Cold or Covid?

I'm feeling a little run-down, the way you feel when you're battling an annoying cold: runny nose alternating with slight congestion, fatigue, scratchy throat that can lead to a dry cough, but no fever, no body aches, nothing alarming. I suspect my son has given me Omicron but I'm not about to stand in line to find out. Although the county has set up testing and vaccination sites, there's debate as to how well they are staffed and if tests are actually available. 

Home tests for Covid are hard to find in actual stores: there's a lot of empty shelves these days what with weather tying up transportation and the virus taking out personnel involved in manufacturing and shipping. I'm hoping the newly discovered Deltacron stays in Cypress but we all know it won't...if it's real because there is, of course, doubts that it isn't the result of contaminated specimens. It happens.

I got my tires checked (the pressure light popped on this morning) and the oil changed at the local Valvoline. There's only a few guys working there today because more than half have either called in sick or quit. Whoa. Literally everyone seems to be short-staffed. Very few registers are open at the various supermarkets. The local CVS can't vaccinate people in spite of signage telling people that it's available. Why? Because half the staff is out sick and there's no one to administer the shots. It doesn't help that CVS (among other stores) has announced plans to shutter several hundred of its brick-and-mortar stores in an effort to feed online sales.

However, the sun is out and I'm not going to let arctic temps keep me inside. I do a mild workout because it makes my sciatica feel better. It's so mild that I'm barely warm after 25 minutes of cardio on the elliptical and I never take my hoodie off. Nor do I need to change my mask (normally it's drenched and I swap it for a clean, dry one in the Aerobics Room). After cardio, core and stretching and a not embarrassing amount of pull-ups and push-ups, I'm ready to shower and change. The gym is sparsely populated and a lot of the regulars are unexpectedly MIA. Hmmm...

It's 12F at the Bark Park but there's no wind so the frantic warnings about frostbite seem a bit overblown. My fingers and toes do get cold after 25 minutes, and since no other dogs and their humans have ventured out to the park, we leave. Dogs are disappointed. Later, I drag in a handcart of old, old firewood that was probably much more burnable 5 years ago, but it'll do if I get a store bundle of kiln-dried wood to start the wood stove. It'll get progressively warmer through the week, only to see the temps plunge to 3F by Saturday evening. Oh well... it is Winter after all.

11 January 2021

Post Covid Polar Tuesday & Sciatica

Precor elliptical

Program 3

Time: 20 min + 5 min cd (3620)

Distance: 1.92

Cal: 207

HR: 112, 129-165

HGPU 15

Crunches 60

Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch

60 Dead Bugs

Elbow Plank 60s

Quick Child’s Pose

Cat stretch 12x

Fire Hydrants 25 x 2

Bird Dogs 60s x 2

Child’s Pose

Push-Ups 25

Air Squats 25

Mild Mat stretch w 3 Eye Yoga

HGPU 15