A Great 60-Minute Run After Skin Cancer Surgery (Monday, Jan. 23)
I ran/walked for 60 minutes this morning and completed 3.35 miles. I could tell that I was going a bit faster than I've been doing, and my mileage shows that. As I've explained before, I don't push for any particular pace; I just let my body control the pace. During the first 1.5 miles, I used my run/walk routine of 3 minutes running and 40 seconds walking. During the remainder of the run, I kept the 3 minutes of running and walked about a minute. It's now in the late afternoon, and my wife and I just returned from a fast walk around the block, about 0.6 miles, giving me not quite four miles for the day.
The sky was cloudy and there was a 5 or so mph wind with gusts up to about 10 mph during my run/walk. The temperature was in the high 30s (F), and it was a nice day to be outside.
Today is the two-week anniversary of my Basal Cell skin cancer surgery. When I went in for surgery, the cancer looked like a small pimple on my lip. However, the cancer had spread from my lip about an inch up my cheek, and four Mohs layers were required to remove all of the cancer. The good news is that the cancer had spread into my cheek but didn't go deep enough to get into the muscle of my face.
I didn't do any running during the first week after the surgery, and last week I only did small amounts of running. Today is the first day since the surgery of good running and walking.
Another Great 60-Minute run (Wednesday, Jan. 25)
I ran/walked for 60 minutes, using my 3-minute/40-second time for running and walking, and I felt fine during the workout. I ran at the same pace and distance that I did on Monday. I could have gone another mile or so, but it was late afternoon, and the temperature was starting to go down. The temperature was in the low 40s (F) during my run. During most of the run, the sun was behind clouds, but during the last mile the sun came out, and I could feel on my back the warmth of the sun. It felt good.
On Monday I saw a group of ducks on the path, about 100 feet away, and I saw them again today. At first I thought they were quail since they stayed together as a group, but I'd decided on Monday that they were too big for quail. I saw them in the river when I passed the spot where I'd seen them on the trail, and they were the black ducks with white beaks. I didn't get a good look at their feet to see if they were webbed like duck feet.
My Training Site Now in Book Form
My training site at http://runninginjuryfree.org goes into a lot of detail about techniques for running without injury. The site has been online for about 8 or 9 years and gets about 400 – 600 new visitors each day. The site is now available in book form from http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/allenleigh. A PDF of the book can be downloaded for free.
