I don't know how people run in the heat!

I took a two-week hiatus from running. It was not intentional, but sometimes life (and laziness) gets in the way. This past Saturday morning, after 15 days off from running (but not walking and weight lifting), I got back out there. The night before, I saw that the temps were going to be in the low 70s around 8 or 9 a.m., so I figured I was good. But apparently with a 12-hour lead time, weather.com could not get the temps right. By the time Bailey and I set out for our run at around 8:40, it was nearly 80 degrees with about 75 percent humidity and a real-feel temp of 80 or 82. Yuck.

Usually when I start running, I picture myself as this in-shape, attractive, nice-bodied 30-something. I had no such illusion this time. I was miserable about 5 seconds into the hot run. Bailey was racing down our hill, and I was ready to stop. But I soldiered on. She stopped to relieve herself early on, which was somewhat welcome, and by the time we got to the big hill at the end of the first trip, she was barely moving. I actually had to kind of pull her. When we got to the top of the hill, I stopped for a few second to catch my breath. I was pleased with the 6:17 time. Probably one of my longer times, but the way I felt, I figured it would easily take me 6:30 for that .6 miles.

Running back down the hill was a kind of relief. I don't remember much about the run back home, just that I was anxious to get back and drop Bailey and her BM off. Bailey must have been anxious too; she really pushed us that last tenth of a mile; we finished that half in 6:02.

Once I de-leashed her, I gulped some water, wiped the sweat from my forehead, and tried to apply a little more sunblock to myself, which was pretty pointless as sweaty as I was. After that several-minute reprieve, I got back out there and did the same run again. Nor surprisingly, the second revolution was worse. I ran 6:25 the the first half and an awful 6:53 the second half, but considering I had taken two weeks off and that it was hot and humid, I was perfectly happy with those times. I finished the run with another approximately .6 miles; I did that in just over 7 minutes and on mostly flat surfaces, so it was probably a little further. But even if not, I will take the 3-mile run in about 36 minutes.

I find it unlikely I will run again this week; maybe I will just go back to running weekly. I have been walking Bailey daily for about 1.2 miles. Plus I walk several days a week at work. And I have been keeping up with weight lifting.

I need to do better with eating, but I will take the victories where I can get them and just be glad these legs still move!

An interrupted run

I really wanted to wait to run until tomorrow, mostly because I washed my hair this morning and I hate to wash it twice in one day. But since today's high was only around 73, the humidity was nothing like it had been, and it was not very sunny, I decided to take advantage.

Just as Bailey and I started the awful hill, a little yorkie ran out and right up to Bai. Unfortunately, Bailey is not good with cats, so I am scared of how she might be with little dogs. I tried to yank Bailey away, but the little dog just wanted to see Bai. I left them sniff, and it seemed to go okay, but I was still scared. Fortunately, the owner of the yorkie picked up her dog, and Bailey gave up after a few more attempts. Then we started up the hill, but we lost at least a minute with that. So my 7:30 for the first mile was probably 6:30.

No sooner had we gotten to the top of the hill and turned around did Bailey stop to do her business. Fortunately the rest of the walk went pretty smoothly (though always annoying carrying a bag of crap). As usual, I dropped her off when our 1.2 miles were up, gave her some ice cubes, wiped off my sweat, took a couple gulps of water, and I was off again. But I don't recall feeling any pain anywhere, so yeah.

My second trip resulted in 6:23 for the first half and 6:36 for the second half, so pretty respectable. I ran for another 8 minutes around my street and the field at the end of it. Then I decided to run another 5:30, just so I could hit the 40-minute mark. Sure, there were some rests in there, but all in all, I feel good. I felt my left hamstring pain just for a bit, as well as my right knee pain for a different bit. But, again, it was good.

In fact, I kind of want to run a 5k. Hopefully soon.

Over 3,000 steps

Three weeks ago, I started a full-time job. Parking is no easy feat; if you want to park in the garage connected to the building, you have to pay a premium, and even then there is no guarantee there will even be a spot available. So I decided to park in lot that was a four-minute walk away. It worked out pretty well, but if I was not gone within eight hours, I had to pay an extra $2. Several days into the job, I found a lot that was $5 a day cheaper and good all day. But the catch was it was a seven- to eight-minute walk going at a brisk pace and covering about/slightly over 270 steps.

As it turns out, this has worked great for me. Working FT and getting home at around 6 means no more afternoon Zumba, swimming, or running (not that I did that last thing too often). But since I can get in these two shortish brisk walks and close to 550 steps a day, I have managed to stay in decent shape and my thighs are even better. Plus about 240 of the steps are down on the way to work, so I can shave off a minute and not be sweaty. At the end of the day, I actually try to jog up the steps. Sure, I am out of breath before I even hit the 200th step, but since I am headed to my car, it is all good. On top of that, at least three days a week, I also take a 10- to 20-minute walk in the afternoon.

I realize that in the heat of the summer and in the dead of the snowy winter, the allure will end, but for now, it is keeping me moving. In fact, when I went swimming today, for the first time in almost 3.5 weeks, my legs were not tired at all. Unfortunately since my arms no longer get a workout, those babies felt exhausted within two laps. Still, I managed to get in 20 laps, over two sets, plus some water treading. I was pleasantly surprised that I could do 18 arm dips and a dozen push ups. Normally I would do about 20 and follow that up with 20 push ups, plus try to throw in another set. But considering my layoff, I will take what I did.

Here is to the next update, which I am betting won't be for awhile, but which hopefully will not be because lack of exercise. 

I may be slacking, but I want credit for this.

I cannot believe that I last updated this blog over 1.5 months ago. In that blog post, I complained that it had been a month prior to that post since I had last blogged, and that I hoped it would wait so long again. Um, oops.

