thisnewday

This was my first day out in my new shoes and, I've gotta say, I'm pretty pumped. Went to the track in the early afternoon, outside temps about 83 and sunny, and walked a mile on the high school track, which is beautiful.

As I was walking down the hill from the parking lot, I almost collided with a younger man who was coming around the corner and up the incline from the track. He swerved, smiled, and asked how I was doing. I smiled and said, "Fine, thanks." And I was.

Did my first mile in 17 mins. Nowhere near a record for me, but brisk. The best part of it being that I walked off the track at the end with no ill effects. Not yet, anyway.

I say that, not because I'm a hopeless pessimist, but because I'm a realist who knows from experience how these things sometimes go. Especially with respect to the aging machinery.

Now, I'm gonna take a few minutes and re-hydrate. Not that I even broke a sweat, because I didn't, but because, you know, the bodily processes are continuous and on-going.

Then, I'm gonna do my "geriatric workout." After which I've promised myself a store-bought garden salad topped with some cut-up chicken and a generous splash Italian dressing made with cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil and a pretty good Balsamic vinegar.

And after that, maybe some reading. A bit of the Steinbeck bio, perhaps, and maybe some Eleanor and Hick or The Radium Girls which arrived together yesterday.

Have a great weekend, everyone...

LPK
Dreamwidth
6.16.2018 

Have successfully confirmed, during the past 24 hours, that there's a fine line between being "hardcore" and being a dumb*ss.

Am also satisfied, based on same data, that being "buried under it" is a goal well within my present reach.

In the interest of not reaffirming status of d/a to the world-at-large, I'll leave it at that...

LPK
LiveJournal
2.5.2010

During the past week, the snow had nearly all melted from the streets, sidewalks, and lawns of Central New York. Which meant that the high school track where I walk/run had been bare as well. We even had a couple of days of sunshine, rare around here any time of year, along with the warmer temperatures.

Unfortunately, I spent those days on the process of getting new running shoes. So by the time I got to the track, today, it was once again covered with snow. Still, with a little concentration, I was able to make out the lines for all eight lanes which allowed me to go back to my old routine of starting in lane 8 and walking each lane for a nominal total of 2 miles.

I say it's a nominal 2 miles because, as the math whizzes among us would point out, the farther you are from the center of a circle, the farther you're traveling to get around it. So if lane 1 is actually a quarter mile, lane 8 is quite a bit longer.

When you're walking, that distance doesn't make much difference. But when you're 65 years old and running for the first time in twenty or so years, it makes a big difference. Which is something I hadn't confronted until today because, with barely the outline of the infield to guide me, I'd added the running laps to my regimen while confined to using lane 1. And counted laps by making a "tick mark," for each completed lap, in the snow beside the track.

Today, by contrast, my first running lap was lane 5 and my second was lane 1. Which wasn't really that daunting except that, as I ran, I was thinking, "Gee, I wonder if over the next couple weeks I could add a couple more of these. Maybe make every other lap a running lap, eventually."

Then I started thinking about the various walk/run patterns that would accomplish this, sticking with my old method of counting laps. The easiest way would be to make even numbered lanes my walking laps and odd numbered ones my running laps.

If I did that, and started with lane 8, my first lap would be a walking lap for warmup and my last lap, lane 1, would be a run. After which I'd be walking home for my cool-down. Except that this scheme would add up to a lot of extra running. The thought of which is not really conducive to convincing myself that I can sort of ease back into all of this.

The alternative is to abandon my current method of counting laps. So maybe what I really need to do is to start promoting my need for a lap-counting watch because, in a couple months or so, I won't be able to make tick marks in the snow for completed laps.

At least not after mid-June. If our luck holds...

LPK
LiveJournal
1.27.2010