The Worst Injury I've Gotten at CARE (did not involve cats or machines)

Huh boy, where do I start?

I guess I should let people know some of my 'dimensions' so to speak. I'm 6'2" and I weigh about 245lbs. I was a starting defensive linemen on my high school football team and on my base football team, the Yokota Warriors, when I was stationed in Japan. For the last seven years, I've been working at CARE & building functional 'farm muscles' out in the compound.

I'm a decently sized fellow. My wife thinks of me as her polar bear- A solid-mass, boorish animal with a squishy outer layer & a love of cold temperatures. She's so sweet.

When one thinks of polar bears, images of a large, angry animal smashing through ice sheets to eat unsuspecting seals comes to mind.

I can hear a Scandinavian metal band playing in my head right now.

What DOESN'T come to mind, are images of great acrobatic skill & nimbleness. Above water, polar bears probably have as much grace as a drunk ballerina named Fred who actually isn't a ballerina.

FFFRRRRREEEEEEEEEED!!!!!!!!

That being said, I can lift things, I can smash things, and I can even run & jump around pretty decently if I've been training, but if I haven't been training specifically for the running and jumping thing, then I'm not exactly naturally cut out for a sport like parkour.




That's so parkour...

 A few years back, my polar bear frame was slipping into more squishy mode & less solid mass mode, so I decided that I needed to get outside & do some more exercisin', but I didn't want to do some dumb ol' running & pushups regimen! That's too boring!

Enter the impulsive side of Derek's brain that he lets out to wander whenever he's not around the cats- kind of like taking your dog to the beach. Parkour is exciting and sexy! Cool French people do parkour & it's in a bunch of movies as the new age ninja moves! Parkour guys have 14-pack abs and never need to be reminded to take the garbage out! Perfect! I'm going to go outside, RIGHT NOW, VERY OUT OF SHAPE & WITHOUT RESEARCHING HOW TO DO IT PROPERLY, & parkour the snot out of some concrete culverts we have sitting out in one of CARE's back-40 fields! What could possibly go wrong???


To give people an idea of what I'm talking about, here is what one of the culverts in question looks like
We use them for housing units for sleepy tigers to lay on and be all cute and photogenic

There where three laying next to each other in a row. Two were spaced apart by only about 3-4 feet & the last one is A.) Taller than the other two, and B.) about 7-8 feet away from its neighbor (I'm doing this from memory, so my numbers might be a little off- either way, it was a bigger jump than what a novice parkourer should have been attempting)

It looked like this:

Who needs photoshop when there's MS Paint?

I got into my workout clothes & went out into the field where the culverts were located. I did a little bit of stretching, & hopped onto the furthest, lowest culvert & envisioned myself leaping & hopping into into parkour legend. Oh yeah. This was going to be so epic.

This was going to be my VERY FIRST foray into the majestic world of parkour (or freerunning as some call it) & my VERY FIRST attempt at the sport obviously needed to be something a bit flashy. I was going to run on the first culvert & do a quick hop to the second where I would build momentum and then make a fiery Spartan leap from the second to a masculinely stuck landing on the third. Sweeeeet.

It was supposed to look like this:

PAAAARRRRRRKOOOUUUUURRRRRRRR!!!!!

 What happened was not that. I ran atop the first & made the easy bound to the second. "Piece of cake." I thought to myself as I neared the third, higher, and significantly more distant, third culvert. I built my speed over those precious few steps & I thrust into the air with all of my squishy might, landing on the third culvert with my left foot.

....as my right one didn't.



Yeah, that happened. Also, I have hairy legs.

You know that feeling you get as a kid when you bash your shin on something? Suprisingly enough, it was a lot like that. It smarted, a LOT, but it didn't feel any worse than what I felt as a kid ramming around and banging into stuff at parks & the woods & my grandpappy's farm & what have you. I limped around for about 10-15 seconds & did the Peter Griffin inward "Schhhheeeee!" interspersed with colorful swears, and then I looked down.

Seriously, I'm not going to post the picture of it. Here's a fluffy bunny rabbit instead.

I let out a very audible 'Gaahh!!' at what saw. The concrete culvert's uncurved corner (alliteration ftw!) did a number to my shin. Without going into too much detail, let's just say I got a really good lesson in human anatomy that day. It was that bad.

I took off my shirt & tied it around my leg, then hobbled my way up to my house in a slightly distressed state. I told my lovely daughter who has ice running in her veins not to worry & that I had to go to the emergency room. She replied without a hint of concern, "Okay, I'm not worried."

Parenthood! But I digress...

