Embracing the Mindful and rejecting the Beast

On February 21, 2017 By Emerging Runner2 Comments

I’m giving my Plantar my full support

Today’s workout (upper body hand weights): 45 minutes

Happy President’s Day. This morning my daughter and I celebrated with a cup of coffee at Runsketeer Starbucks. She didn’t have classes today because of the holiday. I’m off from work for the same reason. I always did like George and Abe.

After Starbucks, I coerced my daughter into swinging by CVS so I could purchase a couple of items that will supposedly help reduce the pain of Plantar Fasciitis. I bought a Plantar Flex Support Sleeve and Plantar Flex Orthotics. When I looked them up on the CVS site I saw that “related items” included Crest white strips, contact lens cleaner and razor blade refills. This Fasciitis thing is pretty complex. Now I understand why my heel pain hasn’t gone away quickly.

White strips and support sleeves – a natural combination!

I’m not sure if any of the stuff I got at CVS will help. Another great president, Teddy Roosevelt, said, “The best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” Action is better than inaction. Otherwise the Plantar Fasciitis wins.

I dutifully placed the flex sleeve on my foot and put the supports in my shoes. I decided to forgo a run in favor of an upper body workout. Specifically, the Body Beast workout that TPP gave me last month. I put one of the DVDs into my laptop and as soon as I saw the Lou Ferrigno lookalike, I thought I might be out of my league. The warm-up was fine, but then they started doing push ups (push ups!) before the workout had even started. That did it for me.

Instead of giving up on a workout, I went online and found a video of a woman trainer with less muscles than Lou Ferrigno. Her routine, using hand weights, took 10 minutes and felt more like a warm up than a real workout. I decided to look at a few other websites and found a set of exercises on “The Mindful Body” that looked reasonable. Since every person I talk to uses the term “mindful” these days, I figured I’d try it out.

This routine was tougher than the ten minute warm up and took about 35 minutes to finish. I didn’t work up a big sweat, but I know I hit every muscle group in my arms and shoulders. I’m curious to see how I feel tomorrow, as I haven’t done a formal upper body workout since the London Olympics. While my arms will inevitably ache, I’m hoping my heel will feel a little better. If so, I’ll take that trade-off.

Middle school snow shoe adventure

On January 31, 2016 By Emerging Runner2 Comments

Trekking along the glacial firn

Today’s workout (snow shoeing): 1 hour (2.75 miles)

I decided to go straight for an outdoor workout today and headed over to the middle school for some snow shoe trekking. There’s still plenty of snow cover, but the roads are free of it. Wearing snow shoes on pavement is a no-no because of the crampons, so I elected to take a short drive over to the school. It’s difficult getting my boots into the bindings, so I put them in beforehand and then stepped into my shoes when I was ready to start.

Once equipped, I walked onto the field and headed out. The school field’s perimeter is about a half a mile if you keep to the far edges. I thought I’d do a few laps around and see how it went. I started moving at a brisk pace but had to ease up a bit after a quarter mile. Like running, you need to anticipate that you will heat up over time. Unfortunately, I didn’t do that. After ten minutes I was ready to shed my top layer and ski mittens.

ER was here

Instead of laps, I followed the snow where it drifted and where there were interesting areas to “explore.” I criss-crossed in both directions and, just for fun, spelled out ER in honor of the eponymous blog. Going in a straight line over a period of time (versus the frequent slowing and turning required in my backyard) was ultimately wearying and certainly a good workout.

I tried to gauge my level of exertion compared to running and ellipticalling. Running in snow shoes felt comparable to hard track intervals, while brisk walking felt like a challenging hike. Overall, I’d position the effort of snow shoeing as somewhere between running and the elliptical. Of course, that comparison only applies to me. People who are elliptical maniacs may consider that a harder workout. Then again, those people would probably be snow shoe maniacs too.

Cramming in my workouts

On August 7, 2015 By Emerging RunnerLeave a comment

The Dirty Sock route

Today’s run (street): 3.75 miles
Yesterday’s workout (elliptical): 30 minutes

During yesterday’s drive home I realized that I’d missed my morning workout window. I was facing another week with all my activity crammed into the last three days. I’m not likely to return to 4 AM weekday neighborhood runs, but I could run on the treadmill before getting ready for work on weekdays. And yet I don’t. As I crawled along the Cross Island Parkway, I made the decision to do a workout when I got home.

