Week 4 - Monday 06 Feb

Week 4, and the start of the second half of my time here.


Yesterday's Super Bowl party was great. It was at the home of Erik, one of the long term PW clients, in Corona, about an hour's drive from here. Erik's parents house has a pool (with slide and waterfall!) that looks out onto the mountains on the edge of the desert. They kept about 40 people really well fed and entertained. It was fantastic to get to know many more clients and their families and to learn their stories. As Mark Brill said it would be, the game was a bit secondary - and I probably understood about 30% of what was going on. Madonna's half time show was pretty spectacular (even with her tight hamstring, one slight stumble and lip synching, or so they say!). They know how to entertain out here! On a day of firsts, I tried Moonshine - but only one small one, so as not to end up in the pool!


One session today was cancelled, so I had just two hours with David. I filled the third hour on the spin bike and something called the Curv. The Curv is like a treadmill, but it curves up at the front and back and you power it yourself - the further "up" the curve you land your feet the faster it goes and the faster it goes the harder it gets. It really challenges you to get an even stride length and a steady cadence. You have to get a good foot strike and push off, challenging the ankle flexion, hamstrings and glutes. To vary the neuro challenge and increase the work for the hamstrings, I try powering it with one leg and going backwards. David suggested that I add a one hour warm up before my training sessions - 30 minutes on the spin bike, 30 mins on the Curv. That will mean that I'm now extended to 4 hours a day, just on my walking (plus a couple of hours on my hands). Busy days! All paying off, I  think.


You'll remember that last week I reached 4mph on the treadmill with comfortable gait. This morning I increased that to 4.5mph. At 5mph, things were still going well. So we pushed it to 5.5, then to 5.7, then for just a few seconds to 6.0 then to 6.2 mph (at which speeds, my feet started to flail, although my knees were still coming through well). Last week I was told that the average speed to break from a fast walk to a run is around 6 to 7 mph. Today, we found that for me that's 5.7 mph. Today, albeit in a harness, for just a few seconds and with messy feet and other imperfections, I ran for the first time!!


That's still sinking in. I don't have the words to describe how it feels.