Half Dome: Thursday night prep

[cjsmith]

OK, I admit it now, I was definitely too nervous.

Rob and I came up with a ballpark figure for my caloric intake during the hike, divided by a Nutter Butter, and came up with somewhere in the range of sixteen of those little pre-wrapped foursomes of Nutter Butters. Good: those are lightweight and full of carbs/fat with a little protein. If I ate one package per hour, I should not get hypoglycemic. I made a pile of Rob's Nutter Butters. Hmm, it was big. They'd take up much of the space in my fanny pack, so maybe a day pack on my shoulders too...

Rob visited some web sites and quoted to me while I ran around gathering items. I'd make a decision about each thing he mentioned. "Iodine tablets," he called out. Oops, it was a bit late to get those. "Two to four quarts water." Good, got that. "Hat." That's automatic for me; I wouldn't consider hiking all day in the sun without a hat. "Extra socks so you can soak your feet in the river when you reach it going down." Nah, I can use anything I'm wearing as a towel. "Kleenex and TP." Oh yeah, almost forgot those. "Gloves for the cables." I'll take pot luck from the pile at the base. And so forth.

Patrick, my personal trainer, had told me to start carbo-loading as early as Thursday night, so I dutifully ate a package of Ramen noodles. I have no idea if this helped.

Rolled each leg back and forth on my torture deviceplastic cylinder, to stretch my ITB. Gawd that hurts but I know it's helping the knees.

Got to bed early. Thank goodness.

Comments

[tytso.livejournal.com]

What's the leg torture device/plastic cylinder all about? And what's the expansion of ITB? Just curious....

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

ITB is short for the ilio-tibial band, a sheet of muscle and tendon reaching from the outside of the hip to the top outside edge of the tibia, just below the knee joint. If it's too tight, as with me, it rubs over the bumps on the femur with every step. It gets irritated, hurts a little, then hurts a lot, and eventually the muscle refuses to work and my leg collapses. Also, if it is too tight (and maybe has adhesions to the quadriceps? not sure, but this seems likely in my case) it can pull the patella out of alignment, exacerbating patellar cartilege degeneration (I've got the beginnings of this).

Some people who sell orthotics think this can be corrected with orthotics. My doctor and physical therapist didn't think so, but then, they sell physical therapy. :-)

The cylinder is about six inches in diameter and made of hard foam, a little bit like styrofoam. I lie on my side with this thing under my hip, use my hands to support the weight of my torso, put the "upper" leg's foot on the floor for stability, and rooooolllll until the cylinder's under my knee. Back and forth for thirty seconds to a minute. Then do it again on the other side. It hurts a great deal.