Parked at John Ward Physical Therapy, and before my appointment, walked in my old neighborhood, Tockwotten Cove Road, Charlestown. Caught up briefly with one former neighbor. She did remember me (we moved out 16 years ago), and we had a pleasant chat.
The disappointing part to me was walking through eight different "No Trespassing" signs. I can understand keeping your part private, but these were all on the road. "No Trespassing", "Turn Around", "Members Only", etc. My house was the last on the public portion of the road, and I do remember that many of the roads going down to the water were private, but I never remembered it this exclusive. Ugh. Love thy neighbor? Not here.
At the PT appointment, was happy to see hear John say he saw real progress in me, but disappointed to hear him say still no running. When I asked him "for how long?", he took the high road and said he didn't know, but that I wasn't ready now. So frustrating. I must have sounded like a two-year old whose candy was just taken away from him, as I had a little bit of a meltdown. No Loon.
Tuesday: 0 run, 3 walk
Was finishing up my local neighborhoods walk when I saw a SUV turn around and come back towards me. Uh oh, what now? Oh, it's WLT president Sheilia! She's wondering why the heck I'm walking, and do I need a ride back home. I told her my story. She had just gotten in from a trail run, and I told her I hate all runners!
Wednesday: 0 run, 21 ride
4th of July! While my running friends were all posting runs (as they should), I tried to keep it fun all day long. Rode to Quonnie to watch T5K, Shara, JV, PG, and others run the 4-mile race. That was actually pretty fun.
After an afternoon at a neighbor's pool party, Matthew and I had a bonfire and lit fireworks. Some traditions I really relish. This is one of them.
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| This will be fun! Hopefully the "Bad Ass Shells" will live up to their name. |
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| I always love a fire. |
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| A roman candle we bought in NH last year (not legal in RI). |
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| These ground displays are legal in RI, and neat to look at, although some of the ones with pulsating lights were blinding. |
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| The poor pic quality doesn't do this justice, but this was just awesome! This was one of the "Bad Ass Shells" that we launched out of a tube. Not sure where we got these from, but I'm quite sure these are not legal anywhere in New England. (For perspective on launch height, in the lower right of pic is the tops of our trees. This fireworks display was way above them!) |
Thursday: 0 run, 3 walk
Most of the walk was pleasant and almost no pain now, but the short section of trail through Rotary Park was unbearable with deer flies in full force. Running is bad enough in deer fly areas, but walking apparently is just inviting trouble. 3 DFKs to bring it the season tally to 8.
Friday: nada
Although I'm only walking and not running these days, still seemed good just to take a day off from all activity (except my PT stretching exercises, of course).
Saturday: 0 run, 5 walk
AM: 2.7 miles in Ninigret. Nice cool, low humidity run. 59 degrees. The only downside: 7 DFKs, bringing the season's total to 15.
PM: 2.7 miles in Mine Falls Park, Nashua, NH. Nice post-lunch break on way to Loon. I ran here a few times when working in nearby Merrimack years ago. No deerflies.
Sunday: 0 run, 2 hike
Parked at Loon Mountain and the guy that parked right behind me was Crutch! The guy who parked in front of me came over and said, "You're Jeff Walker, right"? Does he have me confused with "Maine Jeff Walker"? No, he said we both ran Newport Marathon last year. OK. Of course I had to look up his time (3:15) and place in age group (2nd behind me). Now I remember he came up post-race and congratulated me. Yeah, sure I do. No, really.
Anyhow, I started 1/2 hour before the Loon Mountain Race, so I could hike up and get into place for my first viewing point to watch Matthew (at the 90-degree turn off the service road and onto double-track). Two others had the same idea, so we chatted while awaiting the race leaders to arrive. A guy from TX watching his early 20s son who was trying to qualify for Worlds(!), and a NH woman watching her boyfriend Tristan race. Based on their predictions, the TX son would be in the top 4, and both Tristan and Matthew somewhere between 20 and 40. Sure enough, the TX guy was in 5th and Matthew in 25th right behind Tristan at the first stop just over a mile in. Little changed position wise when saw them again about 3.5 miles, except that runners were spreading out.
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| I was only hiking parts of the course today, and I found this sign early on in the 6.6 mile race to be soul-crushing. It's like those fans at the 1-Mile mark in a marathon shouting "Only 25.2 Miles to Go!" |
After the second stop, it was a steep climb upper Lower Walking Boss and then Upper Walking Boss where the first runners were just starting their 40% plus grade ascent. On the hike up, a black bear ran across the ski trail we were on! Too quick for a pic. I was happy I was able to hike up without pain, and I was much less disappointed to miss running the race than when I first learned I wouldn't be ready for it. Matthew finished as 1st junior (< 20 years old) overall in just about an hour flat (1:00:21)!
Weekly mileage: 0 run, 16 miles walked, 21 biked
Weekly synopsis: Real happy with this week! Seems so odd to say that in a week where I ran zero miles, but the fact that I got there and walked with a bare minimum of pain when I was hobbling and wincing most of the previous two weeks speaks volumes to me. I'm cautiously optimistic for my recovery while obviously I'm champing at the bit to get some run miles in (who says that? am I a horse? and why "champing" and not "chomping"?).
Pack rat digression:
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| The back of my Audi for about 15 minutes. Isn't this disgusting? Jana e-mailed me that the state was having a "Hazardous Waste Collection Day" in Westerly this weekend, and it was finally time to clean out a bunch of crap, mostly old paints, from our basement. -- An 1/8 of a gallon of paint dated 2005 in a rusty old can. Why am I saving this?? You never know when lime green will come back in vogue and you'll want to paint your bathroom with it? Maybe I kept because you can't just throw it out, but still I'm disgusted with myself. Maybe like a fat guy posting a picture of himself shirtless on his fridge may curb his excess eating, posting a picture of my excess junk here may curb my hoarding? |
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| Well, if I can do it for old paints, the same goes for old cell phones. Remember flip phones? How can you get rid of these things? You can't just throw these in the trash, or at least I couldn't responsibly do that. |
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| Did you know they have automated kiosks now for scanning and recycling old phones?! Well, I didn't it. It even gave me $3 back at the end. |
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| And onto my next effort of de-cluttering and responsibly recycling: Spent hours wiping computers that we collected and sat over the years. Just one more computer to go, and then this lot is off to an e-waste facility. Of course, every computer had a different OS and different process to wipe. Remember XP? How about Vista? -- Hope I can keep this de-cluttering effort going. I didn't accumulate junk overnight, so it's not going to go away overnight either, but hopefully I can just keep tackling a bit at a time. Then maybe some year when we downsize or I kick the bucket, I will have left less of a footprint and mess for others to clean up. |
You sound much better! Congratulations!
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