I miss the dirt...

It's been a while. Not for lack of inspiration, necessarily, but more due to circumstance. At first, I couldn't find time. Then, I had time, but no computer. Then, I got a chromebook, but again had no time. Then I had broken bones that made typing difficult. As they healed, I lacked inspiration. Eventually, I found myself here, today, with that fantastic combination of time, technology and inspiration.
So, what's going on? Its been a long while since I've written anything here and to say a lot has happened would potentially be the understatement of the year.
Again, with the cliffnotes:

• still in school working towards the necessary hours to be a certified Yoga Instructor and Licensed Massage Therapist
• I've broken five bones and spent over $2,000 on my left arm since April due to fights of the bike vs. car variety (word to the wise, cars generally win)
• the broken bones temporarily wrecked a lot of my plans/timelines, but i'm finally getting back on track
• the return to Phoenix and the desert has involved a welcome return to the trails I grew up on and love, as well as discovering some new ones
• currently living vampire hours baking overnight for a local restaurant

So, why the title? I miss the dirt. I miss life in my carhart overalls where running water might mean the nearest creek and the dirt under my fingernails and embedded in the creases of my hands is like a natural tattoo. I miss the everyday musty smell of the earth, the sound of birds and animals over cars and planes and radios and cellphone ringtones. I miss the incredible and sometimes crushing sense of solitude, smallness and isolation. I miss being surprised by the sound of my own voice after realizing I haven't spoken or sung to myself in days. I miss the overwhelming sense of excitement and community, the rush of conversation, the power of a smile and the strength of a friends embrace when people come to visit after weeks of solitary living. 

Okay, so I got that out into the open. Reality is this: I live in Phoenix. Estimated population 4,329,534. That's OVER 4 MILLION PEOPLE. Before I moved back here, to put that number in perspective, I was living in a county that had a population of approximately 134,761. Okay, let me break that down for you. That is the population of a COUNTY. That's 3,568 square miles with 134,761 people living in it. Phoenix, whose approximate square mileage is 516 miles, has over 4 million people living in it. Are you overwhelmed by those numbers yet? Here are a few more: my former spot equals about 38 people per square mile. Phoenix, equals approximately 8,390 people per square mile.

So, why don't I just leave? Well, as mentioned in the cliffnotes bullet points, I'm in school. It's a commitment I've made and plan to stick to. It's a commitment I've made in the hope of having more tools in my proverbial life-skills tool box that will allow me to make a living doing things that I love...and back in the environments I want to be in. Commitment often comes with sacrifice, and that is certainly the case here.

What do I do to soften the blow? I was bike commuting everywhere. It was challenging, it took a lot of time and planning, but it was awesome, until I started getting into fights with cars. As a self proclaimed pacifist (admittedly, to a fault sometimes) I can guarantee that I did not start the fights, nor did I seek them out. The first scuffle was in April, I was on my way to work, a car wasn't paying attention, blew through a red light, I avoided being hit by the car (bonus) but nailed a (arguably completely arbitrary) median, was launched from my bike and broke my left radius. Of course, this was on a Friday night, I still went to work, worked the next 2 days, and finally went to urgent care on Sunday morning when I couldn't fall asleep due to the pain. The doc at urgent care was not amused by my tough guy tenacity of working with a broken bone. He was equally annoyed with my refusal to be put in a cast that would completely immobilize my arm and prevent me from being able to do my job. I tried to explain to him the correlation between my employment and my ability to pay for his services. We settled on a compromise, which I knew meant a longer mending time, but also knew meant I could maintain my employment and continue to pay the bills. I tried to run with my awesome sling, and while it was manageable, it was super painful. In an attempt to not be a completely bullheaded idiot, I recognized that the pain was my body's way of telling me to back off, and I chose not to push through it. So, no biking. No running. Not happy. 

in case you were wondering, your elbow isn't supposed to look like that This was taken 2 days after the crash, just before the x-rays drove home the fact that my radius was busted.

Fast forward. The last of the x-rays taken (all said and told, I've had 12 x-rays since April) my radius was finally healed. SO STOKED, I went for a run. It was slow, it was a challenge, it was awesome. My quality of life went up instantaneously. I had a full week of awesome. I rode my bike everyday, I ran almost everyday, I was able to work with both arms without making any major modifications, it was great. 

