On my right is this construction project, and nobody knows really what it is. I mean, obviously, somebody knows, but nobody that I know knows. A friend of mine who works in an area related to construction said that she thought it might be some sort of sewage station. Processing or holding or something like that, which I’m not really crazy about having in my neighborhood, but maybe it’s necessary. It’s just a big concrete hole in the ground and it’s just a mystery to me. And they’ve got it all blacked out with this screen so you can see kind of through the cracks in places. The top of the fence is over my eye level. So it’s really kind of difficult.

It’s a beautiful day today. I think it’s slightly over 80 degrees. I decided to just go out for a walk. I didn’t wear any sunscreen. But it looks there is some shade. We’re on the other half of what we’re calling the Spring Creek Trail, on the other side of the street. This is all new stuff, especially the part at the beginning with the blacktop and the yellow line in the middle. There seems to be quite a bit of shade, which is good because I didn’t put on sunscreen today, and I didn’t really hydrate well either. So I’m being hypocritical today. But I’m wrong, so there you go.

It looks really nice. It has street lamps, lighted just like the other side. It looks like this goes on for a while. So those will be lit at night and a little safer, I guess. It’s looking nice. There’s a street coming up that looks kind of busy. I’m not sure what street it is. There is some heavy traffic and fast traffic. There’s a stop ahead–for me, not for the traffic. So now I can kind of see this is Electric Avenue. And there’s a button I can push. There’s not really a light but there are signs and if you push a button the warning lights come on. And a truck stopped, so that’s really nice of that person.

And now we’re in a whole new world. We’re across Electric Avenue. This is familiar to me. This is Keystone Crossing apartment complex. So it’s nice, if you live in one of these apartments you can just walk out to the trail. A nice, shady trail, lighted at night, right outside your door. Almost right outside your door.

The last episode I was talking about my back and how it had kind of gotten better. I felt no pain for the entire walk that I did on the other side of the street. That was good. But I did have some soreness the next day. It felt like muscle soreness but I’m thinking it’s related to my misplaced vertebra and missing disc or depleted disc. Or possibly my narrow spinal column. Who knows? So today I’ve got a Lidocaine patch on that helps a little bit. I’m feeling no pain so far. I didn’t take the muscle relaxer I took last time, but I’m not sure that does anything. It’s supposed to be for muscle spasms. I’m not sure what that has to do with the pain, but it must be something since it was prescribed for pain. I’m doing pretty well today so I’m happy about that.

It’s good to get out and walk. You build up stress and exercise is really good for relieving stress. I’m walking really slowly. I didn’t look at my watch at the beginning, so I’m saying we started about 4 o’clock and it’s now about 5 after, so I’m moving kind of slowly and will probably will not be up to my 20 minute mile, which is pretty slow anyway. But we’ll walk a ways until we think it’s a good ways and then we’ll turn around and come back. Or until we get to the end of this trail. But we’re kind of getting out into nature because there’s a lot of foliage on the left hand side and the right hand side. This is October and the leaves are not really turning. So maybe that will be November this year. For a minute or two there, you don’t see any buildings or cars or anything. I thought this was going to be a bridge but it’s just a fence along the side of the road. And I guess Spring Creek is over there. It’s got to be somewhere. Maybe it’s dry here, who knows. I assume it’s somewhere, but not necessarily. I got that it went along the Spring Creek but I kind of got that from the surroundings and from what I saw on the other side, which is that it went along next to Spring Creek the whole way.

There’s a little animal rustling around in the bushes on the right. And I know which complex this is, too, coming up on the right. That is also on Electric Avenue, but it doesn’t look like there is an easy way to get to the trail from there. Up ahead is a school. It might be the school we visited in Episode 112 when we were doing a 5K walk, the Pheonix Burner 5K. I remember I was wearing my long-sleeve Running: A FEVER limited edition tie-dyed t-shirt. It has “LOVE YOUR LIFE” in big letters on the back. I never saw any pictures of me. They were taking pictures of everybody but I don’t know if they were published or where they were published. But that was the same school along Highway 412.

