!

 Happy New Year!

Amid everything that went down this year, I've resumed recovery jogs and tempo runs: I've found a decent route without hills by our new place. It's not the most convenient option because it crosses a busy road, and so it took me a few months to find it, but flat terrain really makes a difference. I jogged it yesterday, and actually felt that it was restorative, not just easy.

Meanwhile, my stamina has been crap so I've put one particularly long hill to use too: I've also found a short tempo route that goes up and down it twice (and more if I repeat the loop but I'm not quite there yet). It's also mentally easier to get to the top of the hill if I run it clockwise; it's brutal counterclockwise. Funny how that works. It doesn't seem that visually misleading. Anyway, I've been doing this at least once a week for a month and I think I'm starting to feel less out of shape. It's been a long haul, and I can't be too hard on myself because I've still been running fairly regularly, but it would be nice to enjoy it more sometimes. And have "long" runs that are longer than 5-6 miles.

On the plus side, I ran 5.5 miles two days ago and have NOT gotten sick since.  I'm thrilled, knock wood. After my last "long" run a month ago, I got a cough and slight fever and other symptoms. It was probably just allergies again, but this year is special. I subsequently missed half of my clinic make up time (for a rotation that went online thanks to COVID), felt q-tips probe the depths of what I presume was my sphenoid sinus (seriously, it goes way back), and quarantined myself as best as I could with a small child whom I also kept from school until my results were negative, yay. And I had to re-remake up that clinic time during my holiday, super yay. 

Here's hoping for a better 2021 for everyone!

what

back in the groove

After posting about my insouciance over the uncertainty of my future runs, I've been running regularly. Old news by this point, actually.

However, yesterday, my legs were not sore during my run, which made me realize that they are (almost) always sore and/or heavy.  It's been like this for so long, maybe since my son was born, I don't even really notice it except as a barrier to push through to get to endorphins. I remember better runs in the past, but it seems like they happened to a different person.

Yesterday, though, my legs felt fresh, even after I pushed the pace and my breathing picked up. 

Naturally, I'm now analyzing this, particularly since my run this morning was back to crappy. Yesterday I ran in the afternoon because it was only 25 C. I almost never run in the afternoon, but perhaps lower humidity was a major player. I'd strolled for a couple of hours with my family earlier that day, but my legs weren't tired from that despite my expectation. Perhaps the key is diminished hope!

It really felt amazing at any rate.

*and I scored well on my board exam thankfully, but COVID-19 cancelled the rotation I'm supposed to be on right now--this year has been a ride.

!!!!!!!!!!!

 almost almost there

I knew this month would be tough, and it's going out with a bang (it's 42 C right now!), but it's almost over, but I'm still on edge.

I wrote boards on Wednesday, and because I've been preparing since March, and didn't take the customary month off to cram, it felt weird. It's been a big shark circling in the shadows for so long, I got used to it, and still have to accept that it's now gone.  I guess the exam went well?! hard to say. I was tired by the last section, though...after about seven hours, I was slowing down a lot.  Fortunately, each half is four hours/four sections, and I'd banked a fair bit of time. Still left 1.5 hours ahead of schedule. If I stay too long, I start changing answers injuriously. Nothing good happens after "midnight" (okay, 3ish pm). 

Oh, and moving? ....well

I tried to relax with a book I picked up this morning from a local Little Free Library: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/438-Days/Jonathan-Franklin/9781501116308. Highly recommend it, especially for putting things into perspective.

Running? Uh, it's 42 C right now and I just had my first solid poop in about a month today (funnily enough, the dog had her first morning walk poop in a few weeks too--she's been spayed so we have to sync colons instead of uteruses (And period syncing seems like a myth anyway)). So, no.

I've been jogging

I'm getting slower and slower, even though the last few mornings have been ~24ish C and not ~26. It's still too warm for me but I'll take what I can get.

1 hour today
1/2 hour yesterday
1 hour Friday (and Thurs?)
1/2 hour Wednesday...I think. Can't remember.

I'm already tired and August is going to be heavy, but sadly not in terms of mileage. But maybe it'll be my last month of truly Southern summer. Now that I've typed that, probably not.

touch and go

At least I'm running more than July last year (70-75 hours/week at the hospital and still too hot to run when I got home = 0 miles). I keep telling myself, the humidex never goes below 30, it's okay to take a break.

And then Hanna came along. Hopefully it wasn't too much to handle along the coast, but it broke the heat here.

