Quick warm morning run

Traveling later today, need to get off the computer (have been snarled up by a Google conflict - Columbia mail migrated to a Google affiliate thing yesterday, and now I can't be in both my old Google and new Columbia accounts at the same time, arghhhh - though I am relieved to have found a way in here after an initial rebuff!), but started the day with a very nice short run with Max and Jasdip. Slightly overwhelmed at thought of next few days, and indeed just very busy next 2.5 weeks - then I get a short breather. Onward and upward!

:30, c. 2.5mi

Hot yoga!

I am always a bit over-optimistic with regard to these minor lung ailments - really they must be respected, they move slowly through various stages (last night my wheezing while asleep seems to have been loud enough that B. had to retreat to another room!), but it's been killing me to be getting so little exercise. The 1hr hot yoga class was perfect - I did feel rather queasy at various points, but lungs were pretty ok.

Will have 1 short run with Max again tomorrow morning and then fly back to NYC later in the day - might take a dip in the pool later (non-athletic), as if I don't get any sunburn, nobody will know I have been on "vacation"! Really I had a productive work day yesterday & now need to have another one today, plus half-day tomorrow before heading to airport....

1hr hot yoga

Short warm run also of minor bliss!

My lung ailment continued to morph, minorly, over the weekend, but on Saturday I ran into my friend Max at Icoa and we made a date for a short run Monday morning. I was DAMNED if I was going to go another day without exercise, and lungs seem a bit better (still have something of a sore throat). Delightful - we just went about 2.3mi with some bits of walking when the dog found something interesting, but I am happy to have had at least something. May try and go to midday hot yoga depending on how I feel.

(I like running with Max for all sorts of reasons - not least because I really just can't make myself run in the early morning unless I have a date to meet up with someone else! - but one of the best things about it is running with Jasdip, pictured here with yellow football.)

:28, 2.3mi

Update from the islands

I did make it safely to Cayman, but the frenzy of work required this week to extricate myself honorably from town (plus missed night of sleep for early flight) has inevitably given me a minor lung ailment! QUITE minor, not an actual cold, but I will have to take the next few days off from exercise. No double spin, no long ride, ARGHHHHH! However I have just slept for twelve-plus hours, which was highly beneficial, and am going to have an amazingly lazy day, which I am also looking forward to as I do not seem to have had one of those for ages....

Short run of minor bliss!

This winter has been thwarting me in my desire to run (really when I am very busy running is by far the most time-efficient form of exercise), but I was determined to get out today at least for a short one. The air is very mild, it is not a beautiful day (overcast and a bit rainy) but it is nice for lungs to get the benefit of spring thaw. Conditions underfoot in Riverside Park very variable - some stretches completely clear, others with thick carpet of ice and slushy snow (not horrible, but you have to go quite a bit more slowly), and then one very treacherous slick of black ice in the tunnel down to the water. I have a lot of stuff to do, so I turned back rather earlier than I had imagined - was just coming up on a very snowy stretch as I started to feel antsy about getting on with my day. Lovely, though!

c. 2.8mi, c. 32min

Catch-up

Thursday, Friday, Saturday were a catastrophe of weather, work and fatigue, but I did get to hot yoga yesterday (after a false start when subway delays meant I had to go home again after making a stab at getting to 10am class), just no time in a rather frazzled day to blog it after. And I made it to Joanna's spin class today as well. Got a ton of work to do before I leave town early Friday morning, but should be able to get to at least one yoga and also temperatures (though more snow is predicted) may be warm enough that I can run outside - that would be desirable...

:50 spin

Hot yoga!

That was good, though I have to say that I am going to have to do hot yoga much more frequently if I really want to see improvement. Had fantastical notion that I might instead or as well go to evening spin class at Chelsea Piers, but really it's too cold, I know I won't want to be trekking around town - really I will just have to wait another few weeks for weather to warm up a bit before I can be doing the proper range of exercise....

1.5hr hot yoga

Hot yoga!

Afterglow dissipated at realization that subway wasn't running due to signal failure, which seems to have happened almost every day this winter - but it was a very good class. Took a bus partway, but when it stopped for indeterminately long time at 135th St. (where the drivers change?), I decided to get off and walk the rest of the way home. Sunny day, not at all windy, so temperatures in the low 20s don't seem at all bad....

This is the time of year when I most regret that Chelsea Piers is so far away - I am too busy to spare the 1+hr transit each way, especially if I can't bike or run down to make better use of transit time. Have decided to wait to start swimming till weather is a bit warmer - sounds lazy, but really swimming-pool chemicals and cold air are two things that put considerable stress on my lungs, so it seems wiser to wait till I have gotten rid of one of those stress factors. Might do another hot yoga this evening if I am finished with work I need to do in time....

