Divide and conquer

The weather has been great for running: it's apparently slightly unseasonably cold, and I love it!  Despite lingering inflammation, I ran a bit over an hour with the dog this morning.  We were running for about 70 minutes, but at least a few of that was walking/standing in place/bossing around other people's dogs.  Yep.

We ran the goat loop for the third time today, and I forgot to check out the goats!  Anyway, there were no issues for the first two miles, and then we came across two large loose dogs.  However, they were either well-trained or subject to an electric fence: they stayed behind an invisible line halfway down their driveway.  Cool!

We turned the corner and another dog trotted out into the road, just halfway as we passed it.  Cool.  Oh, but then its buddy turned up and then ensued about 200 metres of showboating, but both dogs were tubby and I wasn't really worried.  We stuck to our jogging pace and they never caught up to us, and they gave up soon.

We turned another couple of corners and then I heard a ruckus ahead.  Three dogs tore down a hill towards us.  Loose dogs appear larger than life at first; I suppose an adrenal kickstart amplifies.  One appeared to be my dog's size, and the other two were smaller. 

At any rate, they were blocking our path, so I sadly turned around and we headed back the way we came, toward a large hill that we would now have to ascend.  Joy did not put a spring into my step, and the dogs drew nearer.  These guys had a wider range than the last bunch.  After a couple of minutes, I started to worry (not enough to pick up the pace much), but a minute or so later, I sensed uncertainty.  Ah-hah! 

The biggest dog was the first to drop back.  I started encouraging them, hey, you've come this far, what's stopping you?  come with us! etc, plus a few expletives.   I beckoned them and the hound and the smaller terrier took the bait at first; meanwhile, I heard a distant voice calling, and I suppose the big dog went home because we didn't see it again.

The hound came closer, and its demeanour changed abruptly from snarling to simpering.  Perhaps it finally got too far from home, too far off its turf.  I stopped running and called it over; it came hesitantly, tail wagging, and it and my dog sniffed each other.  Meanwhile, the terrier turned around.

I grabbed a thick stick just in case the big one popped out of nowhere onto us--I've never struck a dog with a stick, but some dogs are intimidated by the shape and/or resulting stance--and we turned around too.  I really didn't want to run back up the hill now behind us again!  We coaxed the hound to come with us, and we eventually got to the terrier's yard, and the terrier barked and barked but wouldn't step out of its yard anymore.   I'm not sure if the big dog also came from there, or if all three dogs even live in the same household, but the terrier's yard was in front of the only house displaying the Confederate flag I've seen so far around here.

The big dog didn't pop out of nowhere, and the hound and the terrier didn't follow us past the yard this time.

We might collect a prophylactic stick prior to that stretch next time, although the dogs seem pretty reasonable--the trick will be to deflate the large one first.

We ran home and I did more weights, no Zwow although I did do some single-leg squats in Z's honour.

A dog on a leash!

This morning there was another car outside the forest, strangely the first modest sedan I think I've seen there.  Usually it's vans or SUVs.

We were just walking this morning because I'm having sort of a painful morning, just more of the same but a bit more this morning.  Maybe I'm more inflamed because of the weights yesterday (worth it).  I'm getting over a reaction on Friday, and I think the culprit was grain vodka.  I wasn't worried about distilled alcohols before because ethanol vaporizes at just under 80C, and the most that proteins do as far as I know (unless temps are very high) is denature.  They don't tag along for the ride.  But, there is the old issue of cross contamination!  But I haven't quite given up on this vodka yet, I don't drink it often, but sometimes a shot or two hits the spot...maybe I'll give it one more chance because there's a slim chance it could have been something else.

So, anyway, we walked this morning, saw the car, and I hoped for the best.  But my dog was very interested in sniffing bits of debris freshly kicked up and I figured that there was a male dog somewhere ahead.  A few minutes later, we saw a man with a German Shepherd ON A LEASH!   I tucked my dog in close and just behind my right leg (the man and the dog were to our left), and the man handled his reactive dog appropriately: he also kept it close and not ahead of him, and he put himself between us and his dog.  And neither dog made a noise or moved of their own volition--yeah, it wasn't the most comfortable passage with two powerful male dogs staring at each other (my dog knows "head down" but it never lasts long), but both were obeying their owners.  Next time we pass each other, I will keep my dog close and walk/jog by with an easy heart. 

