Back At It

It's been a long two weeks, but I'm finally doing 10k days again. Back on about the 17th or 18th, I started getting really stuffed up and I could tell my sinuses were filling up. I still walked 15k steps on the 18th, but the next day at work I was feeling bad. I had a meeting with my manager about 2:30 that afternoon and I told her I was probably going home early cause I was completely out of gas at that point.

I got home about 5pm that day, and went to bed by 6. I basically stayed in bed for the next 3 days, and I had a fever that didn't break until Friday morning. I still felt bad the rest of the weekend, and the past week I haven't gotten a lot of sleep because I couldn't stop coughing. By the way, the new Nyquil without the pseudoephedrine is really not very effective. I want to thank all of the drugged out rednecks out there for ruining what was one of the best medicines for me getting over a cold.

Today I didn't wake up until 11, so I slept about 12 hours, but I think I just needed to catch up. I've still got some excess nasal drainage, but it's not filling up my lungs anymore and I'm barely coughing at all now. I decided I'd try to hit 10k today, so I cut the grass early this afternoon just before the game, then sat down at 7pm to watch Bama play Clemson. What a great game! I was on such a high after the first half that I walked a mile during halftime. By the end of the game I was charged up enough to go out and do another two miles to put me up over 10k for the day.

The funny thing is, I didn't gain any weight during all this. I actually lost 4 pounds! I'm at 296 pounds now, which puts me down 19 lbs since June 17. Now I'm just going to keep piling up the days of 10k steps in a row and watch the pounds keep coming off. Another bonus is the 11 days of not walking very much has let my ankles and heel rest up, so they're not bothering me at all tonight after the walk. I did miss my monthly caving trip to Hardins this past Wednesday though, which I heard turned out to be a good one.

The Wild Chesney Glen

So I was out doing one more lap around the neighborhood tonight, since it's only 67 degrees out right now and just perfect to get out and exercise. I was on the back street of the neighborhood, heading back to the house, when I saw something small running down the middle of the street directly towards me. At first I thought it was a dead leaf blowing along, but as it got closer I could tell it was some type of animal. I assumed it was a rat until it got about 30 feet away from me and I could tell it was a really small rabbit.

It ran right past me about 3 feet away, then hung a right at the cul-de-sac and went about 20 more feet before it stopped, right in the middle of the pavement. I walked over to it, and it scrunched itself up really tight, including pulling its ears in. I could tell it was really young, since it was trying to hide from me instead of just tearing ass down the street like a more experienced adult would do. I put my feet around it and bent down to grab it, but I wasn't quite quick enough and as soon as my hand touched its back it shot off down the street again and ran down the side of a house.

I kept going, wondering what would make such a young rabbit panic like that and run away from the nest. A few houses later I had my answer when I saw a rather large opossum sniffing around in a yard near where I first saw the bunny. I didn't try to catch the opossum, but when it saw me it had enough sense to run away.

Earlier in the evening I caught a frog on our back deck sliding door and showed it to Jack. He thought it was really cool, but he didn't want to hold it. We've been seeing them sitting on the sliding door for several weeks now. It's getting to be like a jungle out there.

Defatassification Update #1

In what's sure to bring a tear to the eyes of Jefferson and Wilfred, I "brokeback" under 300 pounds today. Today's D.B.A.N. was 298.7, for a total of 16 pounds lost in the last 10 days. With the exception of a family reunion incident last Saturday, I've been very good about keeping my portion size down, along with keeping the carb count low.

I've also been doing a lot of walking. So far in June I've gone over 10k steps on 7 different days, including every day this week. I should be able to bring that up to at least twenty 10k+ days in July. Yesterday after work I hit the Stones River Greenway for 3 miles, since Marissa and the kids weren't at home. The dam trailhead is on the way home from work, so it's not too hard to stop and even do 20 minutes worth and it's not nearly as boring as walking through the neighborhood. There's also a nice little blackberry patch that has been ripening this week, so I treat myself to a few of those on the way in and out.

One of the key things that helps me make sure I get at least 10k steps in a day is to get as many as I can before I get home every day. If I still need six thousand steps at night, it's harder to motivate myself to get out and hit the sidewalk than it is if I only need four thousand. Getting about two thousand steps at lunch is a good way to make sure I get home with at least 5k. It's been getting hot and humid at lunch time lately, so yesterday I drove two miles and walked all around the K-Mart for about 20 minutes. I would drive to Opry Mills, but that's about a 10 mile round trip and there's no need to waste that much gas.

