September 22

I woke up in the middle of the night (around 3:00am) when one of the guys down the hall kicked my door and said “Hey Ben, are you ok?” Haha. Last night was a big bar night here for most of the people at UC, but I didn’t go out at all and just went to bed kinda early because I was really tired. It was funny to hear people coming back and being loud and really drunk though. :)

I got up this morning around 9:30am, it was the first time I’ve slept in for a while. At 10:45 Kate met me to do my last 20-minute post-exercise test for taking Devil’s Claw. It turns out this morning my performance in both the vertical jump and the quad strength tests had increased to levels greater than they had been at the beginning of the testing. My quads are pretty much completely sore free now, and there is only a slight remnant of pain in my lower calves, which I can feel when I flex, but I don’t notice at all when walking around normally. After I had completed being tested and my final blood sample had been taken, Kate got me from her office the free stuff that was guaranteed to anyone who completed the study, then drove me back to my dorm.

Back at the dorm I decided to look up the value of all of the stuff that I got for free for participating in this study, using the AIS online catalog. It turns the AIS backpack I got I got is worth $45 retail, the navy blue gym towel is worth $10, the white AIS polo shirt goes for $35, the AIS sport socks $11, and the drink bottle $10… so in all I got a total of $110 (Australian dollars) worth of brand new AIS gear for participating in the study. It was definitely worth it to participate. Plus I also found out that my right leg is stronger than my left leg (probably from running around the track over the last 5 years), and once Kate gets done analyzing the results, I’ll find out if Devil’s Claw actually works for reducing inflammation as its manufacturers claim. :)

Most of my day this afternoon was spent organizing my school work and beginning the process of working on assignments and studying for exams. However, I did manage to break away from my books several times, and one of those times I went for a run. I ran for about 30 minutes alongside the lake (I did an out-and-back run), and during my run I realized that my right calf is definitely more sore than I previously noticed. It wasn’t too sore to keep me from running though. Probably just one or two more days before all the muscle tissue heals from the 40 minute downhill run I did on Monday. It was beautiful weather once again this afternoon, in the low-70s and sunny when I went for my run.