Marathon Maniac #957
Howdy folks!
34 degrees is the warmest it will be in the morning for the foreseeable future, so I probably should have gotten outside for a run, but I went swimming at the Y instead. I'm trying to get back to swimming, even if it is only occasionally. It's good to mix it up, workout-wise. Anyway, Thursday is a good morning to swim because the pool is almost empty during the 6-7ish timeframe that I am there. On MWF the Masters Swim Team takes over the pool in the early morning.
Since I have not been swimming in a long time, my body just doesn't know what to do with itself. I was so hungry when I got to work that, in addition to the Nutribullet shake I had at home, I already ate the sandwich I brought for lunch. No worries, though, I brought a frozen dinner for lunch, in case that happened.
DD got me a dermabrasion facial for Christmas at the nail place where I get my occasional pedicures (they do various beauty treatments, too.), and I have it scheduled for after work today. DD got one for herself, too, and went there last week. She told me to be ready to be insulted by the heavily-accented Asian woman who does them. "Look at all those wrinkles you have!" she said to my 21yo DD. "And all those blackheads!" "And you have dark circles under your eyes!" I expect she was just trying to sell some of their skin treatment products, but we both laughed about it. DD is waiting to hear how mine goes....
No run for me today, but 36 times across the pool (900 yards) instead, with a 5-10 second rest at the end of each length.
Life is a headlong rush into the unknown. We can hunker down and hope nothing hits us or we can stand tall, lean into the wind and say, "Bring it on, darlin', and don't be stingy with the jalapenos."
Hey Holly. thanks for the start and enjoy that treatment this evening.
I went to a sports massage guy yesterday on recommendation from a very serious runner/cycling friend. I've been having some shoulder and neck issues the chiro can't seem to fix so I suspected muscular. Also, a left calf tightness. Oh my did I get worked over. This was about the same type of sports massage I used to get when playing college soccer. I am definitely sore and bruised in places today but my next/shoulder feels so much better. At least I didn't scream during the massage. Reminded me that there are benefits to stretching and massage to keep the body aligned and supple as we get older.
I did get 5+ miles last night with the running club. It was cold but a nice run. Nice 5 miles on the Peleton to get the day started. Overslept so will need to get the 60 minute PZ ride tomorrow.. Will run with some peeps from a local running store tonight. Temps are dropping so guess I just need to bundle up.
Nice of Mike to squeeze a post mid basketball game. And like you Steve, I am no fan of shoveling snow with high winds. Seems I am always into the wind no matter the direction.
Back at it.
Cheers.
"He conquers who endures" - Persius "Every workout should have a purpose. Every purpose should link back to achieving a training objective." - Spaniel
http://ncstake.blogspot.com/
Thanks, Holly. Good luck with the insults! The Middle Easterns that run the waxing salon where Kira and I USED to go would do something like that. Kira went in for just a brow threading and the woman said "You do lip, too?" Kira said no and the woman said "Hairy lip!" We finally decided threading was too painful and stopped going there anyway.
Houseguests from CA got here about 4:30 yesterday and we had a good grilled cheese dinner from the food truck and some wine. Good conversation and Robert Earl actually warmed to the guy, which is unusual. He's still so timid around men. They aren't up yet and I got in a 5 mile run. I'm feeling better and taking it slow. Nice, sunny morning, but like Holly's forecast, isn't going to be good for a bit going forward.
Good job on surviving the massage, Norm.
Catch y'all later.
Out there running since dinosaurs roamed the earth
3.11 easy miles this morning. Ran into a couple annoying little yapping dogs this morning. They were on leashes but they started losing their minds when they saw me. I had to make a little detour so they wouldn't wake up the whole neighborhood. I'm not a fan of little dogs. Too many of them have a real attitude problem.
Thanks for the start, Holly.
Funny stories about the facials!
Yapping/Barking Dogs. A few years back, our next door neighbors' dog was losing its mind in their back yard. Nonstop barking for well over an hour. Finally, The Hub went over and knocked on their door. They were having some kind of religious get-together and had put the dog in the back yard until they were done. The Hub: "I'm sorry to interrupt, but can't you hear your dog barking?" I don't recall what else was said, but they relented and let it back in the house.
The neighbors behind us have a husky, and whenever they put her in the back yard and they're inside, she barks almost nonstop. Drives me crazy.
35 min of core/ST after work yesterday. Then 4 predawn miles this a.m. in very chilly conditions, around 33 degrees. Everything was frosted over. One thing's for certain, it keeps you moving! Frigging left hamstring kept trying to tighten up on me toward the end, so I dug into it with my massage gun when I got home. It's kind of funny, one of my cats goes all weird when I turn that thing on. If he's in the house, he's instantly by me, meowing, rubbing up against me wanting attention. And as soon as I turn it off, he's back to normal. It's doesn't bother him, but it attracts him.
