Santa Shuffle volunteer - I won! - and an update...

“Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more”

Anthony Robbins

First: This morning was the Santa Shuffle here on Mount Royal and I was fortunate to be one of the few volunteers. We were a small, but enthousiastic group and we were all needed to help things "run" smoothly.

It was quite cold this morning (-2°C/28°F) and windy. But, we were all dressed for the weather and our main problem was preventing the water we had prepared in advance from freezing. I'm not kidding, we had to squeeze the glasses regularly to break up the ice.

Filling the glasses.

Responding to my brothers call of "Give me two beers" - it may not be beer, but it sure was a cold drink!

Yeah...he ran right past me after taking this shot :)

Here's the group after their race -

The one right next to me is my niece O, who will be running the Hypothermic Half with us :)

I loved doing this! Thanks to my brother for the great pics :)

Second: I have been very lucky lately in the Virtual Race department...this week I was one of the lucky winners of The Black Knight Virtual Race!

Thanks Stefano of Run with the Black Knight for this fun race!

Stefano is from Italy, which is very cool...and I am very excited to have won a black long sleeve shirt...YAY! :)

Third: A short piriformis update if you are interested...just to be on the safe side and because the pain, though mild, still comes and goes, I went to see Joseph the magician ("my" PT). The good news is that there is no serious injury, but there is definitely something going on. The strange news is that it all seems to be triggered by something that occured about 5 years ago. I've already mentioned this, but before my asthma (which started in 2003) was under control, I broke three ribs from coughing (left side). The cartillage around the ribs seems to have become a little wonky and it used to be that I could not do abs by bending at the waist without the ribs and cartillage getting tangled and causing major pain. OK...so it seems that when I breath, I only stretch one side of my rib cage, the damaged side (left) stays out and does not go in and out. So, the ab muscles on the left side are weaker than those on the right, and that leads to me not using my glutes, which are somehow tied to the abs. Instead, I am using my piriformis and my hamstring to try and compensate. This means that both the piriformis and hamstring on my left side are very strong, but not made to do the job of the big glute. Interesting how every little thing is connected in the body! So this week, I'm working on breathing exercises where I force my left side to work, and I really feel the stretch when I do them...I also have to do abs, but only with my legs. Next Tuesday, Joseph will give me exercises for my glutes. According to Joseph, doing this now is likely to prevent more serious injury later. Oh and there's something happening with my hip (probably due to the corticosteroids which eat away at the bone and muscle)...but nothing major and what we are doing now, should help with that too. PT fascinates me!

The take home message is that I can keep on keeping on :)

Cheers!