Monday, December 30, 2013

Grumpy lung update

It is so frustrating - on Saturday evening, I had bad feeling in the lungs & coughed a lot overnight and wondered whether I'd done something that had created a minor resurgence of this ailment I've been fighting for three weeks - but by the morning it was all too clear that I was just getting ANOTHER COLD! Before the old one really was completely gone! I am frustrated and grumpy - I have been fantasizing about doing huge amounts of yoga in January, but my lungs are really in grotesque shape right now, I do not know how feasible that will be!

Anyway, expect radio silence here, I am flying early Thursday morning to Brent's (which will be very nice!), I don't think lungs will be in shape for any exercise between now and then - will prob just do something gentle on Friday once I'm there, like flow yoga or short swim. (The hot yoga is too intense when lungs are not working full force.)

Happy new year!

Saturday, December 28, 2013

RUN!

It was a bonus one, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to fit it in, which always makes it particularly lovely (and will certainly set me up for a better day to come - 1pm meetup at Central Park zoo with former student & his family and my own visiting cousins, then 6pm family dinner at the loft).

Riverside Park is so beautiful at this time of year - trees black and bare against gray sky, muted green/brown/gray of grass and pavement and river. I love winter running! (It's mid-40s today, some sun and not much wind, which is in my book pretty much the ideal running weather.)

1:07:43, 6+mi

Friday, December 27, 2013

Run!

That was such a nice little run - New York winter running is lovely, it is a forgiving climate, high 30s and the ground is completely clear despite various recent episodes of snow. Took me a few miles to warm up (lower legs rather stiff and tight), and I decided just to do four miles as I am also hoping to get to hot yoga this evening - running into a fairly chilly headwind on the way out - but the homeward leg was beautiful, and made me wish I'd gone longer.

(Happy to see an elderly gentleman feeding the tennis court calico kibble out of a ziplock bag - he had some fleece blankets to wrap her in too!)

(It was unrealistic to exercise Wednesday or Thursday, with travel and family obligations - I had hoped for a run or a yoga or both, but it totally didn't happen!)

43min, c. 4mi

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Hot yoga!

That was great, though I am still overly full of phlegm and felt weaker than usual in the beginning - hard to keep my arms up for instance in the awkward series, which usually isn't a problem. Crisp cool sunny day, much more seasonally appropriate than this warm rainy weather we've been having. Probably won't have time to exercise tomorrow, but am optimistic that the 26th will include either a run or hot yoga or even BOTH!

1.5hr hot yoga

Monday, December 23, 2013

Spin!

A good one - Joanna's last class of the calendar year, didn't want to miss it. 20min climb plus :30, :45, :60 sprints.

1hr spin

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Run!

Met up with Lauren for a warm damp run in Prospect Park. It is almost 70 degrees! Only downside was having to drag myself out of bed relatively early - might lie back down for a nap now. Would love to go to yoga later, but have some work that must be done too, so I will see how it goes. Lungs still with junk (our run was partly slow because of some walks up hills/waits for lights and for me to dispose of excess phlegm!), but incrementally better each day, this is good. Three days in a row of decent exercise has put me in a much better mood!

1:12, 6.2mi

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Spin!

Lungs not at 100%, but a bit better than yesterday. Very good class: 3 x 9min as 3 standing, 3 seated climb and 3 as :30 sprint :30 recovery. Will go to restorative yoga at noon.

:55 spin

Friday, December 20, 2013

Spin!

Lungs still full of junk, but my morning assessment was that it was a go for spin class, and it felt mighty fine to work up a sweat. Capped at zone 2. It is clearly going to be a while before all this junky stuff dries up, alas, but I think I am OK for moderate exercise as long as I am sensible....

:55 spin!

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Grumpy lung update

Well, I have been incrementally better day by day, and today my energy levels finally feel more normal again, but my lungs are still grotesquely full of phlegm - I was sitting in my office grading for much of the day, and my coughing was alerting the entire building to medical distress - I cannot tell you how tempted I am to go out for a short run or even to yoga, but really it is still too soon. Fingers crossed for tomorrow, and definitely Saturday if not tomorrow.

These bronchial colds are the minor bane of my existence - no big deal of course in the grand scheme of medical woes, but this is now the eighth day in a row of being sick. I should count myself lucky that I only had four (?) big ones this year - it has a significant negative effect on quality of life.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Ailment update

I thought it was a minor cold on the wane, but really it's a mid-level cold that's still escalating! Ugh, I hate these days without exercise, but I have amused myself by registering for a couple races for next year and updating my sidebar - I've really got a good list of things to do, I don't need to put much more on the schedule than that....

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Minor lung ailment!

Yesterday's wheeziness turned very clearly by midday into a minor lung ailment, alas. On the bright side, it could be MUCH worse - in fact in the taxonomy of Davidsonian respiratory ailments it is almost negligible, though I will clearly need to take a couple days off from exercise. End of semester is just a demanding time, with many stresses, but I see clearly how beneficial it was that I didn't travel for Thanksgiving - I am guessing I would be much, much sicker right now if I had!

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Hot yoga belatedly

Did make it to 4:30 class yesterday, just about. Went straight to the theater from there, thus belated post. Am pretty seriously looking at 12:30 class today, only with proviso that I was very very wheezy this morning when I got up - I am a little nervous that the new asthma medicine isn't working as well as the old.

1.5hr hot yoga

Monday, December 9, 2013

Short run!

