Dearest Rachel –
Morning, and my leg still hurts when I roll out of bed or get up from my chair. It would seem that the weekend off I gave has had no effect, in terms of letting the muscles heal.
The thing is, even I know I can’t let them lie unused for an extended period of time. Not only will they lose any tone that I might have put into them with the regimen I’ve put them on, but by not burning the calories I continue to absorb (I may be watching what I eat to a certain extent, but I can’t go days at a time without eating just so that I burn as much as I consume), I’m going to be sliding back towards the old days, and my old shape. I know you could accept and love that shape, honey (and I’m grateful for that, even as I recognize that it probably wasn’t the most healthy thing for me), but someone who doesn’t know me from Adam won’t give that figure the time of day. I’ve got to keep working out.
Fortunately, it seems that Lars agrees with me about this, and has offered a recommendation. As it happens, he’s been dealing with similar issues – depending on the day, it’s either his knee or his ankle – throughout the time we’ve been walking together. But of course, he hasn’t gone so far as to let it stop him; he just make certain accommodations for it, such as maintaining a slower pace and walking more on grass or gravel rather than asphalt wherever possible.
With that in mind, he’s suggested that I keep up my routine, but dial it back a little. Rather than going full-bore at the steepest incline, I should cut it back a little. Maybe go a little slower, or for a little less time, but fighting against maximum resistance may be what’s particularly aggravating my leg muscle. Going easier on it (as opposed to not using it at all) might be the best way to keep conditioning myself while minimizing the potential for aggravating the… well, I hesitate to call it an injury. It’s not like there’s any visible signs of such, and if I were to rate it on one of those pain charts you see in hospital, it probably wouldn’t be anything more than a two. Still, it’s enough that even after a half-hour of inactivity, it makes itself felt whenever I decide to stand up.
Interestingly, that’s another thing he suggested; that I make a point of standing up and walking around more frequently. I can’t let myself get too settled for too long, lest it get too comfortable and prone to protest when finally used. Sleeping aside, he recommended that I get up and walk around every forty-five minutes or so, if at all possible, to get it more accustomed to constant activity.
This isn’t something I’m used to doing, as you well remember. Once I’m settled in, especially at the end of the day, but also when I’m perched in front of the computer (although those two situations aren’t mutually exclusive by any means) that’s it for me; I’m not going anywhere. This is as big a change as the reductions (or re-directions) in eating or the increase in exercise that I’ve been putting myself through. But this time, I actually have a personal incentive apart from some nebulous concept of some mythical female who might be attracted to a better-looking version of me; this is to reduce the pain in my leg, and allow me to continue with these exercises while minimizing the pain involved in doing so. So if I want this to happen, I’m going to have to follow doctor’s orders.
Granted, I haven’t had a lot of time to work on some of them. I have yet to spend any length of time at the ‘office’ since discussing this situation with him, so that’s just something for me to keep in the back of my mind once I’m there. But at the gym this morning, I decided to set the incline down from fifteen degrees to ten. In a way, it almost feels like going downhill in comparison. As a sop to the part of me that wants to see the calorie counter running like an odometer, I start at a higher speed than I usually do (3.5 mph, as opposed to 3.1), but crank up the speed only every hundred calories rather than every four minutes. I cover about the same distance in an hour, but it’s not quite as strenuous – which is the point, as it’s also less injurious.
It also burns decidedly fewer calories, though, which I have to admit is somewhat disappointing (even if it’s entirely expected). On a particularly good day when my leg muscles weren’t acting up like this, I could expend up to thirteen hundred of them in an hour of walking uphill. At these settings, I’m lucky to reach a thousand in the same amount of time. Then again, if I pushed myself as much as I used to, I wouldn’t be able to keep going for as long as I did today – yesterday was more like my usual pace, and I could barely keep going after three miles in fifty minutes. Today, with this gentler incline, I kept going for the full hour and then some, while covering a little more than four miles. I even burnt just a few more calories today than yesterday, and found myself dipping back below the two-twenty level for the first time since Friday, so while it’s not ideal in terms of getting the daily ordeal over with, it may well be that slow and steady wins the race yet again – and it’s less painful.
Here’s hoping I can keep this up, and recover from whatever’s been ailing me. In the meantime, honey, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 