My body hates me. It has every reason to. Short of subjecting it to the viewing of a Harry Potter movie, I've been pretty rough with it lately.

It started a couple of weeks ago when I decided to pound pavement and go for a good old-fashioned run. I've been working out very regularly on our elliptical exercising device, but in anticipation of an upcoming physical exam I decided to take a run lest a different variety of muscles are used between the different activities. The answer is "yes". I realized that about 15 feet into my run. Apparently the elliptical doesn't really require use of your quadriceps, strangely enough. I think the run clocked in at about 5 miles. Every step was a special treat. I felt like a pretty big pansy.

I only relate the next part of my story because of the entertainment value it may provide, although it is germane. My legs increased in soreness quite a bit over the next few days. One morning I got up to get the twins out of bed. I was carrying both of them down the stairs when I slipped a couple of steps from the bottom. I was able to hold onto Jaxon, but Mason took a little spill. He bumped his head and scratched his arm a little, but wasn't too upset by the ordeal. I, on the other hand, took quite a bit of meat off the inside of my left arm and off my left ankle. This was in addition to the general soreness of landing on your back and sliding down the stairs while carrying an extra 50 lbs. of weight.

So, next I went with R., D., M., J. and C. (J.'s friend) to Downieville for some mountain biking action. We rode the Big Boulder trail, which was all okay. The weather was a mixture of warm and cold with scattered showers. While coming down the first big downhill stretch after the first big climb, I incorrectly negotiated a little crop of rocks and ended up over the handlebars and on my stomach. Other than having the wind knocked-out of me I didn't notice any significant pain. I had some minor gashes in my arm (properly packed with dirt, so no biggie). My pinky hurt where my ring crunched it. When I started riding I started to feel some pain in my left hand. I finished the ride without further incident, but continued to feel some pain in my hand.

Over the next couple of days the pain in my hand failed to decrease and even increased a bit. I had difficulty bending my hand very much in any direction and it hurt to pick-up or pinch things using my thumb. I also began to notice some swelling in my wrist. The following Monday while pulling on my pants I felt a pop in my hand. I suddenly had dramatically improved use of my hand, although it was still sore. Based on my extensive medical training, I think that I dislocated my carpometacarpal joint. Anyway, I think that I'm recovering from that, although I still have some soreness in my thumb.

So, as I was recovering from all that stuff, the day of my physical exam (mentioned previously) came around. The exam wasn't overly difficult. Highlights included push-ups using my gimpy hand, sprinting 300 meters and then immediately running 1.5 miles in the late morning heat. I handily passed the physical exam but it will be a few weeks before I find out about the accompanying written exam.

**** NOTE FROM THE EDITOR ****

7/22/09 - The above post was written on 6/22/09 but was never published. I'm posting it now in it's original form and will follow-up with a separate post imminently.