I had to see how it felt

The weather yesterday turned out to be less nice than predicted, and the roads were still wet after work. Rather than working out at the gym, I decided to see what would happen if I tried to run. I decided that no matter what, if I felt like I was hurting myself in any way, I'd stop immediately. I also refused to take the dogs along. They know when I'm going for a run and they always want to come along. But, if we'd seen a deer or a turkey, I would have been fighting 200+ pounds of strong Rhodesian Ridgebacks, and I was afraid I'd get hurt trying to control them.

My main goal was to see how my stride would be. Would I be close to normal, would the range of motion of the left leg be compromised, etc.?

I ended up doing a total of 2 miles - a mix of walking and running. My stride was definitely not OK and the range of motion in my left leg was not there. So, I took it very easy and just enjoyed being on my feet. The leg felt no worse after the excursion (it's really hard to call it a run), but I immediately iced it anyway. After dinner, I spent some time with the portable e-stim unit as well. Today, everything feels the same - no improvement and no harm done.

But, I'm clearly not ready to run yet. I'm really not close, regretfully. I'm entered in a 50 mile race 17 days from now. If I can run in that race, even if I don't go the whole way, I'll be very, very happy.

Tonight, I'm going to do some indoor spinning and then do some upper body lifting. Tomorrow, I have a chiropractor appointment and a PT appointment. The weather forecast for Saturday has improved and it's possible that I'll be able to do a long bike ride. Otherwise, maybe I'll take Andy's advice and buy a trainer for my road bike.

Oh yeah, I've dropped 5 pounds in the last 3 weeks. I don't know if I'm losing muscle mass because I'm not using it or if I'm losing fat mass. But, it's nice to see the scale heading down right now.