A couple of years ago I signed up to be a bone marrow donor.  I did this at the ‘Ride for Life’ event at work.  Oddly enough, I tried to donate blood at that time, but could not because of an erratic heart beat.

After I signed up, I didn’t hear anything back from the donor center until just a few months ago.  I found out that I was a match for a 64 year old woman with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  I went through initial blood tests and information sessions, then was told that I wouldn’t need to donate immediately.   This can sometimes happen if there is some change in the recipient’s condition, or a timing issue with treatment.

Earlier this week, I found out that the donation can now move forward.  Today I received the information package with lots of reading material and a DVD.  So I guess I have more homework to deal with!

I’m getting pretty excited by this whole adventure.  Apparently patients who do not receive donation have a 0-15% chance of survival, whereas patients who receive donation have a 30%-60% chance of survival.  It’s a pretty simple calculation, so I’m not sure why more people don’t donate.  PBSC donation is pretty simple and doesn’t involve general anesthetic.  The process involves 5 days of filgrastim injections to generate more stem cells in the blood, then two apheresis procedures over two days.  There are some potential side effects of the filgrastim, and most people experience some bone pain.  I figure a few days of bone pain isn’t that much of a issue compared to the potential for the patient.

So now I’m scheduled for donation during the first week of March.  I do need to check with the marrow donation center to see if my blood donation a couple of weeks ago will affect the marrow donation timeline.  According to the forms from the blood center, I’m good to donate blood around mid-March, but it doesn’t say anything about apheresis.

So far 2011 is shaping up to be an interesting year!

Since I’ve changed my diet (no alcohol, no processed food, extremely limited dairy, extremely limited grains) and upped my exercise, I wanted to see what my numbers are when I’m off all statins.  I also complained about some of the side effects of the Benicar, so the Dr. suggested 1/2 dose.  Again, I vetoed opting to drop all meds to get my baseline reset.  I’ll be getting bloodwork done again in about 2 months.

I get bloodwork done today, so we’ll see if the REST of the numbers are moving in the right direction as well.

So the resolutions went on hiatus while I sorted out schedules and fought off bronchitis.  But I think I’m back on track starting this week.  I’ve created a 2xday/6 day week workout routine and a homework schedule that should keep me on track.  I’ve managed to hit at least one workout this week, and hit two workouts today.  It’s tough getting back on the fitness wagon, since I’m essentially starting over.  I need to continually remind myself that I’ll need time to get back to the shape I want.  Patience isn’t my strong suit, but I do have experience on my side.  I’m keeping my eyes on the prize!

I’m also cleaning up my diet and cleaning out the fridge and pantry.  I’ve given up the O’Doul’s since all it was doing was adding 70 empty calories to my diet.  I’ve got better things to do with 70 calories.  Giving up the chocolate, cheese and other goodies will be harder, but I’m not buying the stuff any longer.  Keeping the stuff out of the house is key to resisting temptation.  It plays on my inertia, since I’m too lazy to run out and buy more crap food when I’m craving something .  I’m trying to get dinner finished by 7:00 or 7:30 and not eating for the rest of the evening.  I’m finding that a cup of herbal tea with a touch of honey is just the ticket when I’m peckish at night.

I’m now creating metrics that I can maintain and publish.  I’m measuring weight and body fat percentage on the Tanita.  I’ll be running monthly 5k’s for time, and tracking key CrossFit lifts and tests.  At first I’ll just drop them on the ol’ blog but I’ll be looking at various training tools (Training Peaks, Daily Mile, Buckeye Outdoors etc) to see if one fits most of my needs.

1. I will hit 80% of my planned workouts – I can strive to hit 100%, I know that life is dynamic and stuff happens, so I’m not going to worry about missing 20%.  I’ve reactivated my YMCA membership, and will continue CrossFit, just so I have plenty of options for training.
2. I’m sticking to my paleo diet 80% of the time.  - Giving up cheese is going to be harder than giving up alcohol.
3. I will blog at least 3x per month.  I’m not sure what I’m going to write about, but I know that I need to write more.
4. I will do the GTD weekly review at least 3 times each month.

All of these fit into my main goal of “more life, less TV”

During my 5mile run in the cold-cold air this morning, I got to thinking how much I’d rather be riding my MTB.  Then I remembered that the Ibis is missing its boingy-boingy Mojo, front & rear due to a routine visit to the orthopod:

When I got home I forgot all about my MTB dreams today, until I thawed out (thanks to Weazer’s 3-Alarm Chili!).  So when I went down to snap a shot of the forlon Ibis, I found enlightenment from my cat, Jaco:

He was napping on the top step because the basement door was closed and he was temporarily locked downstairs.  Not long enough to complain, but just enough time for a quick nap.

Which lead me to the thought for the day.  Be at peace with where you are.  If you are running in the cold, embrace the moment.  when the MTB is working, ride the bike, and whenever possible, nap no matter what!

