When running,1.5=5.0 right?

I'm spending the week in Redmond, Oregon (my son is here on business, and my wife and I are here as traveling nannies and as family to enjoy a new area). I went out for my 1.5 mile walk/jog and ended up doing 5 miles. I didn't take a map with me, and  I got lost on the way back. Thanks to my cell phone, I was able to call my son on my cell who had a map and gave me directions. However, I still took  a couple of wrong turns and ended up doing a long loop instead of a short out-back.

This is a nice place for running. We're staying at the Eagle Crest Resort which is 4 miles from Redmond. Lots of tall juniper trees, not much traffic, and a nice [low 50s (F)] sunny spring  day. We had rain mixed with snow all day yesterday, so today was a pleasant change. This area is hilly, and I quickly learned that I'm not ready for hills. I walked up the hills and jogged down them.

I had my GPS with me to measure my total distance, but I didn't measure how far I jogged. I just jogged until my body told me it was time to walk. I would guess, though, that my jogging totaled about a mile, usually in spurts of 200 - 400 feet.

When I got to the 0.75 mile mark, where I expected to turn around, I was just getting to the outskirts of the houses and condos, and I decided to go a bit further. When I got to the 1.1 mark, I did turn around. On the way back, however, I made some wrong turns and ended up doing a large loop. This reminds me of the time in Massachusetts that I ran a new route and missed a turn, and  my 7 mile run became a 12 mile run. When I go walking/jogging again on Friday, I'll pay more attention to the street signs while going out. Today, my attention was on the beautiful houses set in the beautiful trees, and I didn't check the street signs very well. 

The trees in Redmond, Oregon

The area around Redmond is covered with tall Juniper trees. Because of their height, I didn't recognize the trees as being Junipers. Utah is covered with Juniper trees, and they are short and bushy like, while the Oregon Junipers are tall and relatively wide. The early Mormon pioneers called the trees Cedar trees, and my home town of Cedar City, Utah was named after the trees. This morning while running, I got a close look at the trees, and I could tell they were Junipers. They had the same type of bark and needles as the Utah trees. Instead of being 8 - 10 feet tall, as they are in Utah, the Junipers here are 25 - 40 feet tall.

Good news about my weight!

My weight this morning was 160.2 pounds! That is 1.8 pounds BELOW my normal weight. Yesterday my weight was 162.0 pounds. Losing 1.8 pounds in one day is, I think, from reduced swelling rather than from consuming less calories. Losing 1.8 pounds from calories would mean I reduced my caloric intake by 6300 calories, all within 24 hours. How's that for a super diet :) So, I think my swelling is gone. I'm supposed to wear my compression stockings for two years. So far it's been three months. I think I'll wear them for another three months and then take them off as a test. If my swelling doesn't return (I measure each morning the circumference of each leg at three points, ankle, mid calf,and mid quad) after a week without the stockings, I'll call the clinic at the Intermountain Health Center and see what the practitioner, Liz, thinks about leaving the stockings off permanently.

A good walk/jog on the Jordan River Parkway

I just returned from my 1.5 mile jaunt. I alternated walking and jogging, and the total distance jogged was 0.5 miles or 33% of the total. It was a month ago (March 23) that I did my first jogging as part of the 1.5 miles. In four weeks I've gone from walking 1.5 miles to walking a mile and jogging 1/2 mile, alternating the two paces for 200 - 400 feet at a time. That is a nice improvement in the distance jogged! My legs still feel tired after each jog, but they recover quickly during the walk.

The temperature was in the low 70s, and I started to sweat during the jogs. I'm still wearing my civilian clothes (long pants), and I think it is time to switch to my running shorts. I think I'll look funny with my compression stockings under the shorts. The stockings are a dark "skin color", and I can tell people I have a good tan :) I'll also be wearing white knee-high tube compression socks over the other stockings. I'll be a visible example of a person who runs while recovering from blood clots.

My weight is close to my normal weight

I had a pleasant surprise this morning when I weighed myself. I lost a pound and a half since yesterday. That much weight loss in one day means it is water weight from swelling rather than fat weight from eating. My weight is only 2.6 pounds above my normal weight. My increase in weight due to swelling from the blood clots peaked at 28 pounds, so being only overweight by 2.6 pounds means the swelling is essentially gone. I still have to wear the compression stockings, though, to prevent the swelling from returning. I have to wear the socks for two years, and I've done 1/4 year so far. I've gotten so used to the socks that it feels strange to not have them on.

Doing a more jogging in my 1.5 miles

This evening, as I did the 1.5 miles again, I did more jogging. Instead of jogging until my legs started feeling tired, about 200 feet, I jogged until they felt really tired, probably 300 about feet. My body started to feel tired, too, something that hadn't happened before. I recovered quickly during my recovery walks and as I drove home.

