My Journey With Weight Loss – Building Back Up

Today I was out for an early morning walk and I thought wow, this weather is great. It was the perfect temperature for a brisk 5k walk. But then I realized, it is soon coming to an end. As of Friday the weather will be turning colder and we are expecting rain. Ok, I admit the rain is not a bad thing as we haven’t had any real precipitation in months and we are in a drought. Still, I’ve got at least a couple days to enjoy what has become our very extended summer before fall arrives.

Yesterday I tried my first run since I hurt my ankle. I decided I needed to start off light because I know protecting that ankle until it is fully recovered is important. So off I went and at about the 3k mark it was starting to twinge a bit. I know I could have pushed it more but I want to be back running 10k and I would rather get there without doing any further damage. I finished off the workout with a brisk 3k walk including up a hill. Of course since it was Monday it meant I was leading my seniors’ walk so I got in some good distance and lots of training zone minutes.

Being cautious, today was a walk and not a run. I got in the 5k first thing and I know I’ll get another 5k in this afternoon because I plan to walk home after doing some volunteer work. I make sure when I walk that I get my heartrate up to keep my cardio fitness in a good place. I admit sometimes that is hard because I am pretty fit so I have to walk at a pretty good clip to get my heart pumping. Still, I have committed to getting workouts in at least 6 days a week.

The important thing is that I have recognized that I need to build back up rather than pushing myself. I hope that if I keep alternating running and walking then I’ll be strong enough in the next week or so to do a full 6k run and then it is going back to training hard at running. I’ll get there but most importantly I will get there safely.