Does the Wind Take Your Breath Away?

6:00am: When I woke up this morning I was really excited to try out my new shoes and see if they made a difference in my walk. Don't get me wrong, I didn't look excited according to my bathroom mirror, but nevertheless the shoes needed to be broken in. I was super tired looking and didn't get the best night of sleep. It wasn't the worst ever, but it certainly could have been better. I woke up about 4 times during the night to find my nasal cannulas wrapped around my forehead instead of in my nose. It's always a weird sensation when waking up that way cause I never know exactly what's going on. I can feel that something isn't right, but it usually takes me about 10 seconds to figure out exactly what it is. You would think that I would feel the plastic hose wrapped around my head a lot sooner than I do.

After a quick bathroom break, I was ready to hit the road. Ah, but first I had to put on my brand spanking new shoes. I purchased ortho inserts that needed to go in first and then I laced them up. They felt good. I started the walk and about 2 minutes into it I realized that I never started my watch. Whoops. That's ok I thought, I'll just penalize myself with a ballooned time at the end. As I started to get into the groove of walking (and trying to get used to the new shoes), my feet started to hurt a little bit. I figured that it was normal and it would take a while to get used to the ortho insert. Well, about half way through the walk, my right foot started to give me problems. Usually it is my left foot that is in a ton of pain, but the left was just slightly sore and felt as if it was adjusting to the shoe. I ended up stopping and taking out the insert of my right shoe (and forgetting to restart the watch in the process). Much better. I'm going to leave the left one in for now and see if that alleviates the pain in my foot and shins when I run. I can also try just the shoes for a while and see if that does the trick.

Overall, the walk went really well after I removed the right insert. I was moving a lot of mucus up and my legs didn't feel tired at all. I'm working out legs later on at the gym, so I'm glad that they felt fresh this morning. J Bell did a pretty good job this morning with the exception of pooping twice and me only having one bag. If this trend keeps up, I'm obviously going to have to bring multiple bags on my walk. She's starting to get the hang of a fast paced walk and seems to get better everyday. If only I could match her improvement.

Total Distance: 2.1 miles Time: Who Knows

2:30pm: It was a normal day at the gym today. I worked out shoulders and legs. My shoulders hurt as usual but I was able to increase the reps on most of my shoulder exercises. I increased the weight or reps on all of the leg exercises. Believe it or not, I also did abs. Mandi would be so proud. I did the ab routine that she taught me, which consists of 200 crunches in various poses. They hurt like heck but I work up a good sweat and really get into some heavy breathing. In no time, I'm going to turn this one pack into a two pack.

I'm really hoping that I can run/walk later. It is super windy out and I have a hard time breathing in those conditions. I feel like the wind is taking my breath way. I remember way back in high school the football practices being much tougher on windy days. I couldn't keep up the pace that I usually could on days with no wind. Does anybody have a clue as to why that happens? Maybe wearing a mask would help, but who really knows. Anyways, I'm really hoping that the wind dies down and that my feet/legs hold up during our walk/run. I've been hampered by my "injury" lately and I have hated every minute of it. Current Weight: 189lbs.

6:00pm: It is so windy today! I tried to talk myself out of running, but I knew I would regret it later if I didn't. I decided to put on a mask to protect myself from the dust and debris flying around. Besides looking like a SARS patient, everything was felling good and I was ready to post a good time for my run/walk today. We were running with a strong crosswind, but Mandi was picking out spots that weren't too far away so I would have a quicker recovery. The mask was working and my lungs felt wide open. The wind didn't end up being the main problem though.

After half a mile, my feet completely gave out. I was hobbling like crazy and Mandi said enough was enough. I was in real, genuine pain. It is the worst that my feet have hurt yet. We turned around so we could at least get a mile in and we headed back to the house. My feet started to recover so I decided to try to run a good part of the way home. My stride felt good and my lungs felt even better, but my feet just couldn't cut it. I hobbled back to the house and now I need to come up with a new game plan. I'm going to start wearing the new shoes as much as possible so my feet can get used to them. I'm also not going to do any pounding on my feet for the next couple of days. I really hope this works because I set out to do a mile and that's kind of tough when I can't run. I always thought my lungs were going to hold me back, not my feet.

Total Distance: 1.0 mile Time: 14'39"

Total Distance Run/Walk for Day: 3.1 miles