1mi this morning!

[cjsmith]

Yes, faithful readers, that's right: I ran a WHOLE MILE. I can tell you are cheering and throwing your hats into the air. Never before has a stunning human accomplishment moved so many.

OK, I'll be serious. My impressions:
- @#$! it is HOT OUT
- These insoles fit muuuuuuch better after I cut them down to size with a razor blade
- Much MUCH less pain in the feet this time
- I am in terrible shape

Speaking of fitness, did I say terrible? I meant abysmal. Awful. Despair-inducing, almost. But I've been in reasonable shape before, and there's no big reason my body can't do it again. What's left to me is the amount of work needed to dig that healthy state back out from under my recent inactivity.

I was talking to a coworker the other day about my need to get back into shape. He said I looked like I wasn't too out of shape. (Confusing calorie math with fitness, maybe?) I told him that if he asked my heart and lungs, and the big muscles of my legs and back, they'd tell a different story. :)

Comments

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

That's right. You can have knee (or other joint) pain for a wide variety of reasons which are often hard to determine; in my case it appears my knees had simply not kept up with the longer distances I started running, since it takes tendons and supporting structures quite awhile to strenghten compared to muscles. This can be a big problem for weightlifters also -- they reach a point where their muscle strength has overrun their joint's capacity and they get injured unless they back off and give the joints time to catch up. So _for me_ icing after every run for a few years relieved the inflammation temporarily, and the knee eventually got strong enough not to need it for my typical every-other-day 10k. I still iced it (or them) if I felt beginning twinges or had run an unusually long distance, and didn't have any further problems.

Now for joint trouble that's degenerative (say, osteoarthritis), things will get steadily worse no matter what you do. If structures that the body can't heal have been damaged (say, the meniscus), stronger measures are necessary, up to giving up that particular exercise. The trick is knowing which is which, and even specialists can't always tell you.