That's how it should be!   It was such a nice change!

The Flinch

So, you're supposed to embrace the thing that scares/disgusts/etc you the most....

Darwin award performances aside, there is something to be said for accruing mental toughness.  Which I really need to be doing more often these days.  Although, I am honing mental agility, I think, or at least regurgitation.  I'm still adrift in the sea of Linear Algebra...ok, I fucked up.  I had the choice between calculus and algebra.  And Calculus scared me because somehow I forgot that I had gotten an A in OAC Cal eons ago (but isn't it like riding a bike?) and somehow I missed reading the word "basic", as in "Students should have a deep understanding of basic algebra and trig", which I have, and somehow I failed to notice that the course number for the algebra course is higher, and sometimes this doesn't mean anything, but sometimes it does.  There is a bit of calculus in this course too, and much much more.  Long story short, I really should have seized the Flinch with this decision because I might have ended up with the easier course. But now I have a new Flinch in my grasp, which is actually plumbing the depths, and I had a minor breakthrough earlier this morning while watching a Gilbert Strang/MIT lecture, and he had a matrix up on the board and was asking what was the basis, the dimension of the null space, etc, and the right answers popped up in my mind even though I still don't quite get the deal of all the different subspaces.  So now new Flinches beckon, and I keep reminding myself that the exam is open book and that I got an A on the midterm even though I did 2/5s of the units the few days before because I'm good at quickly-look-up-the-equation-and-plug-it-in...but the waters have gotten a lot deeper since then and I really really want to actually understand this stuff.  I want to read the numbers and see the space they encode.   I don't want to be left out.  I even want to take the Linear Algebra course succeeding this one because there's still more than half of my textbook to go.

Yesterday, the Flinch was running in a cold rain.  Hanging out with my husband and eating brunch won out.

Today, the Flinch was also running in a cold rain, and once my husband left for work, I throttled it.  Or maybe gave it a tentative squeeze.  My legs were heavy and the footing was wet, so we did only one pass through the Triplet--that first hill and its bed of pine needles is pretty slick.  45 minutes.

The second Flinch was doing a Zwow.

That didn't happen, but I got sort of close.  My weights are unpacked in the garage, and I found some gardening gloves, and so I decided to do some squats and deadlifts, as well as the deltoid raises (front and side) with lighter weights.   It's been nearly three months since I've done weights, apart from 10 pound deltoid side raises.  My heavier dumbbells (no bar) are at >25 pounds each, and I thought about taking some weight off because I was stronger in Kansas, but I've also been working on the single leg squats, etc, and doing 3 X 5-6 reps was fine.  I think I should have chased a bit more of a burn, although there were some pretty tough moments.  My squat form felt surprisingly more solid, at any rate. 

Maybe I'll put some more weight on next time.  I just saw a tech job posting; I still haven't applied because of upcoming exams and two family visits shortly after, plus shifting hours, weekend hours :(, excuses, etc, but my interest was piqued by the weight limit.  When I did my practicals, the weight limit was 40 pounds, I think.  For my job in Kansas, I was tested with 50: pick up a box from the floor, carry it, set it down.  I think a few of the ortho sets got close to 50 pounds, if not a bit over.  Anyway, the posted weight limit for this job is 60 pounds.  It's not a big deal carrying 50 pounds except when the tray is covered in polypro wrapper that will tear if the tray is dragged, and the tray has to be set into a cabinet handle out, not straight up or down or in.  Would 60 pounds be my breaking point?  Probably the heaviest cases are hard shell cases, no tears, but I get into trouble occasionally because though I can lift a fair bit--I can do a half squat or a few steps with my husband on my back, and he outweighs me by about 100 pounds--I don't have much to counterbalance with.  A few inches and a suddenly amplified torque and, whammo.

Well, long story short, I missed the weights.  I really missed the weights.  I dislike like breathing hard for an extended period of time.  The zwows are super, and they're about 10-20 minutes of hard breathing.  The weights require well-timed forceful inhalation or exhalation (depends on the particular movement), and stuff gets sore, but I'm not panting, which is a nice change of pace from pretty much every run I do here!  I still want to do 2 zwows this week, but maybe I won't get past the weights again.  At least I need to do one with pistol squats.

