Training Log Archive: PG

Gunn Mountain Road from Falls Road up to North Mountain, and back. Jeep (ie. a little rockier than the basic dirt road). Pretty hard effort. But it was a cool day, so why not.

Back has been achy the last month or so. Certainly noticed it after this, though not much while doing it.

Two bits of walking, a couple of minutes.

North to Montague Center, back along the river. NW 10-15.

With Gail, north along the river, back via Montague Center.

Back to my regular eye doctor to see if new glasses are called for. Turned out to be a quite unexpected experience.

Started off with the technician as usual, she's the one who does most of the work. I was feeling in a very picky mood, wanted to end up with glasses that were as good as possible, but also not that optimistic as to what was possible. The left eye, the one that was operated on, still seemed a good bit worse than the right.

We spent quite a while on the usual drill. She'd make some change in the gizmo, ok, which is better, #1 or #2? Another change, which is better, #1 or #3? And so on, a bunch of times until it seemed like we had it as good as it was going to get.

And then she said she needed to check the astigmatism setting, so more number 1 vs. 2 comparisons.

And all the time, me still totally aware than the vision still isn't great.

And then she said she needed to check the axis, I guess that's another part of the astigmatism stuff, said she didn't check this normally because it didn't change, but after surgery it sometimes did.

So she was turning some sort it dial, and all of a sudden it was like looking through a set of binoculars at sometime that is a little out of focus and you turn the dial and there it is, nice and clear.

And my mind is going a hundred miles an hour. What just happened? Is this for real? And apparently it was, I was still just using the left eye and the vision was way better. And I'm sort going nuts.

So more time on getting that setting as good as possible, the overall change being something like 50 degrees in the axis. And then I ask, of course, can she check the axis on the right eye.

They normally don't change, she said.

You have to check it anyway, I said, just for my mental/emotional health. So she checks it, and we do more #1's vs. #2's, and we end up with exactly no change.

And I was still trying to process all this, as I am now. Does this mean I have two pretty good eyes? I think so. But I really won't believe it until I get the new glasses.

Off to the optician in a little while. Keeping my fingers crossed.

C • Wow! 5

Thought it was time to do a proper 5K, but didn't see any reason to choose a course of the standard "flat and fast" variety. So over to South Sugarloaf, just across the river, two loops, the first on trails, the second up and down the road.

The first time up had me worn out pretty quickly, to the extent that much of the time coming down was devoted to thinking about whether one lap was going to be it for the day. But going up the road, just walking, was a lot easier, as was coming down it at the end.

Overall, nice job of pacing myself, negative splits. The course turned out to be right on 5K. And the time certainly leaves room for improvement. :-)