Last Friday on my ride home from work I popped a spoke on my rear wheel. This bike lasted over a year before finally popping a spoke, which I guess is not bad. I made an appointment to take it in on Wednesday to get fixed and tuned up.
Meanwhile, I decided it’s time to start getting more exercise, so on Monday I started jogging again. I don’t think I’ve jogged since before we moved into our house in 2011, so my expectations were not high. However, I managed to run about 2/3 of a mile before I had to stop and walk for a couple hundred feet, and then I ran the rest of the way home. The 1-mile loop took me about 12:30.
Tuesday I did the loop again and ran it without stopping, albeit in about the same time. I got my bike back Wednesday, rode to work on Thursday, and then ran again yesterday and today. Today I stretched my run to 1.2 miles, though at a slightly slower pace since it was horrendously humid (at least for northern California) today.
I can definitely feel it in my legs, using muscles that aren’t often used to that extent. In particular my calf muscles have been tight all week, I suspect because I use them to run with a gait where I land on the balls of my feet rather than the heels, in order to not aggravate my recurring shin splints. But they’ve felt better today than earlier this week.
I know that the main factor in popping spokes on my bike is my weight, so my hope is I can alternate biking and jogging to work on getting that down. I’ve traditionally loathed jogging, so we’ll see how long I can keep it up, and what sort of distances I can reach on a regular basis.
Oh, and to go along with this I’ve started getting up an hour earlier on weekdays. We’ll see how long I can keep that up too!