Wednesday

Originally, I had titled this entry as "Today was a good day". It was a good day but there still is a disturbing issue. So here was the good part. This week I've been "filling in" as one of the assistant coaches for Jakey's football team. Although I played football in high school, I am CERTAINLY no football coach. In fact, with pretty much any sport, I don't have any formal coaching training. Nevertheless, I am quite enjoying it. Most of the time I've been working with the linemen. Teaching them (or at least pretending to teach) them proper hand and foot movements. Let me tell you, this isn't Texas or Florida but Northern Utah County takes its football pretty dang seriously. Today my post-practice comment, "There's no crying in football!".

Next, I had the opportunity to check my blood pressure today. 123 over 64 with a pulse of 51. Pretty darn good if you ask me. It would be cool to have my pulse under 50. I just had the thought about Lance Armstrong and found this:

What is your resting pulse rate? "I don't take it, but I guess it would be around 40. I have a little box on my handlebars that tells me time, speed, watts, heart rate, cadence, distance. I can measure everything in average mode, or maximum mode, and I can download it at the end of a run and send it to my coach. My highest-ever heart rate was 207 beats per minute, 15 years ago. Today I can hit the high 190s, but only hold it for a minute or so. My fastest-ever speed was 75mph, freewheeling down a hill in the Pyrenees."

That is simply incredible. I don't think my heart rate has ever been above 170. Speaking of which, I have my first century ride coming up this Saturday. It's called the ULCER 100. I picked up my registration packet this afternoon. I'll be wearing #120. Looking at the race map, it appears that this year the route will NOT go completely around Utah Lake. This year it goes along the east side down to Goshen and then back again. Hopefully, I'll be able to write about the race. Wish me good luck. I was able to get my bike into the local shop for a good tune up and cleaning. It sure got dirty up at Sandpoint.

Lastly, we had our first playoff game for summer hockey tonight. I took Jake so that he could free skate. The Oval ice has been down much of the summer but now it is open again. If you care to see how pathetic we've been this summer, you can check things out here. Anyhow, I decided to play at my original position (left defense). For the past couple of years I've been playing right wing and really enjoying it. It sure was fun playing a bit rougher being on defense. The best part was I had a nice slapshot from just inside the blue line and scored. Pretty nice! Did I mention I broke my right pinky toe on Sunday? It is all black and blue and it hurt being in the skate but I had a good time on the ice tonight.

So, like I said, a pretty good day. HOWEVER, Marcella and I are increasingly concerned about her migraines. We thought that she was getting better but the past couple of weeks have been a return to what she was going through back in February and March. She was pretty much in bed since yesterday. I was able to go to the pharmacy this morning and get her a variety of medicines. Earlier this week she saw yet another neurologist. This one seems to be pretty good. She now goes to see a cardiologist next week to see if she has a condition called PFO. I found a few good articles here, and here, and here and here. So the next step is to see if she qualifies for this study. I'll keep her progress updated here. So she has been in lots of pain and I really feel bad for her. Hopefully, we can figure this out and she can return to a more normal life.