Monday, December 17, 2007

Bike #18 and treadmill run, a.k.a. the Primal Scream

The last few days have been a bit of a disaster, but what can you do...

Just had a mentally beneficial late-night gym session. Note to future self: do not ever persuade yourself it would be a good idea to join a twenty-four-hour gym, no matter how alluring and convenient it might sound! I lost both my Thursday and my weekend runs to the evil Wintry Mix, having forgot the cardinal rule of running which is that ANY run is better than NO run. So I dragged myself over to the Columbia gym, did half an hour on the bike and 2.5 treadmill miles, alternating laps of fast and slow. Enjoyable.

(I want to get to be a much faster runner, I will start doing some speedwork again in February, but meanwhile doing a treadmill one like this now and again is a good idea...)

As I came out into the quad, I walked straight into the middle of the ritual known as the Primal Scream, it was most apt!

I now feel that as long as I get up at 6am sharp tomorrow and make an insanely detailed list of everything that has to get done this week, everything will be just fine!

Bike #18, 30 mins., 550 mins. total.

(I have fallen far behind on this wretched project, #1 was on Nov. 25 and really I was going to have done all thirty by Xmas--but there are only nine more days including Xmas itself, so that is only twenty-eight--I guess I should make two of those doubles of some conceptual kind, and then I have just about acquitted myself with some semblance of honor...)

3 comments:

Becca said...

There was NO WAY to run this weekend, given weather. I am finally back in the gym, and that's what I do on the treadmill. The ones I prefer do not have laps, so I do it by quarter mile. Start with a 6.0 to warm up, then a 7.0, then bouncing around between 6.5, 7.5, 8.0, 8.5, sometimes doing a half mile, sometimes going back down to 6.0 for a quarter if I start to flag. I am very compulsive about my numbers--I hit the speed button exactly when the mileage count goes to the end of the quarter mile, and I only do speeds that end in 0 or .5. Just writing this is making me yearn for the gym, but it's a sheet of ice out there, and I must work.

Levi Stahl said...

I was defeated by the snow last night here in Chicago, but I'm hoping to get out tonight, even if just for a few miles.

It is amazing what sneaking in a run late at night--when you've essentially long ago given up on getting out there that day--can do for the psyche. The occasional late run is about the only holdover from my long-ago student days of odd schedules and late nights.

bathmate said...

I liked it.
Bathmate