Over 230 years ago, some guys got together who we now refer to collectively as our ‘founding fathers’, fought a war of independence with Great Britain, started a new country and designed a system of government outlined in a document call the United States Constitution to see if they could make a representative, democratic system actually work. Every American citizen living today who went through the primary school system has likely (if they were listening) heard that their government was all about ‘checks and balances’ and made up of three branches so that no King or dictator-like person would ever be able to call the shots and rob them of freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, amended to continue to protect those freedoms as time challenges and changes what we knew then about such things. This is all a long-winded way of my saying that whether I agree with, support, or acknowledge President Trump as the legal leader of our Executive Branch of government, I will NEVER agree with his latest policy/attempt to circumvent the will of the majority of Americans, as represented by our Legislative Branch – Congress – to declare a ‘National Emergency’ and take the funds he needs to fulfill a campaign promise of building a wall (funded by Mexico for those who want to get technical and refer back to what he ACTUALLY promised) on our southern border with Mexico. He is being challenged legally as he moves forward, stripping the dollars to support military projects already vetted by the Pentagon and Congress, to get the money he wants for ‘his’ wall. He will also be challenged by members of both political parties in Congress as even Republicans do not like a trend towards an Executive that can get around the Legislative branch to spend money and do what it wants even when Congress has declared the intentions of the American citizens it is sworn to represent. Anyway…never a dull moment with Mr. Trump as president.
I came home from work Friday with the intention of running with only one day’s rest. Is it too soon to put them that close together? Probably. Did it stop me from suiting up and heading out the door to attempt a 15-minute run? Hardly.
The towpath was frozen like concrete – something I try to avoid when running for the last thirty years, but options were limited. As I began to run, I paid special attention to all the things happening to my body that were indicators that a running life at 63 was different. I find it harder to catch my breath as my body ramps up from a resting pulse of 55 to a steady heart rate of 150 beats per minute for the run. The lifting and lowering of my rib cage, brought on by increased respiration and the aches in my low back, ankles, hips and knees were all in evidence for the first five minutes. Slowly, as the blood pumped through my body, redistributing itself to the parts that were now working the hardest, I began to feel like my old running self. I was moving slowly, but didn’t care; only wanting to complete the time with no serious damage – particularly to my left foot’s plantar tendons. When I reached 15 minutes and still felt reasonably good, I began walking and cooling down. Though I could experience pains later, I was happy at that moment.
Dakota and I went from my run right into her hike and completed another four miles over the next hour. I kept the running shoes on as it is my hope that they will continue to form to my gate the more I wear them. For now, all is right in my exercising world.
Run: 15 minutes.
Hike: One hour.
Training Heart Rate: 150 running and 70-90 bpm hiking.
Calories Burned: 800.
Bonus: 23,000 steps
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