I heard a frog last night

I walked/jogged during dusk (it was just getting dark as I finished), and I heard a frog croaking near the bank of the Jordan River. The frog didn't have the fast, light sound of a New England peeper. It had a big, throaty croak. It's the first time in several years of running the Jordan River Parkway that I've heard a frog. I hadn't thought of frogs being nocturnal, but maybe they are.

Walked today but no jogging

I've been beginning my walk/jogs with a walk of about 400 feet to warm up. However, during that warm up today, I could tell my body and legs were tired, and I walked the whole 1.5 miles. I didn't sleep very well last night due to my smoke detectors going off about every half hour for most of the night. The alarms started a few minutes after midnight and would sound for a few seconds and then turn off. It was hard to tell which alarm was causing the problem, because the alarms are tied together such that they all go off even though only one detector may originate the alarms. There was no fire or smoke in the house, and the alarms were false alarms. I was glad last night that the detectors weren't monitored by an alarm company, but in the case of a real fire, it would be nice to have them monitored. The picture shown below is of a different brand but the same kind of detector (I think) as my detectors.

Listened to my body while I walked/jogged 1.5 miles

For the past couple of jaunts on the 1.5 mile roundtrip on the Jorden River Parkway I've used my GPS to mesure how much jogging I was doing. Tonight I left my GPS home and jogged until my legs told me it was time to walk. My legs didn't feel painful; they just felt stressed, enough so that it was easy to detect the change from how they felt during my walking. After a recovery walk of 100 feet or so, I jogged again. This sequence was repeated during the 1.5 miles. I can tell that my body is getting stronger, because I don't feel as tired at the end of my jaunt as I felt when I first started to do the 1.5 miles. My legs feel fine while I walk, but after jogging 200 - 300 feet, they feel stressed.

My wakeup heart rate is almost down to normal

My wakeup heart rate this morning was 52. My normal is 50. I was pleased with that number, because a couple of weeks ago it was in the 70s. I've been sleeping well, and I'm not pushing my body very much as I walk/jog three times per week.

More jogging in my 1.5 miles

I ran 10 spurts of jogging instead of the 8 that I've been running. The jogs were about the same distance they were last week (I did less walking between jogs). My body and legs felt fine. So, I'll see how I feel on Saturday.

Concerning my recovery from the swelling caused by the blood clots. My weight is down to 165.8 pounds. My normal is about 162 pounds, so I'm about 4 pounds high. I don't know if that 4 pounds is actual weight gain due to my running less, or if it is water weight from the swelling, or some of both. I weighed 1/2 pound less this morning than yesterday morning, and that implies it was a loss of water as my swelling goes down. Each morning I measure the circumference of my legs at three places on the legs (ankle, mid calf, and middle of the quads). The numbers aren't changing much, indicating that any water from the swelling is on my stomach. My stomach is bigger than it should be, so that means water weight there or actual fat there....

I haven't been measuring my wakeup heart rate lately, so I don't know how it is doing.

Another day, another 1.5 miles

I walked/jogged the 1.5 miles again this afternoon, but I slightly reduced the distance that I jogged. I jogged about 25% of the distance instead of the 27% that I jogged last week (0.37 mile instead of the 0.41 mile). I still did eight spurts of jogging. My body felt fine, as it has in all of my jogging during the past couple of weeks, but my feet got a little tired during the jogging but not as much as last week.

Today was a beautiful Spring day with temperatures in the high 50s (F). A nice change from the snow we've had the past week.

I'm doing more jogging than I realized

I've been curious about my legs feeling tired after just doing a small amount of jogging, so I took my GPS with me today when I walked/jogged the 1.5 miles, and I measured the total distance I jogged. I jogged 0.41 miles which is 27% of the total distance. I thought I was jogging 10%, so I really messed up in estimating the distances of my eight jogging spurts. I think I'll continue doing the eight segments of jogging, but I'll reduce the distance of each segment a bit. I don't want to add more jogging until I feel comfortable with the amount I'm currently doing. I also don't want to add more distance until I can jog the whole 1.5 miles ane feel comfortable doing it.

I walked/jogged today instead of tomorrow, because my daughter and her family are coming from Evanston for the weekend, and I'll be busy tomorrow with the four grandkids.

Another day of doing 1.5 miles

My wife and I did the 1.5 miles again today. I did seven spurts of jogging during our walk. I felt more tired today than I have in past days, and I'm glad I have two days of rest before my next walk. I didn't jog quite as far as I have in past walks; I jogged until my legs started to feel the stress, and then I resumed walking again.

We had wind and hail during the night, followed by 4 or 5 inches of powdery snow. By mid afternoon when we walked, the snow was almost all gone, and the path was clear. The temperature was in the mid 40s (F), a nice day to be out.