Week in review Nov. 5-11: Cold, dark, and full of children

About a third biking and a third running -- not bad.

I was doing OK weather-wise two weeks ago when the temperatures were in the 30s and there was still a little bit of daylight in the evenings. Last week was even colder and darker after the end of Daylight Savings, and I just am not ready for windchills in the teen and 20s. I pretty much sequestered myself indoors all last week except for the occasional dog walk or errand.

But if you can overlook my hibernation from the cold, I didn’t have a bad week! I only did one weights workout, and I didn’t do as much PT as I would have liked, but I still managed three treadmill runs, three trainer rides, a barre class, and yoga. I voted on Tuesday and stress ate all Tuesday evening waiting for results, but that was my only day fully off from exercise.

In a turn of events totally uncharacteristic for me, I had THREE social events this weekend: a family dinner on Friday (an amazing Brazilian steakhouse); a kid’s birthday party on Saturday; and a gathering at our friends’ house to eat, watch football, and catch up. Our hosts have a 2-year-old and I employed the Auntie Kristin method of child entertainment: Keep them riled them up long past their bedtime until they are falling asleep on their feet from exhaustion. I don’t mind kids when I can be the fun “aunt,” haha. Because Friday dinner was late and I had a few hours between events Saturday, I did manage to squeeze in a workout both days, for which I was pretty proud of myself.

Bike: Three times, all on the trainer, for 46.75 trainer miles in about 3:37. I have seen a definite increase in fake trainer mileage and overall effort since I re-tested my FTP. I mean, that’s what I want, but putting in the work to get there is not easy.

Run/Walk: Three times, all on the treadmill (boo), for 15.75 miles in just less than 3 hours. It was cold and dark and I couldn’t muster the mental fortitude to deal with it, so I started the latest season of Orange is the New Black and zoned out. My left hip has started hurting, though, and I can’t believe that it’s a total coincidence that it’s bothering me after I ran on my old, jerky treadmill that we bought off CraigsList years and years ago. I think Santa Claus is going to bring us a new model to keep us running this winter.

PT/Rehab: Twice, both solo sessions, for about 1.5 hours total. I just need more hours in the day.

Weights: One barre class for about an hour.

Yoga: One solo session for about 15 minutes, keeping with my Sunday evening tradition. I tried to focus on hips, glutes, my IT band… anything that could potentially help with this hip pain.

Total: 10 sessions in about 9:19. Not bad at all!

I am going to have to come up with a plan for staying active even in the cold and dark because as much as I’d like to hibernate until March, that’s not practical for work, fitness, or what little remains of my social life. I am still thinking about a spring half marathon and want to keep building up my running intervals (last week I bumped it up to 9 minutes running, 1 minute walking). But man oh man do I hate being cold.

So, to be continued. Maybe there will be a heat wave this coming week – 40s sounds tropical right about now.