I drove myself to the ER in town & had to get multilayered stitches to bring all of the 'substrata' together. The doc did these big wide looping stitches, so the number (about 12) really betrays how large the wound actually was. She seemed to know what she was doing, so I didn't question it.

I got home & my wife gave me the "I'm really glad you're okay but at the same time I swear I could kill you with the some of the shh--stuff you pull" - type face. She worries about me. It's cute.

After all was good, I was promptly and justifiably mocked for being stupid- of course I told everyone the truth about what happened. I could have made up a story about fighting a gargoyle or thrashing my nonexistent chopper, but I decided to take the more self-deprecating route instead.

I suppose I could wax all poetic about the moral of the tale & how I grew as a person & found deep inner meaning behind my experience, but I've been sitting here for a long time & I need to get to the gym.

So I will leave you with a fitting quote that I just looked up on the Google-

You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm. -Collette

Thanks for making it this far!

-Derek

Avoiding Injury

I work with a whole bunch of the most brutally lethal animals on the planet. Sure, most of the time they act like absolute sweethearts, & I love when people comment on CARE's cats with surprise at how seemingly nice and personable they are, but make no mistake- they are, at their core, instinctually-driven killers- dangerous and cold.

Next, I work with a lot of heavy duty equipment and tools at CARE. Tractors that can tip over on uneven terrain, engines that can mangle fingers, sharp knives that can cut through skin like paper, welders that can blind you & start fires, & power tools that can do all sorts of mayhem.

We have a very rigorous and specific training program for our skilled workers, and it involves a LOT of task repetition & building a mindset of continuous risk management. Recognize danger, report it, and remedy it. I am proud of our skilled interns and senior volunteer staff- they do a hell of a job keeping CARE's cats happy, healthy, & comfortable and being safe while they do it.

So, I gots to try REAL hard to not get myself injured over the course of the next few months. It sure would stink to go through this whole thing & then be forced to sidline myself from the mudrun because of a work-related mishap, so I can't let that happen. No way, no how!

Luckily I've got years worth of great memories of getting mildly banged up from my own stupidity to give me a healthy sense of humbleness and the experience-based skill of looking before I leap.

That being said, my next blog post is going to be the story of the worst injury I ever recieved out here at CARE. It has nothing to do with tools, equipment, or cats and everything to do with my lunkheadedness. Oh boy. I can't wait.

For now, I gotta get back to the kitties!

-Derek

Dragging myself to daily workouts

Before this mudrun business, I tried to maintain a relatively fit body through routine workouts, but I wouldn't really push it on a regular basis. I've been in sports and I have military experience, so I know what 'pushing it' feels like & how to do it, but I guess you could say that I've sort of been coasting these past few years. I would go to the gym & go through the normal motions, but I would only just be there- nothing too special or spectacular.

Now, with my self-imposed daily dose of brutality, I think I can say that I've been hitting the 'push it' category fairly regularly for the past month or so, and with that comes the daily struggle.

It's an exhausting & painful ordeal to do these mud-run prep workouts, and I'm not one of those fit-guru psychos who get off on torturing themselves. Keep in mind I'm not talking about people who really push themselves to be better & make strong efforts to lead a healthy lifestyle while staying positive and motivated, no, I'm talking about the intense, alpha-swag, P90X-is-for-pansies type psycho- whooping and hollering during their workouts while wearing a shirt that says "PAIN IS JUST WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY"

I'm all for confidence and being tough, but I think that quote is just stupid. If someone threw a glass jar full of angry bees at your head, that would more than likely result in a lot of pain which I doubt would have anything to do with weakness points magically leaving your body like we're playing a weird version of D&D or something.

Sorry, that one always bugged me.

What I was getting at, though, was the idea that it.... is.... haaaaarrrrrrrrd for me to muster the fortitude every day to do these workouts justice. My brain be all like, "Hey body, remember that really unpleasant thing we did yesterday?"

To which my body goes, "Unnngggggghhhhh......."

To which my brain replies, "Yeah! That one! We're going to do another one JUST like it in 10 minutes!! Yaaaaayyyyy!!!! AND we're going to do ANOTHER one TOMORROW!!! You're so lucky!!"

So far, I'm staying the course, & the thought of giving the cats the support they need to live safely and comfortably is what drives me in this project. Next to that inspiration, there's the whole idea that I already decided to tell a whole bunch of people (all yous guys) about this project, and that's that. I can't just go back and break my word, I would look like a buffoon!

I've been typing this blog and postponing my daily hurtin' for long enough, so with that, I leave you with a more reasonable and sensible workout motivation quote-thingy which isn't so aggressive and intense, and I'm off to run!

-Derek