After a nice 5-mile lumber on Sunday morning and a great birthday of footy, Jet’s Pizza, carrot cake, and hoppy beverages, I was eager to get back in the woods on Monday morning.
Sadly, that birthday lumber really flared up the plantar fasciitis in my left foot and bursitis in my right knee, and given that I could barely walk to the shitter this morning, I assumed I would be rightfully housebound today.
However, as I sat on the front porch drinking coffee and watching it thunderstorm at 6:40 AM, I could feel the two little words that start so many of my sentences starting to form in my nether regions…. “FUCK IT, I’m going; being in pain just makes the self-flagellation ‘funner.’ ”
With that, the rain stopped; I finished up my coffee, headed in for some eggs and refried beans, dumped out 2 to 13 times, and then got to the trails by 9.
There was much disappointment when I realized I forgot to strap on my Garmin before I left, so that meant I had to use my phone to time and stick to trails I knew so I could map the course out on mapmyride.com to get my mileage.
Due to storms in the area, for the second day in a row I also decided to leave my Nikon z50 and zoom at home and stuff the old as hell Canon s95 in my pocket. A move I instantly regretted when I got out of the car and saw a wonderful Great Blue Heron hanging out in the river just 25 or 30 yards from me. Shit!
No watch, no zoom, no problem! I’m here to lumber.
***TAKES TWENTY STEPS***
Well, this hurts like hell!!!!
I should turn back.
No, don’t turn back; it’ll get better.
Yeah, I’ll keep going.
Damn, this is painful.
You should really stop.
Nah, I got this.
And with that, I kept going, filled with regret until the halfway point, when, yet again, those two words entered my mind.
“FUCK IT, you want pain, I’ll give you pain!”
And I started running, and all was good. Well, at least pretty OK.
“Why doesn’t it hurt to run?? I’m probably fucking things up really good!” I thought as I plodded along.
So, I stopped, and it hurt to walk, so once again, I said those two words and set off running at a pace reminiscent of a fat spaz running from a honey bee. Or to a pizza.
Given the late start, the humidity, and the pain, I was cool with doing a shorter hike, but 3.50 miles is pretty short by my current standards, given that I was doing 8-mile lumbers in the early spring. However, I hadn’t tried to run since I recovered from last fall’s plantar fasciitis in my right foot [EDIT: LIES!!! I actually had good treadmill run back in winter. My bad.], and I was happy with how good I felt running despite the pain while walking.
For months, I’ve poo-pooed trying to run again because I always hurt myself, but I hurt myself hiking, and now running feels fine. Maybe I should say those two words more often. Of course, I wont’t be saying that if I cant’ get out of bed tomorrow.
Later.