Run/yoga!

:35 as 1:1, breakfast and digestive interval, 12:30 hatha I in the non-heated room. It was a good class, though I found the teacher virtually incomprehensible (I would suddenly phase in and understand a sentence, and then it was gone again) - she spoke in a very hoarse near-whisper - I was slightly relieved to learn after class that it was because she has laryngitis! Good teacher regardless but it is more relaxing when I don't have to keep popping up my head to look at what the others are doing....

Run/yoga!

Early(ish) 1hr run (2:1). Breakfast, digestive interval, then 1pm 1hr hot hatha. Gosh it is hot! Makes even pretty easy things a lot harder than they would be otherwise - that said, even simple yoga isn't exactly easy, you should always be concentrating and working....

Monday run!

30 as 1:1, nice and easy for a teaching day. Gotta now get my notes typed up and assignments commented on before class!

NB not very impressed with my low yoga attendance these past two weeks (only two classes each week - I couldn't get myself back out the door yesterday evening), but daily run and good nutrition are the two important things, so I will endeavor not to be too self-critical about it! Will see if I can manage more like 3 or even 4 this week - I think it's possible. It's hard for me to go back out after dark especially if I ran properly in the morning - what really would work best would be if I could run a little earlier and then get to either 1pm or 5pm class. I prob just need to bite the bullet and go to whatever class is in the right time slot, even I think it is going to be too hard and/or too hot!

Sunday run!

1hr as 2:1. Back sore on hills! Very nice though - the weather here is just so perfect for running - high 40s and overcast but very mild...

Ladder run!

I think I will just paste in my training log entry: "Hahahaha, that was SO FUN! It is hard to explain why I like this kind of "ladder" workout so much except to say that it is like a corset for anxiety - not the uncomfortable kind of corset, more like the harness when you're ziplining, or that machine that Temple Grandin invented that compresses anxious cattle at the slaughtetrhouse! Have established bus route to Luxembourg Gardens (it is a very direct route, though I was freezing waiting at the stop to come home - but have high psychological toleration for cold, unlike heat which makes me frazzled!), took bus there, did my 90 as 30 warmup at 2:1 and then 2 sets of your funny ladder, WHICH I LOVE! It's flat there unlike my nearby park run, this is much easier on back (could feel tightness build to the end of the longer jog intervals, but otherwise fine). My right butt cheek is clearly suffering/benefiting from the stretch at yoga, at first it just felt tingly and then it increasingly felt like a block of wood! May try a few days of ibuprofen to see if I can quiet the inflammation, but I think it's part of the process of getting it back to normal functionality...."

David's funny ladder (it adds up to 30 minutes so it's really a fun one to have in the arsenal - it reminded me of a certain kind of swim workout; I miss swimming!):

1 x 4:1
2 x 3:1
3 x 2:1
4 x 1:1

Yoga!

1hr hot hatha. I am getting a BIT of heat acclimation at least! That was really nice....

Friday run!

That was super-nice. My kind of weather - it doesn't get old! :35 as 2:1.

Thursday run

I've got David to write the longer midweek run into Thursday rather than Wednesday because it's easier to do it not on a teaching day; that said, the essay I didn't get to work on yesterday (I ran instead, as I should!) took up the whole morning, and then I put the run off a little longer by dint of it being 2pm and deciding to eat lunch instead and then needing a digestive interval - yes, one of THOSE days! However I got out the door around 4 and it was surprisingly nice. I feel rather stiff and that R back/hip is really sore on hill intervals, but I enjoyed the whole thing....

1hr as 20 easy @ 1:1, 20 mod/hard @ 4:1, 20 easy @ 1:1

Easy Wednesday run

Just 35 as 1:1. Need to shower and get myself out of the house - undemanding but important session this afternoon getting library access for me and graduate students at the ENS library! Now that is a good thought....

Yoga!

Not very impressed by how few classes I got to last week, though I suppose if I am feeling kind I can put it down to ongoing adjustment issues esp. re: sleep! Hope this week will be better - really I need to write the actual specific classes into my appointment book, I think. This class was great, Vinyasa I, close equivalent of my Slow Flow class in Cayman - even simple easy yoga is hard if you haven't been doing it regularly of course! But it's nice not having the room heated!

Catch-up

Mysterious absence of posts for Sun. and Mon., I did run both days and logged in my training spreadsheet: Sunday was :50 as 2:1 (should have been an hour but I left it to the end of the day due to housecleaner timing issues, my morale wasn't high, it was pouring with rain and my back was sore), Monday was :20 as 1:1 (only short and easy on teaching days). Today was really nice, I have the day completely to myself to try and get this essay written, will go to yoga in the evening: :45 as 2:1.

Long run!

Found my route to Luxembourg Gardens on foot this time, though I got completely lost coming home and had to go to random Metro stop and take a couple trains home! This was much less of a slog than last week. (I'm still not happy with sleep schedule - I just don't feel sleepy at all, even at 2am, and accordingly have a very hard time dragging myself out of bed before about 10 - gonna make a concerted effort to get things a bit earlier.)

