Thursday run!

A nice one in the rain.  I was rather shooting for a 1.5hr one easy, but was thwarted in desired turnaround (big construction along waterfront path), and hadn't brought water or money with me - couldn't quite persuade myself to do another out-and-back when I got so close to my hotel & thought of breakfast and WATER.....

1:10 easy in the rain

Wednesday run!

So I did manage to run on Friday and Saturday, but by the time I went to bed Saturday night I was so exhausted and underslept that I realized I'd better not set an alarm or even think about running early Sunday.  This was the right choice as I felt considerably more human after a night's sleep, but if you don't run first thing it becomes decreasingly likely it gets fit in later.  In summary-

On Sunday I was defeated by tourism (whale-watching!) and late lunch.
On Monday I was defeated by letters of recommendation - had a productive but slightly grueling morning work session and had no vim for anything but lunch by the time I finished.
On Tuesday I was defeated by tourism for a second time (early departure for day trip to the Blue Mountains!).

Today, though, it is a lovely lazy day of lounging and I had a great almost 1hr easy run before breakfast.  Woo-hoo!

1hr easy

Meager run update!

I was glad I had finished with my "100 in 100" project as this week of travels really was impossible for exercise.  I am gradually coming to terms with the fact that as a bad sleeper and an anxious traveler, I really just am not going to have even a short run on a day when I've left home very early for the airport - one of my online run teammates had an amazing tale of having exercised in an airport by running up and down stairs with her backpack and all, but that is frankly NOT ME!  So, in the way of excuses or explanations:

Monday: only slept about 3 hours, left home c. 5:30 for 8:30 flight from JFK to LAX (7hr).  Brent's cousin kindly picked me up at the airport and drove me to Anaheim, we had food and drink, by the time she left I'd already had several drinks and also it was 8pm east coast time and I was just DONE - took a sleeping pill and went to bed.  (Oh, and I was greeted at airport in LA with message from Phillips Lifeline about B.'s  mother, who'd had a couple falls - upshot was one more fall later the paramedics took her to the emergency room and she was being transferred to respite care for broken ankle.)

Tuesday morning: should have been able to run as was up early but we had complex calling around to do about status on B.'s mother and I just couldn't make myself do it.  Checkout time at hotel was 11, we went to LAX and after a slightly complex check-in procedure then spent about 10 hours in the flagship lounge waiting for 10:55pm flight to Sydney.

Wednesday didn't exist as we were on a plane for fourteen hours and date line meant we arrived in Sydney early Thursday morning!  Amazingly we WERE able to check in to our hotel even though it was only 8am or so, that was a blessing.  Got some sleep on the  plane but really again it was just unrealistic to exercise, I didn't have it in me.

Friday: set alarm for 6 but jet lag is killing me - I was awake at 4, lay quietly in bed for a couple hours and finally just got up before the alarm went off and went out for a very lovely run along the harbor.  :45 easy.

Saturday: set alarm for 6 again but it took me so long to fall asleep and then I couldn't STAY asleep either, around 5 I turned off the alarm because I was so tired and frazzled I thought it was more important to try and get a bit more sleep (friends are visiting from Melbourne for the weekend and activities will be required), but since I still just couldn't sleep at all I grudgingly got  up around 6 and went for a run - pretty nice of course but I am just horribly tired, my eyeballs feel as though they have been rubbed with sandpaper!  :30 easy and then 6 x :30 hill on the very good hill leading up  to hotel entrance for a total of about :40.

There is a decent gym in the hotel and I want to be lifting as well but it has so far been incompatible  with other arrangements, in particular timing of tourism and meals - I am reconciled to that, the daily run is the most valuable thing I think.  But I could really use a night of sleep!

Short run!

Sheepish that it was such a short one, but really this whole week has been overwhelming, I don't see clearly how I could go back and do any of it much differently.  Had not even started packing, organizing work stuff etc. when I got up today (a friend is staying here with the cats, so also wanting to get apartment sorted out properly for a visitor), and couldn't risk doing the long run before making headway on other things, especially given that I was already so tired that all I wanted to do was cower in bed!  Finished up reasonable facsimile of work and packing by around 8pm and just went out for :30 easy.  It is still disgustingly warm and humid, I am looking forward to being in cooler places in coming weeks and months....

:30 easy

Run!

Ah, that was nice - my black-tie event last night was fun but tiring, and inevitable result of being out late and drinking alcohol was that I couldn't fall asleep till 6am, arghh!  :40 easy run is a very good way to shake out the cobwebs....

Run!

