Run!

:43 easy. Chilly but sunny - gorgeous, really, but not as gentle on the lungs as when it's wet and in the 50s. Fully immersed in putting together tomorrow's lecture, combination of running and writing (and then lunch with Brent) is fantastically enjoyable....

Run!

Didn't get out in the morning before 10am appointment at the Magdalen College Library, managed to do it just before (very early) dusk. :40 easy.

Run!

(Omitted to blog it earlier, was in a hurry to get on with work things. :30 easy on an implausibly sunny nice day. This is a recovery week now, that's good - got my first of two lectures later this afternoon, that one's easy as it's already written, but the Thursday one is still needing frantic assemblage!)

:30 easy

Run!

1hr easy. Waiting for Brent to get here now! Ready for a rest week I think, various minor aches and pains, nothing terrible - but I was out and about in nice shoes for 2 longish sessions yesterday and my feet really wanted to be bare and resting on a couch!

Long run!

Actually quite closely approaching to blissful - a true running meditation. It's beautifully sunny this morning albeit colder, that may have been a factor: the days are so short here at this time of year, add that to raininess and I think I am genuinely physiologically suffering from light deprivation. I took a sleeping pill last night, I was just DONE, which meant I slept from maybe 9pm to 7:30am, woo-hoo! (It's not as good as "real" high-quality sleep but there are times when it is worth the tradeoff, last night was one of those!) I was well-hydrated but didn't need to pee, my back didn't hurt and at the 1hr turnaround I met the most hilariously friendly dog who frolicked with me for some time following. Brent is getting here tomorrow! Anyway, good mood all round.

2hr easy

Lift!

Worked on all three lifts as we were down to a single session this week. I'm really happy with some minor technique tweaking we've done on the deadlift.

(Then in the locker room afterwards as I was putting everything together I realized - not entirely with surprise, as I was in a scramble today out of my usual routine - that I hadn't brought my house keys, and had a complicated trudge around town to find a spare copy at the porter's lodge, which is not particularly close to my actual flat....)

1hr lifting

Run!

I have been grumpy all week about how my own choices have thwarted actual desires! I put aside Austen book at the end of last week in theory to switch over to writing the second lecture for next week, but in fact I've barely worked on it at all as I had three library appointments, two daytime talks, an evening workshop - also three letters of recommendation I needed to write - anyway, it's just sorta one of THOSE weeks! And when I have a 10am appointment, as I did today (unavoidably given other priorities i.e. 2pm trainer session at the gym), and when it is so dark still in the morning, it is somehow virtually impossible for me to get myself out of bed and out the door in time to run before first external commitment. Anyway today it worked out OK. Had a great session at the Balliol archive, came home and organized the stuff I'd looked at, then ran - have eaten small lunch, won't shower, will head over to gym shortly so I have plenty of time to stretch and warm up pre session. Today's run was a little short (should have been 50) but close enough.

:43 easy

Run!

I am feeling very overwhelmed by the world and the week, didn't have time or vim for intervals once I'd snoozed alarm excessively (really must hop into shower now and get across the street for 11am meetup for an out-of-town excursion to Unnamed University to see a Canadian eighteenth-century colleague give a lunchtime talk on - I am hoping? - Austen!), but once I'd been out for 10 minutes I did feel better. Did a compromise 70 minutes easy so that it was at least a LITTLE more than the default but didn't strain the system unduly - I know from experience that when I am really feeling at the end of my tether like this it is very easy to tip over into illness/injury.

Run!

In general I have been very good on this trip about running in the morning before I do anything else, but today it all just sort of fell apart. It was a longer run with intervals, and the (a) very poor night of sleep (b) cold driving rain (c) need to write 3 letters of recommendation before going to a lunchtime talk combined with (d) the knowledge that (unusually) my trainer had canceled our afternoon session made me justify prioritizing letter-writing and hoping rain would clear up by afternoon. It did, and I had a fairly pleasant 1hr easy, which was written on the schedule for tomorrow - hoping I have vim to do today's original workout tomorrow not long after I get up....

1hr easy

Run!

