Thurs

Thurs: did the morning routine, went to a yoga class in the evening, plus ran with the dog for 5.94 miles. It was great weather for him, -10 and not too much wind, salt, or slush. I had hoped that Friday would be the same, so that he could get even more tired out.

Sadly, today was considerably colder...I don't like taking him out past -12 or -15 or so (that's including windchill). Sometimes he does ok in colder weather, but I just go around the block or whatever in case something happens. Today, though, he didn't even want to hang out in the backyard much, and has been sleeping most of the day. Admittedly, he's a little heavier than he used to be...I'm trying to cut back on his food a bit, but other members of the family are possibly sabotaging my efforts. LOL. I don't want to cut back too much, anyway, because a bit of flab will keep him warmer, but he should lose at least a little...I tried to pick him up to weigh him, and if that scale's right, he weighs 69 pounds. That's a lot. The vet had said that his optimal weight was 54 pounds, but that's when we first got him--he had just come from rescue/shelter (had apparently been there a month and weighed 48 pounds the week before we got him, so I can't imagine how emaciated he was when they first got him). At the same time, though, he didn't have much muscle, comparitively...he bulked up a bit honestly, so I suspect he could be a totally fit and ripped dog at 56-58 pounds or so. 69 is pushing it, though. He still has a bit of a waist but it seems hard to feel his ribs, and he's got this blob of flab on his chest and gut. Oh, well, I'm not going to worry about it until it gets warmer and we can do more about getting him his girlish figure back. And him carting around the extra jiggle seems to reduce the zoomies in the house, though I had him run up and down the stairs for a bit yesterday after the run to get that out of his system.

And I have a bit of extra flab on me, too, and I'm not going to worry about that for the time being, either. Maybe I should worry about it a bit more, because I grazed a lot today, but much of that was healthy. I'm eating pepitas right now, good source of iron, and I've stocked up on dried fruits and nuts in general. Also Emergen-C...well, as vices go, that one isn't too bad, but I'm wondering if I might as well just dissolve kiddy vitamins in water. It would be cheaper, at least. lol

Anyway, TODAY, I did yoga in the morning again, and then I polished off half of a school assignment (hence the grazing) and then I ran to run club. We were to do sprints, but there was too much snow on the ground for that, I guess, so our coach switched us to an easy run with 3 tempo segments. I guess they were all roughly a km. I'm not exactly sure of the pace, as I didn't bother hitting any of the buttons on the Garmin, but one mile was mostly tempo, I think, and that one was 8:20. Quite slow, but we were running on snow. Not through snow, or in snow, which would be even slower, but even packed snow is slower than a smoother surface. My jogging pace was around 11:00/mile. This is great practice for the ultra!

In total, I jogged/ran 10.24 miles outside--once I got going, it was great. Running on that still-mostly white snow was really neat, like a fresh page, plus it's fun running in the dark, plus my head was so well-insulated that I couldn't hear much of the noise I was making, so it was kind of like a movie and I could chill and watch it. Hey, maybe that's why I was slower than usual! I was glad to do that length of run with tempo segments in the middle--I think I've recently talked about that sort of workout, how it seems to really help more than just a regular warm-up, tempo, cool-down. 3K or whatever of tempo is an ok start, and maybe next week I can do 20 min of tempo, and see how it goes. That is if we don't do sprints. I could do with several weeks of sprints and then switch to tempo runs, but it was nice to get a taste.

After the run, I walked for another 1/2 mile on the FitWalk...I had the dog with me on that narrow belt, though, so it was even slower than last time. But the extra 69 pounds added a bit of resistance.

I will do resistance exercises now, soon....tonight, at least!