The Scientific Process

Last week when I posted, I was pretty stoked about having sort of started the process of returning to weight bearing activity... Unfortunately, some heavier squats and a tiny bit of jogging on Wednesday left me feeling some deep bone ache in my left leg on Thursday. Ugh. It wasn't debilitating, but it was there and it was noticeable and was an indication that the stress I had applied- even though it didn't hurt while I was doing it- was too much. The problem was that I didn't know if it was the squats or the jogging that caused the bone ache? That was the problem with doing them both on the same day. I should have just done one and then waited to see how the legs responded... that would have been more scientific. Call it #hindsight20/20.

Given that, I took 3 days and did no weight bearing activity other than a few short walks with the dog. Not the end of the world because I have other activities that make me super happy! Saturday we went to the west side to swim and found a tons of dolphins within the first 10 minutes of getting in. The water was perfect temp with unreal visibility and the whole time we were just giddy smiles. Its was like swimming in a giant aquarium and after the dolphins we found 2 huge turtles and a beautiful spotted ray.

Honu! This guy seemed sort of camouflaged but the water was so clear we could spot him...

And of course... Swimming with dolphins never gets old. Never.

On Sunday Carly came over and we did a bit of strength training together. I backed the weight off to 45lbs but did 4x8 squats and deadlifts with just the bar. Also did a bunch of 'wall balls' which was one of my favorites from my Crossfit days. We did a few other exercises too but I don't think those would have hurt my hip or leg at all. I felt fine and strong and stable while doing those exercises and once again felt like maybe I could have done a bit of jogging but I learned my lesson from the week prior so I walked the dog but took zero jogging steps. I really wanted to see if I had any deep bone ache on Monday?

Monday came- no bone ache! Yay! Had some muscle ache for sure but it was equally distributed between both legs and felt exactly like what I would have expected to feel after a ton of wall balls. So in my mind, nothing to worry about! Phew.

So I'd ruled out that moderate weights caused deep bone ache. #scientificprocess Last night I took my dog for a longer walk (like 2.5 miles) and I inserted 6x30 steps of jogging on different uphill sections. Felt fine during those short jogs and was curious how I'd feel today. Deep bone ache? NOPE! Woot! It's so funny to be stoked about 30 steps of running but whatever. It's a start!

No jogging steps today b/c I'm taking the ultra-conservative approach and not running on back to back days for a while. Instead I went for a bike ride. It was a gorgeous day to be on two wheels. I have ridden by this spot countless times over the last (almost) 12 years and only rarely stop to take a picture. Today I just had to. It was stunning and my level of appreciation for being able to be out there was high.