I jogged for an hour this morning. Maybe tomorrow morning will be as nice. If not, I'll relax until it is. I'll be ok.

.

Didn't run today but discovered this.

~summer~

I'm still running, here and there, 1/2 hour mostly. It's summer.

Should have run yesterday--after a few days of 40+ C highs, much of the humidity had burned off and it was overcast too. But I'd gotten only about 4 hours of sleep and felt like death. "Oh, well it should be like this tomorrow." WTF, why would I ever think that?

This morning, the humidity and sun are back.

In search of another song, I found this--not really my jam but the shots of the crowd are provoking so much nostalgia.

Found it!

!

Typing with one hand because I'm icing the other side so that I can get my wedding ring off. The heat has made me somewhat edematous (I've acclimatized enough that ~34 C in the shade was comfortable yesterday,at least), plus I got two fire ant bites on my left wrist that has puffed things up further.

My ring finger is fine; I was going to take the ring off to do some kettleball stuff. serves me right for x-training!

Anyway, I'm midway thru my plan: ice, benadryl, massage thoracic inlet area to remove lymphatic restriction, elevate extremity, cold shower, more coffee/diuresis, and then soap.

Hey--update--just got it off pre-shower, so I could possibly go into the hot garage and sling some iron....maybe. I'm definitely taking the extra cup of coffee though!

running has been meh because of summer, plus the Sahara dust killed my momentum earlier this week, but I did just jog 2 miles.

~

It was only 17 C this morning! I ran 8 miles

and I heard some new tunes! sorry in advance for ads :/

time to commit?

Once again, the weather cooperated for my long run! Yeah, it was about 31 C by the time I finished, but it was shady/overcast for the first two hours, and then it was sometimes cloudy, with a slight breeze here and there. Can't beat that during summer! I also ran the sprinkler during hour three.

Total: 16 miles solid jogging, no walking.

I'm so happy with that because it was supposed to be just sunny, which means almost full sun by 9 or so. Also, to minimize sun exposure, I'd planned to start running at 6:30 am, but because I stayed up until about 11:30 pm watching UHF last night, I barely made it out before 7 (6:57 hahaha). During the first hour or so, I wasn't sure how long this run would be. However, I was feeling good and my husband was home to help our son, and make coffee for me...it was my day.

So, what are my goals? I'm still not sure how long many more weeks we'll be down here, and thus what my longest run will be before I move back to where running conditions won't be as suitable for really slow but reeeeaaally relaxed jogging. Can I commit to a marathon distance? Or beyond? I think I can pull off a 20 miler at least, at any rate.

Meanwhile, 16 miles is my longest run since having my son in 2015!!! what?!! Yeah, I got back up to 14-ish miles by about 14 months postpartum, at which point I got pneumonia (!!!) and it's been one struggle and/or illness since then, until March when I started social distancing (I think I've been sick only one week since then). So I'm hoping to push the miles until I have to go back.

I'm also trying to get back into posting music tracks; I'm listening to ah/fm right now, and I've also been enjoying Delta Notch, but I'm not dealing with "Track ID??" these days :( Oh, well, something has got to give.

Admittedly, I've been listening to podcasts and not music while running: Office Ladies, Fake Doctors--two of my favorite shows discussed by some of their main cast, with various guests! It would be amazing if Peri Gilpin and Jane Leeves did a similar podcast about Frasier btw.

Also, it's Trump and his administration/supporters, and not Obama, who is/are "the Great Divider." I could write loads about what is happening in this country right now, but I'm going to try to incorporate something, anything, as much as possible, off this list in Real Life because this seems to be a good resource for us white people who want to help make things safer for people of colour. I've lived in various parts of "Trump country" even pre-Trump, if that makes sense, because that's where military bases tend to be--and I've had a few awkward convos, but that's it. I could be doing more.

!

I jogged 12.7 miles in the backyard yesterday. Yeah, we're still here. Anyway, I wasn't planning to run so long, not after such a lackluster month. Since my last "long" run in April, my longest run had been 3-5 miles, something like that. I was sick for about a week (not COVID-19), the weather didn't cooperate, I didn't get up early enough so had lots of interruptions especially early on which wrecks my warm up and thus makes the entire run a struggle, etc.

