Finally...a run.

Friday, September 24, 2010
Heidi was home from Kent and needed to go downtown to visit a print shop as a field trip for one of her classes. I dropped her off and agreed to pick her up later on my way to an appointment I had on the east side. She was done around 1 p.m. and my appointment wasn’t until two. Now normally, this would not leave enough time to stop anywhere good for lunch, but we were downtown and Slyman’s was a couple of blocks away…and she’d never been to Slyman’s.

“They’ve got the best corned beef sandwiches in the world…and they’re as big as your HEAD!” I was quite enthusiastic, though a sandwich the size of anyone’s head did not appear to hold the fascination for Heidi that it did for me. We parked on the East 33rd, just off St. Clair and made our way to the door. As is always the case, there was a line out the door for take-out service. We slipped past and were immediately seated. The delicious smell of shaved corned beef had my mouth watering before my butt hit the seat. Heidi looked to our left and saw someone wrestling with a sandwich…trying vainly to get their mouth around it without dropping anything.

“Holy cow…those are as big as my head,” she exclaimed. I ordered the corned beef, but she went for the turkey melt, completely intimidated by the size of the sandwich she’d seen our neighbor choking on. Five minutes later we were served and in 15 minutes, we’d paid our bill and were out the door. Heidi loved the sandwich and now I’ve only Holly and Savannah left to introduce to Cleveland’s best sandwich place.

Now I needed time. My plan was to try a run, but any thoughts of running within four hours of eating at Slyman’s would be less than prudent. My hip had been a little tender during parts of the camping trip, but at some point I had to give it the true test…running. As I pulled into the park, I finalized my plan and course. Maybe 3 minutes of running and, if no pain, a couple of more. No more than 5 and I’d fill the rest of an hour with a hike off-trail. I laced on my shoes full of trepidation and expecting the worst. It had been almost two months since I’d last run regularly. I started very slowly and with extreme caution.

It didn’t take long to get to 5 minutes and since I was pain free, decided to keep going to until I reached a little-used trail where I knew I’d like to hike. When I reached that point in around 8 minutes…well…I kept running. At 15 minutes I was still doing fine and couldn’t get my legs to stop. I always seem to go too far with these things and so had decided I would absolutely go no further than 30 minutes. I was heading back to the car with the watch approaching 25:00 when I thought I felt a twinge. I stopped immediately and walked briskly, but felt nothing. I started up once again, but after 30 seconds decided not to push it and just walked the remaining half mile to the car.

So…25 minutes of running and no pain during the run. I was troubled by the feeling I’d had near the end, but hours later, was walking fine and without pain. Maybe? I’d give it a few days before trying again.

Run duration: 25 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 130 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 375.