Friday, June 10, 2011

You Can Start Next Week

A Memorial Day twenty-minute 3K race time while in recovery mode after surgery is fine, but I want to get back to running! I laid off any further running til the following Monday when I ran 2 1/2 miles around the Capitol at noon with a co-worker L, at a sedentary 12-minute pace. Still in recovery mode, you know?

Tuesday we went 3 miles around Capitol Hill at a 10-minute pace with a brief pause to listen to comments Senator Barbara Boxer made to a professional nursing association assembled in a nearby park, about keeping the government's hands off our Medicare as we know it (think Paul Ryan's impoverishing Vouchercare). Only in DC can a casual noontime jog be so elucidating.

Oppressive heat enveloped DC on Wednesday when 99 degree heat settled in accompanied by humidity. I just had to run in such a challenging environment so at noon I ran 2 1/2 miles around the Capitol at a 9-minute pace before I left work early to keep a 2-week post-op appointment with the operating surgeon. That run felt great!

The doc examined the incision on my stomach, said it was healing nicely and gave me the okay to start running again in another week. I celebrated my imminent return to running by running 5K in 102 degree heat with L the next day and 3.2 miles in 99 degree humidity at lunchtime today. I gotta be honest though, I had to walk in the last mile each day because, apparently, I'm not enough used to such brutal running conditions yet. But I hope I'll get there real soon.

3 comments:

Petraruns said...

Hang on in there - I think this is hard part! I'm taking another week off before I start up again slowly and I know I'm going to hate how slow I'm going - but at least you'll be out there again!

blue-haired lady said...

Wimp. It was 103 in St Paul. Seriously, I'm glad the running is going okay, but go SLOW!

A Plain Observer said...

I remember when my surgeon spotted me in a race 3 weeks after my major surgery; he laughed. He is a runner too.
I think I'd much rather recover from that surgery again than my foot pain. It does not seem to be getting any better.
Good luck to you Peter. There is nothing like getting back to what we love