Saturday, my husband and I and the dog ran the horse country loop.  Let's call it the little horse country loop: I want to figure out a larger one with more road. 

plying worst expectations

When we ran up to the forest today, we found two minivans in the parking lot.

In general: car = loose dog.  Actually, of all the dogs I've seen in there, only two were on leashes (and they belonged to the same couple), therefore: dog = loose dog.

However, sometimes people drive down to walk their kids there...I guess...this is actually just an assumption, really.

However, the vehicles looked like the ones that were present the two times I'd seen a particular loose dog, the black female that won't give my dog the time of day.  That was reassuring, but I still felt a bit on edge.  And thus I couldn't get into the zone at first.

However, the edge distracted me from other things, including hills.  I got to the top of one trail as easily as if it had been flat, and then it was the slow decline past the Proctors down to the road, and then to a trail intersection: this is one of my favourite stretches and surely it appeals to others.

However, no dogs ran up to us.  We headed for the Triplet, and the same out of body mojo got us up the prelim hills and then, man, we slammed the Triplet hard.  It was great! I had enough juice to keep running past it, albeit along the easier option.

However, we walked up out of the ravine (both times).  The goal for next week is to keep running up this beast.  I tried to remember the breathing tips I've been working on.

However, it became apparent that, on the easy sections, I not only have to remember to force the bad air out, but to also relax, let my ribs float upward with the inhalation; basically, get a good lungful of good air too.  With this lesson re-affixed, we tackled the Triplet again.

However, the footing on the first hill became strangely slightly problematic this time.  The loose needles became 100X slipperier, but I remembered to keep my steps quick and my core engaged, and we got up and pushed through the rest of the Triplet with not too much sagging.  The last hill has definitely become easier.  A promising sign!

However, the long slow hill after the Proctor loop back to the main trail was 7-odd minutes of deepening discomfort.  That really took me by surprise.  I guess I blew more of my energy on the Triplet this time.

However, that's how it should be!

70 minute run, and then I did my modified zwow #12, pistol squats and etc (I've substituted all of the other exercises!  I need clamshells and the deltoid raises more than burpees or whatever at this point).  And this was a solid effort.  I set myself lower and more steadily on the squats, and pushing up seemed harder than before.  I was inhaling so sharply that my teeth hurt like they do when the wind's especially cold in winter.  And there was a curious moment during one particularly punishing rep--I set myself well, but started feebly without the usual starting bang or its generated momentum so there was a split second when my quad muscles were suddenly left with a terrible load--and I felt this high pitched buzzing whine on the back of my skull. What the heck was that?  Some slacker neuron finally pressed into duty?  But, hey, I do these sorts of exercises partially because of all the mysteries they unlock.

I think I'm getting stronger, at any rate!

Oh, yes, and the temp this morning was a reassuring -4 C.  Maybe summer won't be so bad?  Ha!  But I still have at least a month in which to toughen up.

Mind over matter

I am battling hours of doubt: am I not too old to still be learning stuff like this?  And why am I more concerned about the correct pronunciation of Huygens' name than his principle anyway?

Exam prep has mired me physically.  I fell asleep while watching an MIT lecture (optics: the instructor dimmed the lights for a demonstration, that's what I'm blaming), and the most sensible thing to do when I woke up was to continue watching it.   The most physically demanding thing I've done in the past few days was zip up a hill on a bike I was testing, but even then I was coasting.  This particular bike was too big for me and since it was my very first time using drop bars, I nearly plowed into a parked car while reaching for the brakes, but the horror and the joy kicked up my heart rate.  This bike devours road!  It chugs hills!  It bikes itself, and one of its smaller sisters is heading my way!  The original plan was to get a car, and I probably will once I get through exams and into a job, depending on the hours...will see how it goes with the bike and paniers for the time being.  Hopefully the car will end up costing less than the bike, like the last one.  Drag out your student beater specials, folks!

Meanwhile, I'm entranced with the bike, particularly since it hasn't arrived yet. 

