On Walden Pond

A friend suggested I see Walden Pond while in Massachusetts as it was fairly close to where I was staying. I didn't have a lot of time or energy to do much tourism, but before I left, I did manage to make it to Walden Pond.

For those of you who are not familiar, the writer/philosopher Henry David Thoreau lived there for a few years and wrote a book about it (which I've never read) and lived on land owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Being as I like to pretend I'm a writer and I love books, and ponds, and the woods, I decided it would be a good trip. It was the day after the marathon, so I figured walking around would do me some good. I was however, wearing my cowboy boots as I was anti-running shoes that day and my boots wouldn't fit in my small duffel bag anyway, so I had to wear them to the airport. I'm not sure if that was a wise choice.

The pond is now a state reserve and has a beach were you can swim and launch a boat. I bet it gets crowded in the summer.

Near the parking lot is a replica of Thoreau's cabin as well as a statue of Henry himself.

There was a path around the pond that would lead me to the original location of the cabin, so I decided to mosey on over. I took the "Ridge Path" thinking that if I stayed up on a ridge, I wouldn't have to do a lot of up and down.

Then there was this:

  Generally after a marathon, up is not the problem. Down on the other hand, problem. I have witnessed people (and have done so myself) hurtle themselves down the stairs in a vain attempt to either lessen, or shorten the duration of, pain accompanied by descending stairs after running a marathon. Seriously. And for some odd reason, my foot was killing me.

Then there were these:

I came down these. Rather awkwardly and quickly. I wasn't quite ready to hurtle myself down them, but it looked something like an awkward stumble I'm sure.

I never made it to the old cabin site as apparently 0.6 miles was too much for me to handle. I was probably fairly close but I was just hurting. Every 100 feet or so I had to stop and let my foot recover. But it was beautiful and peaceful nonetheless.

I had a plane to catch, so I hobbled back to my car. After a 6 hour flight home, I took off my boots to find my feet and ankles shockingly swollen. I tucked a blanket under the foot of my bed to raise it a couple inches and collapsed in bed.

This morning a lot of the swelling had subsided, but not all. My quads were stiff and sore and I waddled off to the bathroom trying not to bend my knees. There was a sharp pain in the side of my foot. I iced while I drank my coffee.

Today that foot is just not doing so well, so I've got an appointment with the podiatrist tomorrow. It's swollen and a little bruised and hurts to walk. The rest of me is starting to feel better. It's not that the people at the Student Health Center aren't nice. They're amazing really. But I'm really getting tired of spending my time there. For the past two months I have averaged two appointments per week (sometimes 3, sometimes only one) and for an hour to an hour and a half at a time. Duuuuuuude. I'm ready to not live there anymore.

But in all honesty, I would have to say that it's a small price to pay for the opportunity to take part in such an amazing experience. And I did not really believe I was going to walk away from this uninjured. Seems fairly minor though, as far as injuries go. We'll see.