I had a head cold last week, and I chose to surrender rather than fight it. I cancelled my gym sessions and slept in, even took some time off work to sleep some more. Somehow, that translated into needing to carb load as well. I woke up Saturday morning clearly on the mend, and lay in bed for two hours struggling with the need to run before I finally gave myself permission to take another day off. Saturday night saw me at the grocery store buying a bucket of lousy little chocolate donuts - the kind coated in chocolate colored waxy substance. They are not even good, but they filled some sort of imperative at the time. (I try to reserve my excesses for really good stuff.) Overall, not such a good week on the fitness front.
Luckily, Sunday dawned with a new outlook. I was delighted to get down on the treadmill, and pleasantly surprised that even with a whole week off I was fine running. I did a mile nonstop at 5.1 mph, walked for a bit, then ran fast for another three minutes. I felt I could go further, but I needed to go pick up kid up from his weekend function. That provided an opportunity to donate the remainder of the chocolate donuts to sleepy teenagers.
It's spring break at school, and I'm also giving myself a bit of break with a couple of days off to do stuff with the kids. Their day starts considerably after mine. I went back to the gym at my normal before-work time of 6 am, came home for more coffee, and did an outside run! It's cool and crisp and a bit windy, and I was too cold at the start and too warm at the end, but not terribly so. I wore compression tights to just below the knee, and baggy gym shorts over them. I went uphill for the first segment, first upstream along Sligo Creek, and then turned and jogged slowly up the big hill on Wayne. There were many walking sessions in there, and I really wasn't working myself to death according to my heart rate, though it was hard to get my breath while going up the big hill. There was inevitably some level and some downhill portions, and I was very pleasantly surprised to realize I could maintain a pace that matched my footfalls to my music with a heart beat around 130 and no problem with my breath. I did a loop and was home after 2 miles. I'll have to do more outside work but I'm pleased that I'm enjoying myself (at least part of the time), rather than gritting my teeth and forcing myself through it the whole time. If that were the case, I know I'd stop doing it.
I did a foolish thing to celebrate the holiday. I bought myself an expensive toy - a GPS watch / heart rate monitor. I can re-live my run, practically footfall by footfall, on a map that matches heart rate, pace, and elevation changes. It was too much money but its mine now, and it will provide some slight impetus to getting outside for the runs - creating an opportunity to come back inside and review my graphs and stats! So I know I had an average heart rate of 127 bpm for the whole time, and a max of only 144. I was not pushing myself as hard as I can. My pace is almost embarrassing: 14:49 minutes per mile (factoring in walking + running).
The silly thing is, to the outside eye, I'm "running" at a pace many people can walk!
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