It was Lobster Dinner night at Fisher’s and Miggie wanted to go there desperately. I like it, but could do without. I have been suffering with pain in the ball of my left foot and had stopped earlier to pick up a Dr. Scholl’s insert in hopes of mitigating the pain.
“I’ll meet you down there. I’m going to walk. Bring me a dry t-shirt if you don’t mind,” I said when she called. The night before I’d gotten cold while eating dinner in a sweaty t-shirt.
I had an hour before I had to leave for the restaurant and chose to go the Deep Lock Quarry[JR1] Metropark, which is within the boundaries of Cuyahoga Valley National Park and abuts the Towpath. I’d driven past it many times and wondered what terrain it offered and if there was a hole filled with water where I could swim. I was thinking I might run the trails and had put on my running shoes with one of the inserts. Once there though, I realized this might be the place to re-create my Survival Workout. It was loaded with heavy rocks and downed trees – two key ingredients.
I hiked the 1.5 mile loop trail stopping to lift things as I did. There were numerous park benches where I could prop up my feet to do push-ups and to use for dips. The quarry itself, abandoned since the early 20th century, had rocks the size of houses down to ones about the size of a toaster oven. I lifted the latter when the former wouldn’t budge.
My shoulder is still sore from the exertion of pitching while Jack was home so I went easy on the calisthenics and rock-lifting. Over the next hour, I performed seven sets of lifts and none to exhaustion. I returned to the car with a mild pump, encouraged that this would become the new home of my workout.
I’ve been slipping physically over the past two years. I haven’t written for some time because my workouts have been inconsistent. Jack has encouraged me to write again, but I needed to be working out to write a workout blog – or so I’m told. I’ve lost tone and flexibility – things I don’t want to lose as I age. I have too much to do and a lot of it is physical. Deep Lock should be getting a lot of press from now on.
I took a quick shower when I returned home. I wanted to be clean once I started sweating on the hike to Peninsula. Though it was only in the upper 80’s, the humidity was somewhere near what we had in the steam room of the old Cleveland Athletic Club. I was drenched when I climbed up the road from the Towpath and into downtown Peninsula. Miggie had brought me a dry shirt, but I didn’t want to change in the parking lot, which was packed for Lobster night. I figured I could do it in the bathroom once we ordered.
I walked in the door and up to the hostess station for seating just as a waitress was writing the words ‘lobster sold out’ on a dry-erase board.
“Couldn’t you have walked a little faster?” Miggie said.
Well…no…I’m old and slow.
Hike: Two hours and 10 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 80-100 bpm.
Calories burned: 1,200.
Bonus: 26,300 steps.
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