I took little time changing into workout clothes and considered both the treadmill and the elliptical for my workout. My thought process went like this: 1) “The treadmill is real running and the elliptical isn’t.” 2) “The treadmill gets my heart rate higher. I can change elevation and even simulate downhill running.” 3) “I hate the treadmill so I’m going to use the elliptical.” With that, I turned on the big fan and had a surprisingly enjoyable session.

This morning I was determined to get out earlier than I have done on previous Fridays. At 6:00 AM I told myself I’d go out at 7:00. At 7:00 I said 7:30. By the time I changed for my run and put on sunscreen it was 8:00. By the time my Garmin acquired a signal, it was almost 8:15. So once again I found myself in the prime hour for dodging recycling trucks.

The weather was promising, not too hot and hardly humid. I felt good from the start and that continued throughout the run. About halfway through my route, I saw a car coming from the other direction around a tight curve. I tucked in behind a landscaping truck until the car passed by. Coincidently, it was my landscaper’s truck and he was standing right there. We had a brief chat about how running and working in the heat kinda sucks and then I was on my way once again.

The rest of the run was relatively vehicle-free and the time went by quickly. I ran a little faster than I usually do, but it was still nothing to brag about. Tomorrow the Runsketeers will be taking to the trails to run the Dirty Sock course. It’s been over a year since I’ve run that route and I’m excited that my friends will be running it for the first time. I hope conditions will be cool and the path will be dry. It gets very humid around there in August and muddy trails are why the race is called the Dirty Sock.

Joining a gym is short term thinking

On February 15, 2015 By Emerging Runner17 Comments

Save me a spot

Today’s workout (elliptical): 60 minutes

This is has been a snowy winter, just like last year when I did over 70% of my running indoors. What’s missing for me this year is a working treadmill, I decided to explore a short term gym membership to tide me over and started looking online at my options.

You can learn a lot about joining a health club from their websites. For example, few sites will tell you the actual cost to join their gym. Instead of providing a price list, many say “call or click to request pricing.” Why is this? Do they want to figure out how much money I’m willing to spend before committing to a cost? This is why people dislike shopping for a car.

For those health clubs that actually put their pricing on their website, I discovered a pretty wide variance in cost. Generally speaking, gyms with stark black and white designs with super athletic, good looking people seem to be very expensive (i.e., Equinox). They also tend to charge initiation or enrollment fees. Gyms with friendly designs and bright colors are much more reasonably priced and don’t seem to add on extra costs (i.e., Planet Fitness).

10.5X more expensive than Planet Fitness

Most of these places offer either a day or full week free pass. I considered doing that, but I would need to go from gym to gym until our new treadmill is installed. I also envision a situation when, each time I go, the gym manager corners me and gives me a pitch like he’s selling me a Florida timeshare.

I happen to work in a place that has a well appointed fitness center and I can use it for free. I was hoping to do an occasional treadmill run there, but I concluded that I don’t want to do a workout before my business day. Especially since it would require me to share a common shower and tiny locker room with my workmates. I really don’t want to see that. Besides, when I get to the office, I like to get right to business.

We still don’t have a date for our treadmill delivery so I may end up going for a couple of 7 day trials or joining Planet Fitness for a month for $10 if that’s truly their deal. If I can drive to Bethpage State Park to run on the bike path, I can drive to a gym in the same town. Maybe someone should come up with a service model like Airbnb, where people let you come in and use their home fitness equipment. That would make it really easy.

I spent an hour on the elliptical machine this morning and actually liked the workout. But after looking at gyms online with expansive fitness rooms filled with high end treadmills, I’m ready for a change. Still, getting back on the road without worrying about slipping, or no sidewalk escape routes would make me the happiest of all.

Good pain and bad pain

On January 6, 2015 By Emerging Runner10 Comments

Here’s a recap of my running since last Thursday:

Friday: 0 miles
Saturday: 0 miles
Sunday: 0 miles
Monday: 0 miles
Tuesday: 0 miles

Despite that, I’m extremely sore all the way from my hamstring to my upper arms. I’m fine with the upper body soreness because it’s the result of exercise. I decided to act on my new resolution to add strength training to my routine and did a 45 minute workout on Sunday. Don’t be impressed. I used two 10 lb. hand weights and barely broke a sweat.

