Wednesday & Thursday

Wednesday morning I squeezed in a fabulous 20 minute upper body workout.  How, you might ask?  Scraping this solid sheet of ice off of my car:

The ground was a solid sheet of ice too.

Here are some icy pictures from that morning to make this post interesting, because after these next two pictures I'm going to talk about the details of my Thursday night speed work.

Icicles everywhere!

Unfortunately this picture is not super in-focus, but I like Japanese maples and I think this tree looks cool anyway:

Luckily the overnight and early morning freezing rain only gave me (another) 90 minute delay for work, and my gym was open that night.

Wednesday night workout: 1 hour of Spinning with a friend (second time this week), because she joined the gym I go to!  It was a different instructor than Monday night's class, so it was interesting to see how someone else runs things.

Thursday night:  I think I have lots of work stress building right now.  So I have lots of energy for sweating.  Since I didn't do speed work Wednesday night (schedule called for 35 min tempo run), I did some tonight. 

I had hoped to have time for a 35 minute tempo run before spinning, but I didn't get out of work early enough for that.  I know splitting it up into two sessions isn't quite the same, but it's better than nothing.  I think a 15 min and a 20 min tempo run would defeat the purpose, since the point is to do it for a prolonged period.  So I did intervals, split into two sessions (still not the same as all in one shot, I know).


Week 3 called for 6 x 400 @ 5k pace; Week 5 called for 7 x 400 @ 5k pace.
5k pace for me, based on my approximate goal half time, would be somewhere in the 9:28-9:45 range.

I had about 20 minutes before boot camp started, so I hopped on the treadmill.

I calculated the paces afterward, as my Garmin does not communicate with the treadmill.  I just hit lap on my Garmin for each change in speed.  Then I tried really hard to commit the distances to memory.

Speed Work session 1:
 @ 1% incline

Insert one full hour of Boot Camp.  Lots of crunches, bicycles, oblique crunches, planks, chest & tricep pushups, tricep dips, some jumping jacks, squats, various exercises with 5lb dumb bells-- tricep extensions (over head and while standing, bent over); and a bunch of chest and shoulder exercises. Several circuits of each.  I'm probably missing some.

Next came... Speed Work session 2.
 @ 1% incline

Since I was already warmed up, this next warm up was shorter. I felt good still after 3 repeats, so I added a 4th. (7th, overall).  I jogged for all my rest intervals (no walking).

I'm all screwy with my speed work/ tempo/ hills schedule - compared with what I originally set out to do.  But what is important is that I'm still doing one of those each week!

Here was my last speed work session, 5 x 400.  I'm happy that I was able to cut the rest intervals down from .2 miles on January 12th to .1 miles on February 3rd, and I was still able to hit the necessary paces each time! (Progress??)

Alright, that's enough of that for now.

We have more icy stuff on the way tonight and tomorrow, but the weather is looking good for my long run Sunday!  41 sounds tropical.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Ice Ice Baby

Last night I did something stupid. Actually, no, it was just an accident. Despite wearing flats and walking in teeny tiny steps, I managed to fall on this:

...while carrying my work bag, my lunch bag, and two reusable bags full of groceries.  It was awesome.  While I will admit I was in a hurry, as I squeezed in a quick trip to the grocery store, needed to put that stuff away, change, and get to bootcamp by 5:30, I was VERY aware of the ice, and walked carefully. And still fell.

Quick science lesson:

It's true.

While our apartment's maintenance person did shovel a path for us, as long as there are 4 foot icicles 3 stories up that drip into the alley-way during the day, there will continue to be ice.   I just need to be more careful. What is amazing is that for the past week I have routinely walked on this ice in 2-3" inch heels, while walking the dog, and a couple runs earlier this week, and didn't fall.  And when I wore flats and tried extra hard to be careful, I fell anyway.

I landed on my left knee/shin (somehow...?) which did not feel good.  My shin about 2" down from my knee is a little puffy and sore today.  But last night I went to bootcamp any way and it felt fine.  I'm guessing I just bruised it.  I'd take a picture, but it's not purple, and puffiness doesn't really photograph well.

Which is why when I thought about doing an OnDemand exercise video when I got home from work today, I reminded myself today is a rest day.  So I will follow my training plan and rest.  And give my shin a day off. 

And after MollyWaffles followed me all around the apartment while I unpacked and cleaned up a little, I sat down on the bed.  And she quickly jumped up to join me.  So I kicked my feet up for 20 minutes with her to pass the time until her 6pm kibble.

It takes a lot of convincing to get her to snuggle with you.


Time to go pick up soup from a nearby restaurant for dinner.  I'm thinking chicken and dumpling. 

While I have no exciting plans this weekend, I am looking forward to a 3 day weekend!  My running plans for the weekend are easy: a 3 mile pace run on Saturday and a 5 mile long run on Sunday.

Do you have Monday off from work?  
Do you have any fun plans for the (long) weekend?