This week has been completely overwhelming - have been sleeping horribly/barely at all (too much work socializing in evenings, plus anxiety re: this midweek vet episode and things to do for coming travels), spent yesterday afternoon and an hour or two this afternoon just huddled in bed trying to regroup in order to go back out in the evening!  Didn't exercise at all yesterday to my chagrin, I used up every ounce of willpower writing a long letter of recommendation, but today I figured I'd better get out there for SOMETHING at least.  Didn't do the full run assigned for yesterday but had a good compromise that should set me up for being able to survive the third evening this week of mega-work socializing!  

:43 with 10 x (1:00 harder, 1:00 easy)

Squats!

A very good session with Josh downtown.  I am really finally making progress - the Olympic lifting shoes were the last piece of the puzzle.  Took a single at 165 and really felt I could have gone higher, though we stopped it there - nice to have a new PR up on the board!  (Current total now 560.  600 is in sight!)

Having mildly harrowing interactions with vet re: cat I dropped off this morning for dental work - pre-exam detected a heart murmur, they won't give anesthesia until cardiologist has checked it out, only cardiologist isn't available till Tuesday at which point I'm en route to Australia.  Going to go and retrieve cat now and try this again when I'm home at the end of the month!

1hr lower body
1hr bike

Run!

Ah, such a nice run!  The weather at this time of year makes me really happy (at least when it is not FREAKISHLY HOT AND HUMID).

12:00 easy, then 8 x 3:00 as (2:00 hard/purposeful, 1:00 easy), 12:00 easy

:48

DL!

That was good.  Main set: 10 x 3 @ 67% (166) with eccentric tempo descending on final rep of each set.  Deficits: 3 x 3 @ 72.5% (but I think I may have switched out the 2.5s for 5s rather than 10s, which would make it 171 rather than 181).  Goblet squats: 3 x 8 @ 22.5.  3 x 10 stationary lunges.

1hr lower body
1hr easy bike

Run!

Just :30 easy - that was what was on the schedule, I'm sorry not make up one of the intervals I've missed on very warm recent days but I left it late enough that I have more vim for dinner than for running longer, although it is the most gorgeous evening (still high 70s mid-evening, but low humidity and altogether sort of like living on a different planet compared to what it's been like the last few days).

I have one more week at home before our Australia trip, and then one week at home again before heading to Oxford for the fall term there - feeling a bit scrambled re: too many different work imperatives (and in practice external obligations to write letters of various kinds will probably impede my ability to get much done on my own two nice projects), but it is all good really....

:30 easy

Run!

Just did 1hr easy, I have no vim for intervals until the weather reaches more reasonable temperatures!  I waited almost till dark to go out, and it probably wasn't as bad as the last few days have been - certainly humidity was a bit lower than when I was out doing errands, gruesomely, this morning. Let it be cooler soon!

1hr easy

Run!

It is so grotesquely warm and muggy that I almost talked myself out of doing any run at all, only I know really it makes me feel good afterwards.  Just did :35 or so easy rather than the scheduled hour -  I have a hot subway trip downtown and family dinner still to come, need to survive all that too!

Run!

It sort of turned into one of those days (I blame heat and humidity in part!) - after the vet visit mid-morning (they make house calls!), I was lazy and dozed and read things on the internet instead of doing my real work.  Finally got myself into gear mid-afternoon (I need to make progress on book planning, and I have an overdue promotion letter), texted Josh to tell him I couldn't come to powerlifting this evening (hate to do that, and it was entirely my own bad time management) and had a work session so enjoyable that I wonder why I procrastinate.  Then had 1hr rather unpleasant very slow run along the river - heat and humidity such that the air feels as though it has the properties of human blood.  Off now to meet up with Liz for Justin Vivian Bond featuring our friend Thomas Bartlett!

Short run

Should have been an hour, but I didn't quite have it in me - I don't think I hydrated sufficiently earlier either pre- or post-workout (the 10mi biking is easy effort but certainly you're losing fluids).  Started out shuffling fairly happily (a bit of general fatigue but no specific soreness except for the right spinal erector which was tingling in its occasional imitation of a phantom hot dog bun along the back), was aware that I was appreciating running in the shade of "my" bit of the park but didn't want to risk doing two loops there instead of the longer out and back (hard to stay motivated for second loop).  But as soon as I came into the direct sunlight of the river path, my mind roundly rebelled and told me "NOPE!"  Shuffled home instead, it's fine...

:30 shuffle

Squats!

Hard to pin down one single cause, but the combination of changes (squat shoes, one-on-one sessions with Josh, some other technique tweaks and warmup hacks) has led to great improvement in my squat - it is still my weakest of the three lifts, but not nearly so far out of whack with the others as it was six  months ago.

