I’m Back, Baby

One week ago my back went out although it only kept me squatting on my kitchen floor for several minutes. What confounded me was that I’d becoming fairly convinced that my new aches and pains were the result of my shoes pretty dramatically being worn out.

In fact, since getting new shoes because the ones I find most comfortable not only came out of supply chain hell but were on sale just in time for my birthday, my back had been improving steadily. It took almost all of the intervening week for effects of last Tuesday’s sharp, shooting pain to abate.

However, after just shy of a full month in shoes whose heels aren’t worn away at a a ridiculous curving slant, and so with my biomechanics no longer out of whack, this afternoon was the first time in ages that my daily walk not only hit the full 1.41 miles but did so at an average pace of 16 minutes, 31 seconds per mile.

That’s well into what I deem my exercise pace, although generally speaking my commitment is more to completing a walk than to hitting that pace. Still, today I hit it, and my back is fine.

I think at this point that the shoe theory is pretty well borne out by experience since mid-October, and last week’s hiccup likely was an artifact of the biomechanical whiplash of going from (understandably) failing to adjust to worn-out shoes to adjusting to new ones.

I’m still keeping an eye on my back when I need to reach for things, and trying to train myself to bend at the knees more, of even just get down on them when I need to go low, but in general I think the back urgency is past.

One other change that should help the walks: since I’ve had to switch to walking after lunch instead of after dinner now that it’s cold and dark early, starting today I’ve swapped lunch and dinner. I feel better getting in the walk after my largest meal of the day, so for the duration lunch is the rice bowl and dinner the sandwich.

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Referring posts

• It Was Almost As If They Were Organized