I didn’t want to overdo it, because the last time I worked with weights, I ended up straining my back. The fact that a light workout has resulted in so much soreness tells me that I need to spend much more time on upper body training. All the same, it’s nice knowing that this discomfort is due to effort, not injury.

The soreness I’m feeling in my glutes and hamstring is not making me very happy. I’ve always coped with minor injuries by taking a few days off from running. A short rest usually had me back on the road within a week. The pain I felt during last week’s Hangover Run wasn’t debilitating, but it was a clear signal that I needed a lot more recovery time.

It’s been five days since my last run and I think I’m going to take a sixth day off tomorrow. The pain has dulled, but a quick jog down the hall tells me more mending time is needed. I’ll probably try an elliptical session on Thursday morning to gauge my progress. Depending on that result, I’ll either plan for a Friday morning run or make an appointment with an orthopedist.

Rainout workout

On November 27, 2014 By Emerging Runner2 Comments

Today’s workout (elliptical): 1 hour

Today was halfway between work and play. Like most of my office colleagues, I decided to work from home. That kept my calendar relatively clear and I’d hoped I could work in a morning run before I got down to business. We heard that we’d be getting some weather, but I didn’t expect it to start so early. I was willing to run in light rain but not in the frozen mix that was coming down.

I had hopes that the rain would stop long enough to let me get out for 30 minutes, but it eventually became clear that wouldn’t happen. Instead of digging into some of today’s objectives, I’d remained on hold. I thought about deferring my run, but the hourly weather report confirmed that the rain wasn’t going to stop. I considered and rejected the treadmill and opted instead for the elliptical.

It had been a while since I’d done an elliptical workout. Although I appreciate the quietness of the machine compared with the treadmill, I’m always somewhat ambivalent about it. I usually end up feeling like I got a good workout but I’m never sure how an elliptical session compares to a run. Our Pro-Form doesn’t provide a lot of information on its display and the little data it does show has no context in terms of performance.

I finally got some work done after that long elliptical session but we had a family friend come by and that put an early end to my workday. He’s a nationally ranked power lifter and has more muscle in one forearm than I have in my entire body. Our friend has a background in physiology. As always, I took every opportunity to get advice on sports nutrition. It was a nice start to the Thanksgiving long weekend.

The rain should be gone by tomorrow though there’s a chance of snow showers. No turkey trot this year but I’m going to get out unless conditions are too treacherous.

Fast times on the asphalt track

On April 2, 2014 By Emerging Runner4 Comments

Cadence drops throughout the run

Today’s run (intervals): 1.6 miles – 6 x 420m

I was extremely unmotivated this morning and decided that this whole running thing has finally played out. I’ve decided to quit and take up golf instead. April Fools! Fear not, I have no plans to stop, but if racing as we know it turns into this, I will reconsider it. Running through tree pollen is tough, but it’s something we deal with. Running through clouds of rainbow colored corn starch is another thing altogether.

Happily, there was no rainbow dust in sight this morning when I went outside for my Tuesday speed session. Due to the weather, I have been doing repeats on the treadmill. Today’s weather was so perfect I wanted to go outside. I’d picked out a stretch of somewhat straight road and adopted it as my track. Due to a lack of USATF measurement resources, I had to rely on Gmaps to define my start and finish points. This lack of precision resulted in a little extra distance per run, but really, what’s a tenth of mile across six repeats?

My “track” has one property that is different from our local high school track: elevation change. It’s not a big height difference overall, but I calculated the second half to be a 3.8% grade. Not exactly what one wants at the end of an all-out run. That’s why tracks are supposed to be flat. On the other hand, the grade worked in my favor when going in the other direction.

I didn’t know what to expect in terms of the speed I would maintain on these intervals. Hal Higdon instructs you to run at 5K or 10K pace for this series, but I ended up running a little faster, averaging 7:56 for the set. I found that sustaining a fast pace felt easier as I moved through the repeats, although a look at the numbers showed that I slowed down a little on the last two. Cadence was highest in the first third of each repeat.

Tomorrow I’m scheduled for my 5.x miles that I will do easy. I’m pleased with today’s faster workout and I’m growing optimistic that the combination of performance running and base runs will prepare me well for Brooklyn.