This is a pretty long road. I’m not going to be able to make it to the end of it, wherever the end is. Looks like there may be a curve up ahead, another one. This may be where I start going on a regular basis. It’s obviously a lot closer than Lake Fayetteville. Of course, you don’t have the view of the lake, but you do have an outdoor experience with a lot of greenery around. So it might be a place where I can do that, because I’ve got plenty of road to go along and a little bit longer here and there. It looks like there is a turn up ahead and it may just go along the highway. I don’t think we’re going to get there this time. I’m not sure the creek is anywhere near. I’m going to go ahead and turn around and go back. I’m going to go a little bit slower. People get a little nervous sometimes when you’re wearing a camera. I mean, if anybody ever complained about it, I would just say, “I’ll cut you out of the video,” and I would; it would be easy to do. I may have had that happen one time. He just kind of asked if I was recording video. But I don’t want this guy to think I’m stalking him, so I’m going to hang back as much as possible.

It’s a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky. The sun is shining. There’s not much shade on this part of the road. And there are huge towers of power lines. Maybe that’s where Electric Avenue gets its name, who knows. They are just enormous. And we’ve got another person walking a dog. Everybody seems to be walking their dog today.

One thing I didn’t mention. I’ve been losing some weight recently. It’s no big deal. I lost 30 pounds last year and gained it all back, so I’m trying not to get too excited. I do already feel a little better. I’ve lost between 20 and 27 pounds depending on where you start from. The highest I’ve been this year is 283 and this morning I weighed in at 256. My clothes are fitting a little bit looser. It’s easier getting up and down. It takes about 30 pounds for me to start feeling a little different. 20 pounds is not really a big deal when you weigh 280. I guess it’s less than 10%. When you weigh 280, 20 pounds is not quite as big a deal as someone who weighed 200. Some of what I’ve been doing may not be healthy at times. One thing is that I have stopped binging. I call it binging now. I used to call it a cheat meal that got enormous. I haven’t done that in over a month so that has helped me to lose some weight.

I’m having a protein shake in the morning with a little psyllium husk for fiber. Then I’m usually not having lunch and having a usual dinner. Sometimes a light dinner, but it’s a usual dinner. Hopefully not a full size frozen pizza though sometimes that happens. These days I usually have soft tacos or a smaller pizza. I make pizza with tortillas because with my braces, I can’t eat crispy tacos anymore, so I eat soft tacos and I get the tortillas at the grocery store. So I’ll just take one of those and put pizza stuff on it. And it’s pretty good. Sometimes I’ve had French toast for supper. When I have extra bread around I have to either eat it or freeze it. Sometimes I have that and I have an egg that I need to use as well. When I want something sweet I may make some cinnamon toast with Smart Balance and Splenda. That’s what I’ve been eating.

We’re safely across Electric Avenue with the lights flashing. So I hope I can keep up what I’ve been doing and get back to a healthy weight. That would be nice, especially considering the health reasons that I need to do that. I’m sure it would help my back feel better, not having to carry around all that weight, in addition to my liver and my borderline diabetes. There are a lot of health benefits to being at a healthy weight.

They really do have this construction site fenced off. It’s just a mystery. Nobody knows what it is. It’s been going on for months, maybe a year. There’s a big, yellow crane over there. I want to see if I can get a look over this fence with my camera. It’s above my eye level so if I hold the camera over the fence I may be able to see what’s going on. Through the screen I can see some guys in yellow shirts working on something at the bottom of the pit. They are in the sun and I’m in the shadows so it makes it easier to see.

We’re back on the nice blacktop that they’ve put in. And this guy’s driving right down the trail here. I got him on camera driving on a walking trail. I don’t know what he’s carrying. It’s kind of a smell I can’t identify. Maybe that’s why they put the road in there before they are finished with the construction.

Anyway it’s been a nice walk today. I hope you enjoyed this new adventure. And remember, if you’ve got the fever keep it, and if you don’t, catch the fever and I will see you next time on video on Running: A FEVER.