I am pretty sure this week won't be like last

My legs (ankles, thighs, calves) have been sore off and on (mostly on) since last Monday. I guess I overdid it in the physical activity department from Monday to Friday. I was a crazy weekday warrior, if you will.

Friday I stood on my feet for about two hours helping out with a school event. I went home to do laundry, vacuum, and clean the bathtub. When I headed back to school a few hours later, I ran around the outside of the gym for between 10 and 15 minutes, and that run included a handful of trips up and down the steps next to the gym and the steps leading to the main church lot. I am not sure for exactly how long I ran because I had to take a couple-minute break to move my car. I stood again for about 1.5 hours at the park that evening, and that was pretty much it.

I took it easy yesterday with my only exercise resulting from shopping at two stores for brief periods of time. Mostly I sat around. Ah, relief.

Today it is my intent to swim, but buying a new oven and the Steeler game may get in the way.

About the only thing I am certain about is that this coming week won't look too much like last week in terms of exercise. My 40-year-old body will fight me on that.

But despite the soreness, I do feel good. As if my body did great things this week. And, in a way, I guess it kind of did.

But wait, it gets worse

For three days this week, I was pretty crazy with exercise. I basically crammed five days of working out into three. And I am suffering for it. My aching body.

After Monday's over-abundance of physical activity, I (comparatively) took it easy on Tuesday with an hour of Zumba. But Wednesday I went for another marathon of activity.

I stared off doing lunch duty. The school has three lunches, each lasting 40 minutes. As a monitor, I walk up and down the aisles making sure kids are doing what they are supposed to. After about 25 to 35 minutes, I walk the kids up a few steps and down a bunch more to go outside, where I again walk up and down the playground many times. Then we bring them back in and do it two more times. Although I cannot call that working out, it seems pretty reasonable to "count" it as exercise.

About an hour after I finished that, I went for a run. My stomach was probably a little too full to do it well, but I wanted to get that run in, since the weather was nice. Turns out the 60 degrees kind of felt too cold during the first mile; in fact, my ears actually briefly "burned" as they do in the winter. Crazy.

I don't have much to say about the run, other than I struggled a bit. But when I remind myself that I had already walked, ran steps, swam, did Zumba, stood on my feet for three hours for three mornings in row while subbing, and did a lunch duty within a 54-hour period, finishing the two miles is an accomplishment in itself. Let's go with that.

Mile 1: 10:57
Mile 2: 8:58

An hour later, I swam almost 15 laps and tread water for a bit.

I sort of took the day off today, other than a couple hours of standing while subbing and another two hours of lunch duty.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring. But I am pretty sure my feet, thighs, and ankles wish it would be lying completely still. 

Stupid cold

Well, so much for my intentions of running and doing other types of exercise this week. My sore throat turned into a cold, which became progressively worse as the week went on. The only other bit of exercise I did was a 15-minute-round-trip walk in the chilly air Tuesday morning (hardly counts, to me anyway) and about 15 minutes on the stepper followed by about 10 on the treadmill on Wednesday. I was going at a low-to-medium intensity on both machines, but yet I felt as if I were running. The subsequent 10 minutes in the hot tub only made things worse. For that reason, I decided I would skip Zumba yesterday, plus the thought of blowing my nose once or twice during ever song did not seem appealing.

I can only hope that next week I will be back to "normal" and can at least get in a three or four days of exercise. I hate feeling lazy and the thought of becoming out of shape.

I did, in fact, wimp out of the 5k.

When I woke up Saturday morning, at around 7:30, I knew if I jumped in the shower right away, I could make it to the Race for Pace in time for the late registration. But the weather and my aching thighs had a different idea.

When I ran steps on Thursday, although it went well, for some reason, it left my thighs extra sore for a few days. I could not see putting my nearly 40-year-old body through a three-mile run, with hills. On top of that, it was quite windy on Saturday, and the temps were in the mid to upper 40s. I was just not ready to face my November run in the middle of October. So that was that.

As for recent exercise, I swam on Friday, though only about 15 laps, thanks to my soreness. On Monday, the kid and I took an almost 30-minute walk, and then yesterday I ran the steps. Feeling a bit pathetic about wimping out on the race, I decided to push myself on the steps and try to beat my time from last week. Time to complete 20 trips: 16:41. So, yes, I did beat last week's time. And my thighs actually feel pretty good today.

Now if only I could motivate myself to run three miles and actually run in a race. If only...

Oh, the pain

This week was one of my most productive, athletically speaking, in quite some time. I ran about nine miles over two days. I swam three times; though technically the third time I managed only a couple of laps, I did work my legs for about 20 to 30 minutes while sitting on the edge of the pool each of those days. I ran up the 65 steps 20 times on Friday. And today I walked around downtown Pittsburgh for several hours for the Light-Up Night second day celebration. On top of that, thanks to my not being able to find everything and forgetting things on my list, I covered a lot of distance at several grocery stores multiple times this week!

I am beat and I am sore. I am not sure if the leg pain (both thigh and calf) is because I had not run that many steps that many times for over two months or if it was because I just did not stretch enough when I was done. Either way, I probably could have done without all the walking today. But no rest for the weary: I am supposed to take my kid swimming tomorrow, and hopefully the ol' legs will be recovered by then.

Regardless, I want to hang on to this week because with Thanksgiving next week, I will be lucky to get one run in. And even if I do manage to run and swim twice, with the amount of food I plan to consume...

Oh, the pain

I am beginning to think that 40 is not the new 30, at least not for me. I will be 38 in under two weeks, and this running is starting to take its toll on me. Seriously, how do runners run every day or most every day?!

When I was pretty much four paces into my run yesterday (which, to recap, begins uphill), my left thigh started hurting. Not a good sign, but the pain was not so bad that is stopped me. However, at the end of my two-plus mile run, I was practically trudging up the driveway to the school parking lot. I was not tired; I just hurt.

I have noticed since I started running again, I sometimes get a pain in my mid left side. It typically comes on soon after running and then lasts a day. It is mostly gone now. Unfortunately, the mild pains in my knee, thigh, calf and butt, in alternating legs, are still here.

Cardio-wise I feels as if I am really good shape. In fact, I think if I ran the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day, I could probably do it in not much over 30 minutes. But I am not sure my legs would cooperate. :-(

Part of me thinks it might be time to throw in the towel. I ran two days last week, and waited five days between my last run and yesterday's run. How much recovery time do I need? I see people much, much older than I running. How do they do it?

I hate to think of giving up, when I have made such progress. And honestly, I fear if I take a couple of weeks off, I might not start again. I wish I knew more about the human body, well, about my body, and what I am doing to it.