Week in review

Did a couple trail runs, couple indoor trainer sessions on the bicycle, some strength and cardio workouts. Feeling good throughout the week, my longer run this week was 3 hours, which went well, I drank too much coffee the morning of, and then had to pee about every 30 minutes. Side note about peeing and racing. Sure when you are training and you need to pee you just pull off the trail a bit and then go do you business. But when I am in a competition I will pee on the run..in my shorts..on myself.....no problem. Taking a dump is another matter.
The wife and I argue about stupid shit, usually something difficult to translate or make her understand. She gets frustrated and pissed off and then we laugh it off. She IS a crazy Chinese mofo though! She's a very feisty little thing, all 5 foot 2 inch 96lbs of her. She is awesome though and I love her to bits, I cannot think of my life without her.
Work has been good, I did my ITLS course(international trauma life support) and got all my required CME credits for the year. The licensing requirements are always a hassle every year but I guess it is good to make a standard requirement for Paramedics.
Helen and I went to Maggie's Highschool open house. Helen cannot believe all the things a western highschool offers, music, arts, cooking, theatre, sports, dance, trades, and such like. She never had any of that, Maggie never had any of that either...her schooling and education is drastically different then what she would have if she were still in China. However the biggest difference would be the way of learning. The school of thought in the West is totally different than how Chinese students learn, TOTALLY!!!
I'll explain more about the schooling system a little later, right now my thumb is getting tired from typing this up on my iPhone :/
Here are a few pictures from the week that was...
running, skating thingy at the Olympic Oval, ITLS gear, Vancouver General heli pad.

Beautiful day today, blue skies and a cool breeze, it's just nice to not go out in the rain again. Went for a nice one hour trail run, picked up the pace and added a couple 5 minute 'pick-ups' into my run, felt good. Getting home I immediatly got on the indoor trainer and did a one hour spin on the bike, sweated it out in my self made sweat suit(trying to drop a few pounds..damn chocolate)
Working ot tonight, kinda wanted to stay home with the wife tonight but the lure of money has me by the balls...no sorry that's 'my mortgage' has me by the balls. Can't ever seem to get ahead!!
Went back to the hospital where we took the head injury guy from my last post, the nurse told me he had a cardiac arrest, but is now somewhat 'stable' up in ICU.
So far tonight it has been an 18 year old who passed out on the bus after drinking a 'yager' and snorting oxycontin(didnt know that they snorted oxy??), he was depressed and wanted to kill himself. Then there was the light weight 25 year old male who witnessed his friend getting hit in the head when a bed frame fell on his head and some blood squirted out. When he saw the blood he fainted, awoke with heart palpitations...wanted to go to the hospital. "Ok, get in".. the red and white taxi is here... 

Last night shift

Day 4
Last night shift of this block. I had anticipated it being a busy night, i dont know why just something I felt...and it didn't disappoint. We started out with the enclosed picture. This is what happens when you fall backwards totally shit faced and drive a metal fireplace poker rod into the back of your head. He had an open basal skull fracture and what seemed like an arterial bleed, it was pouring out like a fountain and was very difficult to control the bleeding. Even with multiple trauma dressings and constant pressure it still wouldn't stop flowing. We managed to get him into C-spine immobilization (the yellow plastic thing with all the blood on it is called a 'clamshell' and we use it to scoop up potential spinal injury patients) and whisked him off to the hospital. Outcome ?
The rest of the night was filled with an assortment of other calls, a profound short of breath asthmatic, an OD crack addict, a "my tummy hurts"...the usual suspects.
A rather gruesome call took place last night but not in our area. A young man was decapitated at the hands of a samurai sword, crazy shit!
I've just arrived home, stay up and go for a coffee ? Or crash in bed for a few hours and wake up feeling like a bag of shit? hmmm...COFFEE!!!

Two in a row.

My two last shifts I've had two cardiac arrests. Yesterday's was 'asystole' on arrival, he was a young-ish 57 year old male, still warm, no cardiac history, got on scene in less than 5 minutes(no bystander CPR though). We worked it for awhile but never got anything back.
The other arrest was a 'witnessed' arrest(by us). Originally it came in as possibly diabetic issues, right away we knew he was sick, we called for ALS(Advance Life Support), did some immediate procedures as his level of consciousness was decreased. He was awake and answering our questions somewhat and as soon as we went to move him he went into cardiac arrest. Down onto the hard floor we put him and we began CPR, i vividly remember my first three compressions on his chest I could feel his ribs breaking under the weight of my hands, the AED was on but no advisable shocks. ALS soon arrived, patient was intubated and drugs pushed, we worked it for almost 45 minutes. We had him...we lost him...we had him...we lost him. Three times he re arrested, balancing the fence post not knowing if he was going this side or that side. Finally we got him stabilized, loaded up and transported to the hospital. His outlook was not great but we did the best we could do. It was still amazing though witnessing somebody go into cardiac arrest right before your eyes. The wonderment of life...

