Walking Progress Seems Absent, Even Reversing

 This morning, amidst the high humidity and stifling heat, I got up and steadfastly took a painful walk/run around my .7-mile home block,doing very brief, slow jogging on the road back.  It was difficult and punishing, doing this. I don't feel that I am making the degree of progress that I had wanted:maybe there's no improvement happeningat all!  In fact, I feel like I am sliding.  Simple motions are getting harder for me. I prefer to avoid outings that demand physical endurance, balance, and the strength required for me to adequately lift my feet and legs from the ground while maintaining a sense of functional balance.  It's very discouraging when I just want to turn up the air conditioning and go back to bed and hide beneath the sheets...

Considering Fitness and Brain Cancer this Very Early Morning

 Praise the Lord and Melissa, since last October when she insisted I go to tht NW 39th Avenue UF Health emergency roombecause of headaches and incoherent behavior, resulting in emergency extensive brain surgery leading to an aggressive brain cancer diagnosis, chemotherapy and radiation. I've been enthusiastic and prompt about accepting my oncologists' prescribed treatment plans. T o be sure, there have been some side effects from all this, including a lowered level o cardiovascular physical fitness that has limited my endurance in general life, especially with regard to Saturday morning Parkrun 5K events. Last Saturday morning I finished walking my first full 5k since January 10th, and This coming event, come rain or shine, promises to be another successful finish.  I like to keep an optimistic perspective on my health and fitness...yet I feel that a  bomb was randomly dropped on me just to thoroughly disrupt my life and hopes for a future self,alive and thriving on this Earth at my ageof 69.  I've heard from doctors and a nurse practitioner doleful predictions of just a few months more life expectancy for myself due to past rapidly growing gbm malignant tumors...will they start up again, escalating to another crisis?  This spring and summer, if I am assiduous in my training and careful about hydration and recovery, promises me a lot of progress with running strength and walking power and endurance, enough to successfully handle upcoming long distance races... including those run by the Florida Track Club, not just the Parkrun organization.  I know that, going through the tragedy of my son Will's passing in 2024, i was then in sound physical shape if you account for my cancer alarms starting to go off.  I know that glioblastoma can come back, and my UF Health physicians need some close consulting in case they decide to embark on a path of further treatments, which could well entail more surgery.. the idea is to fight this scourge and not just survive, but to thrive.  Well, it looks like the back yard is calling me out to run like Martinus Evans.  Gradually  building back up my time spent running (slowly) sounds like a good idea...This morning I arose between 3:30 and 4, and I ran-in-place in the living room for some 16 minutes...then I brewed some coffee and wrote this.  Look like I'll be returning to theback of the house soon, agitating my sweet Peewee Daisy in the process...

Warm-to Hot Saturday Afternoon with Additional Backyard Exercise

 Now that it is mid-afternoon, 80+ degrees outside, I'd like to report that after Melissa so lovingly and graciously drove me out to Depot Park, just a few blocks south of downtown Gainesville, I walked one solid lap during that Parkrun 5K before returning to the car.  Early on, E,J., one of their volunteer parkwalkers, got a nice, friendly conversation going with me.  We talked about the birds at the park and their beautiful and sometimes funny songs.  I brought up the fact that before my brain cancer diagnosis and surgery late last year, I had achieved a pretty fast speed-walking pace for Parkruns.  Now, I said, I can't even keep up with 80+-year-old visually-impaired Jon, whose walking pace seems nearly effortless as he seems to float along the path.  Next weekend I'd like to try the same course and extend my walk, hopefully for the full 5K distance.  Now I just came in from our back yard, immersed in the afternoon sunny heat, where I walked its inner perimeter for six minutes while our dog Peewee enthusiastically ran with me...it was pretty tiring! during this effort I listened in on Sufjan Steven's opening segment to his album-concluding track Impossible Soul. That 25-minute song now stands as my "Song of the Month" for March 2026 although it is now 16 years old. Now I'm sipping on some recently brewed coffee typing this after the close of my Saturday home exercise.  i plan to relax and watch some TV, maybe looking a bit at Khan's Shadow Magic novel...maybe not.  Let's all enjoy the rest of today and be thankful for the wonderful things we've been blessed with. Happy new spring season...