My right arm is sore from umpteen tossed balls in our newly fenced-in yard.

guns at dawn

Very large artillery, fortunately a few miles away.  There has been an especially loud ruckus recently, including volleys of the most deafening armaments.  Before then, the big booms had been mostly singular.

Some guys are over putting in a fence, and I had to get our run and my shower out of the way before they arrived.  We set out on the trails in pre-dawn wet fog.  Two slightly twisted ankles in short succession later, I was reminded of the lessons learned during the 5 am jogs in Kansas, and I loosened up my feet.  Go slow and expect surprises.  The sand here is pale, but the roots are hidden by debris in places.  Fortunately, my ankles are flexible enough that a wrench or two, or more, doesn't matter.  I found it more of an adjustment to look closer to my feet, a futile vigilance during some stretches, but helpful in others.

The sky gradually lightened and I could see very well on the second loop (we stuck to the inner trail this run where the footing is more predictable).  I was able to go a bit faster, and this pushed my breathing on the uphills, which made me realize how easy the first circuit had been.  So maybe I can have an easy run here after all, if I control my ego.

There was nobody else in the forest, although we passed someone with a dog on the street outside it.

During the past weekend, it was summer (highs in the low-mid 20s C), and I didn't do much except study outside on the screened-in porch.

one thousand suns

https://soundcloud.com/chicanemusic/one-thousand-suns-chicane/s-75Gil

Today's run was not the first run that this song has accompanied.  I don't wear earphones (they are only for runs on the Canal ice back home) but I am prone to earworms.

It was a sunny early spring morning, about 4 C, and the dog and I tried out a new loop.   I decided to head into horse country this time.   There are a bunch of "farms" nearby; actually, we live behind one but I think it's more of a hunting retreat than an equestrian thing.  Anyway, I looked at a map, figured out a promising loop, hoped that the busier roads would have adequate shoulders, and we set out.

First happy discovery: about a mile into the run, after a rather deceptive slow long tough uphill climb, we got to a dirt road!  And it wasn't a private road (an obstacle in horse country, at it turns out).   Dirt feels so much better than asphalt--and, honestly, I don't understand why all of the residential roads here aren't dirt because taxes are so low out of the town limits, and things are so spread out.  Someone has to be paying for these long stretches of mostly empty roads.  But maybe the hobby farms owners are.  Many of these farms are multi-million dollar estates.  Thanks, 1%!

Anyway, we coasted down this lovely dirt road past larger properties.  There were no cars either, which was good because there was not much of a shoulder.  Or maybe there was: we just ran on the road.  Bliss! 

We got to another main road I was worried about, but it had a nice wide shoulder too.  And then we started running on lawn.

This region is pine forest and sandy soil: there is enough water for grass, but it requires some prep and upkeep.  Not that many people have lawns here--we don't, just a bunch of pine straw.  But today we ran beside a farm that had pastures, and had planted grass right up the road too, even though this is public property.  It was really nice lawn too, green and tender.  I felt a bit beyond the pale running on it. 

We turned onto another road as planned, but there was a big yellow No Outlet sign and a hill beyond it...demoralized, I slowed to a walk.  There was an outlet on the map, and maybe it was a footpath or a dirt road or something.  I resumed running and was encouraged to see the expected road and street sign.  But it was a private road.  I don't know if it was a private road meaning belonging to one estate, or several, and I've run on private roads before, but I'm not quite sure what the deal is here.

This was almost 40 minutes into our run.  I was expecting to be home in another 20-25.  But a line or two of a suitable earworm and a few deep breaths in the sunshine helped me put things into perspective.  What's an extra mile?  Especially one that we've already run?  All we got waiting at home is napping (the dog) and umpteen hours of studying and calculations (me--finals next month, and I'm glued to the Gilbert Strang lectures on youtube because I am so out of my depth, even though I use basic algebra and trig all the time.  Fortunately, the poetry of proofs is starting to become entrancing enough to quell the nagging voice: but hasn't someone else already proved this?  aaaaAAAAAAAAAHh  but I'm painfully approaching the verge of something lovely, just like NMR ^3-J coupling.  At first we didn't see eye to eye, and then things clicked.  I've still got another month to make things click this time.)

