Florida vs. The Great White North

Greetings from Canada, eh!  I'm here for a week and trying to get back in the swing of running.  After the chest cold, I was taking it easy for a bit.  Last weekend, I decided the time had come to run again.  I was in West Palm Beach and went for an easy, 30-minute run.  Except that it wasn't so easy because the humidity was horrible -- in the 80%-100% range (it was rainy).  In December.  Not fair.  But I did it, even though I didn't feel like I was running at my best, even taking out the awful humidity.

Much the same for my next run, which was on Monday in Fort Lauderdale (I was doing a Florida road trip, can you tell?).  This time, the humidity was okay, but Mr. Florida Sun was awfully brutal.  The run was by the beach, which offered great scenery but very little shade.  I did okay, but needed to walk a bit at the end.  Still a bit sick, I think.

On Thursday, I wanted to do some speed training on the treadmill, but the treadmills weren't working (?).  So I did pyramid pieces instead.  You alternate fast running and slower running (or walking, as the case was by the end of the last one) at different intervals.  I usually do 1-1-2-2-3-2-2-1-1 for a 15-minute pyramid (bold indicates where I ran).  It's a very good workout.  Again, not feeling 100% and still a bit sick.

Now I am in Canada, where it can be humid too, only you don't mind it so much because it's below freezing.  This describes yesterday pretty well.   I did a good job of dressing for the weather and I noticed that the wind can make an incredible different.  Places where the wind was blocked weren't so bad, but when you got the wind head-on, it was pretty intense.  My run was a 5-mile one with hills in preparation for the 10-miler that I am doing on December 26 (Boxing Day).  It went okay, although yet again, I do not feel that I am at 100%.  Maybe someday I will actually recover.  Until then, I am trying to accept that I may not be running at my best right now, but at least I am sufficiently recovered that I can run.  It's a big improvement over how I felt during the last half-marathon!

Thanksgiving Week

It was a somewhat busy Thanksgiving week. For instance, I went to a whole other country (okay, it was Canada, which is the country next door, but still).  I did, however, get through my entire week of running and it was a big week for this plan: 6 miles on Tuesday, what wound up being 6 miles on Thursday (surprise!), 12 miles on Friday, and speedwork today (Sunday).  I had to rearrange things due to travel, but at least everything got done.

The Thursday 6 miles was broken down as follows: 4 miles normal, then 0.5 miles fast, and 1.5 normal to finish.  I did the fast quite fast.  Plus it wound up being up a hill.  A real hill, not a Florida hill (although nowhere on par with a California hill or a Pittsburgh hill or anything).

Other excitement during my week: I bought new shoes on Monday and tried them out on Tuesday.  They seemed fine, so I took them to the foreign country.  Surprise!  They were not.  I got back Thursday to find that they had viciously attacked my feet during my run.  So I got to buy brand-new (expensive) running shoes in a foreign country.  Yay!  Ah well, these things happen sometimes.  I have to say that these were my first skunky shoes in my running career, so probably I shouldn't complain too much.

The runs all went okay, although none was particularly great. I didn't have enough fueling stuff for the long run because I was out of my sport beans.  By the end, I was hungry, which is a sign that you did not have enough en route.  But that wasn't such a big deal since I wasn't too concerned about my time.

On to tapering!  I am super excited about this since the past week wore me out.