BEAST week 8 (Friday)

That's the end of this round of THE BEAST. It was a good class, and it was also the first time I felt it was both warm and light enough at 6:15 for me to ride my bike down; very pleasant, it was not actually really raining but gray and damp enough that hardly anybody else was on the path.

I continue to have some self-reproach that I didn't make better use of this last 9 weeks or so in terms of exercise, but really there is no point worrying about it, better just move forward! I do think that if our hiking on the vacation is not strenuous, I should make an effort to do some additional exercise: a short run, some boot-camp-type abs and lower-body stuff.

(Earlier this week I took the plunge and got a pair of the New Balance Minimus Trail shoes and I'm extremely excited about them; it is different enough from running in regular shoes that this trip might be a good chance to break them in, just run 1-2 miles in 'em after getting back from the day's outing and before showering and changing into some fresh clothes for evening relaxation.)

(We did another 1.5 mi. run, the benchmark we used at the end of the first week of class, and I am sorry to say that my time was pretty much exactly the same, only a few seconds slower. That first run was actually worse, I wasn't sufficiently warmed up and I activated my asthma by trying to keep up with a few runners who are really considerably too fast for me - this run felt better, and I wasn't having any asthma issues, but I was also in the middle between slower and faster runners with nobody to use as a rabbit, which certainly makes it mentally harder to post a fast time. First time was 13:57, today's was 14:00 on the nose; that is 9:20 pace, not nearly as fast as I would like, I should be able to do something more like 8:00/mi. if I really am in good shape.)

1hr. boot camp, plus 10 miles bike