I think I kept up with exercise pretty decently the first third of December, but just before Christmas arrived, I was so busy, that for several weeks, all I did was walk a little once or twice. As a result, I gained a few pounds (though I think the bigger culprit there was the volume of sweets I have been eating for weeks).

We had let our pool membership lapse for a few weeks as I just did not feel like paying to renew or all that much like swimming. But when the kid and I walked around the mall on Sunday, that made me feel like a senior citizen (no offense to any of those, not that anyone reads this blog anyway). So I decided enough was enough, and this past Wednesday, we headed back to the pool. I eased into in, swimming just over 10 laps and jogging for a bit, and my legs bothered me a bit, which was something I was not used to when swimming. But I got back in there, and that is what counted.

Since I am often in competition with myself, I decided to go back again Thursday, sans kid, to see if I could really get in a workout. And that I did. I swam 15 laps, jogged for 10 minutes, swam 15 more laps, jogged for 10 more minutes, swam 15 final laps, and jogged another 10 minutes. I took one bathroom break in there somewhere and stopped to catch my breath only one other time. I also did some arm and leg exercises and then ended up five minutes of treading water. I felt really good when I was done, and, best of all, I did not devour a huge amount of food when I came home. I took it easy on myself when I went back the next day, jogging for about 15 or 20 minutes. Yesterday, we took a 15-minute walk. This coming Tuesday, I should finally get back to my weekly Zumba class.

I have no idea when I will run again (when the temps are 55 degrees at 9 a.m. before you reach mid January, you don't have much of an excuse not to), but I am pretty sure my knees are thankful for that lack thereof.

Here's to hoping I can keep up with staying in shape, however that ends up happening. Until next time, whenever that may be.

15 >> 45

The Race for Pace is just 11 days away. In the past four months, I have run about six times. In the past 30 days, I have managed about three runs. Sure, I have run up and down the steps a few times. I have also been swimming two or three times a week, but as for running at least two miles, on the road, well, that is just not going well.

As I was swimming today, I decided that if I don't run at least two times between now and next Saturday, I should probably skip the race. If I run three times, then I should be able to make it through, though undoubtedly with a time much higher than last year's (27:01).

On a positive note, today, I spent two hours at the pool. The title above refers to my workout there. I swam 15 laps, then I jogged around the pool for 15 minutes. I did that two more times, for a total of 45 laps and 45 minutes of jogging (it took me about 55 minutes to swim the 45 laps).

When I was barely into my second lap, I felt tired and unconvinced that I would accomplish much today. Not wanting to waste this alone time, I decided to break things up and alternate between swimming and running. Well, when you have the resistance of water fighting your arms especially, it is nothing close to running. But I am hopeful that makes the workout even better.

All in all, it was great exercise. It was probably not my fastest, but that I managed to get in the jogging and swimming along with some water exercises such as walking lunges, squats, and push ups, in a two-hour workout, I say bravo to me! (And let's just pretend that when I came home, I did not eat a brat, some cookies, a banana with PB, some tortilla chips and salsa, and a few gingersnaps.)

Hopefully, I will be able to write a post on Thursday or Friday, saying that I manged to get a run in on Thursday.

Stay tuned.

Swim, swim, swim

I may have to consider changing the name of my blog to "Swimming Around the Burgh." I just cannot seem to get myself motivated enough to run. That said, on Sunday, after I had swum about 10 laps, I actually wanted to call it quits for the afternoon. Typically, I try to swim about 20 laps. On a good day, I manage 25. On a slower day, I may complete only 15. I consider doing 10 laps a bad day. So why, even though I was not tired, did I find myself wanting to stop at 10? Did the monotony finally set in?

I took a break to play with my kid, and found myself renewed about 20 minutes later. Since there were about eight people at various parts in the shallow end of the pool, doing laps the entire length of the pool seemed too cumbersome. So I ended up doing laps the width of the pool. Because the pool is not very wide, that meant I could do between six and eight strides of each stroke, but it was enough to break it up for me and lessen the boredom.

I am guessing I did about 50 of those laps, during two different sets. I jogged in place and tread water a few times as well, so I ended up with a pretty good workout.

Hopefully, since the temps are cooler than the heat wave we had last week, I can manage to get a run in, but I won't hold my breath.

Might as well get used to this humidity now [hurl]

Yesterday the humidity was about 90 percent, temps were in the low 80s, and the sky was mostly sunny. I figured running steps was a more sensible choice because if I became too hot/uncomfortable halfway through my run, I would still have to make it back. If I ran steps, I could stop as soon as it became too much, and then walk the short distance to my car.

Compared to my running steps over a month ago, this time was pretty hard, because of that darned heat/humidity. I originally decided to run up and down 10 times, but by taking a 20- to 30-second water break after every five sets, I was able to run up and down 20 times. I was surprised I completed that workout in just over 18 minutes (not counting the breaks); compared to last time, it seemed as if I was running so much more slowly.

Had I not caught my breath and hydrated those few times, I am sure I would have stopped after 15 trips, maybe fewer. At one point, I actually felt a little sick. This is where a smart person would have stopped, but I just kept going, convinced that if I slowed down a bit and drank some water, I would be okay. I also reasoned that it is the middle of May, and it is only going to get hotter and more humid, so if I could not handle it now, how could I exercise this summer?

Fortunately, I did not get sick, and the feeling subsided about 10 minutes after I finished. I ended up going swimming an hour later. I took it easy, doing only about six to eight not-fast laps, but trying to keep moving for most of the hour of the pool (I swam 25 laps on Wednesday, FYI). I am definitely going to take it easy today!