OFF TO MY FREE OUTDOOR WORKOUT GYM
The MINI-STROKE suffered late April 17th causing mental confusion and inability to make needed corrections in my writing, along with acute headache in the left forhead and eye, was mostly gone by the next morning. Remaining was some weakness and fluttering in my left eye, and worse than usual balance along with some lack of energy. I was greatly relieved being able to understand my writing and quickly did the needed corrections and then immediately began careful exercise, and soon began going to the foothills, like every other day and carefully began working out, each day a little further on more and more difficult trails…..and was so happy and grateful to the Lord and to friend’s encouragement, to be doing pretty good.
But, a few days later when getting higher up the trail, and then coming down in a very steep area some call “ROCK & ROLL” I all of a sudden was a bit careless and lost my balance, but having learned from my young guardian angel, TED, (of course you know I’m sort of joking as I’ve actually never seen him….yet) how to fall without hurting myself, I was able to keep from actually “rolling” but awakened again to the reality of being in my 88th year and swore to never let down my guard!
By Wednesday, May 3rd, I’d made a lot of progress, but mad at myself for several times backing off and not pushing myself hard enough to meet my goals going up the mountain (actually hills, but for an old guy IT’S A MOUNTAIN!)….NONE OF THIS WAS ACTUALLY EASY & WITHOUT PAIN…..but to that day I’d been blessed with a lot of encouragement and support from friends, and by that date had been given encouragement from two very special friends–one that morning on Facebook, so became determined to make it to what I call THE VALLEY VIEW area, but going up the front where I would likely be alone and not seen limping and struggling along with pain on my face. So, with enough water, and my lunch in my waist pack, up I went……and was surprised to see one young lady along the way who was coming down!
Even though I really felt good after the above accomplishment, and didn’t really feel tired, I rationalized resting too much….for 3 days, and suffered a sort of relapse, or mini-mini-stroke, and had to then back off a little to begin again working back up to what had been my maximum this year. After a good workout it’s fine to take one day off, but no more for this old guy. KEEP MOVING or RISK GOING DOWN-HILL RAPIDLY!
For me it helps to mask the difficulty and sometimes pain by being on the lookout for what I call VISIONS OF NATURE that always inspire me and so I’ll insert below a few views as I got higher and higher, along with some of the wonderful bursts of spring that always make this season of the year enlightening when I see beauty in almost everything from the rocks, to the budding trees and bushes. to the exotic plants in their first stages of development, and some of the first colorful flowers–that in the actually desert like conditions of the foothills don’t last too long as soon the hills do turn into a desert.
This plant of the foothills will take a bit more time to blossom. I’ll report with a photo when it does.
We see below the blossoming is beginning. I’ll keep an eye on it and photograph its progress.
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