Alright. Back at it. Enjoy ~~
Leslie Living and Running Behind the Redwood Curtain -------------
Trail Runner Nation
Sally McCrae-Choose Strong
Bare Performance
Leslie - maybe it reminds him of the sound of purring.
Speaking of massage guns, I am thinking about getting one for my constant shoulder/neck pain. Anyone have recommendations?
Work: When I started here in August, there was the attorney/owner, 4 attorneys, and 4 paralegals (including me). (Plus the receptionist, office manager and the owner's wife, who does client relations or some such.) Since then, 3 of the attorneys have left, one of the paralegals retired, and two other paralegals quit (one has her last day tomorrow). They hired a paralegal to replace the retiring one about a month ago, so now there are only the attorney/owner, my attorney, and 2 paralegals (me and the new gal).
Apparently, the reason for the mass exodus (except for the retiree) is the owner's wife. She is a major micro-manager, but she has always been very nice to me. I roll my eyes inwardly at some of her micro-managing, but for the most part it doesn't bother me to comply.
The new gal is working with the attorney/owner, but she is only 22 and has never been a paralegal before. I have been doing criminal and civil law here with my attorney Kristie. The paralegal who quits tomorrow does all the DR and juvenile cases for both attorneys. When she leaves, all her cases become mine (because I did 10 years of DR and Juvenile cases, although it has been 15 years since), on top of the criminal and civil cases for my attorney. Plus I'm doing the few probate cases we have.
At any rate, I expect to be stupid-busy at work starting Monday, working the job of two paralegals until they hire someone else. Which they haven't even advertised for yet. Yikes.
Speaking of annoying little barking dogs....sometimes mine lose their minds in the backyard when a neighbor's dog is out, but I always listen for that when I let them out, and bring them right in. Shaking a bag of Doritos brings them running every time.
Good afternoon, everyone. I hope everyone who is injured or recovering from surgery continues moving in the correct direction.
DW drove down to her Mom's this morning, but before she left we took the old mattress off of the bed, and I took the new memory foam out of the wrapping and placed it on the bed platform, to let it expand for the next 36 hours or so. That was enough of a strength workout so it didn't bother me much that I didn't get to the Y in time to do the one on my 3 x 5 card. Ironically, I'll be sleeping on the sofa tonight AND my wife is visiting her Mother.
I started my swim workout and shortly afterward a guy was standing pool side looking forlorn so I told him he could share my lane with me. After I'd done a couple of laps he and I were resting at one end at the same time and he looked at my pile of fins, pull buoy and hand paddles and said, You got a whole workout there, eh?" "Yep." "You training for something?" "Yep. Retirement. I want to enjoy it". I couldn't tell by the look on his face when he was asking me, if he thought it was silly to be using all those implements for a morning swim, but it felt that way. Maybe I was mistaken.
I had a 3,000 yard workout planned for the morning but it wasn't nearly practical to try that many yards on a day when I get in the water at 7:00 and have to be showered and dressed and behind my desk 90 minutes later. So I cut most everything in the warmup and pre-sets in half, did almost everything in the three main sets, and, since I am swimming butterfly again, I finished up with 2 x 25 yard butterfly instead of a freestyle cool down. The last set I did before the butterfly was 4 x 50 yard freestyle with the nose clip on so I could practice flip turns, and it was interesting that my time got slower progressively -36, 37, 38, 39 seconds, doing them with a little over 20 seconds rest between reps, but after the 4th one my HR was only about 96 bpm. It felt like I was working harder than that but I may just be psyching myself out. Flip-turning, I mean. I think each approach of the far end of the pool, preparing to turn, got slower and slower. Part of the strategy is to try to speed up as you approach the wall, then bounce off hard and be swimming full speed quickly. I think each rep got lazier and lazier, in that respect. But I'm doing them and have to give myself a little grace.
The hardest part of each of my last two or three workouts has been trying to swim 4 x 100 yard freestyle with hand paddles on. I realized today that when I was doing them in December, I dropped the interval time from 2:00 to 1:50, meaning swim~ 1:20. and rest ~ 49 seconds, before I cut that to 30 seconds rest. Well I haven't been able to get 4 reps lately, and it's probably because I somehow changed it to 1:40 (1:20 / 20) last week, and that's not enough rest, apparently. My times go from 1:20 to 1:23 to 1:25, and I don't think they should slow down much, or at all. But I'm going to stick with that approach for a while and see if I get fitter and the times come down to where I can do all 3 in 1:20, 1:21, and even get a 4th one. If that doesn't work I'll go back to 30 seconds rest.
