Losing a part of me

I woke up this morning to see that my sleep score was a 68. This, after two nights in a row of the highest sleep scores I can remember (90 and 94). I don’t know what I did wrong, but I am sure I will feel it throughout the day. My body battery is an abysmal 39 at 9:30am… I have taken Princess Sophie out so I have likely depleted that somewhat, but 39? Yick.

I did not feel like exercising yesterday. I told Leslie as we sat on the balcony after lunch that I did not want to go out for a walk… and so I did. I jogged the first kilometre (6m46s) and then walked… and while I doubt I broke any personal records, I certainly smashed my best times for this year on a couple of kilometres! Six split kilometres were under 9m32s, and one was even under nine minutes flat! I felt great throughout… but around kilometre number seven I started to feel a blister developing on my right heel. Yes, I wore one of the two pair of running shoes I have that are extremely great for performance… but also cause blisters. By the time I had 9km behind me I was ready to limp home. I didn’t of course… but I did stop at Shopper’s Drug Mart to pick up a bottle of Gatorade and to replenish my water. For the next few days, I will be wearing the other shoes that may not let me perform as well… but they also do not tear up my feet. I will also be bandaging that heel until it is properly healed.

Here is a tip for all pedestrians: I will gladly give you right of way for a lot of reasons, but not if your eyes are buried in your phone as you walk right at me. Even if I was not 6’2” and 280 pounds, I would still walk like a bulldozer. I am not easy to miss! As I walked up Headon Forest Drive, there were two girls from the Catholic high school who were walking toward me, side by each. One of them was looking up, the other was not. I saw them from 150 feet and assumed that at some point the one girl would look up, or at least her friend would tell her that she should do so. Neither of those happened, so when I was 15 feet from them, I said (in my best Drill Sergeant’s voice) Look Up! This is not something new to me – I remember doing it when I was in Japan a decade ago. The girl freaked out, hiding behind her friend and doing her best to get as far away from me as possible. Am I that scary? I don’t know… but I will not break my stride for you if you do not look up from your phone for that long. In truth, I suspected she might call the police because she was so frightened… but I did not look back at her, and no police cruiser stopped me (From that point I stayed on the same street for over 3km… I was not hiding!) so I guess I’m okay.

After not wanting to exercise but going out anyways, I was pleased to see another drop on the bathroom scale this morning. I did not get to cross off anything on the chart this morning, but dropping nearly a pound still felt good. I am now at my best weight since June 16! I suspect with what I have planned for today it will be the last day of losing weight… but we will see.

Yesterday I prepared egg salad sandwiches for lunch. It was my first attempt at egg salad, and while it was not great, it was also not bad. For dinner I made seared tuna with a sesame crust and a side of rice. Leslie and I were joking that with good tuna you just need to show it the pan… but in all seriousness I think I needed to keep them on the heat a little bit longer. Live and learn, right? We had fabulous cigars in the evening, paired with two different Cuban rums that were both smoother than silk. A good time was had by all, but we were both quite inebriated by the time we hit the sack.

I don’t know if I mentioned it this year, but I know I did last year. One of the apps that I use has a yearly challenge called You Vs. The Year. You have to log 1,024 kilometres of activity to be eligible to win the prizes (which I have no expectation of winning). Considering I was not exercising for a few months I am thrilled that I am currently at 744.89km on the year and am in the top 14.1% of 172,500 participants. Yes, it does log my walks with Sophie, so while I was not exercising at least I was not stagnating. I seem to recall last year hoping that I would complete the challenge by October. If I continue to walk as I have been these last few weeks then that is a real possibility for this year as well.

I mentioned a few paragraphs ago that I do not expect I will be losing weight today. I am planning on picking up shawarma for a late lunch. More often than not that is a recipe for gaining weight. I will likely not have much for dinner, but it won’t matter… shawarma is both fattening and salty, which means that tomorrow my weight will almost certainly be up. It is also extremely tasty… and a nice occasional treat that my wife and I both love.

I am not sure if I am going to walk today or not. The only reason why I would not is the blister on my heel. We’ll see.

Have a great day folks!