Sick of swimming and weights, I really wanted to be outside today.. it was SO perfect out. So I decided to risk angering the Tendonitis Gods and go for a walk.
Green looked perfect. There was no way I could do the front side, so I decided to just walk up the west ridge. Since I had no water bottle, I stopped by the Trek Bike store on Baseline to get one. They had a $6 bike bottle with their store advertising; it was filled with water, in a little fridge. That's all they had. I bought it... thinking the price was high. The water tasted like plastic (go figure) so I dumped it out and refilled from the free tap at Wild Oats, then added ice from Subway. Pretty elaborate, I know!
As soon as I started up the Flagstaff road, the "you're out of gas" light beeps on my Prius. Hmmm, well, it's not THAT far, right?
Two deer are at the trailhead, so I made a big detour hoping not to disturb them. Then the endorphins started flowing: I was exalting in just being outside, moving again! And no one else was around... amazing.
To avoid stressing my Achilles tendons, I would try and always place my heel on a rock with my toe landing lower, giving me a compressed tendon and upward-pointing (plantar flexed) foot. This seemed to help. Sometimes, on the uphills, I side-stepped up them. I'm sure I looked ridiculous, but no one was there.
I got to the four-way (ranger, green bear, west ridge), and I started feeling my Achilles... sigh. But the top is near, so I just side-stepped to the summit.
Uphill walking feels so easy now.... I guess no weight, short hike, only 600' of climbing at lowish altitude on clean trails SHOULD feel easy. But I still loved floating up without breathing hard.
I wanted to run...
I spent 25mins on the summit... no one else around. It was 5pm.
The down has a lot of up, so I tried to be careful. After getting back to the car, coasting all the way to the gas station, I resolved to be aggressive in preventing any tendon flare-ups I may have just incited.
Dinner: Odwalla vanilla protein shake, hamburger with mustard, tomato, lettuce, and onion (no ketchup, mayo, or cheese). Iced both ankles, massaged both calves, took 800mg Ibuprofen, fish oil, glucosamine. I'll try to get some sleep tonight and hopefully I won't wake up in agony tomorrow morning.
Fingers crossed.
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