Thursday, November 26, 2015
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Saturday, November 7, 2015
We're Going Streaking!
When you first start out a career in law enforcement you quickly realize that it's a profession like no other. You wear a snazzy uniform which will turn the ugliest individual into an Adonis or Aphrodite, you deal with extremely bad people who sometimes want to kill you & your work hours are never guaranteed to be the same from day to day. Sometimes situations arise that are entirely out of your control that require you to go to work on your day off, punch the time clock a little earlier than usual & stay way past when your shift normally ends. Sometimes it can be helpful. Overtime's always a good thing around Christmas time. But other times it can be a downright pain in the ass when you have plans outside of work. Right from the beginning in the academy you're told to expect this as a fact of your professional life. You're never really off duty.
I've been at this now for long time. It's been an amazing career so far & I hope that the remaining 9 years are as much fun as the first 15 were. Being a Type-A individual who views fitness as a priority I've managed to make time for my workouts even with this crazy work schedule. Early on in my career there were some occasions when I just didn't fit all my stuff into a 24 hour day. But now that I'm on the day shift & have a little seniority under my duty belt, those instances haven't come up in a long, long time. Which is a really good thing now that I'm a running streaker. The Running God of Streaking demands that you run at least a mile a day to keep the streak up & running (pun intended). So that's what you do 24/7, 365.
About 25 years ago the county that I work started putting large classes of sheriff deputies through the academy. Flash forward to now & many of them are retiring. Which is a bad thing because now my work shift is running short on a daily basis. The stars aligned just right about a week ago & I was sent out on an emergency hospital detail with a bad guy. I don't typically mind these type of details because it's a refreshing change of pace. It didn't hurt that it was my final day of work before starting a 7 day vacation either. I could stay a little past my shift & take one for the home team.
Along with the day shift, the evening & midnight shifts are also running short on staff. So that meant that this particular detail was most likely going to last past my normal quitting time of 3PM. The hospital was extremely busy too & because the bad guy didn't have any immediate medical issues, we weren't going anywhere anytime soon.
After a few hours went by I called the 3rd platoon Sgt.'s to see when they were going to be able to send my relief. Unfortunately they weren't going to be able to relieve me at all, possibly not until 1st platoon came in. That's when it hit me & the panic ensued. By my calculation if I was relieved shortly after 11PM by 1st platoon, then drove back to the jail, turned in all of my duty gear, changed & then drove home I may not be able to make it before 12PM!
I typically get up for work around 5AM to make roll call. Because of such an early wake up call there's no way that I could fit my training in before I head in for the day. With the mileage & cross-training that I do I'd have to wake up around 2AM to get all of it done. I'm dedicated, but that's just too damn early to do anything! That means that my training always happens after I get out of work. That day I didn't train before work like usual. Now I was faced with having to possibly end my running streak at 279 days right then & there!
The world of streak running may be a little crazy for the average person, even for the typical runner. But there are two rules that are set in stone: 1. You have to run at least a mile every calendar day 2. The mile has to be run on a track, road, trail or treadmill. My assignment presented some unique problems with getting this done. I was in uniform & when police start running around people tend to get a little nervous. I had a partner, but I wasn't supposed to leave him to go run somewhere. I was wearing a ton of equipment, didn't have my GPS watch & didn't have any spare running clothes. I was however wearing my FitBit activity tracker. Theoretically I could use it to track my steps up to a mile. I thought about running in place in the hospital bathroom. I'm not sure though if running in place even counted? I thought about going outside & running around our unmarked police car or maybe even the hospital.
All of this may seem completely ridiculous when you think about it. But streakers aren't normal people. My first streak lasted up to 609 days. I only stopped because my back injury almost made me feint from the pain when I tried running on the final day. Up until that point I was never in a position that cut it so close like this. With my 2nd streak I wanted to nail 610 days & beyond. It's only a simple number. But it takes on a life of it's own after a while & can be something incredibly inspiring. I didn't want to end it so early in the ballgame.
Fortunately after a little while longer the bad guy's medical tests came back negative for any severe injuries. Now all we needed was for him to be evaluated by the hospital's mental health doctor to get released. Unfortunately though, past experience dealing with these types of details has shown me that this doesn't usually happen very quickly. Add to that the fact that the hospital can't release an actively suicidal patient without emergency mental health treatment meant it wasn't looking to good for day 279.
It was time to make something happen. I wandered around the emergency department until I found our doctor. I used the handsomest cop uniform wearing look I could muster & explained what procedures our department would put into place to ensure that our bad guy wouldn't harm himself after release, mainly by placing him on a one-on-one suicide watch.
Not sure if it was my overwhelming charm or the department's safety procedures, but an hour later I was trotting along on a windy, moonlit night loving every step of an easy 3 mile run. I'd easily made the 12PM cut off time with almost 4 hours to spare.