Happiness

Pacific Spirit Park, one of my favourite places to run. 750 hectares of beautiful forested trails shared amongst runners, dog walkers, cyclists and horseback riders. It's great for year round running, has some hills for repeats, not much for technical rocks and roots but great aesthetic trails nonetheless. I have been coming here for years as it's great for dog walks and getting in a longer run with variety that I can't do near home. It's still only a 15 minute drive from home so I can't complain. Yesterdays run was about 3 hours, did about 700 m of elevation gain, nothing huge but it was just a nice fun run. My half way point was Locarno Beach where it over looks North and West Vancouver and views into downtown. I felt good, didn't go crazy and kept about a 6min/km pace for the 3 hours. Had a good stretch post run and best of all a nice massage from my wife that night :)

How I like to start my shift

With the tap of a finger my phone alarm is turned off, 5:30am. Getting motivation to unwrap myself from my warm cozy bed and untangle my wifes limbs intertwined on my body is a colossal achievement. Riding gear on, downstairs for a bowl of cereal and out the door at 5:55. -4C was a slap in the face, but once I got going I soon warmed up. Alot of black ice coated the quiet roads, just me and my bike. I can truely say I dislike getting out to ride to work, but once I'm out and then having arrived, it's self pleasing and I'm actually very happy I rode.

Get to work, shower, get dressed into my uniform, go over the ambulance, sign into the CAD system..the usual routine. Sunday mornings are sometimes the only 'slow-ish' day of the week, most often it's get into the car at 6:30 am and your gone for a full 12 hours or more. Sunday mornings is the time to go to Starbucks and have that morning cup of coffee. So..that's what we did....and it was so good! However it didn't last long, it never does.

Post coffee it was an assortment of 'routine' and 'code 3' calls, the least appealing was the "my blood pressure is too high" (172/88) " I checked on the internet and I could be having a stroke!"...to the two middle aged guys who lost control of their car at 100km and struck a concrete light standard. The engine comparment was pushed back about a foot, the roof was crumpled, windshield was shattered. Neither were wearing their seatbelts! Seriously? Seriously!...what f^@king idiot doesn't wear their seat belt this day and age?? Anyways we had to call for another ambulance and we rushed them off to hospital with multi system trauma.

Wear your seat belt, get off the phone, put your face on before you get in the car(girls), look at the map or plug it into the GPS before you leave(guys), put your brain on and friggin concentrate on driving. If people were as concerned about driving as they were about their 'fb status update' the streets would be a safer place.

I think I need another coffee!   

  

Back to a new 'block' of work(4 days of work). It is Saturday and the sun is out. It was a crisp -2C on my way to work, luckily the Starbucks was open and it took the chill off. My days off were good, I was hoping to pick up some overtime  but low there was no call. We are planning a big trip to China this summer and I need to bank some time for holidays. I am aiming for 4 weeks with the girls, Helen is going early and probably staying later by up to one month either way so that she can visit more family and just relax with her old friends.
Did a couple trail runs, some indoor trainer riding, some cardio and strength training and am also staying true my new habit of consistant stretching. I'm thinking of getting back into Bikrams yoga, my hips are as tight as an elastic and I remember the hot yoga worked wonders. Plus I sweated up a shit storm in there! I have my indoor bike trainer set up on the treadmill so that I can zone out and watch movies on the iPad, it works wonders for passing an hour by. I will be happy though to get both my mountain bike out on the trails and get some road riding in.
The wife gave me an hour long massage last night before going to bed..so awesome. I had some tired legs so it felt so good. I gots me the best wife eva!!

I have...

....athletes foot!
Itching, scratching, redness, feet on fire, wanna cut my foot off. Just another on my list of foot/running problems. Black dying toe nails, blisters, stress fractures, sprains and 8 years of plantar fasciitis have plagued me...and that's just my feet.
As runners and especially as ultra distance runners our bodies get hammered. Add on age and it's a recipe for divine destruction.
I did many torturous years as a British Commando, carrying 100+ lbs of weight on my back, my feet transporting me for weeks and months, slogging it over mountains, in the Arctic, jungle, desert and urban environments, jumping over, around and immersed into ankle destructive terrain. Days on end of not being able to see my rotting giblets in wet sodden military boots, but yet not one injury.
Athletes fungal foot has me whimpering like a little baby, I'm such a light weight now. So sad.
Anybody have any good home remedies for athletes foot? (before I drop coin at the pharmacy)

2013 running plans..so far

Running goals, races, adventures(self imposed torture)
- Run happy, retain my joy of just being able to put one foot in front of the other.
- Post workout recovery, stretch..the body is not as forgiving as it used to be.
- Dirty Duo 50 km
- Kneeknacker 30 mile
- 100 km Canadian Nationals (Victoria )
- 5 Peaks Series with Maggie
- Fast (alpine style) ascent of Mt Garabaldi(8,786ft)
-Self Transcendence 24 hours of running(at the local school 400m track)
-Howe Sound Crest trail with the wife
-3000km of trail running for '13
...all subject to change of course :)

My crew

Madeleine, Meifeng, Maggie
。・°°・(＞_＜)・°°・。

2013

A new year in store. What challenges will we go through....health, financial, family, friendship, mental well being?
For me my list is pretty basic of what I want to do for 2013, who I want to be and what I would like to achieve. I do not make New Years resolutions!! I think that if you need New Years to jump on the band wagon to fix a bad habit, get in shape or make a 'better me' your doing it for all the wrong reasons. We should all be making daily choices that are 'pro'. Be pro choice in your decision making, make a difference in your life and even more importantly in somebody else's life. Give back, improve, grow and get strong in body and spirit. Learn, achieve, set goals, get out of that comfortable box, do something crazy.
What will 2013 hold for me? Who knows , I'm hoping for good health and happiness, a paycheque every 2 weeks, a family that I love(and loves me back), less hair, probably but hopefully not a little bit more fat, some yummy Chinese food, and a whole lot of fun and nasty trail runs.
Lets all make 2013 a great year, live it to the fullest...Happy New Year!!!