Anyway, in the darkest (albeit sunlit in this case) moments, there is sometimes an escape.  We turned back and after jogging for about five minutes, we came across a trail and a little State Property sign.  We were next to the main forest we sometimes run in, although we've never run through or across it before because the back portion is horse trails.  But there wasn't a No Dogs sign!  I still don't know the trail system we run on that well, and had never been on the horse trails, but I had a rough idea of where we were, and which direction we had to go,  and that was good enough.  On y va!

Eventually we hit the orange people trail, and I knew enough of it that it went in the wrong direction, but only at first, and it would eventually lead to other trails that would go in the right direction. 

I started to recognize the paths and then, we went up a hill and round a curve, and you know that feeling when you've been mostly alone in a new deserted place for a while, and you're not quite lost but sort of tired, and then you see another human?  It's augmented when that other person is a handsome young forest ranger.  Maybe he wasn't actually handsome or young, or even a ranger!  He was walking off trail with what looked like a GPS and a clipboard, so I assumed he was a ranger.  A quick exchange of smiles got me up the last sandy hill, and then I knew for sure where I was, and the dog and I jogged home.

There was a loose dog again, the same scruffy one by the main road, and we blithely jogged on.   Maybe it's terribly un-Southern of me not to stop for a dog loose on a 45 mph road (fortunately, there was no traffic, otherwise I couldn't be that cold-hearted!), but the owner had used up her free pass.  Turns out her "sorry" was "Sorry, my dog is loose and I'm a lazy piece of trash" instead of "Sorry, my dog just got loose."  I feel bad for the dog, though, and had he come with us, he might have jogged to a better life.

Puppy, this song is for you too: https://soundcloud.com/chicanemusic/one-thousand-suns-chicane/s-75Gil

Total jogged (mostly jogged at least): 75 minutes.

And then I did Zwow #60, with a slight substitution in the 4-step punch exercise or whatever it's called--I slipped in some deltoid side raises.

force the bad air out

I must condense this into a useable (2 syllable max) mantra so that I will actually remember and use it more often.  Yesterday's run was tough and sometimes I forgot to breathe OUT properly.  In general, my breathing, though less and less constrained, is still sloppy, and I've been noticing this for a few weeks.  I was focusing on inhalation, and then I realized the importance of exhalation.  What's the point of packing in litres of good air without taking the bad out?  I noticed a significant change when I concentrated on squeezing my abs and forcing my diaphragm upward while exhaling.  Wringing out the sponge dry.  It requires more thought than I'm used to devoting towards breathing, though, and so I need a simple mantra, something like squeezout.  LOL.  Some sort of word will push to the front next time I need it.  I've found it kind of pointless to devise good mantras beforehand: the pithy slam that seems so effective at leisure usually becomes glaringly inconsequential in the crucible of lactic acid.

So, this is my new focus: effective exhalation.

Anyway, we ran for about 70 minutes, including the triplet twice.  Yes!  The repeat was an impromptu decision and my energy crashed on the large hill before it the second time, but the triplet itself went very well and on the third peak, I actually felt fatigue lift.  Endorphins!  I didn't have enough juice for the long hill afterward, though, but there is an escape route, another trail that skirts the rise, and I took it.  No shame!   So I guess I'll stick with two repeats for the next few weeks, and then attempt a third. 

Afterward, I did a modified zwow #12--I finally dug out my 10 lb dumbbells (and 10 lb plates too at the same time.  It doesn't rain but it pours) and so I can do the shoulder exercises I need to do.  My right shoulder is the problem, partly due to referred pain, partly because it's overly flexible too and tends to settle into an uncomfortable position during tougher runs.  But if I do side deltoid raises, the problem goes away.  I just looked up what that exercise is called!  I've been doing it for a while (years?) but never knew what it was called!  Maybe adding front raises would be even better.  I'll try next time.  http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/detail/view/name/alternating-deltoid-raise#reviews

Today was an easy day, about an hour of easy jogging and walks up all the hills.  A truly easy effort that will hopefully set me up well for a tougher run tomorrow.  We might try a new loop.