Some quality singles at 115
4 x 10 with safety squat bar
Single-leg step-ups with 22.5s

1hr lower body
1hr RT bike

Deadlilfts!

Feeling rather tired - I usually get "enough" sleep but it's often low on quality, I think.  Anyway a good session at the gym.  My highest one-rep max in the past year was 275, but that's almost a year ago and I think at the end of the last training cycle I was more like 251 - had to recalculate my working weight after doing a first set at 80% of the higher number and realizing it was just too heavy for current strength/fatigue levels!  I also just haven't been lifting that regularly over spring and summer - too much travel.  Josh is giving us more discretion on numbers these days (I think because Certain People were ignoring him and lifting heavier weights than they were supposed to, he threw up his hands!) which for me is good.

6 x 2-3 @ 80-85% of max (I did 2 @ 220, 3 @ 201, 5 x 2 @ 201)

Deficit pull: 3 x 3 @ 60-65% of max (161)

3 x 8 goblet squats (22.5lb)

And a few lunges - back was twinging a bit and really I just felt tired, so I called it a day. It was a good workout - we now have real deadlift platforms and are using bands over the bar on the initial 5, 5, 3 warmup set, focusing on getting the bar taut against the band before surging up - it really then feels like it flies up when you take the bands off!

Gloriously windy run!

It's very strange weather - we still haven't had any rain, but it's quite windy and the water in the Hudson is turbulent and high.  I felt speedy on my way south with the wind at my back and then adventurous as I battled into the wind on the way home!

12:00 easy, 10 x (1:30 hard, 2:30 easy), easy cooldown
1:05

Long run!

2hr time-on-feet run.  Blessedly low humidity, though it's pretty hot still in sun.  First hour blissfully enjoyable, second hour slightly marred by minor aches and pains but particularly by painful sports bra band chafing!  Off to shower now - I think there may be some (TMI) fungal infection along that stripe, will spray it down with chemicals after I'm clean!

2hr easy (over to Central Park, upper five, then back across 106th St., into Riverside Park at 95th and homeward bound thereafter)

Run!

Ah, that was fantastic - I really think a one-hour run is optimal, short enough that it doesn't feel onerous but a little more substantial than these short ones I've been doing.  It's 70F and overcast - quite humid, so not a beautiful running day as such, but cooler temperatures are a blessing!

1hr as 15:00 easy, 10 x 1:00 faster, 2:00 easy, 15:00 easy

Run!

Just  :40 easy, which was just as well as my quads are SHREDDED from Wednesday's workout with Josh - I hobbled down the stairs into the park one at a time and was still making faces later on as I walked down campus stairs....

(A most beautiful morning, low 70s and low humidity - reminds me that we are about to come into the best running season of all.)

:40 easy

Upper body

I may have slightly overdone it today, either in over-exercising (haven't slept well this week) or in under-fueling - also got completely soaked to the skin mid-afternoon on the way to getting my allergy shots, with no spare clothes to change into (I was just wearing the workout gear I rode down in & would wear for lifting), so I was shivering in the cafe with hot tea and a strong craving for sugar (that I resisted satisfying).  I did an adequate but uninspired job with the workout - my triceps started out already really sore from Tuesday's workout and it kinda went downhill from there! - and the bike ride home seemed so arduous I wasn't sure I was going to make it!  Have inhaled cheese and dried fruit and feel significantly more normal now, so I do think it was fueling - will be more careful in future....

:45 upper body circuit: 5 x 1:00 tempo medicine ball, 3 x 10 flat db press on bench @ 22.5 (I had NOTHING!), 6 x (30 alternating triceps miniband pulldown, 20 pushdown).  Called it there as I knew I still had to ride home and it wasn't going to be pretty!

Bike to swim!

Ah, that was really nice - had one of my favorite lanemates (good personality and good match on speed) and a nice coach, very enjoyable.

Warmup: 200 free waiting three strokes off the wall to breathe; 12 x 100 with first four as 50 back, 50 free, second four as 25 back, 25 breast, 50 free and final four in theory with paddles and buoy (I missed a 50 as I obtained paddles).

Main set: only had time to go one full round on this.

3 x 50 as fly-back, back-breast, breast-free
2 x 100 with paddles (negative splits)
200 with paddles and pull buoy (I did it "plain")

Then we did the first bit, an extra 50 of back-breast and an easy 50 swimdown.

c. 2250 yards - very enjoyable too.

:30 easy bike
1hr swim