When 75 Minutes Is Forever

Linear Trail; 48 degrees; splits 10:01; 9:55; 10:41; 9:55; 40:32 total for 4 miles; 10:08 per mile pace.

Wonderful, marvelous, exhilarating...words cannot accurately describe how good it felt to run yesterday after a 2 week hiatus. The Jeff Galloway run-walk-run (TM) method is going to be my saving grace. I honestly believe that. A 10:08 pace per mile for running 6 minutes and walking for a minute over and over again works well for me. This was my third time using this method, and it was better than ever. The walk breaks allowed me to not only rest my heel, but also to feel fresh after a 2 week layoff. Unfortunately my heel still seems to be swelling after I run, and since I was going to the Mets home opener last night (They lost 6-5), I didn't have time to ice my heel. Fortunately the swelling disappeared as I sat watching the game. The "tingly" feeling still remains however. I do believe I'm making progress. Today I had an appointment scheduled with the podiatrist I saw 3 months ago. My gut feeling told me to go get a second opinion, but my laziness in not scheduling with a different podiatrist had me going to see him today. Keep in mind I scheduled this appointment 8 days ago. Yes, this is leading to something. I arrived at my 3:45 appointment 10 minutes early, since the traffic light Gods allowed the 4 million (OK, I'm exaggerating) traffic lights between my house and my podiatrist's office to be green. I walked in and was surprised to see 3 other people already sitting in the waiting room. At 3:45, I discovered that the women who was next had a 3:00 appointment. At 4:05, she went to see the podiatrist. At that point I determined that I would probably get to see the podiatrist at around 4:50 if I was lucky. At 4:30, the woman with the 3:30 appointment went in, so I figured that I had about another 15 or 20 minutes to go. At 4:50, the podiatrist started loudly questioning his office help why the woman was only scheduled for 15 minutes for a procedure that was going to take a lot longer. After a minute of listening to the podiatrist and staff member arguing, I decided that it was time to leave. Why should I stay there, when he was going to be running 90 minutes late by the time he saw me? I honestly believed that I would be rushed out of his office as quickly as possible, since by then 2 other people had sat down in the waiting room. Plus, how unprofessional were they to be arguing loudly enough for all of us to hear?! Also, wouldn't it have been courteous to let me know that the doctor was behind schedule, and see if I wanted to reschedule my appointment? So, tomorrow I will be scheduling an appointment with another podiatrist. I knew I should have trusted my gut feeling and not gone back. Oh well, live and learn...but, hey, again, other than a tingly sensation in my heel, it feels great!