Short run

Short run with O. shook out the cobwebs - I think we were both a bit tired, but it's a beautiful morning and we had a couple sprints at the end. I am in rather low spirits due to facing the fact that there is no way I'm on a flight out of LaGuardia airport tomorrow morning. The thought of figuring out how else I might get to Cayman is making me weary, and I sort of just need to get through today first before I can really think about it! (However I think teaching my class this afternoon will be good for morale.)

:32, c. 3+ miles

Run!

Stopped my watch partway through and failed to restart it again, so don't have times, but let's just say that it was significantly speedier than usual, with a nice sprint on the straightaway at the end! I have 2 lovely houseguests due to lower Manhattan evacuations, the younger one is a speedy runner and put me through my paces...

c. 38 min., c. 4 miles

(Some debris and quite a bit of mud, but the greenway path is no longer flooded, and the boats at 79th St. looked more or less unscathed. My main anxiety right now, aside from general concern for storm damage at large, is whether my flight will go out Thursday morning from LGA - but I will just have to take it philosophically if it doesn't, I should be able to get there sooner or later...)

Run!

Just a short one - weather hasn't yet gotten really crazy, but parks are shut down - I ran down my bit of Riverside but couldn't get down to the water (access had just been closed), then ran over to Central Park which is also shut off. Happy to observe city protocol re: storm safety! Ran along north outside edge of park, but it is currently stinkified with large crop of vomitous gingkos, so I turned around at the NE corner of the park and ran home. Have obtained dollars from cash machine and food I would actually want to eat if the power was out for 24 hrs. (I am always covered in the way of ancient cans of tuna and Progresso soup, some Clif builder's bars long past their sell-by date, etc., but fresher and tastier Clif bars are good, fruit, individual prepared pasta helpings that would be fine at room temperature for a while, a modest amount of chocolate). Campus now closed for tomorrow as well as today, so it is shaping up to be a very strange week - I'm hoping storm damage isn't too severe and that I can get my flight out of town early Thursday morning.

:42 run (c. 4 miles)

Spin etc.

Very happy to have Joanna back for spin class today! Liz joined me for it, and we just ran 15 minutes on the track afterwards then called it a day and went for omelets at La Lunchonette.

In the wake of our conversation, I have an exciting new race for June 2013 - Syracuse 70.3! It's 11 weeks out from IMWI...

(I've updated the sidebar with a few other small upcoming races I've decided to do also - a 5-mile Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving in Philadelphia and a 15K in Central Park in December, which should be a good benchmark on running speeds.)

1hr spin (3 x 11min climbs!)
1.5mi run

Bike-spin-swim

Favorite spin teacher was off today, so I rather hemmed and hawed over whether it was worth going anyway; scales were tipped when I realized cleaner was coming in that time slot and that I might as well go downtown. It is not a good class compared to the usual, but whatever! I finally got in a SHORT swim - I'd like to have a few more of those before my triathlon next weekend, although I would imagine the benefits at this point are more mental than physical...

10 miles RT bike
:45 spin
1000 yards swim (10 x 100, odds free evens drill-swim by 25)

Skype spin

Just did a very good 50-minute workout with Lauren. 10 mins warmup, then

3 x (5 x :15 all out, 1:45 rest), 5:00 rest between sets

Long run!

I was feeling very exhausted and cast down last night, and it was a bit of a struggle to get out of bed this morning. I had to talk myself into it by promising myself the long run completely to please myself - no HR monitor, none of the hassle of running through crowded streets over to Central Park! And I did indeed have a very lovely one. Ran down to 96th and then up along the water to the Little Red Lighthouse and back. Saw that black cat I spotted once before, together with companion cat of similar ilk (they are both longhaired, I would guess they might be littermates and former housecats, only the second one has very beautiful fawn-and-black brindling). Very happy that comfortable pace is now back just under 10:00 miles.

c. 10 miles, 1:37:33, c. 9:45/mi. pace

Box!

This class is really excellent - I am going to do a lot more of this boxing conditioning kind of stuff in my "off season" (though as I am doing the Mercury Man aquabike in January, I won't drop the spin and run - probably will be pretty lazy about swimming, though, due to time constraints and priorities).

1hr

Beautiful day at Tough Mudder

only more mud than I thought possible! Thanks to teammates Marion, Lynnette and Andrea for making it such good fun, and Gerald for training us so well...

c. 4 hours VERY MUDDY running with obstacles! Knees and elbows rather scratched up due to a tunnel obstacle that had very sharp mud, and certainly I will have delayed-onset muscle soreness over coming days - otherwise completed without permanent injury.

Decadent day of exercise!

(Not perhaps QUITE as outrageous as it sounds in terms of self-indulgence, as I first got up at 5 to finish revisions on a review and also was able to read the pages for our eighteenth-century discussion group, which met at 3 today, during the spells between classes, but it is luxurious that I can so often do as I like!)

1hr Beast ("stretchy day," as some of us are racing tomorrow)
1hr gentle yoga
:45 spin (2 x 8min climb, with 8min "flat ride" in between)

Skype 3s!

3 x (4 x 3:00 work, 1:00 rest)

First set seated in easy gear, second set standing in heavy gear, third set seated in heavy gear (in theory Z2-3, but really the second set is much in Z4)

1hr total

Beast/yoga!

