Lung ailment!

Frustrating, but I feel resigned to it. Hoping it's minor.

(It is a clear consequence of my own actions. I called in a refill on Saturday afternoon for my asthma controller medication, only to learn that there were no refills left. The box I had was a month older than I thought, and I had disposed of the intervening box - which would have showed I couldn't get another refill - in Cayman in January. Couldn't get new prescription till next business day - called doctor Monday morning and picked it up Tuesday, but in the meantime, though I was able to use the albuterol to prevent wheezing during workouts, it clearly was inadequate. Rather than self-reproach I'm writing this one down to the complexity of doing business in the modern world/partly living in two places, and taking it as a salutary reminder of the value of the Flovent.)

(On the bright side, I am going to be able to get a HUGE amount of work done today! And I feel completely normal other than having very raw fragile lungs, will hope that I can stop it from getting any worse.)

Run!

As usual I dragged my heels getting out the door, so I only had time for 4 miles, but very nice miles they were too....

38:00, 4mi., zone 2

Good day of exercise!

I was in an irrationally good mood (truly no reason), except for the time I spent on public transportation in the afternoon - really I have to strategize to see if I can better avoid buses and subways in the 3-5pm window, it is not relaxing!

:45 spin
1000 yards swim (3 x (200 free + 100 stroke [fly drill, back, breast]) + 100 as 25 fly, 75 free)

1.5hr hot yoga

Gotta rush, 7pm dinner with a former student, still need to shower post-yoga! Very hungry and thirsty - dinner will be beneficial...

Postscript

I found Russ Cox's post about minimal Ironman training extremely interesting. I think you'd have to add on a couple hours per week to translate from elite to back-of-pack (i.e. running 2 hours at 6-minute pace would need to be converted to more like 3+ hours for 10-minute miles to cover same weekly distance - ditto for biking), but the central observation is very much to the point:

If nothing else, I suspect were you actually to manage a consistent nine hours every week, you won’t be far from the Ironman norm. It would be interesting – were triathletes completely honest – to collect statistics on training hours versus performance; the majority of those on the course, the middle and back of the pack, probably won’t be averaging much more. I know from the athletes I coach that much of the year is spent averaging only a few hours over this, not a huge stretch above.

Run intervals

I went to a day-long meditation retreat today, 10-5 - it was worthwhile but curiously tiring! I had blocked out time for a long run this morning, but in the event I decided just to run to Chelsea Piers and call it a day (I left a change of clothes/coat there yesterday so I wouldn't have to carry it all this morning). This was a wise choice, and it was also clear by lunchtime that I should give up any thought of checking out the 5:30pm masters swim at Chelsea Piers - much too tired.

Not a bad week, though not as copiously full of long exercise stints as I might like. c. 13 hours total (6 hours yoga, 4 classes; 7 hours triathlon, 3 runs - 16mi only total - and 3 spins, including a double, 1 short swim to test the waters). Next two weeks will be big training weeks I hope and then I will take a week pretty easy as I finish up NYC stuff and travel back to Cayman on March 13 for 10 days or so. April has many travels (for eighteenth-century conference and then for book publication stuff), so it is important to make the next six weeks worthwhile from both a work and an exercise standpoint...

:50 run, c. 5mi. (10min warmup Z1, then 6 x 4min Z3 + 1min recovery, then 10min Z2)

(I note that I need to start trying some different warmups - on this flat cool course, it is too easy for me to loll around in zone 1 and not feel warmed up till almost 25 minutes into the run - I think I am going to start doing some strides right away so that I can hit and hold zone 2 from the 10-minute mark at a minimum - alternately doing these zone 3 intervals workouts is a good way to build up some tolerance for higher efforts)

Double spin!

In retrospect I should have gone straight into the pool in my sweaty tri shorts and top, but I thought I'd shower and eat and then have a proper swim later (if I go at the end of double spin, it's unlikely to be more than 1000 yards or thirty minutes, whichever comes first). However sitting and reading in the cafe left me so freezing (I was even wearing my gloves!) that I could not persuade myself to strip down and get into a bathing suit and walk through the drafty gym to the pool, so I didn't have a second session after all...

2hr spin

Spin/swim/hot!

The other night I finally renewed my masters swim registration and re-registered for TNYA and bought a new workout card - I really just let swimming drop about two years ago, I like it but there were various obstacles, including an annoying lane situation at local Columbia workout, and then Columbia kicked all outside groups out of the pool altogether, and though there's now a workout at City College about a mile north of here, I just haven't gotten it together to go.

But now it is time for this to change! And today's workout was beneficial for self-persuasion. 50-minute spin with Joanna, then I had a short swim that was altogether lovely (1000 yards, c. 25 mins.). Then I had a tiresome trip uptown as my travels coincided with the end of the schoolday, which makes both streets and subway a bit of a nightmare due to hordes of rowdy schoolchildren - and then I had a hot yoga class that was WAY too hot, subjectively - I think really what this means is high humidity (it's about to start snowing here), but it was not enjoyable, I haven't felt like that since the first week I was doing it. This is helpful in terms of weaning myself partway off hot yoga and re-addicting to swimming.

Ready for winter to be done - it makes it so inconvenient getting around town, and the extremes of temperature (from boilingly hot in yoga to freezingly cold on the subway platform with sweat still pouring off the head) are not conducive to comfort...