But, yesterday, everything went right. I got up early enough to get a good 1/2 hour in before the first interruption, and clouds came. The temp got up to 29 but it was overcast by then, plus I turned on a sprinkler. If I had planned ahead and put my fuel on the patio, and thus not had to go into the house and get waylaid by something for a few minutes (long enough for my legs to decide "that's a no, dawg"), I think I could've kept going, but I'm still really happy with the run. I'm still really slow in the backyard, particularly since I am trying to avoid the 3 tracks I've worn in the yard so far, so it took me almost 3 hours (!). Yeah, 9:30/mile is like tempo effort. Whatever, these are strange times.

However, I managed a lovely ~3 mile recovery run out there today, and that might be the true turning point. I've gotten into this habit of running 2-3 times a week (okay, sometimes closer to 1) that whenever I do manage a "long-ish" run, I don't do a recovery run the day after. But recovery runs really help!

I think we'll be down here for another month at least--I'm still figuring things out. well, everyone is! To document my present real-life knot of knots would take more time than I have, but these days I'm applying and cold-emailing to find places to rotate at for the next year, and meanwhile my school decided to change my email address this past weekend. I think stuff is migrating where it should now, but ehhh, timing sucks. Also, the testing centre where I'm supposed to write my board exam in August had a major fire and is supposed to reopen in June, no July 1st, no, July 31st....and writing in August was already kind of messing my timeline, but now my August school-mandated rotation is no longer mandatory, but I haven't heard if I'm still going or if I was even accepted in the first place (it's complicated) so I've applied to a couple of virtual rotations because since my son's school is reopening now (he's not going back yet, no way), they'll probably take the usual first week off in August and I'm SOL with childcare. Yeah, I could pay someone, with maybe a little extra virus on the side? So every month is kind of like this, but August smells the worst. However, I think it'll all pan out. A while back, I was freaking out because I couldn't get a seat for my boards in July, but then the place caught fire.

Back in the saddle 2.0?

So much to sum up: well, I never did run from work but did plenty of walks.

Coronavirus might exempt me from my last weird-hour rotation too, we'll see...meanwhile, I've taken up the sport of backyard running (and will have to lay down some grass seed if/when it rains tomorrow because I've worn a track and this is a rental....).

Anyway, because I'm jogging ~100 metre loops on a combo of suffering/dead grass, deer poop, these weird berries that I don't recognize, and this weird slime/mold plant that I don't recognize either, and mainly because I'm somewhat out of shape and slightly too heavy for peak performance, I'm slow. Plus, I'm not into breathing even remotely moderately hard these days because I'm still getting used to having "seasonal" allergies all the time, which puts that nomenclature in question--well, point is, I'm extra slow.

However, I've been enjoying being in the zone, perhaps for the first time in years. My dog isn't into running past a few miles usually, and since it takes about that long to get the endorphins going, it just hasn't been happening.

I didn't expect it to happen in my backyard, either.

Backstory, I don't actually have a backyard at my primary residence, but the day after I was told "What are you guys doing here? We don't have enough masks," I loaded up the car with the kid and the dog, and drove 2.5ish hours to my husband's house, which does have a backyard. For the first week or so, I ran on the streets, but because this is the suburbs, it kind of got old quickly  After the second week, it became clear that I wasn't going to be going back any time soon, so I made a track.

Running that thing sucked at first. There is a tiny slope, magnified by my deconditioning--in the beginning, I was like, ok, I ran 3 loops and need 7 more to make a km???!?!! YUCK

And then something clicked. I remembered the little I remembered of Maffetone training--keep that HR under control--and that was enough to give my laziness carte blanche. If I had to walk up the ridiculously minuscule slope, so be it.  Whatever.

Well, after 2-3 more weeks of this, I actually wound up doing a tempo effort for about a half hour, I think. We hiked in the morning, almost 10K, and then I decided to do one last "long run" on the old track before I reseed it and kill more grass elsewhere in the yard.

I was optimistic:  yeah, 10 miles, double digits! My longest run to date has been about 8 miles, so that seemed doable.

Spoiler alert, I increased my PB by about 0.2 miles--but, after 50 minutes of feeling like crap, the lamb curry and coffee I had for lunch kicked in, and I started pushing the pace and breathing harder, like an easy 2:2. My mental game turned ON, I was counting loops in 8 loop chunks, and I wasn't feeling the desperation of so much more--I got comfortable with the discomfort.

Honestly, I probably could've gone longer, and my original plan was to do 2 hours easy pace, but my phone got down to 4%. Maybe that's what inspired me to pick up the pace? Because there's nothing worse than escaped data.