Pulling back

Continually I learn how to make adjustments for this old body to get by on the road. About a month ago, with much pain in my calf, I decided I needed to switch gears and try another strategy for my running / healing. I first took a week off and used some TENS therapy combined with low energy laser therapy. Each day I also soaked my legs in hot water and used Tiger Balm and throughout the day I iced my calf several times.

After a week I found a soft dirt road with a slight slope and walked the one mile up and jogged down which worked extremely well with taking the weight off my calves and still allowing me to get out there and keep moving a bit. After two weeks of this I tried a 3.5 miler with no pain. 3 days ago I ran a 4.2 miler that included a .75 mile up hill and still felt great. I almost pushed it too much 2 days ago when my son visited and wanting to run with him I did a pretty tough 2 miler of hills. Those two day in a row gave me some stiffness in my knees but still no pain in my calf so success with this stage I guess.

I'm on nights right now and with tonight off I'll go out about 1:00 am and try a new course that will give me 6 miles with a wicked hill in the middle so we'll see how that goes. I am really excited about being able to move forward but still have to keep watching those little warning signs that pop up telling me to slow down.

Hurry up and.... stop

I continue to learn these hard lessons about getting hmmm... less young. I can honestly say that the habit of running has fully gripped my whole being. I think of nothing else it seems but where or how far, of whether or not I am fully hydrating during the day at work. I worry about the effects of walking 10+ miles at work or the thousands of stairs I climb each week and how it will hurt when I run on those swollen knees. I have to keep from hurrying home and driving too fast so that I can ... what? Well, to experience the pain, the agony, the heartache of another failed run before I forced to pull back when my calf starts to cramp.
But oh how beautiful it feels to be out there moving again. In those brief few miles I feel alive and love to feel my lungs swelling to breathe in the air. That awesome struggle of mind over body when the muscles tire and dreaded thoughts of failure creep in. And when I feel the cramps begin I pull back again, and walk. Not too proud to accept the limitations I've placed on myself by sitting for 20 years but also comfortable in the knowledge that it is only a matter of time. Maybe longer than I thought but surely I will achieve this goal.