Really tiring weekend travels. I got up this morning and ate breakfast and pretty much just went back to bed to huddle, it was wintry and stormy outside - but grudgingly admitted to myself after a while that (a) I wasn't falling back asleep and (b) I really would feel better if I would just get out the door and do my run. Fresh air was helpful and the weather wasn't as bad as it seemed from indoors. Then I had a very good afternoon session at the library, and I think I'm going to take the rest of the evening off and read a novel or two (possibly a chapter of Gibbon as well if I feel like it). Grateful for the fact that running and library work both ease my soul when I am feeling dispirited or negative! Also grateful for the fact that this week I do NOT have to celebrate Thanksgiving! It's never been a holiday I'm keen on - I don't like the food much, it comes at a horrible time in the school year, the iconography and the occasion are also historically discredited - and it is a boon to be missing it completely!

1hr easy

Run!

When I set things up right it makes me feel like a genius - I was thinking as I waited for the elevator in the hotel lobby that though I could probably work harder in my thirties than I can now, I got a lot smarter about how to get things done without undue effort. I am a creature of habit, I like intellectual exploration of all kinds but I am not a geographical adventurer, it is INCREDIBLY comforting to me that I'm in the same hotel and had the same run route and the same breakfast from Pret a manger (2 HB eggss and a smoked-salmon sandwich if you are curious) that I had when I was here a few weeks ago. I AM A GENIUS or at least have greater self-knowledge than in prior times!

1hr easy

And that's 440 for the week by my count, 7:20 - hoping David will let me have an eight-hour week this coming week, then Brent's here a week from today and I will be lazy for my last week in Oxford and eat cake!

Wintry long run!

Feeling good about that, and about finishing my chapter first - was inevitably tempted as I came towards the :30 mark to turn around and just do the 1hr today and leave 2hr for tomorrow in London, but it was much better to get it done properly today and have a more modest goal for tomorrow near King's Cross before getting on the train to Cambridge.

2hr wintry run!

Lift!

Very good session at the gym.

Run!

Gorgeous weather again - I feel so lucky to have had this time here. :45 easy.

Run!

That was glorious - it's an incredibly beautiful day, sunny and clear and mid-50s but with a hint of wintriness in the air. I moved around the days as it makes most sense to put the easiest and shortest run earlier in the day before I squat. Juggling logistics for a weekend trip to Cambridge, which has to be routed through (two different train stations) in London; I think I am going to London Friday afternoon, seeing a friend, staying in the same hotel near King's Cross that I was in a few weeks ago and then doing a run in the morning along canals there before getting train to Cambridge for lunchtime. Undecided whether to do long run Friday morning here or Saturday morning in London, but leaning towards the former, it seems more realistic.

90 minutes with some unstructured faster running in second half (really I am not an unstructured person, and the terrain isn't at all variable, so call it 5 x 2 minutes harder, 3 minutes easy!)

DL/bench!

Good session with Sy. Continuing to work on activating the glutes for deadlift - it is very interesting, I think I'm making progress.

1hr lift

Run!

That was a particularly nice one. Very mild damp weather, pretty much ideal for running as far as I am concerned. Also it doesn't take much willpower to do thirty-second intervals.

1:05 as 20:00 easy, 12 x (:30 faster, 1:30 easy), 20:00 easy

Run!

Slept horribly and felt really out of sorts this morning, did some essential work then got back into bed for "ostriching" (i.e. where you are not actually asleep, just unable to face doing anything else!). However at some point it became clear that I should just give in and get up and run, and that was good - very mild rainy day outside, nice....

1hr easy

Yoga!

1.25hr hot power yoga. Good start to the day.

Long run!

Only slightly marred by back pain (sharply sore in specific spot during minutes 30-60, after that more diffuse and generally tight but not so sharp - possibly also the mental ease of being homeward bound?). Mild drizzle, lots of puddles - beautiful running weather.

2hr "running meditation"

Run!

Currently we're doing Friday as a longer run with intervals and then Saturday as a 2hr easy "running meditation" - I really prefer the latter to the former, I have to admit! Beautifully sunny day this morning; forecast is bad for tomorrow, but rainy meditation is fine too....

1:20 as 20:00 easy, 10 x (1:00 faster, 3:00 easy), 20:00 easy

Squats!

Ah, such a good session - I was feeling really awful before (cold, sleepy, a bit headachy), but took a caffeine pill and some advil beforehand and then had a really, really cheering session of work on the dreaded squat. Felt great afterwards, stopped at mini-supermarket and bought way more food than I intended and not quite of the ideal sort (hungry person's shopping), came home and made two donations (one to the NAACP, the other to the Southern Poverty Law Project) and in general am just feeling much less out of sorts with myself. Had good production of quota session this morning despite temptation to wallow in misery. Life is quiet enough here that I really can't afford to let myself stay out of sorts, gonna focus on getting myself really back into good spirits - going to curry night at the funny place next door tonight with my neighbor, will do yoga Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 2 hard/long run workouts on calendar for tomorrow and Saturday, Balliol concert night Sunday. All good!

