Thursday
May 10, 2012
The Training and Some Gear
I’m back in the game today, feeling much better! I usually try to get to the gym before the after-work rush hour, but today I didn’t make it there until just after 5:00. I have two gyms but the one I use the most lately is the Belmont Athletic Club, a small, locally owned gym in my neighborhood. I like this one because I can walk there from my house. It’s also clean, friendly, and did I mention locally owned? That’s really important to me. Unless it’s raining, I use the walk there to warm up and the walk home to cool down. Going home is the hard part, since at the end of a really tough workout the last thing I want to do is walk half a mile uphill to get home. It’s good practice for the trek, mentally more than physically.
Today it was cloudy and looked like it might rain. Instead of taking the car rather than taking the chance of being caught in a downpour, I cut the tags off my new Typhoon rain shell and stuffed it in my gym bag, hoping for a testing opportunity. A test rain was not to be, but I did learn that the stiff brim on the hood makes the jacket a bit hard to stuff into a bag. I’m sure I’ll appreciate the stiffness in a Himalayan downpour, so I just rolled the jacket around the brim which worked fine. Not great – it could stuff a lot smaller without that brim – but fine.
I had a great workout at the gym, starting Week 5 of my running program. After that, I cranked up the incline on the treadmill and walked up a fake hill for two more miles. I wanted to get some time in on the stairmill but since I was there at rush hour they were both taken. Next time.
My left heel is hurting a lot though. The first hike in my new hiking boots seems to have triggered plantar fasciitis, ugh!! So I’m home now rolling it on ice, stretching, and reminding myself that if people with no legs can summit Everest I can certainly suck it up and get to Base Camp with a strained plantar fascia. It’ll either get better or I will get used to hiking through the pain. One or the other. Time will tell.
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