(Sore R hamstring and back starting to hurt on the longer jog intervals, work in progress.)

100 minutes: 5 x 20, odds 1:1, evens 4:1

Run-yoga combo!

Hmmm, not sure about that, it is efficient in certain respects (and I am looking forward to only having to take ONE shower today!) but I think having jogged first makes the hot even more hot! That said, it was a good class - the "hot hatha 60" with this good teacher I like - really I need to try all the different classes, I have yet to find one that I would call easy!

30 as 1:1, 1hr hot yoga

Hot yin-yang!

Hahaha, it's a REALLY good class but it's way too hot for me, I had to lie down for several stretches in the second half of class! I need to go more frequently so that I can beef up my acclimation. Think tomorrow I will shoot for a 60-minute hot class, 90 is brutal whatever you're doing....

Thursday run!

I've been blaming it on jet lag that I'm having such a struggle to get up in the morning (i.e. alarm set for 8:30, deep snoozing till 9:30, gradual surfacing and physical rising maybe 9:45 or 9:50) - that said, really I have a very similar struggle at home! Today was BLISS - mild rainy weather (52F!), did an hour in the park with varying intervals (2:1 as base, 1:1 on longer uphills and longer stretches of jogging on downhills once I was fully warmed up). BLISS, I say!

1hr misc.

Wednesday run!

Yesterday was a write-off - I should have made that dr. appointment for the morning, instead it was afternoon and I was sorta paralyzed with anxiety (irrationally) about logistics, also couldn't run beforehand as I wanted doc to hear lungs without effects of albuterol (which I use before exercise). ANYWAY it was all fine, doc rewrote my US prescriptions for here and listened to the lungs and deemed them fine, but by the time I got home I was just DONE - jet lag means I haven't been sleeping well at all, and at 4:30pm I changed into my nightgown and went to bed!

Feeling better today, research seminar meets in a couple hours and I need to sort out my thoughts on student proposals, shower & eat, etc. - it has also obvs been beyond me to get to yoga, but that will change either today or possibly tomorrow, fortunately!

Monday run!

30 as 1:1. Finally feeling comfortable enough with the route that I can start jogging almost right away (once I've crossed the big intersection near me and gotten onto the right street). Gray and a bit rainy, my kind of weather! I teach in two hours, better get in the shower and get my act together....

Hot yin yang!

Gosh, this class is so good - it is like a sort of deconstructed stripped-down version of a Bikram sequence, less strenuous but with deeper stretch and a somewhat different array of positions (but some of the same fundamentals). Still finding it very challenging, partly because I am so inflexible but also because hot room + still something not right with lungs leads to an unpleasant sort of pre-queasy feeling (it's like postnasal drip but in the lungs).

90 minutes hot yin yang yoga

Saturday long-ish run-ish, Sunday local jog

Must have forgot to write this up yesterday, but the report is in my training log: It was a real slog - these couple days of yoga have taken all the spring out of my legs while I get adjusted to new training stress, even from the start I was shuffling, and lungs are definitely not at 100% either. I did first 45 as 2:1 then switched to 1:1 for the remaining 45, including some stern words to myself re: keeping on for the last 20 minutes! (i.e. "It's 1:1, it's only SLIGHTLY harder than walking, you could walk forever, and the jog pacce at this point is a shuffle - you can totally do this without undue physical or psychological strain!") The Jardin du Luxembourg is gorgeous and definitely one of my good options for long runs, I went there and back on the metro.....

And today, a morning of sun! I had a terrible night of sleep, next-door neighbors were having a dance party that literally went on till after six in the morning, I think I finally fell asleep around 3:30 but it was still pretty loud and I was only lightly sleeping! No biggie however (they had put up a note in the elevator, it was a 25th birthday party, hopefully they won't have anything like that any time soon!). Walked over to Parc Montsouris and had a lovely sunny jog of 40 minutes as 1:1 (including most of the way home). Many joggers, many young children weaving on scooters and bicycles!

Yoga!...

I took the metro, I think it was just that mild minor barrier to doing something new that had me trudging to and fro these last couple days, really the train is INCREDIBLY convenient and goes virtually door to door (the stops are close together, so while yoga and Reid Hall are close, the metro is such that there are even 2 distinct stops, making it ridiculously convenient). Non-heated class, mercifully, though it wasn't at all gentle in the manner I imagined it would be (or maybe I am just ridiculously inflexible right now). Harder to understand today's teacher, partly because it was more abstract and also because often we were flopped down in relaxation position and it's a lot harder to understand if you can't cross-checck with physical movements of teacher and other students! (Like, it's almost impossible to relax your head when what your head wants to do is pop up and look around to make sure you really understood the instructions!) But it is a very good studio in every respect, including the important one that the teachers are helpful and welcoming even if you are being a goofball - I am really glad I got back out for that, I knew I wanted it but it was hard to overcome that little fearful barrier of not wanting to leave the house in a new place.....

