Oi . . . Oy . . . OW!!!

Yes, people, I hurt. . . a lot. :-)

If you read my Monday blog you would know that I started jogging with a neighborhood friend. She was very gentle as we warmed up and started jogging, allowing me to make the choices for how far we jogged.

In total we jog/walked about an hour and, roughly guessing, four miles. We went along the route that I'd been walking, partly in a neighborhood to a main road to get to a walking trail that snakes around a bog area under a major expressway intersection. It's really pretty through there. A bridge crosses a creek where beaver live--yep, smack-dab in the middle of the city. I haven't seen deer near the walking trail, but have seen them less than 0.5 mile away crossing a four-lane road.

Anyhoo, I was pretty happy with what I managed on Monday. I have asthma, so I was concerned about my lungs/lung capacity, but V is a nurse, plus her kiddos have asthma, so she coached me in the appropriate way to breath. I got home and my muscles started talkin' to me. Not bad, just reminding me that there were there. It wasn't until I ate lunch with hubster and we sat at Logan's for an hour did I realize how much my muscles were seizing. I knew my legs would hurt, but I didn't count on abs and ribs. V said it was due to the core muscles stabilizing the body during the bouncing of jogging--and those poor muscles had a LOT to stabilize!

--and cravings! Man, I craved PROTEIN! I ate about three of those little baby Goudas and some cooked bacon.

I insisted we do our family walk that night, to start rebuilding the muscle and flush the lactic acid out of my system as I'd been guzzling water all day.

Tuesday dawns brightly and it wasn't until I tried to stand that "Uh-Oh" ran through my mind. I could barely walk down the stairs and V expected me to jog, AGAIN?!

Well, there was a lot less jogging, and a lot more stretching, as we power walked the same trail, but since we didn't jog--genius here, suggested we take the left fork in the trail to add some distance to our walk. We were gone about 75 minutes. No clue as to how many miles we walked.

By Tuesday afternoon, I felt HORRIBLE!! Oh, some of it was due to 'female' stuff, but my thighs were screaming for mercy. The last time I hurt that much was at a two-day horseback riding clinic--and that was when I was in my twenties and in shape. Now, I'm in my forties and so out of shape it ain't even funny.

But you know what?

I can't wait until V is back in town to go jogging again on Monday. The holidays will throw a small curve in my plans, but I have every intention to power walk at least two or three days over the holidays. And though I'm having a difficult time going up and down (down is worse) stairs, I'm okay with it because I know I'm getting into shape and that I'll feel better in the long run.

I'm sending a Write On! shoutout to my NaNo friend! Keep on writing! Who cares if it's dreck? Get it down and then you can fix it!

I'm taking a small writing sabbatical until January as I can't seem to find the motivation to work on any of my stories. Christmas is coming fast and I have enough to think about without adding the pressure of self-imposed writing deadlines.

Don't forget to start thinking about what you have accomplished this year and setting new goals for next year.