The perfect earworm

I've been on soundcloud a lot recently, mostly because there is this one song on there and nowhere else (it's still too new to go on sale apparently) and this song is just so suitable.  I've listened to it so much that a few lines of it have become implanted themselves internally, and it was to this perfect soundtrack that I ran much of a nearly two hour jaunt with my husband and the dog today.  Probably about 1 hour and forty minutes of that was running.  Not fast running, especially not on the hills, especially not on the sandy trail hills, but that doesn't matter. 

This was my longest run in a long time and it went really well.  Some of the hills were a push, and others convinced us to walk (especially a certain sandy trail near the end), but it was sunny and there was little traffic--an important consideration in a place with no sidewalks--and we didn't run too much out of steam even though the run stretched longer than expected and neither of us had brought anything to eat, just water.  It was a great run, and the short walk afterward was a wonderful bask through sunlight and that song. 

Saturday: 45 minute easy run/walk with the jog.  Basically, whenever my breathing started to get pushed, I walked.  I even walked through the triplet, which is a lot longer than I thought it was!  It goes by so quickly when we bomb through it.  Anyway, I think I need to be doing this sort of (quasi-cheat) easy run more often because I think it really set me up well for today's run.  I'm dealing with the same problem as in Kansas: there are no really easy recovery runs due to the hills and it seems that those are the most important runs for me.  However, the hills here are kinder and I can keep things more on an even keel with strategic walking.

Friday: about an hour of running on trails.  It was tough.

DOMS

But delayed onset muscle soreness isn't a bad thing.  In moderation, it indicates progress.

I'm rather tired today and there are a few factors, but I think they include DOMS:

1. DOMS (hilly run and zwow yesterday)
2.  Gluten exposure on Saturday. 
3.  Not enough sleep.  I took some ZMA before bed and fell into a deep sleep at about 11, but I got woken up repeatedly from 5-7 am due to courting birds and heavy artillery (the closest thing is a military training area, and spring is starting and this one hopeless lovelorn bird displayed his ignorance of Einstein's definition of insanity over and over and over again.  I think the pathos got to me more than the racket all of the other birds combined: I started imaging a scene in a small French village where a spurned young lover keeps trying, but the tanks are rolling in...).  Anyway, it seems that I need about 7 - 7.5 hours of sleep a night these days, and six just doesn't cut it.

It's kind of inconclusive to sift out DOMS from all that, but I took the dog for an hour-long hike and, at times, certain muscles protested more when they were required more.  This is somewhat uncomfortable, yes, but also much more satisfying than the constant soreness of gluten exposure.

During my healthier periods in the past, I had a regular cycle of sore/easy and not sore/tough days, usually 3 tough workouts a week.   This is what I'm hoping to get back to.   It doesn't matter that my hard days would've been easier in the past.  As long as they continue to feel hard, and I remain consistent with exercise and diet (mainly, avoiding gluten, that simplifies a lot), they will become more difficult. 

flying too close to the sun

Tues: just walked.  Tired!

Today, jogged for almost an hour.  We tried out a new loop and I missed a turn and ended up on a road I wasn't planning on running on--it was fine, and there were a couple of people walking on the shoulder so I wasn't way out there.  It was just a bit too busy for the dog's preferences.  He's gotten better about diesel trucks but...

Sad story time.  When we got this dog, he was about a year and a half old, and apparently his prior scumbag owners managed to find the time to cut his ears off with scissors and leave other scars, but they didn't walk him outside or socialize him in any way or even feed him regularly.  Basically, we wound up with a dog that flipped his shit over plastic bags, cars, cracks in the road, electrical boxes, leaves, etc.  My first couple of weeks walking him were just circles, ok, let's take another pass at this, see, no prob!  And he caught on but he just doesn't extrapolate very well (better than the koi, as it turns out).  So a black plastic bag was entirely different from a white plastic bag, and a diesel truck was a completely foreign monster.   The trick with many things is to make the very first time as pleasant as possible: unfortunately, when he saw and heard his first diesel truck, he panicked, ran into me, I tripped over him, and I yelled because I hit the concrete knees first, which rather hurt.

It took several years to undo the perception that diesel trucks are out to maul us, and we still have our moments.  So I try not to take him on busy roads.

Anyway, the run was tough but I think the magic is finally starting to come back: on the last big hill, I actually managed to push up hard enough that the discomfort went somewhere else.

