since last update

I have run five times.

3 thirty-ish min runs, including one especially bad one. I'd hoped to run further but I was pretty inflamed that day anyway and the run wasn't working out.
The other two runs were average, out 15ish min, back in slightly less.

1 55 min run in which I picked it up more going back. I was sore and slow as usual, but I was happy with that one.

And then, today, I ran for 1:30ish. I took a 3 min walk break every 30 min and then jogged a bit after the run. I needed the breaks because I decided to go at my old easy run pace, excepting snowy/slushy/icy sections, of course, but I still tried to push through those.

I know that I should be going by effort and not by pace, but my easy pace now hovers around 10:30/mile, slower if snowy, and though I do a fair job of keeping up cadence, it doesn't feel mechanically suitable. Nor it is fun. It's necessary, but I've gotten pretty sick of moving like that.

Plus I was feeling the effects of x-training, I think, which helped to go faster.

X-training has suffered. I don't do my resistance or harder yoga routines any more because I don't recover well from them. Inflammation level rises, and I get night sweats and insomnia. Taking a couple of aspirin before going to bed helps, but I'm not sure how good it is to do that in the long run. LOL.

So I decided to reduce the intensity and increase the frequency. I learnt about it in a push up workshop a while ago. There is a name for this Russian system of strength building but my mind is drawing a blank. Anyway, with push ups, I do 3-5 every time I use the toilet (public toilets excluded for sanitary reasons, lol). The idea is to push hard, but not too hard, but often. I also have been doing at least one 1 plank every day, and then some more core exercises sometimes, and also deep squats, more to loosen my hips than to build up quad muscles--I would like to do that too but they're already pretty achy. With Asian toilet squats (I don't know what else to call them!), there is less muscular resistance. My goal to get a tight core and more flexibility in the hips so that the torque will happen more there, open my stride a bit more perhaps, and less in my upper body. Maybe.

I've also been doing some mental stuff, mainly muscle activation. I have worked with stroke patients and often a significant part of recovery is imagining moving something which doesn't actually move (yet): a good tool is the mirror box, which is placed over the weak hand/arm so that the patient can see the reflection of the good hand/arm moving. This tricks the body into thinking that the weak one is moving, and so the muscle fibers and nerves are still engaged even if the part isn't actually moving. In the absence of a mirror box it's still useful to concentrate deeply and feel as if the part is moving. It's hard to explain and I'd hate to use the word 'pretend' because it's more intense than that...at any rate, I've been toying with this while lying down. I 'feel' like I'm running. I've worked up to ten minutes so far. That's longer than I concentrate while actually running, I think!!

I've also been working on relaxing my jaw, letting my tongue drop from the roof of my mouth, etc. This comes up in yoga quite a bit, but I never thought about it while running until a week or so ago, when I read an article about mouth plates/guards that are engineered to allow athletes to relax their jaws more. This increases oxygen intake. Reading that made me realize that my jaw is sometimes sore after long runs, so I figured I might as well tinker with letting it go a bit.

So, anyway, with these three things I've been working on, I think my form has improved a bit. I hit the pavement today and, man, my core was tight. Everything was tight, but my core was tight in a good way. My stride was more effective. My first two miles were at about 9:20/mile, which is very good. I was breathing a bit more, but still 4-2. I was sore, but that's the chronic thing going on--running faster makes it worse, but my level of discomfort today felt like 10:00/mile; I was happy with 40 seconds less.

And then I hit snow! lol. I pushed through as best as I could.

The branches were covered in ice, and there were quite a few fallen ones. Going through the snapping orchestra of the Arboretum was kind of exciting. It was a good run despite having to punch through a few inches of snow at times.

