JohnMassie.com

Dear John,

We will never forgive you for taking the hard trail again. We were not onboard with this “experiment” of yours from the get-go and frankly… we quit.

Sincerely,
- The Things Formerly Known as Your Legs

That would sum up about how my body feels right now. I’ve always done walking/jogging/running/sprinting but it’s always been in the gym or on relatively flat surface. The only thing that ever resembled a “hill” in my running was that speed bump in the road or the uneven sidewalk.

So, I just got back from my RHIIT and can I just say, I hurt. I stretched for an extra long time because I’ve been sore since the first round. So I stretched an abnormally long time and I took my time getting to this first monstrous hill. Now, in the original plan I was just going to take the easy trail… but I never found it the first time. Instead I found the “moderate to difficult” trail that is two miles long.

I debated with myself, since I found the easy trail, should I take that one instead? Then I thought that the only real “hard” thing about the other trail is these huge hills and the beginning and 3/4s way through the trail. Granted, one is up and the other is down but they both play a part in this whole training.

Try running down a hill that twists and turns gracefully and control your speed… Yeah it doesn’t happen. It is a miracle that I make it down the hill without falling flat on my face and eating a pound or two of gravel. So I decided I wanted the SUPER challenge of not only doing RHIIT and actually heavy exercise (for me at least) in general but no I wanted to take on the difficult trail to do this on.

I had no problems with my heart rate, breathing, or any other muscles except my calves. I felt that at one point, if I could rip them out of my legs… I would have. I had to keep stopping and using trees and something to push against so I could stretch. That seemed to help and I continued to do this throughout the whole workout but eventually near the end my legs decided they had enough and there was no way I was going to do running for the remainder of the course.

I made it back to the car and got home. I need to take a shower, dress for the grocery and get my butt out the door so I can do some much needed shopping. See, I say “much needed” because I discovered today that I had ONE roll of toilet paper. Yes… ONE. So my shopping trip went from just “shopping” to URGENT shopping.

Well, that’s my progress. This weekend is already starting to fill up with activities. Who knows what I will end up doing and not doing so we’ll see. Tomorrow is payday so that’s always good. 

Later,
- JM