Seen while aquajogging

I don't know why, but today I just felt like doing aquajogging instead of running for real.  No idea.  So I decided to go for it, even though this is kind of cheating.  Honor the body and all that (at least, that is what they say often in my yoga classes).

Anyway, I'm glad that I did because what very well might be the highlight of my day took place.  There are two pools at my condo association: one bigger one and one smaller one.  Usually, I aquajog in the smaller one because fewer people use it and there is shade.  Today, there were two elderly people walking across the short part of the pool (not length-wise) as their exercise--I am in no way mocking their exercise regiment, since I have the utmost respect for anyone who takes the time to exercise.  What did crack me up, though, was that they were listening to the Sirius Radio Broadway channel while they were doing this and the Paul Robeson version of 'Old Man River' came on.  It was just too funny.  And too wrong. 

Mind you, it still ranks as the second-wrongest 'Old Man River' moment I have ever experienced after this one.

So much better

So today's run was over the Threshold of Ick: it was in the low 80s with over 80% humidity.  The dew point was right around 75F.  And you know what?  It really didn't feel so bad.  Which tells you just how bad the weather was this summer.  Don't get me wrong: I was very sweaty and I definitely had to push (and my time was nothing to write home about), but it was at least manageable and not, to choose an example at random, 100% humidity like at the start of the month.

I was going to go this morning and make up for last week's long run but I was still tired.  It was a very tiring weekend.  And so, I decided that I would just follow the schedule from here on out and not try and make up last week's run.  It should be fine, I didn't miss anything too crucial on the schedule.  Last week was 10 miles, but next week is 10 miles too as the long run, so I will just do it then (this week is 8 miles, so that will be Sunday).

Today was 4.5 miles.  I ran pretty well throughout, I think, even though my actual speed was slow.  That was one of my goals because I'm getting fed up with walking.  And I succeeded!  Except for the part where someone had his dog off-leash and the dog came up and said hi to me.  Then I walked so as not to completely freak out the dog.  Unavoidable walk.

That's more like it!

After a long day of travel, I was looking forward to getting to my hotel in Louisville and chilling out.  It's been a tiring few days, particularly with today's travel (Phoenix to Oklahoma City to St. Louis to Louisville...someone really should have checked the flight schedule more carefully).  But the minute I stepped out of the airport and I didn't immediately recoil at the weather, I knew that I wanted to go running.

This decision went against many of my normal habits.  It was near dark.  I didn't know where to run.  I didn't know the area.  But I asked the woman at the front desk of my hotel about 15 times if it was safe, and she assured me that it was.  She was right.

I'm actually on the Indiana side of Louisville in Jefferson and there is a great trail here.  It is called the Ohio River Greenway and it was incredibly well lit at night, which was totally unexpected, but great.  I only wish that I was spending more time here and could explore this trail more.  For a quick, 30-minute run, though, it was ideal.  And the weather....the weather was great!  In the 60s and fortunately, no rain (there is rain in the area).

It's nice to be reminded sometimes that I actually enjoy running and run willingly when I get the chance.  The past few months have not been very encouraging.  Runs like tonight's are great rewards.

Running in Phoenix

Ages ago, I lived in Vegas for a summer.  What I most hated about it was that you always felt hot.  Even when you were inside, with the A/C on, you never really cooled down.  For instance, if I took a hot shower, it was too hot.  Summer of cold showers.  Ew.

I couldn't help but think about this while trying to run on the treadmill here.  It just felt too......hot.  Didn't help that the A/C in the fitness room seemed to be unreliable.  Didn't help that the A/C wasn't on when I started and the room was 75F for a while today (it cooled to 71F....but it sure didn't feel like it).  Didn't help that the treadmill made scary, weird noises or that there was no water in the fitness room.  You're probably getting the idea.

Today was going to be the long run, but it didn't work.  I'm going to try to do it on the treadmill on Saturday when I am in Louisville, KY and it is not 96F out at 8pm.  If that doesn't work out, then I will move the long run to Monday or Tuesday of next week.  It's okay.  I did run yesterday and today.  Conditions are just not ideal here.

Ha!

Last night I sat down and plotted out the training for the first of the four (eek!) half-marathons that I plan to run.  No biggie, right?  Just like doing two marathons in six months?  Actually, I am feeling remarkably good about this whole thing, so BRING IT ON!

I chose a half-marathon plan from about.com, which is a first.  It's called an advanced beginner plan, although I am not sure what that means...still looks considerably easier than the 'beginner' plan that I did for my last one.  I'm having to start with the week where you do the 10M run to be ready in time, but that's okay.  I'm still in decent shape from the last one, even though I took some time off in between.  In fact, that might prove to be a blessing in disguise since it gave me a break.

Things are going to get hectic this week due to travel, so I opted to try the 'speed' training tonight.  You run one mile as a warm-up, then do 2.5 at race pace, and finish with a mile cool down.  This was going really well except that I ran the 2.5 much, much too fast to start.  I think that this kind of training will require some practice for me since I've never tried to sustain my race pace for any amount of time before.  It's a great exercise and one that I'm looking forward to improving.  But today I didn't quite have it. I did meet my goal overall, but my pace was all over the place.

