Hotel treadmill!

Well, Thanksgiving was a bust as far as exercise goes - I got home on Sunday evening so tired I could have cried, and yesterday was a day of insane frazzle as I had to teach my two classes and then hustle to the airport to fly to Boston, where I am giving a lecture today (a lecture that I got up at 6am yesterday to write, having not been able to fit it in during complex Thanksgiving travels). 

Didn't get up early enough this morning to do an hour, but just had a very nice half-hour of treadmill intervals - I feel much better.  Today's fairly busy, and tomorrow I've got plans to see a few friends in Cambridge before going to the airport in the late afternoon to fly home, but I should be able to do another workout of some sort in the fitness center here tomorrow morning - better than nothing!

.5hr treadmill: 10min warmup, then 4 x (3min hard, 2min easy)

Turkey Trot!

There is no actual turkey to trot after, of course, but it is a very nice little event in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.  Five miles (a two-loop course), very pretty area (this will give the flavor of the location).  Had hoped to run sub-10-minute miles, but really it was not meant to be: finished in more like 52:00, about 10:30 pace, but felt strong at the end and passed 10-15 people in the last five minutes (with a strong burst of asthmatic wheezing in accompaniment!).

Happy Thanksgiving!

5mi. Turkey Trot (52:00)

Rainy run!

A very nice one this afternoon - have to keep on getting out there for a mid-afternoon run like that, it works well with my schedule and it is so enjoyable.  Will run a 5-mile Turkey Trot on Thursday and an hour regular morning run on Saturday, that will probably be about it for me for exercise during Thanksgiving travels - it is a complex holiday, with multiple stops on the itinerary!

1hr run (c. 5.5mi.)

Beautiful run

It's been a bad week for exercise, and this coming week won't be much better, but I did get out just now for an absolutely beautiful one-hour run: gorgeous running weather, sixty and sunny, with that fall crispness in the air.  Feet still slightly stiff and sore, as they seem to have been recently, but I had a pleasant surprise: two weeks of little running and much yoga seem to have returned my lower calf muscles more or less to normal, I didn't have to stop and stretch at all - it's been many months since I could say the same.

1hr run (zone 2), c. 5.5mi.

In which hot yoga was very hot

Went to Bikram yoga again today with C.  Had imagined that 5 x warm yoga last week would prepare me for hot yoga today - I was quite wrong!  Light rain in NYC, which means 100% humidity, and it really was overwhelmingly hot in there (I think the teacher opened the window more times last time because she knew it was my first Bikram class).  I am guessing you would have to go 3-4 times a week to be really acclimated - I might do a month sometime where I go every day and really get used to it, but I think I will do better in the meantime with regular-temperature yoga at 105th St. (walking distance) or Chelsea Piers (included with my gym membership)...

1.5hr hot yoga

Postscript

Garmin is found!  That is good - it was tucked into an unusual compartment, I guess I was just frazzled before when I looked...

Spin!

Actually the class itself was fairly dreadful: my bike fitness is negligible right now and also and more immediately to the point that class is just WAY TOO LOUD FOR ME!  Had a nice ride down, beautiful day - ride back was horrible due to TOO MANY PEOPLE being out there, the weather is too nice!  Little kids on bikes and scooters dangerously shooting across the path, tourists with no helmets riding three abreast (i.e. one person riding in the wrong direction in the left-hand lane), etc. etc.  IT IS A HORROR!

Also, I think I left my Garmin at the gym.  At any rate, I can't find it in my backpack.  Arghhhh!  I called just now, and front desk manager has looked and failed to find it in the locker room but will put it on the email to managers - I'll check back in lost and found in another day or two if I don't hear anything.  Slightly frazzled due to fatigue (got home around 10:30 last night, didn't sleep at all well on Friday or Saturday) and need to buckle down and do the rest of my work for tomorrow.

The really good thing, though, besides the mere fact of exercise, was catching up with Lauren, who is back in town for the weekend from Atlanta.  Good to see her!

1hr spin
10 miles bike

Yoga!

This class might be the best yet - very demanding athletically, but also very precise in terms of adjustments to postures etc.  Surrounded by a huge puddle of sweat at the end of class...

1.25hr yoga

Warm run!

It was good - I still have a bit of congestion, but fortunately my lungs never got involved in this minor ailment.

40min slow warm run

Yoga!