Training & Racing

I had a pretty good early season this year, with equal loads of good, bad and ugly  I had two great oly races (Colonial Beach and Pittsburgh), a good showing at the Long Branch Sprint, and picked up my 1st bit of hardware at the OddMan 1-3-5.  The high point was at Pittsburgh where my friend Joe and his son got to watch me race.  While I wanted to have a really good race at IMWI, my GI tract turned against me and I ended up with a personal worst time, but learned a lot about myself in the process.

The next few years I’ll focus on running.  I’m not going to have the time for full-on IM training, so I’ll use the time to forge a runner out of this old bod.

Work

Another year as CISO at Pharm R&D, and not a lot of real accomplishments to show.  There have been some quick wins here and there, but all told it was a year of daily routine, mixed with a healthy dose of frustration.  Given the state of the company (3% global workforce reduction) and the overall state of the economy, I think that simply surviving the year is a major accomplishment.  On the other side of my job, I was able to onboard a couple of new groups onto the Synchrony platform, and began evangelizing a new platform for fax-to-email conversion.  This new service (Graphnet) looks to be a big winner for a couple of key groups who are still stuck with inbound and outbound faxing for regulatory submissions.

School

After IMWI I had to immediately switch gears and begin to focus on my MBA.  To say that this was a challenge is like stating an Everest summit is a brisk uphill walk.  After a full 8 week semester, I’m still having a lot of problems getting into an mental state where I can focus on my school work.  While my grades have been ok, I don’t think I’m getting everything out of the experience that I could.  I KNOW I’m not putting in all the effort that I could either.  Part of that is simply the lack of mental and emotional energy due to the heavy load at work, but a big part is a constant feeling that the entire exercise isn’t worthwhile.  At 48 years old, I’m having a hard time justifying the time spent on education given my desire to get out of the daily rat-race sooner, rather than later and my lingering desire to qualify for Kona.  I know that I should shelve that goal for the next 3 years, but as my fitness wanes with limited training time, it seems to get harder to push the dream aside.  Thankfully there is a three week break over the holidays so I can recharge my mental and emotional batteries and get back to class in January with a renewed sense of purpose

What’s next?

2010 will bring one big milestone:  Fran and I will be celebrating our 25th anniversary!  Ye gads that seems like a long time, but it really has flown by.  We’ve had some rough bits to be sure, but the vast, vast majority of the time we’ve been fabulously happy.  We’re trying to figure out how to celebrate the event.  On the one hand we would like to have a big catered party, but we also want to get away for a long trip together.

Beyond that it looks like another challenging year at work and a full plate of classes through August, when I’ll get a month long break.  As far as racing is concerned I’m looking at the OddMan and a 5k in March, a half-marathon in April.  Beyond that I’ll probably just race and officiate at some local favorite venues, fitting them in around the school schedule.

So what finally popped for me?

A little over a week ago I got an e-mail from a former co-worker reminding me that we would hook up for a photography shoot. Tony wanted to fill out his portfolio with some athletic shots, and I said I’d be happy to help, for what ever that was worth!. So we agreed to meet this morning and do the shoot.

The morning was COLD (mid 30′s when I got up) but I got packed up and headed down to Colonial Park. I took my bike and run gear and figured that I’d try to get a short run in after the shoot.

When the sun finally came out, the day was perfect. Bright sun, cool temps and the leaves are just starting to turn. Tony showed up right on time and we quickly set up and started the shoot. We did some running shots, then some biking shots. A lot of the same back-and-forth up and down the running path. It was interesting watching Tony do his thing with the camera, and the previews he showed me looked pretty cool. After the shoot we chatted about sports, injuries, computers, careers, and some geeky IT security stuff. It was really cool to catch up after several years. I’m really looking forward to seeing the pictures.

After Tony left, I changed back into my running gear and headed out for a short run. I hadn’t run at ALL since IMWI, so I figured I’d just take it easy and go short. I left the HRM strap in the car, and just ran by feel. I came back with a nice easy 3.12 miles for 30 minutes. Nothing earth-shattering there, but the run in the sun and cool fall air was EXACTLY what I needed to drag my soul out of the pit. Between catching up with Tony, doing something new (the photo shoot), breaking a little sweat and breathing some fresh air I felt SO much better.

Nothing else has changed though. Work is still going to be really stressful for the next several weeks; school demands will continue to challenge my time-management skills, and I’ve got several must-do social commitments over the next two weekends that will consume lots of time planning and executing. I’m still not sure how I’ll get any kind of workouts done.

But the world isn’t all darkness and woe any longer. There will be more days like today. I’m certain of it.!o

Some quick hits were the housecleaner, personal training and weekly manicures. Staying away from Gary’s will be a big help too.

We are also looking at switching to Verizon FIOS service to cut back on Cablevision costs. I have to do some apples-to-apples comparison on this.

One thing we DID continue this year was the Scotts Lawn service. The yard was so much healthier this past year. We figured it was a good investment for 2007.