Last Day of May

 Going to bed last night I felt completely exhausted. I think I fell asleep faster than I have in a long time. Woke up feeling pretty good and ended up being in a bit of a rush getting out the door. I was fully out of my driveway and in front of my house when I remembered that I left something I would need for the climbing team party I was going to directly after work. Instead of parking my car in the street I decided to back up and go back into my driveway. I misjudged the turn and ended up backing into the curb. I heard a crunch and some more crunching and I realized I truly goofed. Ended up with a fairly large crack on my passenger side rear bumper and hurried off to work. 

Today we hiked at St. Mary's Wilderness. It's probably my favorite hike we do at camp and the water was higher and faster than I'd ever seen it before. This was also the youngest group by far that I've taken on this hike. But they ended up doing great and everyone had a wonderful time. Hiking is great because there's a lot less thinking and planning involved. We just go out into the world, do the hike, drive back, and that's pretty much the whole day. 

I had a pretty great run on the gravel roads by camp and I was really happy that my achilles has recovered and I didn't end up missing that much running that I would have done otherwise. I'll still avoid spikes for a bit but I'm happy to only have one injury instead of two. I think without realizing it I pushed my wrist way too hard while climbing and also trying to do some rehab injuries. It hasn't been very sore but if I do certain small movements I'll get shooting pain up my wrist. I can tell there's some swelling and I've kept icing. I think with true rest it will heal up fairly quickly. I just haven't really been resting for the week that it's been hurting and I've let the pain get to the point where I don't want to mess around with it anymore. That sounds really bad but it's more annoying than anything. I'm not too worried about it. Mostly bummed that I won't be able to climb. It's weird because I can do some weight bearing movements without any pain at all but very small things that I don't even think about will make it freak out. 

Anyway, I was pretty upset about my car because I really want it to be in good shape and I know my dad worked hard on it and I felt bad for not being careful. But I called him and he said it was okay and that new cars are dent magnets and that's just what happens so that made me feel a lot better. I tried my hand at adding tape to the back side of it and I mostly got the gap in the crack to disappear. I think it will hold up and then maybe we can work on it at some point in the future. Yeah.

We're doing good. We're doing work.

coupla soggy sailors

coupla dapper dans

feels alright

 I've been a little angsty about my running since December because every time I've gone to the track to run a mile under 5 minutes it's felt really hard. And not too long ago and even when I was in college, if I was in good shape and feeling good I remember I could just go to a track and run one at will and it didn't feel particularly hard. It wasn't always easy but I didn't feel like I was all-out. 

Anyway I think it was creating a bit of a barrier so today my legs felt really good and I didn't have a workout planned and my calf still felt a little weird so I didn't want to do anything crazy hard but three miles into my run today I decided I felt good enough and the CHS track was on my way back so I should stop by and run a hard mile. Even though I was in heavier trainers and it was warm and I'd been climbing for 2 hours, why not just go to the track and run a hard mile. And I had my garmin that doesn't really give splits. 

So I ran a pretty hard 1600 in 5:02 and felt pretty good. The thing that I was really happy with is that I was guessing my splits and not really caring and just running with the appropriate rhythm. It was the effort that I remember those mile attempts being in the past. And even though I didn't break 5 I was a lot closer to doing it than I thought I would be. I let it happen instead of forcing it. I would rather run a low 5 and feel like that than be just under 5 and feel awful. Plus, now I have a lot of confidence in doing it again. So, we'll keep coming back to the hard 1600 as well as the hard 400 and try to have some fun this summer with running. here's hoping the calf comes around. and the wrist!

Summer Plans

 Coaching is winding down. Camp is starting up. I've made about 8 bamboo cups for the counselors. I think I have 3 or 4 more to make. One has been fully sanded and finished with the fractionated coconut oil I bought at wal-mart today. 2 or 3 others are fully sanded. Mostly sanded. The others are still a little rough and need some sanding and whittling to be done. It's been really hard on my wrist to do a lot of whittling and climbing. I might need to slow down.

Last week the right side of my body was really struggling. At the same time that my achilles was flaring up on Monday I was also dealing with some wrist pain. It made me a little anxious to run and to climb so that wasn't great. It was still a good week though because I got a little break from doing work at camp so I felt more rested. Also I was happy to get so many bamboo cups made and really streamline the process of making them. They're really fun to do and I think I'd like to continue making them throughout the summer and potentially into the fall. Maybe I could make some interesting ones and start putting stuff back on craigslist free stuff. Something about the warm weather just makes me love whittling.

I think I'd like to take and post a picture every day from camp this summer. It would be a nice way to remember this first summer out of covid. 

Tomorrow I'm going to work a little more on the cups. Help clear out some stuff out of the basement and dining room. Hopefully run without any pain. I might also climb. We'll see how I'm feeling. I also have to buy groceries and do laundry. 

Doing well!

my aunt pat sent me this. we were together the last time we saw paw paw.