tues/wed

Tuesday, the only exercise I got, apart from at work, was jogging to work, 1.5ish miles. It was a busy day, though, and I tried to take the stairs at work as much as possible, plus I did my pushups. yay.

Today, I woke up and it was -300000C. I checked with the dog; he didn't want to be instantly frozen and shattered to a zillion bits. So we stayed in, and then I went to hot yoga which really did me some good. I wish they had a class where you could just go in and lounge around in there. I really miss the saunas in Korea, especially the not so hot/45ishC rooms with the carpets and so forth...I used to read and do marking in there for hours at a time, and I wasn't the only one who would live there, kind of. Some of these rooms even had TVs. With enough water and lack of movement, it was quite comfortable. The hot yoga room is at a similar temperature, but of course we have to move in there. Which is ok, but sometimes I think I'd be willing to pay just to hang out.

Anyway, I got that done and then Chemistry handed my ass to me--I have some serious grappling to do once I'm done posting here. My mood steadily got worse, and finally developed new depths close to run club time. Speedwork, in -20ish C windchill. It's getting kind of old.

So I jogged the dog for about 2.5 miles--his limit in this sort of cold, and then headed over, feeling like crud. Warm up with the group, same thing. How do all these people jog so fast? And how badly is it going to hurt when we actually get moving? And my face is half-ripped off by the wind already, my toes are cold, etc, etc.

However, there was one blessing: no snow! a bit of ice, but no snow. I couldn't believe it. There is still snow on my neighbourhood sidewalks, but I guess they keep the Hill plowed a bit more. I was wearing trail shoes which were rather clunky, but it was really nice to have something solid to connect to underfoot.

I was on my own, between the fast group and a slightly slower one. Not sure how this happened. I should suck it up and just go with the fast group, and I have done occasionally....but I felt like there was a black vortex of angst hovering over me and I didn't want anyone to get sucked in. And I didn't want to subject anyone to the harmony of my agonized breathing and clunky footfalls.

I did the first lap and couldn't believe the time. So I was like, ok, take it easy, but the next one was faster, and then I couldn't let the next one sag, nor the next one, nor the last---it was 5X 1000M:

4:15
4:06
4:03
4:01
3:58

not bad! especially compared to the first time we did this workout a few weeks ago, albeit in a blizzard: 4:35, 4:27, 4:27, 4:28...nobody did the 5th repeat, it was such a struggle.

Having clear pavement makes all the difference! And I guess I was feeling so crappy that a bit more effort didn't matter. Plus, I did a lot of counting down and so forth...mentally, I was surprisingly strong. I chopped up the loops and kept counting down...I've recently learned that it doesn't matter so much if I count down properly or accurately, or finish the countdown, lol...just counting down from 20 is a big comfort. 2 X 20 is much better than counting down from 40. Not sure why. I guess my brain is so blood/oxygen-deprived at this point that it doesn't realize that there's more than one count from 20. I start at 20 and somehow that's the end, and when it isn't, that's ok, because we're just at 20 and that's the end, and when that isn't, that's ok, because we're just at 20....lol

Total run, 10.61 miles. Low for Wednesday, but hopefully the weather will warm up soon so that I can ditch the Ninjaclava and the extra layers.