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The cold I was grumbling about in my last notify e-mail is still with me, still feeling blah. I had an appointment for a follow-up treadmill stress test this morning (to see if the Toprol XL plus watching sodium, etc. has lowered my high-end blood pressure). That is, my resting blood pressure appears to be down, with systolic readings tending to be between 115 and the high 120s -- although my cardiologist says he'd like me to get my resting blood pressure down closer to 110 over seventy-something, just to be sure. I had an appointment with him earlier this week and he decided to get me on a treadmill now, rather than waiting until November. The question is, what would my blood pressure be during an intense workout (recalling that I hit 216/92 this summer -- which is when they stopped the test). If my b.p. on a treadmill peaks in the 170s or 180s, that would be a more reasonable reading for an intense workout (my "normal" blood pressure was in the borderline warning zone, but the red flags being waved in my case were because of that 216 reading -- "exercise-induced hypertension"). I've been trying to get in good workouts without pushing myself into intense effort -- but, of course, some of the best fun in physical activity is to once-in-a-while, really push yourself to the max.
So, because of my cold, the treadmill test was postponed until next Friday.
Anyway, what I wanted to show you are some pictures I took on Monday when Gillian and Nancy and I went hiking in the forest at the Arcadia Wildlife Management Area in western Rhode Island.
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| Most of the hiking was through woods where the view of the water was obscured
by trees and bushes, etc., but when we did come upon water views, they
were especially lovely with the autumn colors reflected in the water. I
was struck by the way the reflections of the trees sometimes appear more
colorful than the trees themselves. |
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We had planned on taking our bikes on the ferry to Block Island, but we
were both feeling tired when we got up in the morning (Monday was Columbus
Day, a school holiday -- and I took a vacation day) so Nancy suggested
instead that we go on the bike path through our neighborhood -- so she
roller-bladed while I jogged along side of her. We covered somewhere between
two and a half and three miles like that, then she switched from roller
blades to shoes and we walked a mile or so through a nearby park.
It was late afternoon when Jill suggested hiking in Arcadia... hence some
of the effect of steeply slanted sunlight in the lower picture on the right.
We mostly walked a trail that is described as being 1.7 miles and we did enough additional walking to total probably closer to two and a half miles. That was a good workout on top of the one Nancy and I had in the morning.
Some parts of Arcadia remind me of the mid-Hudson Valley and Catskill Mt.
areas of New York with tall evergreens and a carpet of pine needles underfoot
and here and there a boulder sticking up from the ground. |
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