I heard the siren song of possible DOUBLE BEAST SESSION, and got there for the first class - but after an intense hour-long workout, common sense prevailed and I realized I truly did not need to attempt a second hour! Consulted with my teammates about our race on Saturday (1pm start time, but logistics are slightly complex and we'll meet up at 9:30 at Chelsea Piers to head in M.'s car to New Jersey), then ran a couple more miles (running is easy compared to a lot of the other stuff we were doing, including the dreaded 200m bear crawl with tethered ankles and pushing 2 25-lb plates!). Breakfast in the cafe, and time to finish my reading for class; then gentle yoga at 9:30.

1hr boot camp
2 miles run
1hr gentle yoga

Box!

This is an incredible workout - I'm extremely glad I signed up for this class. Was glum indeed last week when illness prevented me from attending!

1hr boxing conditioning

Phew!

Yesterday I was definitely still kind of under the weather, but it is a huge relief to be able to go out for a run this morning. Having a cold is not enjoyable - I depend on exercise for mood regulation!

1hr, c. 6+mi.

Just a quick note

to say that the cold inevitably DID descend into the lungs and become a minor bronchial ailment: not nearly as bad as some I've had, but any training is contraindicated, and I suspect it will be a couple more days still of recovery. It is KILLING me not to be running during this beautiful fall weather!

Spin!

Down with a cold for last couple days, but very much a more minor one than I have traditionally suffered, with no lung involvement to speak of. I credit the fact that I've been getting allergy shots once a week since the spring - it's made an enormous difference, and I wish I'd done it sooner. (The five high-priority allergens I'm getting stuck up with: spring pollens, fall pollens including ragweed, dust mites, cockroaches and CAT!) Had a good Skype workout with Lauren; I picked one from the sweat-proof volume that included short high-intensity power intervals rather than the longer kind that put more strain on the lungs. Still bummed out at missing such perfect running weather today and at not being able to have the build week I had intended, but that's OK, really I'm lucky it wasn't worse (particularly happy that I ran on Tuesday before realizing I was getting sick!). Felt very good to warm up the body and break a sweat!

50min spin: 3 x (5 x :15 all out, 1:45 RI, with 5:00 set rest)

(Irked

to have to note, as postscript, that it is definitely a tiny cold rather than allergies! Several sneezing episodes and an increasing feeling of heaviness in the sinuses clued me in over the course of our midday department meeting. Alas, this means I have to SKIP the boxing conditioning class, that is so sad! Am instead going to drink tea with lemon and honey and try and make a dent in the pile of letters of recommendation.)

Run!

Overcast but not actually raining, brightening up a little as I ran - beautiful morning for a run along the river. Having some post-nasal drip that is either allergies or else a slight cold, probably the latter. Feel good otherwise though.

c. 6mi, 1hr

Run!

Jogged over to the gym at 106th St. and met up with Mark for our long-awaited run! He is a much faster runner than I, but doesn't run much (costs muscle mass!), so really we had a highly satisfactory outing along the river. I was huffing and puffing mightily. I had a short warmup and cooldown on my own, and we took a slightly different route than I usually do, but I think I can say that this was the fastest six miles I've run for several years. He's off to Haiti in a couple days to do promotion and performances for his new album, but I hope we'll have some more runs together in coming months...

c. 6.2mi. (59:00)

Run!

Still a bit warm for my taste, but it's a beautiful clear morning after a disgustingly muggy rainy week - nice easy 4 miles.

Spin!

Very good Skype date with Lauren. Another of the Workouts in a Binder (that volume is a hugely valuable purchase for anyone who ever does a self-inflicted indoor bike workout):

3 x (4 x (3min work, 1min rest)): first set as seated/easy/high-cadence, second set as standing/heavy gear, third set as seated/heavy gear

1hr total

Beast/yoga

Good boot camp class, though unfortunately we couldn't use the sand volleyball court to practice rope-climbing, cargo net, etc. as actual volleyball players were using it!

1hr boot camp
1hr gentle yoga

Box!

I couldn't resist signing up for this class at the Columbia gym! Haven't had a CU gym membership for a long time - it's not expensive, but it's also inadequate, and Chelsea Piers plus TNYA swim meant it was no longer worth braving for the horrendously crowded evening lap swim hours. But I got a membership for the semester because the Columbia Triathlon Club was offering guaranteed entry to the NYC Tri next summer if you were a dues-paying member of the club, and club membership also entails gym membership - anyway, I'm determined to improve my punching competency so that I can enjoy the Combat Fitness class as much as the Commando Fitness class at the Boot Camp Cayman gym. I've never done any of the boxing classes at Chelsea Piers, but they've got a lot of good options there too, and I'm thinking that I will switch over to that for my non-triathlon non-yoga workouts after the Tough Mudder race is done - I like the Beast class very much, but it is not realistic for me to get downtown for 7am!

1hr demanding jumprope, abs, punching

Run!

As it is a recovery week, I indulged myself by doing the flat run along the river rather than Central Park hills - it is very pleasant running along the water. Happy to see that I am finally (I don't have exact distances) running at or just under 10-minute pace in zone 2 on a flat course on a not-hot day. I was past the 59th St. pier at the 30-minute turnaround mark; that is good for running morale.

1hr, 6mi (zone 2)