I hurt...

Monday, March 21, 2011


Since walking up and down the stairs at work was giving me trouble, I knew I was going to catch hell when I went for my run. I wasn’t wrong.

Two days of hard riding had left the muscles of my butt and thighs aching and fatigued. As soon as I began to run, I questioned my sanity…my legs were that tired. I couldn’t pick up my knees as high as I would in my normal running stride, so I went with more of a shuffle run while waiting for the muscles to loosen up…which they will after about 5 minutes of running. Someone forgot to tell them this.

I had to be careful because I was back on the hiking trails where roots, rocks and other trail protrusions have been placed to trip me up. My toes were dragging, making me more susceptible to tripping…something I do well when I’m running fresh. Uphills were the worst and the whole run seemed to be uphill. I wanted to whine, but no one was there to hear me…so I’m whining now. I hurt for the entire run…a 40-minute effort with my muscles never getting over their weak and tired feeling. Still…it was a great workout and I’m so happy to be back on the trails.

I went home and showered, then returned to the park to do a little antler hunting. Now I was really feeling the riding and running with every attempt to climb over fallen trees causing me anguish. I spent an hour in my futile pursuit before giving in to the fatigue and heading for home.

Somewhere around 10 p.m., Holly asked if I’d like to take a hike up to East Coast Custard. “Hell yeah,” I replied. She went to put on her shoes, but returned in five minutes to tell me she’d checked their web site only to find that they’d closed at 10 p.m. “That was a seriously cruel trick,” I told her and went to have some diet Iced Tea to assuage my sweet tooth…with little success.

Run duration: 40 minutes. Hike duration: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 140 biking. 80 hiking.
Calories burned during workout: 675 running. 250 hiking.