Breakfast: Sourdough toast with almond butter, banana protein smoothie, coffee (recovery breakfast post workout)
Lunch: Leftover lentil bake and courgette and carrot salad (both made for an awesome packed lunch, consumed on the First Great Western train to London)
Dinner: Salad nicoise and a little bit of Pimm's. My host offered and it would have been rude to refuse. But I kept my imbibing to one very small glass. Self-control will be mine!
I recently sent my passport to the U.S. embassy for renewal. Yesterday, I got a call from them saying my passport photo didn't meet their requirements (British and American passport photo standards are different, a point they should mention in big bold red letters on their website). Fortunately, they send back my un-renewed passport with a terse note about the photograph and a service charge on my credit card. Instead, they will hold on to my application and I can send another photo to the embassy, Attention "Aaron" - American customer service at its best! It just so happens I'm going into London today, and can get my photo taken at Snappy Snaps on my way to my meetings.
After all this semi-stressful thinking about passports and official documents, I had endless dreams last night about getting lost in London looking for the Snappy Snaps by Baker Street station. In the dreams, I kept walking around block after block, finding places that LOOKED like Snappy Snaps with a big yellow sign and goofy font, but they were always something different. Meanwhile, I was getting progressively more stressed as I worried about being late for meetings.
All this dreaming led to a restless night's sleep, and I felt very tired when I awoke this morning, but not as tired as I am on the mornings when I've had any amount of alcohol to drink the night before. So, that was the bright side, and after a cup of coffee I felt ready to go to the gym where I planned to do 25 minutes of walking and 25 minutes of swimming (assisted by the pull buoy). However, while walking up the stairs to the treadmills, I felt a sudden sharp pain in my right thigh (surgery leg) - I think it was a cramp, caused by weird muscles I'm probably using as I compensate for the weakness in my right knee. So I didn't walk, but I did some other various things like situps and pushups (3 sets of 20!) and assisted pullups and kettlebell clean and presses. I was eventually able to muster a 10 minute walk but my leg and knee were feeling very iffy. Finally, I engaged the pool, and managed a 15 minute swim of 500 meters. With the buoy, I was fine, though "kicking" off of the pool wall wasn't really happening and I found it awkward turning around after each lap. But all that aside, I'm happy to have swimming back in my repertoire and await the day when I can swim freestyle again without the aid of a pull buoy. Hopefully just a few more weeks.