The weather felt great to start, a beautiful, Florida fall day.  What I mean by a Florida fall day is that it was still in the 80s when I started (90s with the heat index), but that the humidity was a mere 70%-ish and the dew point only in the lower 70s.  As I was running, the dew point went up to the mid-70s and the humidity increased because of  storms in the area, meaning that the end of my run was above the threshold of ick--which might also account for why my pace dropped.  And yet, it still felt about 100x better than the horribleness that was this summer.  Right now, for instance, I don't feel as though I am going to die by melting into a smelly ball of sweat.  Neat.

I may have lost my mind

There is a Florida halfathon series in which you run 4 half-marathons over the course of about 5 months (late October to mid-March).

I signed up for it today.

Yes, I realize that this could signal the fact that I have lost my mind.

However, I am very excited about this suddenly, which is great since I'll need all of the enthusiasm that I can muster to get through it.  Over the next few days, I plan to map out a training schedule, probably one that has me running 3-4 times a week, since that worked well when I did the marathon.  I'll have to improvise a bit since I'm pretty sure that I'll be coming into a training plan midway, but I think that I should be okay since I did just train for a 1/2 marathon and wasn't running into any injury problems.  Also, I'll have to figure out what to do between races as a modified plan.  But this is okay.

One of them has 'hills,' by which I mean the Clearwater Beach Causeway.  It's legit.  And very sunny.  I will get photos soon.  Fortunately, this is the race in January, so we can all cross our fingers that it won't be complete torture.

It is on.

Getting caught up

Well, I have definitely not written in a while and, if you're curious, I haven't been running as much lately either.  But it's not as grim as the lack of blog posts might infer.  Here's a quick summary:

• Ran 2 miles in Pittsburgh on the Saturday before the half-marathon.  I thought that I was going to a part that wasn't too hilly.  And for Pittsburgh, probably it wasn't.  But by normal standards, there were plenty of hills.  No need to walk any of them though.
• Unfortunately, for the half-marathon in Geneseo, NY, there was A WHOLE TON OF HILLS.  Several super nasty ones too.  There were rolling ones around 4-5 miles and one super killer one right before the 12-mile marker.  Because that is what you want to see at Mile 12: a huge hill.  Also, it was somewhat humid.  Humid and hilly, my two favorite conditions.  But we did it (I ran this with another person).  We persevered.  Even if we had to walk some of the hills.  The part that I found hilarious was when we looked ahead at the killer hill near Mile 12 and saw everyone still out on the course walking.  It was very pretty, though, and the race was well-organized.  Its only major flaw was that it was ridiculously hilly for a Floridian.
• There was one advantage to having walked parts of the half-marathon: I ran the last mile.  Really ran it.  And was rewarded with a finish-line picture where I am actually running instead of gasping for my last breath of air before I die.  I liked the picture so much, I ordered a super-huge copy of it.
• Last weekend I did 2 miles on a treadmill and 5 miles outside.  I called it 'a treadmill' because it was in a different gym, which doesn't believe in air conditioning with the same fervor as my normal gym.  So that was why it was only 2 miles: I got too hot.  The outdoor run went pretty well, except that I wound up in the direct sun for ~20 minutes of the run (10 out and 10 back).  This was a mistake and I did some walk-running to finish up.  On the plus side, the weather is not nearly as horrid as it was in August.

Anyway, as this summary clearly indicates, at some point I transitioned from being a runner to being a walker-runner.  I'm hoping to get my runner mojo back soon.  And to do some more running, although I have been enjoying the opportunity to take more challenging yoga classes than normal.

For once, I'm not sure what my next goal is.  I was thinking to do a 10K turkey trot, but travel plans changed and that now won't work.  So I need to think about what I want to do.  Some long-term thoughts:

1) I don't know why, but I want to run the NY marathon.  So I will put in for the lottery and see what happens.
2) I feel like I still haven't had a good shot at a half-marathon with a respectable time.  This summer was brutal and then there were hills; the other halfs I have run were in Florida and humid, all too humid.  So one thought it to think about Philly if I don't get in for NY.  Philly is mostly flat and that race is in November, when it shouldn't be too hot and humid.....right?

But those are for next fall.  I need to find something for between then and now.  With a bit more digging around, I'm sure that I will.

I think I have identified the issue

I took a quick look at the Weather Network to learn more about Katia, our next named tropical storm, and I saw a big mess in the Gulf of Mexico.  There is a huge amount of tropical moisture streaming around, which will likely form into the Storm After Katia, which would be Lee.  This would explain why we have been experiencing higher than normal humidity.  But it doesn't make it any less icky:



Today's run was 8 miles.  In 100% humidity the entire time.  I was somewhat excited when I looked at the weather this morning and saw that the dew point was merely 73F, but that lasted only until I looked at the temperature and saw that it, also, was 73F.  Incidentally, this puts the temperature + humidity at 173.  That is so far beyond the threshold of ick (160) that I don't even know what to make of it.

I mean, it wasn't hot and it was overcast, so I guess that is good. But I could have done without the mounds of sweat that I experienced.  The weirdest part was that my legs really didn't feel tired at the end.  Everything else did, but not my legs.