I wrapped my knee last night and bam, about 2 am, lot of knee pain. I took one of my new pills, put some ice and slept off and on, and decided to wake up 1 hour later. My workout: slow 1 mile to work, slow 2 miles over lunch.
Yes, my knees feel great, now. The test will be this evening.
I just said “no” to NSAIDS. Last night: that hurt..the knee absolutely killed me. I’ll take the opioid tonight, though…well..
As far as stress on the knee: just a slow 2 mile walk (to vote then to the office) and weights:
pull ups: 8 sets of 5, one of “almost 7” and one of 4 (two were mixed grips). These were just hard. I did not sleep well..was tired and I had no endurance at all.
bench: 10 x 134, 8 x 150, 6 x 150, 5 x 150, 1 x 150 (wanted 20 reps)
curls: 3 sets of 10
high incline: 10 x 94, 2 sets of 5 x 105
Yes, the knee, well, both knees, was a little bit sore.
The relationship began in 1978. I had a strange knee pain and swelling; I couldn’t even run a mile without the knee blowing up. Exams, surgeries..and I had “your symptoms are consistent with rheumatoid arthritis, but the blood markers never showed up (my synovium was very inflamed; red to purple and I had rice bodies in my knee). So began a 10-12 period where I was on heavy doses of NSAIDS: aspirin (4 taken 4 times a day), Naprosyn (prescription level doses), etc.
Eventually the knee stuff died down but I had the usual shoulder, lumbar, and yes, knees at times. So I was on again, off again with heavy doses.
But..eventually, I got mouth ulcers (last November it was severe) and I got off of them. I tried a few Naproxen and…bam..mouth ulcers are back. The doctors would not prescribe NSAIDS for me but gave me a weak opioid (Tramadol) instead. I’ve yet to take any.
But NSAIDs, we’ve had 47 years together, and I’ll miss how good you made my joints feel. I am going to have to take it the rest of the way with heat, ice, activity management, etc. And yes, I can still do stuff; I have very little daytime pain. The pain is almost exclusively at night, at about 5 hours after going to sleep. It is relieved by stretching and it goes away after a step or two upon waking up. Crazy.
Today: super slow 5k of walking (almost 19 minutes per mile) and 1 more mile of commuter walking. No problems .
I watched some basketball this weekend. Today, I watched the stirring Bradley 65-60 victory over a good Illinois State team. The Braves started 9-0 down but then just rained 3 point shots on the Redbirds to take a 28-16 first quarter lead. This is very rare for BU. The game then evened out a bit; mostly ISU would creep to within 3 but BU would then pull away.
Finally, in the 4’th the Redbirds took a 1 point lead. But BU never wavered; they took care of the ball and matched every ISU surge.
This was one hard earned victory. Even better: Barbara went with me!
Working out: 4 mile walk on the Riverfront. I could feel that troublesome left knee at times. I might invest in one of those heated knee sleeves for sleeping.
I gave into it and took Naproxen yesterday. None today.
Pain free night.
Now about today: I did a leisurely weight workout followed by 3.2 miles at 16:09 (16:44 mile then high 15’s after that)
The weight workout:
Yes, I trolled a friend. LOL..she is not me.
The set of 8 on the bench press was hard, as was the 1 x 305 on the trap bar deadlift.
Bradley Basketball
On Thursday, the women played the Murray State women. It went as expected: 81-55 Murray State. It was only 13-12 after the first quarter, and got out of hand after that. Bradley had 18 turnovers and 18 field goals.
The men’s game went as expected as well: the spread was 6.5 points going in (though MSU is 14-14) and Bradley won 85-83 in overtime, scoring a last second layup. MSU went out to a 12 point lead in the first half and a 16 point one in the second.
It was a 5 pm start and 7560 attended, the second largest crowd of the season. One more men’s home game remains, and three women’s (with the next one tomorrow)
Sort of. I am trying to get a handle on what hurts it.
I had pain the last couple of nights, though it resolves with a stretch.