Another 10k Day

I did another 10,000 steps yesterday to make it two days in a row. I actually did a little over 10.7k steps. It nearly wiped me out though. I went out last night about 9:30 still needing to do about 3500 more steps. I wobbled back into the house about 45 minutes later, walking past Marissa who was sitting on the couch.

"I think I may have overdone it," I told her as I headed to the kitchen to take some Aleve. I laid down a few minutes later and I was out like a light for the rest of the night. Fortunately I got to sleep a little later since Victoria is out of school for the summer. I feel pretty good today, although my legs are still a little sore.

I made myself walk at lunch today, even though it's way too hot. It's just so much easier to hit 10k in a day if you make it home from work and don't still have to do like 7,000 steps that night. Plus there's a nice hill at work which is much better for getting the heart rate up and getting me ready for more caving and hiking. I have a goal in mind of doing the Ranger Falls hike again this fall over in the Savage Gulf area. It's been almost 7 years since Kevin and I made that death hike out of that valley and I've got an itch to see it again.

10k Again

For the first time in a while, I finally put 10k+ steps on the pedometer yesterday. It took me about two weeks to work up to it again. I'm not currently dieting, since there's no point in starting one just before I go on vacation for a week, but I'm planning on keeping the walking up while I'm down on the beach. The diet will wait until after I get back.

Of course I waited until it got hot outside to start all of this. It was still 81 degrees last night when I started my long nightly walk, but at least there was a decent breeze. It looks like it's going to be cooler next week at the beach than it is here in Nashville.

Weekend Walking

Jack and I hit the greenway twice over the weekend. On Saturday we parked at Two Rivers Park and walked across the Cumberland River on the new greenway bridge to Shelby Bottoms Park that just opened a few weeks ago. It's a nice bridge. It's really high over the river, probably 200 or 300 feet maybe. It's hard for me to judge. It was high enough that I had a little bit of acrophobia when we first started across it.

According to my new Omron pedometer, we did a little over 3 miles total. It's about half a mile from the parking area to the other side of the bridge, and then we went about another mile before we turned around. Jack rode in the stroller for most of it, but he got out and walked for probably a half mile total. For some reason he prefers to walk on the grass at the edge of the pavement, although he will take off running down the middle of the greenway for several minutes at a time.

On Sunday after church and lunch, Marissa and Victoria wanted to shop for clothes so Jack and I did about a mile on the Stones River Greenway next to Kohl's in Hermitage. We didn't have the stroller, so he walked some of it and rode on my shoulders for some of it. The river was running pretty fast, and at one point we saw a mallard duck sailing down the middle of the river, moving at a pretty good clip. He tried to swim upstream at one point, but didn't make any progress at it and eventually just took off and flew up the river, much to Jack's delight.

Since I got a replacement pedometer last week, I've been trying to walk a lot more, but I'm having some real issues with tendonitis in my right Achilles tendon. I'm supposed to go to a specialist about it, but I probably won't be able to until after our Florida trip in June.

Back on the Greenway

I let my diet and exercise get away from me since October, and I put on about 25 lbs since then. After three days of gastrointestinal debauchery in Tuscaloosa this past weekend, which included 3 trips to City Cafe on Friday, it was time to get back into gear. I did discover a new combination at City Cafe that was great though. I've always loved their chicken livers, and at the suggestion of my old friend Michael Bolden, I also tried the candy yams to go along with them. Wow. Definitely a great combination.

My pedometer is out of commission, so until I can order a new one I'm just making myself walk a certain number of strides per day. Tuesday and Wednesday I hit the small walking trail near work, which is just shy of a 1/4 mile per lap. I did one lap on Tuesday and two laps on Wednesday.

Yesterday it was pretty nice outside, so when I got home I loaded up Jackson and his stroller in the car and made the short drive the Stones River Greenway, at the dam entrance. Jack had a really good time, and we did a little over 1.5 miles, and it pretty much wore me out. It sure doesn't take long to get out of shape.

I'm also having some pain on the back of my heel, which is likely the tendon being too tight. It was really bad last week, but I've been stretching it, putting ice on it, and taking Alleve, so it's down to being a minor annoyance at this point.