And then I did zwow #47, which I'll be doing again.  It's simple and short and tough, and has squats.  The exercises are simply two alternating sets.  One is weighted squat jumps, the other is a combo of superman pushups and ab-splitters or whatever those exercises are called, I forget.  I am sloppy with exercise names.  I just found out that my favourite nautilus machine, the seated hip ab/adductor machine, is also called the yes no machine.  LOL.  Anyway, zwow #47 is a super workout.

The Triplet

Yesterday: walk
Today: 40ish min jog and zwow 12/pistol squats.  I feel much better already.

I've mentioned the triplet before: it's three steep hills in quick succession.  It was rather brutal the first few times I've ran it, and still is, but I've gotten more into the spirit of it.  I run it the hard way (net uphill) because that's the way my loops go, and the first hill is the worst one because the footing is loose pine needles, a bit slippery even when dry, and I really have to focus on keeping my stride rate quick instead of trying to dig in.  Maybe this is why I don't run the other way!  And then a quick short downhill, just several flying steps, and hill #2 is half swallowed-up with momentum, but it rears its noxious bulk in time for several seconds of scramble, and then another downhill, a bit longer and less steep where I stretch out a bit more, and finally #3, which curves slightly and coyly, and by this point, I'm breathing exhaustively and I have to remind myself again to keep up my stride rate, and the flood of endorphins helps, not only with hill #3 but the trail beyond it, which is an immediate and additional uphill, but longer and more gradual, and I'm getting better at catching my breath on this.  That's when it's time for the period!  Not before.  The triplet goes by that quickly.

I am getting better with my modified pistol squats too.

So we went out for a nice dinner last night

And now I'm paying for it!
It was still a really nice meal, and it would've been nicer without sore guts and a sore right shoulder--this is referred pain and has actually nothing to do with my shoulder: it hurts because of whatever went down below.  It's been a while since it has hurt this badly.

I'm disappointed because it was even printed in the menu that the chef could accommodate allergies.  The only think I can think of is that my bison burger (no bun) was cooked on the same surface as someone else's bun.  Do they heat up buns in this fashion?  I really have no clue because the few food places I worked at didn't do hamburgers.  There was also a piece of bread on the side of our mussels, balanced on top of a few shells--usually I don't eat anything that has touched bread, but I figured that since the bread was just touching those shells, I'd leave those for my husband and be fine.  Maybe they dropped it into the bowl!  I should have sent it back but I hate to be that person.

Anyway, now I'm having a day of ginger ale and lots of water and tea instead of a long run.

I do want to go back there because the food was tasty and they get their products from local and/or humane farms.  I thought I was putting the poor server through the inquisition, but I guess I'll need to ask even more questions next time. 

Short and sweet

Zwow #56 is only 8 minutes long.  I don't have a jump rope and my dumbbells are still in a box somewhere in the garage, so I guess what I did was a dummy workout, like calling a cycle with an empty chamber a dummy load.  Dunno!  Anyway, my dummy workout was still tough enough.  High knees are still high knees and I'm still breathing kind of hard.

Before that, we hit the roads and it was great running weather, about 4C and sunny.  I enjoyed the run more than I thought I would: I'd assumed that running down spread-out residential streets would be boring, and it was to a certain extent, but the pines and the dormant grass make this seem like another place.  Parts of it looked sort of like Calgary, other parts looked like Northern Ontario, and sometimes I could imagine I was in Colorado.   And then we passed by some goats.  Very cool.

I diverted from the plan a bit: I got bored with the residential streets and decided to stay on one of the main roads.  The speed limit is 45 versus 35 miles but the shoulders are considerably wider, not to mention that drivers seem much more attentive (we've already seen one woman driving in our neighbourhood in the middle of the road completely turned around in her seat--I think she was feeding her kids, but YIKES!) and I was in the mood for some straight lines.  Pining for the Midwest?  There were a couple of loose dogs but they didn't come after us nor even close to their bounds.  Maybe they have underground electrical fencing. 

This was the first run I've done totally off trails here, and it went better than expected.  I'm going to be exploring some loops.  There were a few long hills, including one I ended up walking a portion of, but the terrain is a smooth break from the trails. 

Total: about an hour.  I'll be taking some more ZMA tonight for sure.