MM#209 / JapanJoyful#803
Ran into a couple annoying little yapping dogs this morning . . . I had to make a little detour so they wouldn't wake up the whole neighborhood.
AND, speaking of annoying little barking dogs....sometimes mine lose their minds in the backyard when a neighbor's dog is out, but I always listen for that when I let them out, and bring them right in.
Dave/Holly - you are so nice and thoughtful towards dog owners who aren't, . . . vs. this guy who used to route his neighborhood runs at j-o'clock over on the island past barking dogs' yards so they'd make as much noise as possible maybe even waking the owners up, especially as sometimes they'd have to open the door and call the dogs back. Glad I could give them some practice against burglars, porch pirates, etc..
I'm not a fan of little dogs. Too many of them have a real attitude problem.
Dave - in Alaska days, DW always had an indoor usually Maltese-size dog or mix that I called our "pretend" dog vs. my outside hiking, ski-joring, etc. "real" shelter dog mixes who stayed outside in the insulated dog house I made for them (complete with warming light bulb for the real cold nights).
Seattle's mild winter continues, . . . until this afternoon's 40F steadily drops to freezing by midnight and 22F by j-o'clock tomorrow morning and keeping on going down to 15F for the first sub-freezing wire-to-wire 24 hour day of the year and Saturday being a repeat with high of 27F and low 17F. before getting back up again over freezing next week. Not much snow so still excellent hiking weather, . . . for those who can.,
Whew, when I woke up at 7am, it was really the morning seven o'clock this time.
"Enjoy yourself. Your younger days never come again." 100yo T. Igarashi to me in geta at top of Mt. Fuji (8/2/87)
Thursday already?
2.5 ez miles. Even going side-hill there are hills, 256' of elevation gain going on the road by the house, downhill one block, and then coming back on the lower street. No foot pains. About 76 degrees, lotta humidity.
Caught some sort of bug that manifest itself a couple days after the flight; plugged sinuses, headache from the plugged sinuses, and bit of fever. What we old people call a "head cold". This is the morning of day 5 and it's a lot better. Never anything bad enough to prevent me from getting around, doing yard work, selecting and installing new appliances, reading, drinking Mai Tais, or any of the other necessary things. Kind of annoying coughing fits in the middle of the night a few times, though. We went over to Hilo the second day and walked around the zoo park and downtown. We'll go back over to the volcano at some point. I'd like to go on some hike to see weird birbs.
60-64 age group - University of Oregon alumni - Irreverent and Annoying
Good luck, Holly!! Boy oh boyyo.
So now I not only get beat out in swimming by BTY but also by Holly? I'll have to step it up a notch!
C-R, you reminded me of how much I used to enjoy those sports massages back in my serious running days. I used to get them from one of the Hanson's runners -- a skinny 90lb gal with the hands of an NFL linebacker! Painful at the time but good results afterwards.
It seems like the smaller the dog the more noise they make wanting to fight everything in sight. Actually, that reminds me of a couple of people I've known.
I've been listening in the car to a downloaded album with about 30 songs that I'd somehow never heard before by Eva Cassidy. Anyone here heard of her? Wonderful voice but died young just before her career could take off. It's sad to me that there's so much more that she probably could have recorded.
No workouts today but I've been busy. A few errands in the morning in anticipation of not being able to get out easily for the next few days. I did some more work in the basement and then had my semi-annual appointment at the dentist and got a good report. Tomorrow I'm going to the optometrist for an exam and a new pair of glasses. I'll probably get my "primary" pair from them at whatever outrageous price they charge and then order sunglasses and a pair for the computer (different prescription) from one of the online optical places llke EyeBuyDirect.
Doug, runnin' cycling in Rochester, MI
"Think blue, count two, and look for a red shoe"
I don't know - sounds like your body knows exactly what to do.
Absolutely. Great voice. Unfortunately she died just when she was getting major exposure.
1.1 mile walk/jog. The wind was just so annoying, I wimped out and came home instead of doing 3 miles. Also, I went out too soon after lunch, and my body just did not want to run. What will I do tomorrow when it is 20 degrees if I can't handle 40 degrees plus wind? I thought I was tougher than that.
Now it's hailing out there!
Good luck Holly - they should double your pay!
"During a marathon, I run about two-thirds of the time. That's plenty." - Margaret Davis, 85 Ed Whitlock regarding his 2:54:48 marathon at age 73, "That was a good day. It was never a struggle."
School seemed extra long today as I was proctoring the state biology exam. I'm not allowed to do anything except watch the students take the test. No reading, grading, computer- nothing except pacing in a silent room. Had a zoom meeting with a local chemical company that is paying me to go to Denver and pitch their products at a national science conference for teachers. When that was ove rI got to the Y and ran a very easy 2.6 on the indoor track, did a bunch of pull-ups and some other exercises, then came home.