Yoga is addictive, I couldn't stay away!  (Really I was finishing up a big work thing in the morning and couldn't detach from the computer to go to the gym.)  It is a class that is specific for marathon preparation: I was afraid I would feel like I was there under false pretences, but in fact nobody else seemed to be doing the marathon either.  Less demanding in terms of strength and balance than the other classes I've done there this week, but very useful indeed in terms of stretching hamstrings, quads, psoas, IT band, etc.

1hr yoga

Yoga!

OK, that was good - I feel much better than I did beforehand!  (Slept very badly - too much work...)  Legs and back muscles both seemed quite fatigued, so I think tomorrow is a day off from yoga - maybe I will go to the core strength class at the gym instead.

1hr yoga

Yoga!

Hmmm, that was beneficial: the flow class was a little less intense than the "power" class, and only 60 minutes instead of 90, but still very good.  I have a slight sinus infection/head cold, I am going to wait another couple days before I do any cardio...

1hr yoga

Yoga!

My only real exercise plan for the week is to go to a yoga class every day - there's a good yoga studio nearby that I hadn't yet made it into, so I got the week-long introductory rate and will get in there for a morning class in upcoming days also.  (Will probably do some other stuff also, but that's the main target.)

1.5hr yoga

Triathlon!

The sport of triathlon just puts me in a good mood.  Being currently overweight and undertrained, my only goal was to finish - I had checked last year's times and was fairly sure I would be the last finisher, and my guess was correct (a lot of the less fit participants do the sprint rather than the Olympic distance or race as a team). 

The course volunteers were fantastic - they really make even the slowest finishers feel very well taken care of.  Bike course really well marshaled, including lots of police on motorcycles - it felt extremely safe and well organized.  Thanks to volunteers for their time and efforts!

Don't have my exact time, but something like 3:40 total (1500m swim/40K bike/10K run) - I have no heat acclimation, it's pretty darn hot out there but mercifully it was not as humid as it might have been.  (Currently it's 84F with relative humidity of 61%.)  Fun!

Swim: around 40min
Bike: 1:34:49 (15.7mph, avg HR 146, max HR 156)
Run: 1:19:35 (4.7mph, avg HR 157, max HR 169)

c. 3:40 total

Nice bike!

Hmmm, that was one of the nicest bike rides I've had all year.  Will strive to get out more now the weather's cooler - the west side path is intolerably crowded at the really balmy times of year, much more tolerable once you hit November!  Strong headwind going down, and there are quite a few spots where you need to slow or stop for pedestrians, thus slow speed...

(Rode down to Chambers St. and back; with a little bit more time, which I didn't have today, I can add on another 7 miles or so by riding up all the way to the Little Red Lighthouse and then turning south and heading home.)

52F and sunny - perfect cycling weather!

13.98mi., 1:03:26, avg speed 13.2mph, avg HR 135, max HR 144

Hot yoga!

I went with C. to the studio he likes - I was full of trepidation, as though I have done quite a bit of most other kinds of yoga, I have never done Bikram before, and I am not someone who thrives in heat!  It wasn't as overwhelming as I feared, though it must be said that is extremely (at times verging on intolerably) hot.  Felt good afterwards, though, with a smoothie in hand and a seat on a Central Park bench on a sunny cool day...

1.5hr yoga

Short run

I wanted to do an hour (not very happy about not having exercised Saturday, Sunday or Monday!), but I had an unpleasant surprise when a cyclist came down very hard off his bike just ahead of me on the path - he ran into one of the posts/bollards that divide various segments of the bike path. 

I stayed with him and his partner while another cyclist called 911 and went to try and show ambulance people where they could get into the park - it was probably almost half an hour later by the time she came back and said they were near but not yet here.  By that time the fellow had re-oriented himself and it was clear that they would be OK to make their way home in a cab: it is almost always more sensible to schedule an MRI or other relevant scans for the next morning rather than waiting around for many hours in the emergency room!  And I am pretty certain he will be fine (the foam inside his helmet was split, but not the hard shell, and though he was scraped up quite a bit it didn't seem that he'd have more than bruises), but I remain fairly rattled - my cycling nerves are fragile at the best of times!

Anyway, I just turned and headed home at that point - my lungs felt very wheezy and I'd been out longer than I'd anticipated in any case.  Some days the longer run just isn't meant to be!

(Gorgeous day, though - sunny and calm and in the mid-50s.)

Ride safe out there!

38:27, 3.4mi., 11:10 pace