The last of the turkey...

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

I went to the park to put in a 20-minute run. My right achilles and both feet were sore all day long, but it the achilles that has my attention. If that thing should pop, I know I would be out for a long time and I don’t want that. Still, I need to run so I’m trying one day on/two days off until I get over this.

It was still reasonably warm and I decided to run on a flat course. It’s amazing how quickly you can lose your conditioning for any particular activity…I’ve been doing a mix of things, but little running. I hadn’t gone 5 minutes, but knew it would be a struggle. I’d blame it on the humidity if it was July, but this feeling was clearly about the fact that I was running only a couple of times a week and when I did, only short distances. De-conditioning can be discouraging, but I don’t let it get me down because I know that, with two healthy weeks, I’ll be right back where I was. Experience has taught me that.

I reached my turnaround ten minutes down the trail and knew how bad it was by how often I was checking my watch. When I’m running smoothly I don’t care about time and seldom check it. When I’m struggling, I’m checking every couple of minutes praying for the time when I will be back at the car; the pain will be over and I have enough done to write it in my blog. That was today, for sure.

I trudged back to the car and collapsed into it for the ride home. I was thinking that I should get there and put the disabled bike on the trainer and put in some more time, but instead cleaned up and went to the workshop to put the finishing touches on the folding shelf I had built for my office to house my laptop while writing the blog. I normally put it on my desk, but I have found that to be too high creating pain in my shoulders that makes typing difficult. The shelf would be mounted to the wall directly behind my desk and at a level that would put the computer about lap high…my best typing position.

Dinner was a sad affair. I pulled the last of the turkey from the tupperware bowl and made a sandwich. Holly had said she’ make another turkey dinner for Christmas though, so I only have 25 days to wait.

Run duration: 20 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 140 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 350.