And So It Begins

After my foot feeling basically fine for quite a while now, I decided August 1 would be a good day to start “training,” so I laced up my shoes and headed out for a walk yesterday afternoon. My last serious attempt at a walk was back on July 17th. That one went ok, but I walked very gingerly, never coming all the way up on my toes, and only covered around a mile in 27 min. I also had a little pain towards the end and afterward, which is one of the reasons I hadn’t tried anything since then (the pneumonia had a little something to do with that too).

At any rate, yesterday went much better than the last attempt and I was actually pretty psyched with the results, as sad as that might be. I walked at a much better pace, covering a mile and a half in just over 26 min. Since I hadn’t had a chance to test out my Garmin since sending it back for repair work, I wore it and therefore was able to know I went through the mile in 17:44 before hammering out some sub-17 pace for the last half mile (ha, ha, ha). The course was brutal, but man, I was haulin’ (inside joke).

In all seriousness, it felt great to be out doing something again, even if it was just walking. It was a nice, overcast, very comfortable day too. I came fully up on my toes throughout the walk and never had even so much as a hint of foot pain. There was no pain or swelling afterward either. I plan on another walk of 30 min tonight and will just go from there. As long as all the feedback continues to be positive, I actually hope to walk some every day this week. I know I need it to start building some strength in my foot before I try to do anything more aggressive. Along with the calf raises I’ve been doing, it also seems to be helping my sore ankle and achilles on that leg, which I’m relatively sure feel the way they do thanks to being inactive for so long.

Anyway, I finished up my workout with a few calf raises and some core work, and what was hopefully day one of the comeback was in the books. I also weighed myself to have a benchmark in that respect and found out that I’ve gained almost no weight during this whole hiatus. I was only 134 lbs, which is great because it’s one less hurdle to have to clear as I try to get fit again. I head back to the doc on Friday for new x-rays, which should give me an even better idea of where I am. No plans to try to run before then. However, the way I’m feeling, as long as nothing changes or I don’t get some really negative news at the visit, I may try some light jogging by early next week. I actually already jogged down my driveway just to see how it would feel, which was fine.

To sum it up, I’m pretty pleased to finally have something positive happening. People have been asking me how I am and I’ve been telling them I’m ok but just don’t know what’s next. With the past three months I’ve had, you can’t help but feel that way. Hopefully I’m on my way to an upward trend that will last a long time though. Time will tell.