It’s been an odd few weeks. I hadn’t done much in the way of exercise since early June, first because of the time demands of a family wedding and second because, as soon as the wedding was celebrated, Kirstin and I both came down with colds that lingered. I’ve been around the block enough times to know that exercising before the body has recovered is a bad idea, so it was only last week that I went into the swimming pool a couple of times and, yesterday, into the gym.
The gym was busy so I didn’t do my full routine, but I did enough to find out the hard way that I’ve lost a bit of strength on the free weights. The plus side is that my previous efforts with free weights and upper body work made the return to the pool less difficult than it might have been. Anyway, I took a turn on a treadmill yesterday – set at an incline and a decent walking pace. On a whim, I also did some light jogging, basically the equivalent of 1km, my first attempt at jogging since the knee problem emerged in February. Happily, I had no reaction in my knee when on the treadmill and haven’t had any today.
I am well aware that I am not ready to go back to running, but I am pleased that I appear to be in a better place than I was five months ago.
Plenty of walking today, and a nap this afternoon. My knee may not have reacted, but the rest of me did.
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Recent reading
Two new novels formed my reading this week, both quite different.
Paulo Bacigalupi’s Navola is a dark fantasy, grimdark even, that requires close attention. It’s a mashup of renaissance banking and trade, Rome and The Godfather. I enjoyed it a lot and look forward to the sequel in due course.
Deborah Harkness’s The Black Bird Oracle is nowhere near as deep or subtle, but it is an enjoyable page-turner. It doesn’t have the historical depth of the first two books in the sequence (A Discovery of Witches and The Shadow of Night) but that’s OK. I’m not being slighting – it was an enjoyable read after the more hardcore Navola.
Both books are waystations as I finish the current story collection and the back of my mind turns to the next novel or two. More on that later.
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