I Ran a Little Today

Tuesday, April 10, 2012:

Today is three weeks and a day after the hernia surgery. As the doctor had suggested, I ran softly for about 10 seconds out of each two minutes. It worked. When not running I walked pretty fast, almost a race pace. 4.44 miles in 1:06:38, for a pace of 15:00. That’s better than last week.

I did occasionally feel a slight ache in the area of the surgical repair, however, so I think I’ll hold off any more running until next week. I’ll be in New York City, so it might be fun to walk/run in Central Park or Riverside Park.

Saturday, April 7:

The skin around the site of the hernia surgery feels quite tender, as if it were burned, although it was not injured in the surgery at all as far as I know. The surgeon calls this paresthesia, and considers it a normal side effect from surgery. Huh - the things they don’t tell you beforehand. Anyway, it’s not terribly painful, but that pain does tend to mask the deeper pain from the surgery - it’s easy to confuse the pains. I would like to use pain (absence of) as a guide for increasing my exercise, but the paresthesia makes that harder.

Since I did feel some ache on a few occasions yesterday, I walked slower and shorter today, again with the girls. 2.4 miles in about 45 minutes, around 19 min/mile. Good enough - rushing the recovery is inadvisable.

Friday, April 6:

Grass trails in the park, 5.0 miles in 1:27, pace 17:24. The girls and I chugged right along, at about the same pace as Wednesday, though we did stop briefly once or twice. There is still an ache in the abdomen, at the surgical site, if I go too fast or land too hard on my feet, so I do have to walk softly and not at a maximum pace.

Wednesday, April 4:

Grass trails in the park, 4.4 miles in 1:17, pace 17:30 . I walked as fast as I could go without pain. This is a fairly hilly trail, which makes it a bit slower than a flat trail would be. No running yet, except maybe a few steps when going uphill, which is a lot easier on my abdomen than flat or downhill.

Tuesday, April 3:

Elliptical machine, 30 minutes at level 8, 70 RPM, 7 MPH, 3.5 elliptical miles.