Yesterday: 2 mile commuter walk and weights:
pull ups; 9 sets of 5, one of 7 (cold: 0 F)
bench: 10 x 134
incline: 3 sets of 5 x 134
high incline: 10 x 94, 6 x 105, 5 x 105
curls: 3 sets of 10.
Today: walk outside: (7 F); icicles in the beard walk. 3.2 at 16:30 mpm
Slow, 2 miles in 3 F walk after weights:
pull ups (it was -3 at the time)
5, 7, 6, 6, 6, 8, 5, 5, 4 (hands were cold; not great reps)
bench press: 10 x 134, 6 x 150, 7 x 150, 6 x 150
high incline: 10 x 94, 5 x 105, 5 x 105
curls: 3 sets of 10
4 inch deadlifts: 10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 234
Note: no knee pain last night (treadmill the day before)
Note: while I feel 100 times better than I did last week, I still coughed after the higher exertion sets.
Yesterday: 3.1 on the treadmill in 45 (per Garmin; my treadmill’s reading gave me a sub 13 pace), then a 1.2 mile commuter walk.
I felt good enough to try more of a workout.
PT
Pull ups (while it was snowing): 7, 7, 6, 5, 5, 6,5, 4 (mixed grip), 4 (mixed grip), 1 (to get to 50 reps)
Swiss bench: 10 x 134, 3 x 150 (missed with rep 4), 7 x 134 (first rep was a pin press)
regular bench: 5 x 150 (harder than it should have been)
high incline: 10 x 94, 5 x 105, 5 x 105
curls: 3 sets of 10.
Then a 15:4x ish walk outside on *mostly* plowed walks. I wore my heavier shoes.
Had some knee pain last night so I iced today.
Coughing: still cough during exertion (right afterward) but it has calmed down quite a bit.
Plan: maybe a bit harder tomorrow: challenge myself to 5K?
Basketball obsession: watched the Bradley men on TV (picked up just before halftime due to the longest game ever before) and the Bradley women on ESPN+; at first I had the women on the phone and the men on the laptop. Both won 2 point games (Drake, Indiana State). I payed more attention to the women’s game as it ran a shorter time; then I watched the conclusion of the men’s game.
I admit that I’ve never been one who believed that the government ought to be “run like a business.” A business’s primary objective is to turn a profit, which means charging as much as they can while minimizing expenses. If the customers are upset by, say, the lack of quality or by poor service, in theory, they can go elsewhere.
In contrast, the government should be there to serve the public good. It might mean doing things like basic research, which is rarely profitable (though one might note that the COVID vaccines were developed so quickly due to the “off the shelf” SARS research that had been done previously). It might mean providing services that are not always cost efficient or might prove to be not cost efficient.
Also, let’s look at safety net programs. If one is too tight on preventing abuse of the program, one might put in too many safeguards and either make it very difficult to use or make some needy people (through no fault of their own) ineligible.
Of course, that does NOT mean the government should be wantonly irresponsible or corrupt, and without safeguards, audits and checks, it is almost certain to be. Hence, I think that audits can be a good thing.
But audits should be carefully and competently done. That means: use experienced, credentialed forensic accountants and a mix of IT people: both the brilliant (but possibly inexperienced) and the experienced that understand the older IT systems and languages like COBOL.
So, we get to President Musk claiming that “150 year old people are getting Social Security benefits:”
This does not inspire confidence. And it makes me worry about scenarios like this one.
And then there is this: people coming in and making cuts should actually know something about the area. Here is an example where they didn’t: they fired people overseeing our nuclear weapons stockpile (yes, they rehired them).
And then, there is the issue of: “are they acting on good faith” (to make things better for the country, or for THEMSELVES?”
I picked it up a little. I still cough with too much exertion.
PT
deadlifts: 10 x 134, 10 x 184, 10 x 234, 1 x 300 4 inch. Latter was too ragged.
10 x 280 6 inch. Felt ok.
Then I did a 2.4 mile walk; the first mile was slow due to a slushy start, but campus was ok and I finished at 15:30 for the dry miles, just over 16 for the whole thing.
Life of an old goat 