Day 280 has come & gone. The 2nd streak remains intact with no end in sight. Just the way I like it. But I've taken some precautions to help make the next streaking emergency a little easier. My truck now has backpack with an extra pair of old running shoes, running clothes & a watch. Hopefully the next time I'm in a jam they'll come in handy. Running truly is a gift & streaking has shown me that the excuses regular runners use why they can't run are just convenient lies they tell themselves to make themselves feel better about skipping a workout. There isn't a type of weather, time of day, medical condition (unless I'm unconscious) or location that'll keep me from getting my miles in. In fact many of those awful rainy, cold days getting lost on unfamiliar running routes while being sicker than a dog are the ones that I'll remember the most fondly.
So, the next time you see a sheriff's deputy running laps around a hospital emergency department screaming "The zombies are coming!" don't be too concerned. He's just having a little fun & getting his mile in before midnight!
Along with the day shift, the evening & midnight shifts are also running short on staff. So that meant that this particular detail was most likely going to last past my normal quitting time of 3PM. The hospital was extremely busy too & because the bad guy didn't have any immediate medical issues, we weren't going anywhere anytime soon.
After a few hours went by I called the 3rd platoon Sgt.'s to see when they were going to be able to send my relief. Unfortunately they weren't going to be able to relieve me at all, possibly not until 1st platoon came in. That's when it hit me & the panic ensued. By my calculation if I was relieved shortly after 11PM by 1st platoon, then drove back to the jail, turned in all of my duty gear, changed & then drove home I may not be able to make it before 12PM!
I typically get up for work around 5AM to make roll call. Because of such an early wake up call there's no way that I could fit my training in before I head in for the day. With the mileage & cross-training that I do I'd have to wake up around 2AM to get all of it done. I'm dedicated, but that's just too damn early to do anything! That means that my training always happens after I get out of work. That day I didn't train before work like usual. Now I was faced with having to possibly end my running streak at 279 days right then & there!
The world of streak running may be a little crazy for the average person, even for the typical runner. But there are two rules that are set in stone: 1. You have to run at least a mile every calendar day 2. The mile has to be run on a track, road, trail or treadmill. My assignment presented some unique problems with getting this done. I was in uniform & when police start running around people tend to get a little nervous. I had a partner, but I wasn't supposed to leave him to go run somewhere. I was wearing a ton of equipment, didn't have my GPS watch & didn't have any spare running clothes. I was however wearing my FitBit activity tracker. Theoretically I could use it to track my steps up to a mile. I thought about running in place in the hospital bathroom. I'm not sure though if running in place even counted? I thought about going outside & running around our unmarked police car or maybe even the hospital.
All of this may seem completely ridiculous when you think about it. But streakers aren't normal people. My first streak lasted up to 609 days. I only stopped because my back injury almost made me feint from the pain when I tried running on the final day. Up until that point I was never in a position that cut it so close like this. With my 2nd streak I wanted to nail 610 days & beyond. It's only a simple number. But it takes on a life of it's own after a while & can be something incredibly inspiring. I didn't want to end it so early in the ballgame.
Fortunately after a little while longer the bad guy's medical tests came back negative for any severe injuries. Now all we needed was for him to be evaluated by the hospital's mental health doctor to get released. Unfortunately though, past experience dealing with these types of details has shown me that this doesn't usually happen very quickly. Add to that the fact that the hospital can't release an actively suicidal patient without emergency mental health treatment meant it wasn't looking to good for day 279.
It was time to make something happen. I wandered around the emergency department until I found our doctor. I used the handsomest cop uniform wearing look I could muster & explained what procedures our department would put into place to ensure that our bad guy wouldn't harm himself after release, mainly by placing him on a one-on-one suicide watch.
Not sure if it was my overwhelming charm or the department's safety procedures, but an hour later I was trotting along on a windy, moonlit night loving every step of an easy 3 mile run. I'd easily made the 12PM cut off time with almost 4 hours to spare.
Day 280 has come & gone. The 2nd streak remains intact with no end in sight. Just the way I like it. But I've taken some precautions to help make the next streaking emergency a little easier. My truck now has backpack with an extra pair of old running shoes, running clothes & a watch. Hopefully the next time I'm in a jam they'll come in handy. Running truly is a gift & streaking has shown me that the excuses regular runners use why they can't run are just convenient lies they tell themselves to make themselves feel better about skipping a workout. There isn't a type of weather, time of day, medical condition (unless I'm unconscious) or location that'll keep me from getting my miles in. In fact many of those awful rainy, cold days getting lost on unfamiliar running routes while being sicker than a dog are the ones that I'll remember the most fondly.
So, the next time you see a sheriff's deputy running laps around a hospital emergency department screaming "The zombies are coming!" don't be too concerned. He's just having a little fun & getting his mile in before midnight!
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