Wherein Groping Is Big Business, Yo

(N.B.--FYI, I probably haven't stopped reading your blogs; I've just been having fights with both WordPress & Blogger where either they just won't let me post comments, period, or they give me an error message that's all like, "Sorry! Looks like you already said that!" when in fact it is the first time I've attempted to say whatever it was. Every now & then they let one through, but blog platforms be wiley, unpredictable beasts & I never quite know whether it's worked or not. Soooo....yeah. Any thoughts/tips/suggestions around that? Send 'em my way!)

You guys. I have had so many thoughts & plans & hopes running through my head that I haven't really known where to start in terms of blogging. There isn't really what you'd call a real starting place, so maybe let's start with Thursday's visit to the sports doc for the MRI follow-up. Just kidding, let's start with four amazing days of eating & drinking in New Orleans.

Chef Donald Link is a man who knows his sheezy.

Then get to know the bartenders down the street at Bellocq (also with the knowing of the sheezy)

Patio drinking at Cure

Fantastic cocktails + outdoor table service = winning

Foi gras & smoked peaches at Revolution. OMG YES.

Foi gras & seared scallops

Lobster gnochi

Foi gras & seared scallops, with lobster hat

NOT HAUNTED

We had great drinks at French 75 from a bartender who used
to work at the cocktail bar 3 blocks from our house.

When you're done drinking fancy cocktails, go
destroy your palette with a frozen mint Irish coffee at Erin Rose.

More Donald Link wizardy at Cochon (rabbit dumplings)

Dessert at Cochon??? You must be joking.

NOLA = excellent hat shops.

Last fancy dinner at (Donald Link's) Peche

...which also has awesome cocktails

Cane & Table, another sweet venue for enjoying delicious cocktails & a picturesque patio

In short: If you haven't been, get there. But only for a few days; otherwise, it might actually kill you.

OK fine, we'll talk about the MRI follow-up. :P

GROPE CITY Y'ALL

This is not my MRI but I thought you all deserved to see just how totally obscene & disturbing these images can be.

First off, the doc showed me the MRI images & pointed out the small white spot on my right pubic bone (hawt) which indicates extra fluid/blood flow which generally indicates something trying to heal itself. He did all the usual clinical stuff to see if there was any pain (there's not, and hasn't been since the marathon-that-wasn't on Aug. 24), then palpitated that spot to see if it felt particularly tender, which it didn't. Which means that either the spot on the MRI was nothing (which happens, apparently), or whatever it was seems to be totally healed.

(Side note: In airport security I always opt for the Freedom Grope rather than the nudey scanners. Coming back from New Orleans, the checkpoint had only one lady TSA agent working, and when I requested my Freedom Grope she happened to be busy seizing three suitcases worth of hot sauce (not kidding) from a woman who is #notapro at this, which meant I had to wait like 15 extra minutes for my grope. I wanted to be all, "Well could you just, like, get a dude to come do it?" Because given that the list of body parts I have now paid male medical professionals/body workers to fondle now includes both ass cheeks, coccyx, & pubic bone, it's not like there's much left to feel awkward about. Later Don was like, "I'm pretty sure they have regulations about that stuff." And I was like, "What if I tell them I'm a lesbian?" Somehow, it made sense at the time.)

After a bit of single-leg squatting, he pointed out how my left leg seemed totally fine basically all the time, but my right still tended to tremble a bit & collapse in at the knee, which made NO sense to me given how many thousands upon thousands of single-leg squats I have done on both legs in the last two years. But when he'd have me put my hand on my right glute med and actually think about engaging it, I could do the squat fine with no shaking or collapsing at all.

"It's not that the muscle's not strong enough," he told me. "It's just not firing automatically for some reason, the way the other one is. So you may just have to work on consciously thinking about that when you run and when you do your squats." So there is that.

In any case, he said I can keep running as long as I build back up at a sensible rate & stay-pain free, and he isn't sending me back to PT, and he is curious to see what they say at RunSafe this coming Tuesday (as am I).

IRON

Do not try to tell me that this picture is not COMPLETELY AWESOME and/or TOTALLY related to iron.

Because of my thyroid and heart problems, I get regular blood tests just to make sure everything is fine; since I was there & we were talking about electrolytes, I asked if he could request my tests now instead of in a few months when they're scheduled. In particular, we talked about iron, & how my GP is obsessed with it, & all the different things I've heard about it relative to runners.

Technically, if your ferritin (stored iron) levels are above ~12 ng/mL, that's considered normal, and mine have always fallen in the 28-30 range. But when you consider that the ceiling for women is 300 ng/mL (it's 150 for men), you can see that that's still towards the low end. I've also read several articles that seemed to indicate that endurance athletes should shoot for higher levels (opinions seem to vary on how much higher), & even training just 7-8 hours / week, we can be considered "sports anemic" even if our levels are in the normal range for non-athletes.

I've brought this up a couple of times with my GP and the lab techs, and they've always been like, "You're fine. Eat more spinach if you're worried." Talking to my sports doc on Thursday, though, he said that yes, 30 is a bit low for a distance runner. He said that I'm probably fine for now given that I'm not training heavily for anything, but when I'm up in the 50's in terms of weekly mileage, it would not be a bad idea to supplement and I am extremely unlikely to poison myself.

I have more things to say but lately I have found that if I get too ambitious it takes me like nine days to get a post up. So hopefully pictures of booze & discussion of awkward groping & electrolytes will tide you over for a few days while I get the rest of my thoughts together in my post-vacation brain.