My goal is to jog 3 hrs before the end of the year. I will have to go at an easier effort but I'll make a bit of an event about it, stop for expresso, etc. It was good to run a bit faster today, though!

sooo

I haven't run much since Wednesday. LOL
We went south this past weekend. The nice thing about snow is that it's relatively aloof in some ways, compared to rain. Snow gets on you, maybe melts a bit, and then is easily brushed off. Rain soaks through to your bones, especially that dank obstinate rain hovering around the freezing mark.

There was a fair bit of cold rain this weekend.

Admittedly, I didn't run because I spent too many pretzel hours in the car, but the rain was an added deterrent.

Once again, I find myself pondering the possibility of this winter marathon in Feb. I've done several 2-3hr runs already; all I need is some 3+ hr runs and I could probably complete it. But I feel like I really need to be running more than 2X a week, but it feels uncomfortable and useless. And my dog is not keen on running in this weather. He ran with me a lot during winter last year, but this year he fades more quickly. I still walk with him, and that what my runs have turned into. Maybe after my killer exam in a few days, I'll feel more agreeable to running.

Meanwhile, I'm still doing core work. It actually isn't so bad recovery-wise. I'm trying to continue yoga, too, but just yin and gentle. Stuff that works muscle without too much damage. Too much damage: pain keeps me awake and I get night sweats. One night, I actually had night sweats while I was awake (I couldn't sleep because of soreness). It was the weirdest feeling; it felt like there was a good jolt of adrenaline.

speedwork! (relatively)

After a couple of days of walking, I figured I was fit enough for speedwork. I had planned to go to run club, but then I took the leftover capon, made broth and then made soup, and then figured that I could have soup after my run two hours earlier AND run in daylight if I went at 4 instead of 6. So I was on my own.

I think I would have been on my own anyway. It was a blizzard out there. I don't think I would have heard the coach's whistle. I barely heard my Garmin beep: I programmed the workout: 3-5 X 4 min fast, 2 min recovery.

I did 4 repeats at about 9:40-10:00/mile. Yes, that was fast. A few inches of snow and strong winds more of it into my eyes bogged me down. But I kept pushing and kept my breathing up and it was strangely satisfying to push against something else other than myself. It seems that my muscles are usually too inflamed to maintain an elevated aerobic effort for long, but with the added resistance of the snow, I somehow got a good workout. It felt comfortable to run in the snow, too. After a while, of course, I got tired of sliding sideways, but I was expecting it to be a lot harder.

Looking at my log, I see that in January, I was doing 800M at about 2 min/mile faster in blizzard like conditions (mysteriously, blizzards happened quite a few time on run club day), but that was on the Hill with some/most of it plowed. The club usually does speedwork there because it's one of the first--if not the first--to get plowed, and they keep the plows going there. Today, I was totally 100% on unplowed stuff.

I'm definitely feeling more optimistic about training. It'll be a very good sign if I don't feel too beat up tomorrow.

I'm still not at the point of running every day, and that might not happen for a while. I've resumed core work and yoga after last week's illness/break.

a good start to a rough week

Well, turns out that I had indeed pushed myself too far. I went to the clinic on Tuesday and was prescribed antibiotics. So, I got more inflamed, more sleepless at night, etc, etc...I tried running on Friday but after ten minutes, it seemed pointless to continue to be miserable.

Saturday afternoon/eating was mostly dedicated to eating: cheeses and crackers and duck rillettes, fig and goat cheese appetizers, capon, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, salad, bread pudding, chocolate cake, ice cream, plus candy at the movie theatre and a bag of chips in the evening. I'd lost some weight plus my appetite, but fortunately both returned. Actually, I'm still heavier than normal these days, but there are right ways and wrong ways to lose (and gain) weight, and my critical eye drifts towards cellulite rather than numbers when it comes down to aesthetics. I've been heavier and more toned before--I'd prefer that!

At any rate, after downing 30000000 calories, I felt like less of a wimp this morning. Jogged for 2 hrs stiffly but comfortably enough. Just 11.2ish miles, but that's about normal these days and part of it was on trail.

So, once again, I'm feeling optimistic.