It's a Miracle

First, today's walk.  Since Banks had been off for two days in a row, I kind of forced him to go for a half hour, which he did without too much of a protest.  I dropped him off and took a route I haven't used in months -- the residential streets on the west side of Congress -- and just wove in and out of the blocks for an hour.  There's a little bit of a slope when you head north, but overall it's a pretty easy walk.

So, as I said, after my 11.2 miles on Saturday, I diligently stretched and took three Aleves.  I fully expected to have to take another three at bedtime, followed by more in the morning, but -- I mean it -- that stuff is incredible. My legs felt completely normal all day Saturday, and all day Sunday. In fact, I felt so good on Sunday that I really wanted to do another five, but what stopped me was my ironclad rule that every week is a discrete and standalone entity. If I had walked on Sunday, the extra five would have spilled over into the next week, and it's been my policy to have no spillover, either in the credit or the debit categories.

I was telling someone today that a 10-mile-or-so walk is kind of my version of a cleanse.  When someone's been eating very unhealthily, a cleanse helps them jump-start a new pattern. When I've been eatiny crappily, or just getting in a rut with my walks, doubling the mileage has the same effect on me.  Next time I do a long one, which will be in August, it's going to be 15 miles. And that's because I'm getting ready to do a marathon in September (walking, of course), the details of which will follow later this week when I have them ironed out.