90+ minutes yin-yang yoga (non-heated)

Run!

Still sort of figuring out my routine, but that was nice (weather here is optimal Davidsonian running, high 40s and overcast!). Walked to parc, started jogging there and jogged home: 30 as 1:1. Rethinking logistics - it's so mild, and metro so convenient, I think that for longer runs I should be taking a train somewhere that gives me larger park and longer route....

30 as 1:1

Yoga!!!!

It was an amazing class, though 90 minutes of heat is really too much for me - it's not that the postures are strenuous per se but even just doing warrior 1 & 2 when it's that starts to feel more intense than I like! (Also still have too much phlegm in the lungs.) Hahahaha, I won't say I was out of my depth, I really liked it, but it was certainly not the class I imagined I was showing up for - nomenclature - "Hot Yin Yang" not at all the equivalent of the yin class I do in Cayman! That said, I followed the French pretty well (it's not like yoga teachers say completely random things, really you know what they're going to say next - it was a very good teacher BTW, nice purist style), and am really excited about having a spell of daily yoga. It's a longish walk so RT walk adds good low-level exercise to my day - I am serious about losing weight and getting into better shape (good nutrition trumps all of course).

c. 1hr walk
90 minutes of very warm yoga!

Unwanted week off plus Thursday back on track (Paris edition)

Gosh, what a week! At the end of last week, the weather in NYC got crazy (I took a hard spill on midtown flagstones Thursday morning, still rather bruised about the knees, feeling very lucky I wasn't actually hurt, just covered with snow and bruises!), we were interviewing job candidates at the mildly sordid Midtown Sheraton, I was still sick, it was exhausting, my Friday-night flight to Paris was canceled (this was a blessing in disguise, I couldn't get rebooked on a direct flight till Monday so I postponed first seminar meeting from Monday to Wednesday and had the whole weekend to try and get less sick, pack, return library books etc.). I really couldn't exercise over the weekend, the air was so cold outside and I was still feeling pretty ill and with dodgy lungs - it didn't make sense to make the effort to get to the track at Chelsea Piers when I was so much ailing. Got to Paris safely, jet lagged, taught seminar yesterday and finally today got up and got to make it my priority to find my default Paris run route!

Parc Montsouris is my obvious best option (it is a small park but there are quite a lot of other runners, evidently French and serious, which makes me feel that I am not missing out on something more immediately apparent - not so much the culture here to run on the sidewalks!). Walked there and back to orient myself, there via a longer direct route (close to 20 mins) and back via a slightly shorter also quite direct one from a different corner of the park, that will be my route to and from going forward as it is more residential and less commercial, i.e. fewer fragile old ladies with shopping carts/more appropriate to jog!

20 mins walk there, 35 mins of jog as 2:1 (rather hilly), 15 mins walk back, 1:10 total activity

(I should add - was on the mend, but lungs don't benefit from overnight air travel, and they are currently very wheezy and full of phlegm - I am a little bit worried that I may be asthmatically allergic to something in the apartment....)

Wednesday

I am feeling surprisingly competent albeit sick and a little overwhelmed. Got up early and combobulated myself, then took a taxi to Chelsea Piers, did my 30 as 2:1 on the track, dropped book and Xmas card belatedly for Josh, cleaned out locker (it expired early Dec. but I guess these nice commercial gyms give you more leeway than college ones would!) and took another taxi home. It is brutally cold outside and even breathing in the air is sending me into fits of coughing - I am at the raw-lungs-and-much-phlegm stage. Some errands to do at the office, then 2:30 meetup in midtown to start our interviewing. What I really feel like doing is going back to bed of course!

Tuesday

Just another short one, 25 as 2:1 - I think yesterday was lung nadir, but it's only a little better today, better to err on side of caution as the days between now and Saturday are going to be extremely taxing! So much so that I rather quail at the whole notion - need to get in the shower, get something to eat and start doing some planning/organizing for how I am going to make all these things happen....

Yin yoga!

Ah, finally - that was SO GOOD. It's more meditation than anything else, gotta get back at it (on which note I think I found which yoga studio I should go to in Paris - doesn't this look great? Formerly known as Bikram Yoga Rive Gauche, but they have renamed to reflect the fact that they offer a lot of different kinds of class. This is seriously optimal! I am so excited!

Sunday/Monday update

Sunday was just 20 as 1:1 (good choice after a night when I was coughing so much I had to move to spare BR for a bit), this morning (happy new year!) I had an hour on the schedule but lungs seem even more sharply painful than before, so I just did very gentle 25 minutes as 2:1. There is a yin yoga I can go to this morning - I have deemed myself still too ill to go to even flow yoga, but this is more after the fashion of a restorative class and I think it will be OK. Ugh, my lungs are definitely a weak link.....