Earlier this month, after my blood test results showed I was in the “At Risk” category for cholesterol, I wrote: “…I’ve added slow, flat one-mile jogs to the tail end of several of my daily walks. Jogging agitates my back, so I haven’t been running since the autumn of 2024. I’m going to take on some calculated risk with jogging as to back agitation in favor of battling LDL.”
Now that I’ve done some jogging for a couple of weeks, my back pain has increased. From what Dr. Google is telling me about my recent CT Scan results, jogging probably is not advisable. Thus, I’m giving up running, again.
Thankfully I can still walk. I enjoy walking. However, getting up to and sustaining Zone 2 Cardio is proving challenging when merely walking, let alone hitting Zone 3, the sweet spot of jogging. Less than two years ago, I was incorporating sprinting into my runs. Sprinting would be Zone 5. Those days are gone.
The continued degradation of my middle-aged body makes the propositions of Die With Zero, by Bill Perkins, ever more poignant.
With Love,
P. Gustav Mueller, author of The Present