Struggling

I'm barely managing to get my four miles a day in lately. I see a visit to the doctor in the fairly near future to see what's going on with my right leg. I've been rollering it, thinking it might be iliotibial syndrome. 

I wish our healthcare system here in the good old US of A allowed one to go straight to physical therapy without going through an MD first. Insurance companies won't pay for PT if it's not prescribed first. I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on television, but I'm pretty sure that's where I'm headed. 

Lucky is home by now, I'm sure. His final trail journal entry is here. With all the hoopla about Scott Jurek and his supported speed record, Lucky is way more inspiring to me. I feel pretty lucky to be walking four miles a day on a paved road. He averaged about 15 a day on a trail. That's impressive.

I'm still maintaining the weight loss that happened the month of April, but not making any progress toward the eventual goal. It would be very sad for me to think that the strict Whole 30 is the only way I can lose. Looking back on the 2013 experience of almost making it to my goal and then gaining back a bunch o'pounds, I think a strict Whole 30 could be the only way to maintain. 

Much. Thinking. Ahead.

The first load … pans and dinnerware and the
food processor, oh my!

The dishwasher was installed last Tuesday, and is working well. I didn't realize that these newfangled energy-saving machines had such a long cycle. Nearly two hours, start to finish, but I guess that's normal. The water-saving feature that makes it energy-efficient results in using more electricity and an extended cycle. 

Not sure how that saves energy, actually. 

But it's kind of fun knowing I don't have to stand at the sink for an hour cleaning up a boatload of dishes after a big cooking session. 

Lots o'graphic design work going on here. Many, many ads for a program book for an annual meeting coming up in September. Quarterly newsletter goes out Monday or Tuesday. I feel somewhat chained to a screen lately, but since it's hot-hot-hot and humid-humid-humid, I'm glad to have an excuse to not be weeding the flower beds. Heh.

And with that … time to fire up Photoshop and get to work!

He did it!

Lucky scaled Mt. Katadhin yesterday, early afternoon, ahead of schedule. He hasn't updated his journal yet, so I won't link to it, but I will when he does. A remarkable achievement!

Just checked again (five minutes later) and here's the latest entry.

I know one shouldn't compare oneself to another as far as fitness goes. We're all at different points along a line beginning at bedridden and ending at setting a speed record for hiking the Appalachian Trail. With tennis and soccer and baseball and marathon and jump rope and swimming medals and trophies in there, too.

But I can't help but compare Lucky's being 73 and hiking more than 2000 miles in five months to my efforts to get four miles a day.

I didn't do it yesterday. Only 1.45. I was hot and dehydrated and hungry and hurting. And I just turned around and went home.

Easier to do that on the road I live on than on the Appalachian Trail, for sure. But I'm smack dab in the midst of those summer doldrums, and need to find a way to get motivated again.

At any rate … here I go, all about me, when this is Lucky's day! YAY!

A Lucky update

Our friend Lucky is less than 300 miles from Katahdin, Maine, on his hike of the Appalachian Trail.

He's in New Hampshire, but has just 16.5 miles to get to the Maine border. Here's his most recent entry. It's more of a placeholder; hit the "Previous" link to read full journal posts.

Experienced hikers say that the last 20 percent of the Appalachian Trail is 80 percent of the work, and it sounds like Lucky agrees.

My walks continue to get slower. My hip never really doesn't hurt these days. I'd hoped that getting back to solid paleo eating would help, but it doesn't. The only consistent thing about the pain is that it's almost completely gone after a night's rest. I don't have much trouble first thing in the morning, and so that's when I take my walks.

It's been so hot, that morning also is the best time, temperature-wise, to be outdoors.

Yesterday I cut back all the weeds in the herb-garden circle, covered the bed with compost and then my husband and I layered pieces of cardboard over the whole thing. We put rocks on the cardboard to keep it from blowing away and next spring we'll have a nice weed-free bed in which to plant flowers. A lilac or butterfly bush in the center, with perennials and annuals surrounding it. AND MULCH.

Mulching is a big job, and mulch isn't cheap, but I'm more convinced of the value of it as this year drags on. All my lovely landscape beds are full of weeds, and we haven't had enough rain to soften the ground to make pulling – or even digging – them a manageable job, for me anyway.

The combination of a normal walk and a big gardening job really did me in, though. Let's just say I played lots of Scrabble on my phone yesterday afternoon … sigh.

Updates!

Not from me … I did next to nothing yesterday. Didn't even get out of my jammies. Barely logged 2000 steps. It was one of those days.

But Lucky has updated his trail journal. He's halfway to Maine, well into Pennsylvania, and appears to be on schedule. His journal entries are easy to read and fascinating (to me, anyway). I cannot imagine hiking all those miles, day after day, for months and months.

Hell, I could barely get out of bed yesterday.

What happens if you have one of those days on the trail? You could, I guess, take a zero. But I think being out there, with all those unhiked miles ahead of you, would be enough of an incentive to get you out of your sleeping bag and on your feet.

I could use some of that kind of motivation lately.

I need to concentrate on what's in front of me, and stop looking at the big picture, especially where the gardens are concerned. I got one bed cleaned out Saturday. Half a bed got done a couple weeks ago. Seven beds altogether … I'm not making much gardening progress at all. Or painting, for that matter.

And I'll be giving a Power Point presentation next month, which is the current focus of my time and energy. I've never done a Power Point before. I'm tempted to make it in iMovie, but I know I'd run out of hard drive space before I came close to covering the material. But I'm familiar with iMovie. I'm not at all familiar with Power Point.

It can't be that difficult, can it?

We shall see.

Days Eight and Nine DONE!

Oh, my, where did the time go?

Wednesday was SUPER busy. We had overnight guests and I had a meeting in the afternoon. And the meeting was about an hours' drive away.

So between cleaning, meal prepping, driving, and meeting, I didn't have a moment to catch my breath. Or to catch up on the blog yesterday morning.

But … all is well. I managed a two-mile walk Wednesday and four miles yesterday. Food has been on-plan the entire time, despite preparing a yummy baked French toast casserole for breakfast yesterday.

While I've been walking a few miles a day, one of our guests has been averaging 15? 18? I'm not quite sure. My son met up with "Lucky" on the Appalachian Trail (AT) Wednesday afternoon and brought him to our house for a hot shower, comfortable bed, laundry services and all the home-cooked food he could devour.

Lucky was my son's mentor during an internship at the Raleigh News and Observer. He's since retired, after doing some amazing journalistic work, and has been training to thru-hike the AT for quite some time.

This is his year.

He's 72.

Now here's the sad part. I had a busy day Wednesday and I've walked a few miles on a paved road every day this month. I collapsed yesterday. Literally. Took a shower, laid down at 2 p.m., and didn't get up until 6 this morning.

Lucky walks many miles over rough terrain in all kinds of weather, and has been doing it since February! He hikes from early in the morning until dinner time, stopping briefly – 15 minutes max – for a noontime snack. He was ready to hit the trail with enthusiasm yesterday morning.

Oh. Well. There's no comparison. No need for it. He was a most pleasant and entertaining guest, he and my son are great friends, and my husband and I thoroughly enjoyed the company.

I wanted to offer our "hostel" on his way home, but I think he's finding motorized transportation back to North Carolina.