1hr high-quality strength stuff!

Run!

A run is a good start to the day. My legs were tired yesterday and today (deadlifting I think) but it is good to be out there - nice sunny morning too, not too cold. Just :35 easy.

Run!

Ah, I had a bit of a tough day. Woke up to use the bathroom at 5 and couldn't subsequently stop reading news on my phone. Had good blinders-on work session on Austen in the morning, as I was having a hard time concentrating yesterday afternoon, and basically felt that I was still so upset about Marc's death and Diana's bereavement that I had no energy to spare for election-related woes! (Also, Brexit prepared me, I was sorry but not shocked.) Then I took a deep nap and woke up very groggy and dispirited around 3:45 - it was tough to drag myself out of bed, and even tougher to disrobe in FREEZING English flat and put on running clothes and get out the door - but I did, and I do feel a lot better now (and also have eaten a tuna melt, didn't have lunch because I thought nap would just be brief and then I'd run...)

1:05 very slow rainy dark run....

Lift!

Ah, I like working with Sy so much, he's really knowledgeable and smart. Not doing anything heavy, just some deadlift technique work and bench similar. Cable face-pull and hip thrusts to finish. 1hr work.

Run!

It was a particularly gorgeous one, frosty and sunny. I have lost three friends in the last few months, one to a drug overdose and one to aggressive cancer, but I think the last was the biggest shock of all - my dear old tri-blogger friend Marc Taylor died unexpectedly over the weekend. My heart is breaking for his wife Diana - having seen what my mother has gone through over the last year after losing her husband gives me all too keen a sense of how hard the coming months and years are going to be for her. Anyway, certainly appreciating the precious and beautiful and precarious nature of life....

1hr easy

Yoga!

Ah, so good - I should be doing more of these "hot power" classes, they are great! I can do about 90% of it pretty decently and then there's about 10% that my body just isn't shaped for (standing splits, the thing where you sit and hold the folded knee in the two elbows). ALL GOOD THOUGH. Also - if only hot 26 was in a room exactly THAT hot rather than maybe 8C hotter!

1.25hr hot yoga

Long run!

Very nice too, though getting chilly towards the end. Enjoyable end to a "down week."

2hr easy

Yoga!

This Friday evening class is very nice....

1hr yoga

Rainy run!

I think the 1hr easy run might be my favorite of all possible runs. Weather here has been glorious and is now glorious in a different way, a mild rain, I love that so much! Forced myself to do a hard spell of work in early evening yesterday that left me utterly tapped out, so I took a sleeping pill and woke up earlier than usual - good to be getting on with things so early in the day (heading out shortly to avoid the housecleaner who comes on Fridays and is extremely chatty).

1hr easy

Lift!

A good session with Sy. Arghhh, my squat is so inadequate, the first part of the session was a bit discouraging - but there is no point worrying about it, nothing I can do but keep working on it and trying to make it better!

1hr misc. lifting with squat focus

Run!

Just :30 easy. The weather and terrain here are so utterly perfect for running!

Run!

Beautiful sunny day, colder. Feeling rather tired and lazy after days of socializing, and seeing the point of Coach David's insistence on a week of short runs!

:30 easy

Run, lift

I did run earlier but I must not have logged it - was in a bit of a hurry to make sure I wrote quota before needing to leave to meet my mother. Thirty minutes easy. Just got home from absolutely lovely lifting session at the gym! I love this sport so much, I have to keep doing it - this trainer is amazing.

Work sets: deadlift, 4 x 4 @ 80kg; bench, 4 x 4 @ 42.5kg

A few other minor things, but henceforth I will do the warmup mobility stuff on my own so that we can have the whole hour for work. Wrote it down so that I would remember properly, and have obtained band and ball (wide green band).

(1) use lacrosse ball on glutes
(2) hip openers (45-60 seconds in each hold on each side, moving around a little):
(a) band from rack around back leg just below hip, tuck hips under;
(b) rotate 90 degrees (to the R for left leg, to the left for R), move back and forth from midline;
(c) banded back leg comes forward, arms to lizard pose, back knee raised and back foot flexed on ground
(3) downward dog/cobra, downward dog/half pigeon, 3x each