Beached whale

I feel like one. After experiencing Ohio's nice dry warm weather, coming back home to an area where it's humid is not so welcoming. Reminds me of the summers spent in The Big Bad Apple. I always thought, as I slept with bags of ice on my legs, stomach, and head that I would sweat myself to death. That I would die a horrible death on the bathroom floor, trying to stay cool to no avail.

I never did anything about it. Buying a AC unit would make my electrical bill sky rocket and being poor, I figured I would suffer from June to September. I wore tons of dresses and skirts. Very little makeup. Anti frizz hair spray piled on. And a gallon jug of water in hand.

Only to curse the blistering cold winter winds that would blow up 2nd Avenue, the down pours while waiting for a cab, and the odd smells coming from New Jersey. Anyone remember when all of NYC smelled like maple syrup?! I broke down and had pancakes for breakfast that day.

Speaking of pancakes I really wanted some today. And I would if it wasn't for the sudden spike in weight gain. The logical side of my mind is that, well I didn't work out consistently for a few days. Ate kinda crappy. Who can turn down wiener schnitzel and German potato salad?! And Dopplebock? Surprise suprise. I don't want to get down on myself but it's frustrating. I can do all these wonderful things with my body and it just doesn't...show. Meh.

I still have a bike ride planned for the evening. I think I have core listed for tonight. And nothing makes me happier than doing 300 crunches! True story. Gross right? That I enjoy doing 300 crunches?

Female Marines reach out to women in Afghanistan

See that? A 28 year old corporal! :-) I can do this.  I can do this.

And thank you to all our past, present, and future service members.

PS. If you are ever in Columbus, OH I highly recommend you go to Schmidt's Sausage Haus.

OH-HAI-YO

I'm in Ohio. Would have more fun if my tavel "buddies" were more adventurous.

>_<

Roller Derby and the Military

I apologise for the lack of updates. I was very motivated a couple of weeks ago and signed up for accelerated summer courses and I got lost in the woodwork. And now here I am procrastinating as the last bits of motivation seeps out.

Updates: I'm still 20lbs out from where I want to be. Sad face all around.

Flexed Arm Hang: 57 seconds.
Crunches 122 in 2 minutes
Run: N/A

I saw a chiropractor for my knee. Lo and behold I have nothing seriously wrong with it and I just need to...em..."rest". Running is being nixed out for the next three weeks. So it's biking, swimming (maybe), and elliptical training for me. A big part of my rehab training involves the power of KT Tape. Which I love, love, love. 

Anyways:

National Guardsmen get their kicks with Roller Derby
Soldiers in Roller Derby
Alter Ego Army Spouse Skates for Roller Derby Team
Roller Derby Lieutenant headed to Iraq


Yeah none of them are about Marines playing Roller Derby. I know of current reserve, active duty, and "former" Marines who play derby but they are not in any articles and I don't want to blow their privacy.

The age old this vs that

The perfect setting for such a debate: my sister's college graduation.
My father put it simply: Join the Air Force, the Navy, the Army, or even Coast Guard. But not the Marines. "If you want to do something smart with your life don't join the Marines."
Smart? Are the Marines really that bad? I don't think, I never served but I'm sure it's not a career killer. Besides everyone has their own personal experiences. Some Marines switch to Army and vice versa. Some Marines and Soldiers hated their branch. Some LOVE it. Some are so-so. Some think the other gets better treatment or better gear or better training....and so on.

At the ceremony there were five Army ROTC graduates. That got me thinking about the Army again. Army is, from my research, more lenient or; aware that their soldiers need to be (somewhat) happy to be great soldiers. Marines are the tough 24/7/365 warriors with little regard to their Marines' personal lives. Army is bigger, means more job choices and promotion opportunities as well as a good Enlisted Commissioning Program. But not as tight knit. Marines are smaller, good job choices but are missing some of what I would like to explore, promotion is notoriously slow, tight knit, and have an ECP as well. As far as reputation and respect? Generally, that goes to the Marines. Not saying the Army doesn't get it but the Marines are little higher on the ladder. Army: no honor grads. Marines: honor grads! Army: Boot camp is 9 weeks. Marines: 13 weeks of summer camp fun.
Army: More choices of duty stations. Marines:...some good places. As exotic Okinawa sounds I'm told it's a dump and should avoid the place, at least until I'm an E-4/E-5. ha!
I won't go into the uniform debate but I will say that Army is slowly redeeming itself with the new MultiCam ACUs.


Needless to stay I'm in a big of a quandary. I just don't know what to do.
And who knows, maybe when I finally get fit "enough" to join either one; Jane Campion will buy one of my scripts and I will land myself a pretty comfy directing job. Maybe.

But until then I'll be in the tug-o-war of Army and Marines.

Hello this is BLAH BLAH BLAH

Why is it that recruiters talk so damn fast? No matter what branch they go at lightening speed. It's the same thing now as it was when I was a senior in high school.