By the time I was done, I wished I'd gone longer! Had hoped to get to midday spin at Chelsea Piers, but this dratted 8:30am meeting I've had on Mondays all semester set things off to a bad start - I was feeling headachey and tired, and the weather was so dreadful I pretty much just went back to bed. Reading hundreds of pages of PDF on iPad did not subsequently help (I was working in bed, not sleeping in bed!), but I didn't want to post a zero, so I did get out for a short run, and am very glad of it - it shook the cobwebs out. Not beautiful out there, very foggy and dark with lots of dead leaves in the park, but on the other hand it is not actually raining and the temperature is in the upper 30s, so not bad running weather, all told.

I am glad to see that the tennis-court calico continues to be well tended to by a lady who brings food and a red fleece blanket to wrap the cat up in! Also sighted: two very lively black standard poodles in matching raincoats, one red and one pink; lots and lots of mallards paddling in the frigid Hudson.

Tomorrow I will have a short run in the morning as an anti-zero precaution - I'm hoping to make it to 4:30 hot yoga as well, but I have evening plans both tonight and tomorrow, and I don't want to end up flaking on yoga and not having done something small in the morning already. First meeting tomorrow isn't until 10am so that should be feasible.

:35:25, c. 3.2mi

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Hot yoga!

Now that was good.

Only minor cloud on the horizon - a minor muscle strain that I think may be SLEEP-RELATED?!? I had a particularly bad night of insomnia on Thursday, with huge amounts of tossing and turning (I am always flinging myself around a lot before and after going to sleep). I think I flung myself sufficient awkwardly that I have strained a lower abdominal muscle on the right-hand side - at any rate it is not conceivable that I hurt it spinning or running, and only the thing that really hurts now is turning over in bed. Found the Bikram sit-ups increasingly painful, so stopped doing them, and was also limited in mobility in camel pose; otherwise really unimpaired. I don't think I can go to yoga tomorrow, but I plan to on Tuesday if I get enough work done during the day.

(I am an hour and a half short of my supposedly non-negotiable 6-hr weekly total, but it is OK, it was unavoidable consequence of posting three zeroes the first three days of the week, and I was back on track from Thursday. Just crossing my fingers I don't get sick - it should now be that I have a good run of exercise from now through the new year, and the spring semester should be considerably easier than this fall has been in terms of doing the fitness stuff I want to. Race season for next year shaping up very nicely, but I will wait to write a separate post on that - haven't yet registered for all the stuff I'm looking at, some of it I don't know about yet in any case....)

1.5hr hot yoga

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Postscript

A two-hour nap (I thought I was just lying down for thirty minutes) and NO progress on any of my work or tidying-up persuaded me that I should not go to yoga this afternoon - I will just have a quiet evening at home, I was more tired than I realized. I can go to morning class tomorrow....

Spin!

A goodun. Will go to 4:30 hot yoga uptown. Lots of work bits and bobs but prospect of weekend entirely to myself has put me in very good mood!

:55 spin

Friday, December 6, 2013

Run!

A very good (albeit slow - I was lazy, I requested that we walk up hills!) run in Prospect Park with Lauren. I am now utterly knackered - it was a day of many moving parts, each one of which was not demanding in itself but which cumulatively took a toll!

I got up earlier than I like to, emailed a more fully developed version of a science core course (don't ask!) to a colleague at 9:45, had meetings at 10 and 12, met Lauren in Brooklyn just before two (we were held up for reasons beyond our control, but we had a lovely time once we were out there, freezing rain notwithstanding!), then was racing to get back to Columbus Circle for 4:45 asthma doc appointment.

(Arrived five minutes late, which caused me considerable anxiety but had no practical repercussions whatsoever.)

I had a very good conversation with the doc, he's given me two new prescriptions (one to replace the medication that will no longer be covered by insurance, one that may help with ongoing wheeziness after long days of exercise - not debilitating, but wouldn't hurt to see if a tweak could help). I had thought I might go from there to yoga, but since I hadn't had time to eat properly after my run, it was clear that instead I should drop off prescriptions at the pharmacy and properly refuel. When I got home I found that I did not have my keys - I had left them on the living-room table. Materially this did not matter, as the evening doorman loaned me his set and I was in within minutes, but it is a sign of an overly complex day, it is very unusual for me to lock myself out and it was a sign that I was right not to go to yoga!

Back was quite sore last night and while running this afternoon, so I am axing the notion of a swim workout tomorrow afternoon - will go to 10am spin at Chelsea Piers and 4:30 class at Bikram Yoga Harlem. Main other weekend goal is to get on top of the large number of work-related things that need to be done before the end of the semester!

c. 6.5mi, c. 1:15

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Short run!

Finally got out for a run, and it was lovely - it is foggy and unbelievably mild, high 50s. Just did four miles along the river - I'm running with Lauren tomorrow afternoon in Prospect Park as well. Teaching now over for the semester, though end-of-semester responsibilities remain, and I am hoping not to post so many zeroes for the rest of December!

4mi, 44min

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Spin!

Several logistical fails on this one: I shouldn't have made the commitment for a Sunday evening when I could have predicted I would have many letters of recommendation still to write; and once I was there, I should have thought more about the necessity for post-ride refueling, as instead I trekked the hour-plus home on the subway feeling increasingly sick/shaky with caloric deficit! An egg salad sandwich has now remedied the latter, though, and as for the former, really it was very good to have such a good exercise session.

(Met up with Liz at what I can only describe, trying to keep a straight face, as Park Slope's boutique cycling studio! That teacher is very good - we did a lot of technique work that is very much along the lines I've been thinking about recently.)

It was a pretty reasonable week for exercise, all told (just under 8hr total). I have a daunting amount of work to deal with between now and the end of the day tomorrow, but after this week, I have more time to myself, and am looking forward to doing a LOT of yoga in December.

1.5hr spin