Only a week to go till the big day, and I just haven't done the preparation at all this year!
Admittedly I haven't felt too well for the last few days (getting better now!) but that doesn't really explain the rest of the time.
Being a bank holiday weekend I thought that, freed from the usual Sunday afternoon preparations for the week at work (which will be delayed til Monday!) I might have a bit of a walk today - well I suppose I did have quite a walk, but it was along the corridors of our local hospital, accompanying my poor old mom, who was suffering terribly with an allergic rash. I hope that, combined with a bit of up and down the loft ladder will suffice. Meanwhile, I learn that my co-participant brother has been out for a six mile run today!
During the week, the Fun Run pack arrived - this years number, timing tag etc. Really no pressure!
Seen the doc again this week - reminded him about my foot pain, and he noted that the anti-depressants had little effect....not depressed feet then!!! Can anything else be done .? Well I'm now booked in for a fasting blood test, and while I recognise the value of being screened for diabetes, this actually seems like more of carry out a standard test to rule out common diseases and doesn't seem to have much to do with investigating my specific symptoms. At least the blood pressure has settled down now (didn't tell the doc my medication had run out the previous weekend, and I had had only one dose split between two days at the start of the week, and nothing for the last three days!
My plan for this week? Well maybe I'll squeeze a little walk in tomorrow...For the rest of the week, apart from my gainful employment, I've set myself the task of providing half a dozen little flower displays for the Samaritans Centre to mark Volunteers Week which starts on June 1st, and doing two Information Events for potential volunteers, so I suppose my "training" will be more cerebral than physical.
A week from now, the Fun Run will have been and gone. I am certain I will complete it - I simply have to!
The plan to really beef things up with a walk longer than the Fun Run on the third "training session" really fell apart when Steve fell down some steps having drunk, he says, only enough to stop himself trying to save himself, which probably means that he didn't break an arm in the process. He was pretty sore, but better now and walking the canal towpaths. Me, I've really let things go, though a week off work when we had extra insulation put in the loft provided quite a bit of exercise carrying things up and down the loft ladder - that loft was really full and it all had to come out .... and a lot of it had to go back in again!
So I'm really doing much less than last year - on the other hand,
I've proabably remained more active, and I'm following my doctor's advice to shed a little weight. I did manage that "walk to the supermarket" thing yesterday!
Talking of the doc, he decided to try treating my foot pains with anti-depressants! I'd never heard of it, but looking up on-line it is a known treatment, though not what the drugs are licensed for. There's been a lot of guffawing about depressed feet, yet I think it does have some effect, like toning down a feeling of feet being clamped in a vice to one of feet being bound up very tightly (Think old skool Chinese style).
The treatment is still under review anyway, as is the blood pressure management - a medication change has relieved the ankle and foot oedema caused by the previous régime but that didn't make any difference to the way my feet felt - which is how we got to the antidepressants (it's a lower dose than used to treat depression),
ironic that as someone who does have to cope with what I think they call "mild to moderate" depression, I've definitely had the least depressed winter for many a year, and feeling quite buoyant at the time when I was put on those pills. Now I've swapped the oedema for a return to the Renaud's which precipitated my last change of blood pressure medication. I've reported the return of my "cold hand", which was quite rapid when I swapped to the new tablets, but neither the doctor or pharmacist at my current medical practice seem to think its anything - I haven't mentioned the R word to them - I assume its in my medical notes - they are thrown off the scent perhaps by the fact that I exhibit the symptoms asymmetrically, which is less common (who wants to be common?!) but known. Well for the moment the weather is warm so the symptoms are not too extreme and I'm trying to help by reducing my caffeine intake. I do like coffee and drink a fair bit, especially at work, so I now make the biggest part of my coffee drinking decaffeinated.
Well, you can see now why I've blogged so infrequently - I suppose I could change the name to "Walking and not walking" Still the Big Day is a whole two weeks away! (Gulp!!!) I will be there, I will walk, I will finish!
