An "active" rest day..

This means, as my trainer has diplomatically indicated, that I can't spend the day ensconced in the couch watching all the series of "Law and Order". So I'm off to ride Bandolero, where anything that isn't sore from yesterday will get a workout and I can even up the pain. If I get a good picture of him, I'll post it later. Have a good run, friends.

No More Nice Little Granny

Okay, Hal, the gloves are off. Your mother was a cheap toaster with a fork stuck in her heating elements, and you dad was a calcium-encrusted steam iron that spit all over the clothes.

Good morning, Hal

How are you today, Hal, you miserable software jihadist? This morning I got up thinking I was already late for everything and what was the point of it all? Bob mentioned in a comment from yesterday that a path beats a machine every time--which is quite true, to the degree that my treadmill is a dead letter in my book. Oh well, I thought, off to the park, anything but the blasted treadmill where I could at least suffer in private; I was sure that today was going to be a disaster. Are you there, Hal? New paragraph. Well, I said hello to my trainer and started off on today's trot, thinking about Rodrigo who said that on any run, the first two kilometers were hard but after that it gets easy--this from someone who runs half marathons and occasionally dashes from his house to mine, a mere 11.3 K. I laughed hollowly to myself as I struggled along, although a red-letter moment came when I actually passed someone--okay, so what if she was strolling along? It still keeps me out of the finishing-last-as-usual category. All these thoughts ran through my mind as I plowed ahead. Also, it seemed wild to me that I felt pretty good for only having had a cup of coffee and water before hitting the park. By the time I finished, I had run 3.5 K, up from near zero last week. Thank God tomorrow is a rest day, because a whole new world of hurt is going to open up after today's run, and body parts I don't even have any longer are going to ache, wherever they may be. No matter, I rewarded myself with macadamia nut and whole wheat pancakes with blackberries and real maple syrup. Now, for a dose of Advil...

The empty park...

Yesterday we went on daylight savings time in Mexico, so those of us who are usually out at five-thirty or six in the morning were, today, really out at four-thirty or five. This may explain the vast emptiness of the running path. Oh, there were a few hardy souls and even a couple of people walking dogs, but in general it was peculiarly quiet. Okay, Hal, this is a new paragraph. For those of you who never saw "A Space Odyssey", Hal was the psychotic computer that decided to eject a crew member off the space ship. He is alive and well and on Blogspot, ejecting paragraphs from the space ship. As I trotted along, I noticed that new things hurt, and old things seemed fine (no, I don't mean myself with that remark about "old things", applicable though it may be). My teeth are no longer sore, but I noticed during the walking stage of my daily torture that my toes seemed like they were going to separate from the main body of my feet. My scalp hurt for a while, but that wore off--not the scalp itself, but the soreness. I could understand aching toes, but my only explanation for a sore scalp was that the blows from my feet that had been transferred somehow to my teeth had now come to roost in my scalp; could it cause hair loss? Or maybe even hair growth! My mind wandered as I struggled along--it's always best to think of something other than what you are doing-- until I suddenly heard a terrible, rasping breathing. There was no doubt it was breathing, but it sounded ghastly, like someone in extreme difficulty. Could it be me??? I tried to hold my breath to find out, but I couldn't hold it long enough. Eventually a woman passed me (as usual--passing me is sort of the jogging path landmark for knowing you still have vital signs). How in the world could anyone gasping with such agony be out there running?? Who knows, but once she caught up with me, she began breathing normally, and I can only assume that she was pulling out all the stops in order not to be the only person in the park who couldn't pass that little old lady in the Asics running shoes...

Blogspot still dysfunctional...

There will be no paragraphs for you today either, it seems. I'm too tired to protest, however, because today I had to jog down several blocks in a downhill direction and then walk back. I did jog a block and a half on my way back, uphill, but then I faced a complex series of overhead walkways one of our mayors had built over a major street intersection. They are wonderful for pedestrians of all stripes--nice shade in the summer from the lovely trees, runners and strollers are safe from the Nascar escapees disguised as ordinary drivers--but the darned things are an effort to climb when you are already gasping for air. But okay, today's training is under my belt, and I'm afraid to say anything else because, well, damn it, there are no paragraphs!!

Class struggle and another Blogspot meltdown..

Actually, I do know about paragraphs, but this website doesn't. There was no way on earth to make it put in the paragraphs on yesterday's entry, so one must simply bear with us. Who knows what it will do with this entry. The website has developed a Hal-like mind of its own which I find disturbing. From around five o'clock to seven a.m., most of the runners on the jogging path tend to be training for half marathons, marathons, or triathlons. No wimps, these! All the trainers are there, the people who help you stretch, the stationary bikes, and other forms of voluntary torture. Around 8 o'clock, however, the jogging path becomes so populated that running becomes a contact sport. I had to go out about 8:10, and the decibel level was unbelievable: groups of men and women walking along and talking at a shout (to be heard over all the other people), dog-walkers sharing inside tips on breeds and how delightful his or her dog is (when anyone knows my standard poodle is tops), and other sundry individuals adding to the noise by panting loudly or dragging their shoes along the pavement. Today was break-through day for me, however. I managed to jog almost the entire distance allotted to me in my half hour. This included a slalom effect as I tried to avoid crashing into others or ricochetting off baby strollers. It even included, amazingly for me, three sprints as I crossed streets in an effort to avoid being mowed down by the traffic, although I still studiously avoid that slightly raised yellow paint on the crosswalks. And yes, everything hurts, but nothing hurts while I jog, and more importantly--I can't emphasize this enough--my knees don't hurt!

The Stampede

Know how your mind seems to run through numerous scenarios in a fraction of a second when something untoward occurs? And you know how really off the wall some of those explanations of what is happening can be. I became a victim of this during my morning jog. Perhaps because I was distracted by wondering if I would survive the jog after four days of total inactivity and a migraine that was pounding through my head, I wasn't paying a great deal of attention to my surroundings--except for the swarms of mosquitoes that I tried to fight off by waving my arms windmill fashion as I jogged. The sight must have been unsettling because others on the path gave me a wide berth. But suddenly I heard behind me the pounding sound of a large herd of animals. In that fraction of a second of complete fright, my mind provided me with a couple of possibilities, both very bad. I thought maybe the horses at the riding club several blocks away had gotten loose and were galloping toward me; I was within seconds of being trampled to a mere stain on the pavement. It was obvious the animals were heavy ones from the sound of the pounding, so perhaps, if they weren't horses, there had been a terrible mishap at the zoo several miles away and some kind of prey herd was dashing away from a big cat, also loose. People with more experience running wouldn't have had this scare. I was passed by a very large herd of, well, runners--who in fact were running, and going at it with a vengeance. The wind they were producing caught me up and took several minutes off my time, and then I managed to glide along in their slipstream for at least a block. It's obvious there is some race coming up and these folks have entered it, maybe even a triathlon event. All I can say is, go for it. Best of all, by the time I finished today's geriatric jog, my migraine was practically gone.