June 25: Did my 7-mile hike this morning and finished in about 1:56, which again, is still feeling good and within my RPE of 3-4 (have to reiterate this since my sister is reading all these!) So the hike felt really good and the legs are feeling stronger by the week. It’s a great feeling. My biggest plus today, and again I’m speaking as a real dumbshit, I had my fist “pass” today. Yea, and I wasn’t like trying to crank it or anything. You see, over the past 4 wks I’d felt like the tortoise out there walking, with everybody and their brother passing me. Now it wasn’t like I was pissed or anything. Hell, I was happy to be able to walk for God’s sake!
And I knew I had to keep it mellow. So I’d just say hi and let the walkers pass me by. And these were house wives, grandpa’s, grandma’s, fat people, skinny people, kids, babies, insects…you name it, they passed me! But lately, since I’ve gotten a bit fitter and stronger, I’ve gotten faster. So today I actually, and again without consciously trying, passed this chick who was doing the hand weight training while hiking. Not a pass that will go down in the books, but by gosh it was a pass!
Got back and worked for several hours while Judy got in her cycling workout. And the big thing I’ve noticed in the last several weeks, and I’ve mentioned this before, is the fact that after my hike I’m not hitting the couch for a nap session. Used to be I’d nap after walking, cooking, sitting….hell, I’d nap after napping. Half my bloody day were napping sessions, then I’d go to be. So now, I’m really good through the day. BUT come evening I’m really tired. I’ve found that to be the case now as I’ve upped my hike distance and intensity and since I’ve become more active throughout the day - cooking, shopping, etc.
Man, come 9 PM and I’m just slammed. So I’ve been hitting the hay between 9-9:30 just tired as hell. So I’m guessing that I’m still not totally back yet with respect to my everyday energy level. Now on the other side, is the fact that I just feel different that I had for the prior year when I was in this funk, this malaise, this feeling dead tired all the time. Now right now it’s now plain as day obvious, but it’s kind of subtle. I just feel more optimistic, more vibrant, more “alive” for lack of a better word. It’s really cool because I just cannot wait to see what I feel like 6 months from now.
Went home to take care of pop this afternoon and over night, this to give my sister and her boyfriend Mike a break for a change. I think they were going out to a restaurant for happy hour or something of that nature. Judy and I hung here at the house, and then Judy took her grandson Cooper home to babysit for the night while I stayed here with pop.
Had a really nice time sitting on the porch with pop last night. Despite the fact that he talked about the same stuff a lot, I was able to kind of redirect him into other areas of his life where he was telling me about stuff that I even forgot about over the years. We must have been out there on the porch BS’ing for 2.5 hours.
Hit the hay at 9:30 PM, with my chest zipper itching as if I had fiberglass particles all over it. Had to get some Hydrocortisone out at like midnight to put on it to try to get it to stop itching. I’ve read that my zippers could go through stages of gnarly itching. Well, that’s here!