For nearly three weeks I've struggled to find the right words to write about Hurricane Irma, which destroyed islands in the Caribbean, then hit South Florida, eventually coming up the center of the state. The Tampa Bay region got really lucky in the end, as it avoided a direct hit and the storm had diminished to a category 2 by the time it arrived. And now  Puerto Rico is experiencing a humanitarian crisis after being pummeled by Hurricane Maria. My heart goes out to those people. My plan when severe weather is forecast to for Tampa is always to go to my sister's house, as the area I live in is highly flood prone and she is on higher ground. This time was no exception; however, her plan was different. She wanted to leave, head north, get out of the state, and she wanted me to go with her and the rest of the family. But I was not in a place to pack up and leave. I had real concerns about my foot recovery; I was about eight weeks post-surgery and very newly out of the boot and...

Seminole Heights is kind of the "it" place in Tampa these days, and here is just one more reason to love it. Although the clinic I visited has been around for many years prior to the community's popularity, I only recently discovered it and decided to try it out. I've tried acupuncture several different times over the past decade or so, first to treat allergies , then to help alleviate a new and undiagnosed pain that set in several years ago. It's always been difficult to tell whether the acupuncture helped; it's not an immediate, magical solution to a given problem (although I did feel nearly immediate relief from head pain in a recent visit). For persistent or chronic problems, it takes repeated sessions, patience, and an open mind. But it also costs money (naturally), and the rate I was paying at the previous practitioners' offices was not sustainable, so I never continued the treatments for very long. I'd found out about Seminole Heights Co...

I was going to make this post an update on my foot, and then the weather happened, and suddenly my foot seemed completely insignificant. So I'll make the foot prognosis brief. I met with my orthopedist last week to review my MRI results and plan for recovery. I already knew I had a stress fracture, so I'd prepared a long and detailed list of questions to ask the doctor. The main takeaways are these: I would need to wear my fracture boot again, for two to three months (!) I could not run or walk or use the elliptical or do anything weight bearing, including standing exercises, such as air squats I could, however, continue to swim and even bike, as long as I didn't feel pain or stand on the pedals (as in a spin class or to climb hills--no problem, I live in Florida) Icing would not help, nor would NSAIDs (like ibuprofen), and in fact my doctor said NSAIDs could actually do harm, so I should avoid taking them No type of therapy would help; I just needed to res...

Now that we're well into spring, I may as well post about winter. That is, Florida winter. So here's a three-in-one. I missed the Gasparilla half marathon--the local race I look forward to all year. And it was for a silly reason. I had trained well and felt good the week prior to the race, but at a bootcamp class the Wednesday before the race, I did an exercise the totally killed my hamstrings, only I didn't know it until the next day. And they weren't just sore; I could hardly straighten my legs to walk, let alone use my hamstrings to propel me on a run. But feeling this kind of extreme soreness is not unusual for me after this particular bootcamp class; it's certainly happened before. So I thought by the time Sunday rolled around, I'd be fine. But then as Friday passed, and soon Saturday, I was far less confident that I'd be healed in time to race Sunday. I did everything I could think of to expedite healing: massages, smelly muscle rubs, foam roller, st...

Last night, with fairly warm temps and a present wind, I ran the inaugural Tampa Bay Corporate 5K . The race started and finished at Curtis Hixon Park in downtown Tampa. The race was put on by Mena Shaw Races , operated by co-race directors (and my friends) Benjamin Mena and Beth Shaw . My overall takeaway from the night is that they put on a wonderful event. There was an issue with the course--it ended up being about a quarter mile long--and that might have kept me from PRing the 5K distance, but there's no real telling. Let's just say I was close at 3.1 miles. But one benefit of knowing the race directors is being able to get the back story on things like this, and it turns out the police or other city officials actually made them move the race start/finish about a quarter mile farther from where they had determined the correct start/finish point for 3.1 miles. These things happen, and it wasn't the race directors' fault. So what I can say is that I ran a PR for thi...

The week prior to the Gasparilla Half Marathon was not shaping up to be the ideal pre-race week. I was overburdened with and stressed out by work--both at my full-time job and at home with editing projects; I came down with a cold--what seemed to be a combination of a sinus and ear infection; and the weather was turning warmer and more humid than it had been in months. But I was determined to PR this race, which meant I had to be in top shape. I rested, I regularly drank a potent tea of lemon, ginger, honey, garlic (yep), and cinnamon, and I tried to get as much work off my plate as possible. I only ran twice , I did one night of yoga, and I rested Friday and Saturday before the race. My "Pre-Gaming" I was feeling pretty good Saturday morning when I got up early to go watch that day's races--the 15k and the 5k. I met up with Josh and his triathlon training group and cheered on the runners passing by. Cheering, when done well, is a lot of work. One must be constant and...