hard to walk. Going down the stairs was awful. I called my GP and got an appointment about two hours later. (Amazing.) She ran through a battery of motion tests and diagnosed an inflamed plica. That was a quite a relief: no ligament damage, no symptoms of tendinitis, no apparent issues with my meniscus, either. (I asked twice: ligaments okay? patellar tendon? meniscus? Yes. I sure hope that’s true.)

I went home and did some research and found this description of plica syndrome which includes an image that spotlights the location I felt pain exactly. What’s still not clear (as my GP noted): why this flared up now. Plica problems usually appear in children, not adults. Years ago, I had some knee pain from running, though the diagnosis I got was patellofemoral syndrome. I found a few discussions in the literature which suggested an injury could lead to plica inflammation. Maybe I whacked my knee when I was cleaning house last weekend, or making beer Tuesday. Maybe it’s just simple over-training. Either way, I’ll back off and see what happens. At this point (Friday night), I’m happy to say my knee seems to be improving quickly. I’m disappointed I didn’t get the big tri done this week. Perhaps this is a cue to get that triathlon book and get systematic and ensure I have another chance.

• Monday: Olympic triathlon (1.5 km, 40 km, 10 km). I biked and swam at the Y, then ran outside. Exercise time 3:01:13. I started at 9:40am and finished at 2:15pm–yeah, a lot of “transition” time, as I played with the girls and ran a few errands between legs.
• Tuesday: rest; run 3.8 mi, bike 10 mi.
• Wednesday: Half-Ironman triathlon (1.2 mi, 56 mi, 13.1 mi). I plan to split this up, swimming at the Y, biking at home on my trainer, then running outside (if the weather is good) or at the WIU rec center track (if it’s not). After Monday, I’m unsure I’ll be able to finish the running–I was pretty tired after the Olympic distance.
• Thursday: rest; bike 8 mi.
• Friday: sprint triathlon (.75 km, 20 km, 5 km). I’ll do this at the Y, in order, and as fast as possible–a mock triathlon.

If my total time is less than fifteen hours, I’ll be quite happy. This “DIY tri” is stage one. Next: getting a good book about triathlons, addressing my poor swimming technique with some lessons, and finding a local race or two.

• Madelyn and Amelia turned 5 and 2. Busy and busier–you pick. Both are avid readers; both would be on the computer eight ours a day if allowed.
• Lots of travel. We visited family in Florida (January) and Alabama (March). Our longest trip was a fantastic tour of parks in Utah and Arizona. In late September, the girls and I enjoyed a one-night camping excursion in a local park. I predict even more travel in 2011.
• My essay “Beyond Star Flashes” appeared in Computers & Composition 27.1, and From A to <A>: Keywords of Markup was published.
• Sick, I struggled through ATTW and part of CCCC, and finally gave up and left early. WPA went a lot better.
• Jeff, Thomas, and I met in Portland to drink local brews, eat good food. And I started brewing beer again. That’s continued with no major hiccups, except two broken carboys (augh).
• All of us got bike upgrades. As the girls get older, we’ll be using them a lot more.
• We said good-bye to Lumper, our girl cat.
• Erin and I painted the back and front porches, and got a new driveway. Other than that, not very many big house projects this year–a lot of small stuff.
• My sabbatical is going well. It’s a little more than half over, and I’m pleased with the retooling, reading, and writing I’ve accomplished to date.

Happy new year, everyone.

total 231 workouts,  7d 10h 04m, 1,724.9 mi

Several substantial changes from last year:

• More balance–number of runs matched number of bikes and swims
• 38 more workouts (193) and 440 more miles (1,284.5)
• Only two weeks with less than three workouts (when I was sick around CCCC)
• 25 weeks with five or more workouts

In particular, I’m happy about the two year trend: up 64 workouts and 800 miles. My Trek and bike trainer make all the difference here.

The only strong negative: foot problems which kept my runs short. My longest run was 10 miles, and I ran longer than six miles only 12 times. My goals for 2011 are simply stated: don’t get injured, and start actually doing triathlons. More on that last one soon.

This year I’ve used my bike trainer more and more. I don’t have to worry about who’s watching the girls, and it’s easier to squeeze in a workout if I have less than an hour. And I never have to put up with someone else’s favorite television show. With our day care closed until mid January, and plenty of college football to watch, my CycleOps will get a lot of use in the next month. Now if we could get one of these lap pool/hot tub combinations to put in the basement, I’d be all set!