TEXAS Paul - Out to Pasture - Healing

An interesting observation this past weekend.  We did mile interval training on Saturday.  I worked the rest of the day remodeling our son's bathroom.  Very tired I slept really good Saturday night into Sunday morning.  I woke from a deep sleep and took my resting heart rate Sunday morning and it was the lowest I have ever measured it at 43.  I did two measurements to make sure the count was correct and they were both 43.  Amazing.  Last week I had counted resting HR at 46 and 45.  Prior to all this long distance and consecutive days running my typical resting HR had been anywhere from 47 to 51.  This is part of the experiment I am doing with this long running days stuff.   

Ran in the morning in the rain at Wells Branch park and got in 6.6 aerobic easy miles.  Then ran in the evening at McNeil HS track doing 6.4 easy miles and 2 miles of track workout with Donnie's group, running with Karen F and Joe.  We did 4 repeats of 700 meters with 100 meters recovery between each.  A fun evening in the misty drizzle part of the time.

Ran in the morning at Wells Branch park and got in 11 miles of aerobic easy running.  During mile 5 as I was crossing a wood plank foot bridge I caught my right toe on a nail that was protruding up about 1/2 inch and I did a face fall landing on both hands and both knees and my stomach, then slid to a stop on the wet bridge.  I was amazed because I didn't even cuss.  I just looked back to see what I had tripped on and then did an assessment of the damage and realized everything was fine, thank goodness.  Then I finished the run with no issues.  A great way to get the week going with two consecutive long mileage days.

My mother turned 100 years old today.  She lives in American Fork, Utah with my sister and is doing great.  She had been living alone in her home up to 2 years ago when she had a fall and broke her hip.  We sold the house and she moved in with my sister as a caregiver since then.  My running friends think I have inherited some longivity genes from her, which is supposed to explain why I am still running marathons and competing at my young age of 60.  I do love to run.

Ran tonight at Brushy Creek park.  Cold weather with temps in the 30's so I dressed for it, but by mile 3 I was pulling off the long sleeve shirt and gloves and hat.  After 5.5 miles I joined Bill and the Wednesday night group where we did our drills and accellerations, and then ran down to the boat dock and did 6 loops from the boat dock and up through the parking lot and back to the stop sign.  Then I did 2 more aerobic miles. 

I could feel the left knee just a little bit after taking the fall yesterday, but not actually an injury, just a nuisance.  No problem.   

Ran tonight over at Florence HS while Lynn walked the track.   It was cold with temps in the high 30's with misty wet air.  However by mile 3 I was taking off my hat and gloves and by mile 6 the long sleeve shirt came off.  At mile 9 the gloves went back on and for mile 10 the long sleeve shirt went back on.  A nice enjoyable run after taking Thursday off to let the left knee cap feel a little better, since the fall last Tuesday morning. 

Yesterday I had a doctor checkup visit and when the nurse came in to take my vital signs, after she took my pulse heart rate she went and got the doctor.  The heart rate was 50 and it alarmed the nurse.  The doctor had some fun and brought in another nurse and asked him if he could explain my low heart rate.  The nurse thought it might be the prednisone medication for the polymyalsia rheumatica, but the doctor used this as a teaching moment and explained to the nurse that they need to ask a few questions of the patient to learn more about life style that may contribute to the low heart rate.  This was fun.  The doctor couldn't hardly believe that I was doing 50 miles a week, but he said that sure explained why my heart was getting so efficient and strong.  There are definite visible benefits to doing the longer runs.