Second round. The score now stands- CARS 2 Scout 0. Biking from school, headed to work, lit up like a christmas tree. No joke. Three lights on my saddle bags. A headlamp on my helmet and a front light on my handlebars. A fourth red light on my rear seat post. A reflective vest on my body. I was visible, to an obnoxious degree. I was riding IN A BIKE LANE. Enter the oblivious driver. They chose to turn right, while looking left. Again, I managed to avoid the car-bike physical connection, I end up tossed from my bike, and having a hard time picking my bike back up. (a quick digression, I'll admit in retrospect I've reconsidered the benefit of avoiding the actual car-bike contact, as both of these accidents ended up being completely shouldered financially by myself, as neither car stopped/was aware of what happened.) So, i get my bike upright, and my left hand is in a significant amount of pain and doesn't really look right. I made my way to the lightrail and took the easy way in to work. By the time I got there, I was pretty sure my hand was broken. So, I splinted it, worked my shift and went to urgent care the next day. X-rays confirmed, I broke my hand, and I did an incredible job of it. The 4th&5th metacarpal were spirally fractured, as well as 2 hairline fractures in 2 different carpals (for you geeks out there, it was my hamate and triquetrum). 

Taken about 5 minutes after the crash, note the awesome inflammatory response, oh and the fact that your fingers aren't supposed to lean to the right like that.

Casts in the summertime, in Arizona= the polar opposite of awesome. 

This was sure to be a challenge.

The challenge to keep things in perspective, stay positive, and make the best out of yet another bad situation...the results:

Fashionable cast-cover/sock puppet

Magic plastic bubble, excellent for taking showers, and hanging out in the pool.

I tried to go on a few runs with the cast. This resulted in an incredibly swollen and painful hand, that was also sweaty and extremely itchy. For those of you unfamiliar, sweat is this incredible thing our body produces to help us cool off. It helps us cool off through the process of evaporating from our skin. So, you've got a hand, encapsulated in fiberglass and other fun materials that are the opposite of breathable. Are you with me? So, I run, my whole body sweats, including my hand. The sweat on my hand has nowhere to go, and no way of evaporating. So, my hand gets even hotter, the heat makes it swell, and the cotton and fiberglass around my hand get itchy. This, was not good. End result, running remains off the docket. 

This was extraordinarily frustrating. In March I had been training consistently, pushing myself in ways I hadn't since my collegiate racing years. I had made the decision to no longer show up to races and participate, but to show up to races...and race. Even if my 'racing' wasn't the same as the fastest guy on the line, it would be my best performance. It would be an effort that left me exhausted, but exhilarated. It would make the chase of PR's a perpetual quest of personal improvement. I had chosen my first race, the Moab Alpine to Slickrock 50, and I was prepared to train my butt off to get there, perform well, and surprise myself with the results. This running hiatus was starting to really bring me down. I had to have a serious reality check, and make some adjustments. Reality one- I've just spent more than $2,000 on injuries, I have no money for races and traveling. Reality two- even if I did have the money, if I showed up to the Moab race, I would be participating again, not racing. This, is not what I planned to do. 

Time to revisit the game plan. I focused my extra, non-running time on studying. (this paid off, I managed a 102% on my kinesiology midterm) I watched the pounds I had lost in an attempt to be a leaner runner come back, I created a diet and training plan that would be reasonable, but aggressive in getting myself back on track, as soon as my hand was free of its fiberglass tomb. I took all races off the docket, and decided to focus solely on quality training. While I definitely have some races running around the back of my mind, I won't be making any decisions or registering for anything until I've had some solid training time under my belt, without any broken bones.

The cast comes off, my hand smells gross, looks gross, but freedom is fantastic!

I celebrated the freedom of my hand by jumping into the pool without a plastic bubble around it. Then, I took a shower without a bubble, and it was great. All dressed up and somewhere to go...I went out to a movie to continue the celebration, (it was funny, here's the trailer) and went for a nice little run the next morning.

Rewards from the trail, a monsoon morning on the mountain top.

What it all boils down to...
Time back on the trails is great. I really feel lucky to have the mountain preserves and trails right here in the heart of Phoenix to go to for an escape. It helps me stay grounded, it helps me feel quiet...but its still not quite enough.
How to find balance...
For now, I'm keeping my eyes on the prize with school. My yoga program got completely sidelined by broken bones, and I'm looking forward to that starting back up in a couple of weeks. While the extreme urban nature of life in Phoenix is a bit overwhelming, I'm doing my best to keep it all in perspective and focus finding time on trails to keep the dirt connection. I'm going to start a small garden at my folks place to get my hands in the dirt...but I'm still looking for more outlets. Unfortunately, between school and training and commuting and work, there's not much time for extra projects. Still, that doesn't mean the wheels aren't turning. I will find more ways to get back to the dirt, even while my life is bound to a city.

Those are the basics. Much like my running training regimen, I'm working on a writing training regimen as well. So, here's hoping I can stick to it, and bring the blogiverse more (hopefully entertaining) ramblings in the near future.

Thanks for reading. As a kind and wise gentlemen I've never met, but have corresponded with occasionally always ends his e-mails:
RGOT, run gently out there.