Much Improved Today ...

Well, no mack trucks visited me last night, although I still woke every two / two and a half hours all night long (I guess that's just not going to change ...).

I've been up since just before 5:00am today, so I read my newspaper before heading out for my sixteen minute walk.

I wasn't sure I was going to walk today, but thought I should stick to it because I know how easy it is to drop a program altogether unless you persevere.

So, I got suited up in my anti-deerfly walking outfit, which has been enhanced to protect my face without having to use that horrid insect repellant (I do spray the rest of my body and my hands).

Again, getting up that first hill was a challenge; my heart rate went to 127 and I was puffing!  My legs were screaming at me to stop (especially my right hip) but I refused to give in.  I did slow down though (not like I had a choice -- I couldn't breathe!).

At the four-minute mark, I wondered if I should even continue, my hip was that sore.  But I just slowed my pace and kept going.

And at the eight-minute mark (my turn-around point) I was further than I had made it yesterday, but not as far as I've made it on previous outings of even shorter times.

Oh well, keep on trucking, as the saying goes.

When I hooked up with John (who wasn't very far behind me this time), he tried to tell me that I could take it easy for the return trip.  That I didn't have to work quite so hard.

Thing is, I don't think I am working all that hard.

Not in the scheme of things.

I think it is just hard work for me until I get conditioned to it.

I mean really, for years I wasn't able to walk five feet without great difficulty so this new program is quite a shock to my system.

So, I will continue to keep my outings to the sixteen-minute limit and I'll mark my progress by how far I get each time.  I know that the distance will vary by a number of factors (weather, my state of health, etc) but if my time never changes, I'll know how well (or poorly) I'm doing by which landmark I make it to on each outing.

And, I'll continue taking my heart rate at the top of that damned hill to see how well my body is coping with that challenge.  That should be a good indicator of how conditioned I'm getting, I think.

Thus far, my body seems OK with a heart rate of about 110, but anything over that and my breathing difficulty starts.

Trouble is, at 110, I feel like I'm crawling, not putting out any effort.  What a conundrum!