:50 spin
:25 swim (1000 yards as 200 warmup, 2 x [100 fly drill (right arm, left arm, 3-3-3, full stroke) and 100 free], 2 x [100 IM, 100 free]
1:30 hot yoga

WNRC

This was a nice story in the Cay Compass about the cross-island relay - and now the WNRC picture's online! Brent and I are right in the middle in not-quite-matching dayglo shirts. Courtesy of Ron Shillingford.

Hot yoga

Highly satisfactory, though I didn't get there with a lot of time to spare. Note to self: leave at 8:55 rather than 9:05 if traveling to the allergy doctor's office at Columbus Circle before heading uptown to Washington Heights for 10am yoga.

1.5hr hot yoga

Run!

At 4pm, I would have said this day was unredeemable! Nothing dramatic, just one of those days that gets absolutely wasted for no good reason - I didn't sleep well, and then I napped and wasted time on the internet and generally just couldn't seem to buckle down to my work! (I don't actually tweet, with or without hashtags, but if I had today, I would have had one that just read "can't nap due to jackhammer in street outside #firstworldproblems.") By late afternoon it was clear to me that I had made myself so physically uncomfortable with the feeling of procrastinating that it truly would be easier just to give in and do some work. So I did, and it was great - got a very good hour-plus session in on the essay I am revising, then went to meet Liz for a frigid but hugely enjoyable Central Park loop. We ran hard enough to get the endorphins well and truly flowing, and had unseemly hilarity as we ate nutritionally sound fast food at Energy Kitchen. Have just had the longest hottest best shower EVER to try and warm back up. Extremely good day!

6.11mi./1:00:44/9:57 avg pace (avg HR 148, max HR 158)

Run/yoga!

OK, that worked pretty well, despite a few minor glitches. I was about twenty minutes later than I'd intended getting out the door (injudicious alarm-snoozing!), so I only did 5 miles rather than 6 (I'd left plenty of buffer time, so I didn't have to curtail things any more than that). Then the staircase I hoped to use to get from the greenway back up to Broadway was locked, so I had to double back and take a different (vertiginous) staircase at 135th St. Anyway, not a big deal, and the basic concept is good.

(Note to self: bring one more dry long-sleeved layer for traveling home after class; also, water bottle left at the studio, retrieve it tomorrow if possible!)

I have noticed a trend - it's partly a function of decent fitness and cool weather/flat course - to laze around at the top of zone 1 rather than pushing the 2-4 beats higher into zone 2 while running. Obviously it's all along a continuum, and I think that's still a reasonable training pace, but I thought I'd better start doing more intervals to desensitize to higher heartrates. It is a mental rather than a physical limitation, as I note that I am very well capable of running comfortably in zone 2 if I am running with someone else or, as today, worried about whether I'm going to make it to class in time!

:50 run (c. 5 miles), with 5 x 4min Z3, 1min recovery
1.5hr hot yoga

Spin/hot yoga

Everything feels back on track - last week was just curiously chaotic. I really missed the hot yoga! But also I got good enough sleep last night that I can actually work hard in spin class. Slightly changed schedule due to its being FREEZING here this morning - not too cold to run as such, but too cold for me to fit enough layers in my trail-running backpack to run down to Chelsea Piers and then be warm enough for the rest of the day! So skipped the run.

1hr spin
1.5hr hot yoga

Spin!

I was lethally tired this morning - it is my own fault, two very late nights in a row with alcohol compromising sleep quality. But I took a deep two-hour nap this afternoon, and when I got up after that it did not seem so crazy that I was planning to trek out to Brooklyn for a 90-minute spin class at Cycle Bar with L. and L. And in fact once I was riding, it was the opposite of yesterday - yesterday after I'd warmed it was painfully clear that I had nothing to give, whereas today I felt quite strong and energized. Truly enjoyable workout - very glad I didn't cancel.

This week has felt very chaotic in terms of exercise - it's not a bad set of totals, all things considered, but I didn't get to as much hot yoga as I wanted and generally just felt like I was scrambling through a haze of poor logistics. I think I'm going to remake subsequent weeks' schedules one week at a time, so that I can tailor things better to that particular week's needs and constraints (things like getting to allergy doctor for shots on Monday afternoon and Thursday morning, building in suitable writing time, etc.). It is also rather clear to me that especially if I do want to keep on doing so much yoga, prioritizing spinning/bike time above all other things is the way to go - I don't need to do a ton of running to maintain fitness, and I can wait a little longer before doing serious swim workouts, but long-course triathlon is all about the bike....

1.5hr spin

Week's totals: 10:21

2 runs of c. 5mi. (c. 100min total)
5 spin sessions (2 x :50, 1 x 1hr, 2 x 1.5hr), total 5:50
2 hot yoga (3:00) and 1 restorative yoga (1:00, not logged as part of total)

Belated Friday post

(I did spin yesterday - I guess I was too busy getting ready for the party to post!)

1hr spin

Spin/yoga!

I had a really great little party last night for my MA students, a make-up class for the one we missed this fall during the hurricane, but the combination of a few beers and much stimulating conversation meant it took FOREVER to go to sleep, and when I did finally get there, it was light and fitful only. Almost couldn't make myself get up for spin class downtown, but figured I'd be sorry to miss it - Joanna's spin classes are one of my favorite things. Was clearly very fatigued, so kept it mostly in zone 2 (maybe 10 mins zone 3 total). Then went to restorative yoga - I had had some notion of trekking uptown for a hot class, but it didn't seem sensible given fatigue. Hot yoga deprivation - I don't think I can go tomorrow, either, arghhhh! The restorative class is lovely, though.

:50 spin
1:00 restorative yoga