Treadmill 220’s, surprisingly fun

On March 10, 2014 By Emerging Runner6 Comments

220m intervals with 70 second recovery jog

Today’s run (treadmill intervals): 3.2 miles (16 x 220m, 1 mile warm up/cool down)

Although you wouldn’t know it by looking at my Garmin data from my weekend runs, I have turned my attention back to performance running. It isn’t without irony that, despite my now-clear neighborhood streets, I did my first speed workout this year on the treadmill. My preference would have been to do this on the track, but I was reluctant to risk being hauled off by security for trespassing at the high school.

I normally take Mondays as my rest days but I really needed to focus on my readiness. If the weather holds, I’ll be racing on Saturday with the Runsketeers. I didn’t intend to take as much time as I ended up needing for today’s workout, but it was good that I did. My plan was to start with a half mile warm up at about 9:30 a mile and then run 12 x 100m before finishing with a mile cool down. I discovered that running intervals on a treadmill can be difficult. This is because the machine lacks the hard start/stop precision of the track. I had to account for the time it took the treadmill to get up to full speed each time.

As a result, I decided to run 220m repeats instead of 100’s. I’m not confident of the accuracy of the speed displayed on the treadmill, but I set it 25% faster than what I usually run on the machine. I averaged 67 seconds for the 220’s (about an 8:10 pace), after factoring in the starting lag.

I started and ended today’s session with regular running. I bumped up the speed on the cool down to take advantage of the fact that 6.5 MPH feels a lot easier after pushing close to 8 MPH for twenty minutes. I was surprised that my heart rate averaged only 81% of max overall. Perhaps 67 seconds isn’t enough time to go up from 64% (heart rate during recovery cycle). I’m sure that if I was doing 400’s at that pace I’d be in the red zone by the end of each repeat.

Treadmill intervals were more fun than I expected and I hope this was a good way of reactivating my speed. I may do another speed session on Wednesday before my mini taper. Running fast is fun. I wish I could remember that more often.

Missing an experience that I used to call mundane

On March 3, 2014 By Emerging Runner5 Comments

Miss you

Today’s run (treadmill): 35 minutes

After so many days away from running, it was hard to justify taking my usual rest day today. This hiatus was necessary to get me through the past week. One thing I’ve learned is that running while ill is a zero sum game. Benefits gained through a hard workout may be canceled out by the strain put on a weakened body.

Before I could consider a run this morning, I needed to consider the driveway. A foot or more of snow had been predicted over the weekend, but that number was lowered to 2″-4″ for our area. We ended up with barely an inch. I didn’t want to leave it to freeze into a sheet of ice (supposed to get into the single digits tonight), so I went out early and shoveled. My level of required effort compared to Saturday’s ice-moving exercise was fairly low.

I had a number of items on today’s schedule, so I carved out 35 minutes for a treadmill workout that was similar to yesterday’s, except I set the incline to 2% today. This was not intended to be a difficult workout (see first paragraph). It was more about moving, getting my heart rate going and preparing for what I hope will be a higher performance run tomorrow.

After I’d completed my workout, I drove to the bank to deposit a check. I inspected my local roads and thought about how I’d often complain about the mundanities of neighborhood running. I looked up and down these long strips of open pavement and wished I could return to them. There’s still too much ice and snow to do that now, but soon it will all melt away. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Zapped and tired

On February 22, 2014 By Emerging Runner6 Comments

Zapped again

Today’s run (treadmill): 45 minutes

I woke up feeling tired with a scratchy throat this morning. Morning is when my energy level peaks, but even with two cups of coffee, I felt fatigued. It was “near-end-of-vacation-pancake-day” so I had to participate. I added a cup of decaf to my coffee intake and figured the extra carbs from the pancakes would help fuel my run. If that was the case, it was a short term benefit.

My treadmill workout did not go very well. I knew I’d have trouble maintaining Friday’s pace, so I started at a speed that I thought I could sustain for 40 minutes. Although the temperature has risen throughout the week, the humidity has remained low. About three minutes into the run, my hand brushed the treadmill’s HRM grip. This caused a spark that wiped out the display but I didn’t notice it for another minute. I reset the treadmill without knowing how far I’d actually gone.

The next ten minutes went okay, but I soon felt tired. I usually wouldn’t stop a run due to fatigue, but today I made an exception. I gave myself a minute to recover before restarting the machine and dialed down the speed a half a MPH. I was able to manage through for another 30 minutes, though I don’t know if it was wise to continue.

I’m hoping my strength will return so I’ll be on my game tomorrow. I keep expecting a cold to come, but so far it’s mostly just fatigue and an irritated throat.