Got home from my vacation on Thursday night with the intention of getting in a good bike, run and swim over the nice weekend. Don’t you hate how things don’t work out as planned? I guess with a swim and bike, I was close, but was not able to get a run in, and now am having additional muscle pains in my left leg.
To start, on Friday, I had a bunch of errands to run and then had to get my rental minivan returned to Newark Airport. I was also trying to get my handyman to come to my house in New Jersey on Saturday to help me hook up my old dryer, after the installation of my new washing machine last week. (won’t go into any more details as this is a long story) Anyway, he called me late morning on Friday and was available to come out on Friday afternoon. This was perfect for me, as we really wanted to get that out of the way so we could do our laundry at the house Friday night and Saturday morning, but it killed the day for me in terms of exercise. By the time I got out to NJ, then returned my minivan to Newark and got home, it was very late in the day, and time for my wife and I to turn around and head back out to NJ for the night to do 8 loads of laundry. But, at least I had the foresight to bring my bike with me, as I planned to get a nice bike ride in on Saturday morning.
The ride went well, just as planned, and I had a nice 19 mile ride, from my house out west to Colt’s Neck on 537 and back. I love riding my bike in NJ, as I can go out my door and go immediately into ‘hard ride’ mode. In NYC, I need to get myself over a bridge, and in some cases, well out over the bridge before I can get into any sort of riding rhythm that doesn’t involve stopping for traffic lights every few minutes. Even biking in Central Park first requires a 3 mile ride through the city traffic before I can start the workout, with the same 3 miles back afterwards. I hope to get into a habit of bringing my bike out weekly to get a nice weekend ride when I can. Only problem with that is I can’t leave the car unattended for fear of someone stealing the bike off the bike rack.
My 7 year old really wanted to go to the movies to see the Hannah Montana movie. I was angling to take her next weekend, but some other late Sat afternoon plans changed, so we had the time, and she really wanted to go. So, I relented and took her to Kips Bay for a late afternoon showing. Also, before that, with the weather so nice, I took her outside so she could spin around on her bike a little. Then Saturday night I was able to go to the gym to workout and swim. I had not lifted weights in about a month, so took it easy there. My swim workout was, as usual, kind of sucky, but I’m finding that I can do a front crawl type swim for several lengths of the pool without stopping. This means my breathing technique is getting much better. Good news. But I still can’t put it together to do freestyle.
My intent was to go for a run on Sunday. I had tickets to go see the Mets at Citifield, so needed to run first thing in the morning, or late in the day. My wife was feeling kind of sick Saturday night and Sunday morning, so I stayed home to be around in case my kids needed anything. Then, off to Citifield to see the Mets lose 4-2. Citifield is a beautiful place, and a much better overall experience than Shea. Losing Shea does make me sad, though. I had a Saturday ticket plan for the last 15 years, and in the last couple of years got to at least 20 games per year. But, Citifield has effectively priced me out and so I’ll probably only be going a handful of times this year.
During the day on Sunday, I noticed my left leg was in a little pain. The left side is where I’ve had some kind of nagging groin pull for the last few months that has not gone away. The pain I started feeling yesterday was more in the upper inner thigh, on the side or even back of the leg. Not sure if it is related to the groin, or if it was caused my my bike ride or swim Saturday, but I thought it best to not run, and instead, start up a serious ice regiment. So, I’ll be focusing on icing my leg the next few days, and trying to decide if I run should run easy or not while I wait for the pain to go down.
Anyway, off to work. Catching up from missing a week of work will not be fun, so we’ll see how much time I have for exercise this week.
