Old milestones

Another of life's little milestones!

It's interesting as I age, how simple little outcomes become big events. On my last few jog/walks - that's a walk, then jog, then walk, a kinda neighborhood walkabout, - sounds like some kind of Australian thingy, yes? Well anyway back to my announcement. I reached my goal of one mile! Not one mile total people. One mile jogging! Now to all those 30 year old marathon runners, that's not a big deal. But to this old duffer, it is.

I quit running when I was about 54 or 55 because my knee joints were hurting too much to continue. So I switched to a bike. After kibitzing with an old friend recently who is still running at the age of 77, I decided to give it a try again, albeit downhill. So during one of my neighborhood walks I threw in a jog segment on a downhill section and walla, much to my surprise, no knee pain! So for about the past month, I've been trying to get in a daily session, and usually I succeed in getting out about 5 times a week.

Each day after my first downhill segment I decided to add twenty or so yards to the jog part. And I kept doing that until this past weekend, running in the rain on Saturday, I reached a mile. How do I know? I clocked it in the truck. Yes I have a pickup truck! Doesn't everyone? Today I completed 1.1 miles and I'm keeping on adding more each time. So far so good. No sore knees yet and still adding distance.

Because the run has shortened the total time I'm exercising, I'm strategizing how to add additional distance or new adventures. I found a leg I can do through a section of woods that has me climbing through ravines, and over and under fallen trees. Of course I don't jog this section but the climbing, crawling and bending provide a kind of stretching that helps loosen me up before I get back to jogging a new loop.

Now isn't that just ducky?

I had this thought that with my recently discovered high blood pressure, I could be a candidate for a heart attack during one of these workouts; so I told my wife and my daughter, who lives nearby, if I disappear one day when I'm out for my exercise, tell the medical unit to look for me in that woods section out by the front of our development. If I were to fall over with a heart attack anywhere else on my route, someone would see me lying by the side of the road.

Sounds like a morbid conversation to be having doesn't it? When I was 40 I would never have had that thought let alone that conversation with anyone. But I' not 40 anymore. Sigh.