I saw an unrecogniZable number on my mobile....cellphone....and let it go to voice mail. Fortunately, the person left a message:

"Hello this Gunnery Sergent BLAH BLAH with the United States Marine Corps BLAH BLAH I saw you were interested in joining awhile back BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH and I'm new in the area and BLAH BLAH give me a call at XXX-XXX-XXXX"

I swear it sounds like "Gunnery Sergent Hygiene"! I wish I was kidding. I looked the number up and it's from a station an hour away from me! What happen to my first recruiter? I wonder if it's just something where they keep your info in the system for awhile and when a new person comes in they cold call those "open ended people".  Funny, when I first submitted my info I got a little letter in the post...mail...with the number and address of a station 30 minutes from me. Then I got the call from "my" recruiter in town.

But seriously, I think all the branches need to tell their recruiters to slow the hell down when on the phone. Because the poor man who rang me today is going to forever be known as GySgt Hygiene.

It finally happened...

I was at the gym this afternoon working, focusing on ab work; which is unusual as I don't normally devout a good chunk of time on them. You pretty much work your abs indirectly by  numerous other exercises: squats, lunges, shoulder presses/push ups etc. Today I decide to be more adventurous than usual and was going through a gamut of moves that would surely make me regret doing all the work within the next two days. I've done work on the swiss balls, I really like working with them and never had a problem with them before. I was working on on a super set of obliques and was on the swiss ball doing side crunches. I got it done. It was fun. It was easy. So I went from the modified version (the leg closest to the ground bent) to the full side plank pose.

It was like time had stopped and motions were slowed. I felt the ball slip out and did nothing to save myself as I walloped to the ground mid pose with a rather audible sound of displeasure.

There have been numerous disasters at the gym, none of which I had any hand in but:
People falling off ellipticals, either through lost of balance or falling ASLEEP.
Make shift decline benches...there's at least three of them around the gym, no need to build one.
Jump rope mishaps.
Resistance bands mishaps.
Overzealous weight lifting.
Spandex.
Perfume.
No wearing of bras.
Misuse of plyometric boxes.
Teenage boys trying to impress the shorts off of teenage girls (who are just standing around watching them...).

I whacked my ribs good and I'm pretty sure I heard some chuckles.

The knee bone is connected to the...

So my poor knee isn't filled with fluid like I had thought. It swells, yes; but that isn't the main problem. No. The knee cap is subluxed. I've been running on a partially dislocated knee cap? I've been weight lifting with a partially dislocated knee cap? For a month and a half?

Back in March I took a rather nasty spill landing straight down on my knee. No twisting or jerking, just down. It swelled pretty bad and the knee was heavy; and I thought I was done with sports. Done with anything intensive. The pain wasn't too bad but I cried. Not bawling, it was as if my eyes turned on a faucet and the tears just flowed without noise. I was on crutches for a couple of days to help allieviate the swelling. The x-rays showed nothing particular and I was sent home with a bad contusion. I rested for two weeks and went back to working out, light at first and gradually back into more intensive workouts. Presses, benching, squats, lunges, but no jumps. It was still bugging and went back to the orthopedic. She looks at the same x-ray I had back in March and determines that I have a subluxed knee cap and I need a lateral release surgery done to the knee. 

She never mentioned physical therapy. 

 For a surgery that has a success rate that is about 50/50 and is treatable with rehab why would I do this? Especially at my age? I had the same problem with my right knee after years of soccer, baseball, camogie, and Derby. My knee healed with rest and tough rehab sessions. Again, why would I do something extreme that is easily treatable with rehab?

It got me thinking about how military women are different from female athletes. And the reason why I put female instead of an inclusive term is that females are more prone to knee injuries. If I started out with very little muscle mass and so did my male counterpart; and we both want to train for Derby; if I want to have a long career in the sport, I will have to build up a lot more leg muscles to compensate for my flexible joints while my male buddy would not. Now that's the basic, obviously if we want to be top athletes we will have to do an overall strength training regime.

There's a lot of running in the military and running is one of the worst things you could do to your knees, ironically. That is if you don't run correctly So how do you prevent the injuries? You build strength and you listen to your body. Rest when you need to and take care of yourself. I'm aware that there are PT days but is any part of that day geared to strengthen the muscles to prevent injury? Is health maintenance encouraged in the military? As in giving members ample time to workout? Are there seminars on health issues? I'm thinking it would be ...."the suck"....if one injured themselves during a simple three mile run due to lack of knowledge of knee care.

I would know. I spent years not listening to adults, because what teenager really wants to hear responsible advice given by caring parents/coaches/teachers? I'm paying for it now with muscle imbalance and doing stupid things. Or maybe it's just the activity level catching up.....

The one thing I can say is, build up your hips and glutes. We forget that our knees are really at the mercy of our hips and feet. We wear the wrong shoes. We don't workout. We don't care and take ourselves for granted. We have poor posture. We have poor walking/running habits. Get that changed folks. 

The bee's knees


Knee Pain from Cool Running.
Worst title for an article about knee injuries.
11 Exercises that help decrease knee pain.
Female hormonse cycle affects knee joints.
Epidemic of knee injuries that afflict female athletes.

There's more out there.

Running

Runner's World
Cool Running
Penguin Runners
The Penguin Column

Camogie

Camogie (Official site)

I have a five page report on the trends of customer service and business practises due by midnight tonight. Hey these walls need cleaned....