1.5hr hot yoga

Spin!

Belated spin report, after rather frazzled trip home via allergy doc - I made the strategic error of not eating after my workout, and it never makes the next set of things go better - once I am that underfueled, I am incapable of getting food either! Finally snagged emergency slice of pizza near allergy doctor's office, but making a mental note not to get myself in this situation again any time soon. It is not enjoyable!

Joanna was mysteriously absent, I am slightly worried, but we had a good class with Ann Marie. I had thought of running on the track afterwards, but a couple laps told me that I was mysteriously wheezy (probably the very intense sprint intervals we'd done at the end of spinning), so I called it a day and got in the shower. A lot of work to do this evening and this week!

1hr spin

Double spin

Liz had suggested meeting up for this, which was just as well, as otherwise I very certainly would not have been able to get myself out of bed - as it was, it was a pretty near thing! Felt good - I need to get this back on my schedule as a regular thing. Got home around 2:30 and essentially just fell back into bed and slept till 6:30 (!) - hmmm, I am never going to be able to go to sleep tonight, but I think it was unavoidable, I just didn't get enough sleep any night this week. It has always been curiously easier for me to sleep in something like 2 shifts adding up to eight hours total than to fall asleep at a reasonable hour and sleep the whole chunk at once....

1:45 spin

Hot yoga!

I've slipped to a late-night schedule, it's not good: I almost couldn't drag myself out of bed when the alarm went off at 9, I was in the middle of a deep and stressful dream and it didn't seem like I'd been asleep for nearly long enough! However I knew I'd be very sorry later if I didn't make it, so I did get myself up and over to class, which was great. I guess I've been going often enough that it's started to feel more natural - there are one or two poses that I still don't feel I understand properly (rabbit!), but significant improvement on the two that are really hard for me in the standing series, standing head-to-knee and standing bow-pulling pose, and generally it all feels non-overwhelming.

Had a good appointment with the pulmonary specialist the other day post-lung function test. My lungs are functioning at 119% which is very good; I will stay on the same medication (really I mostly only have exercise-induced asthma, though there are a couple allergies - mold, dogs, misc. other things - that can induce wheezing). We had sensible discussion of cold air and exercise, and I now have official confirmation of what my intuition told me before: I should avoid exercising outside if the temperature is below freezing.

1.5hr hot yoga

Hot yoga!

That was excellent.

1.5hr

CRAZY SNOWINESS!

I have a Monday-morning meeting but otherwise it is really my best day of the week this semester for making sure I get in a double exercise session - I was undaunted by snow (really for the asthma sufferers it is better to run in not-so-freezing-but-snowy weather than the alternative - the really cold run I had a week and a half ago left my lungs sub-par for three or four days, which is not good - I feel I narrowly avoided getting sick again). However it was REALLY snowy! I left an extra fifteen minutes, with prior experience suggesting that most of the way along the west side path would have been cleared at least in some preliminary fashion, but this was far from the case! (Possibly due to change of mayor?) Anyway, it was INSANE getting from here to about 65th St. - like running through heavy sand - my lower calves and feet were extremely sore, and I think I might have broken my hamstrings! After that not so bad, but I was worried about not getting there in time - GORGEOUS though esp. in the deserted upper bit of park near me.

1:17 "run" (that's almost 20 minutes slower than it normally would be!)
:40 spin

Horrible getting home on the subway - it is horrendously crowded, and huge piles of slush at street crossings - unfortunately I do have to go out again later....

Hot yoga!

Highly worthwhile, though I felt overwhelmingly too hot for a good stretch of the standing sequence - not queasy, just too hot! Was feeling rather demoralized about low amount of exercise this week, but really if I frame it in context of basic health requirements rather than athletic performance, it doesn't sound so bad: 2 runs, 1 spin, 2 hot yoga, for a total of 5.5hr. Barring unforeseen calamity, I am committed to making this coming week culminate in a better total!

1.5hr hot yoga

Run!

It turned into absolutely glorious running weather: low 40s, sunny, very little wind. I dramatically scaled back my original plans due to fatigue - really this week's been a bit of a disaster as far as exercise goes, I worked too much and too hard and had a number of social and work commitments that took me out for too many evenings. Didn't make it to spin this morning, slept in instead, and then after late-morning breakfast I basically went back to bed for most of the rest of the day - I was too tired even to read an undemanding book, which for me is saying a lot! So no long run, but a very lovely short one along the river in the last bit of light before sunset. Need to reconceive how I will handle this semester's exercise schedule - I have three weeks before I'm going to B.'s again, I should try and exercise almost every day even if it's only for half an hour....

:43, c. 4mi