A belated week in review for July 20-26

Not shabby at all.

The week has gotten away from me. I meant to review last week, and then I got tired, and then I got busy, and well. Now it's Thursday.

Last week wasn't bad at all. I hit a lucky 13 number of sessions, which is pretty good for me. Everything felt... fine? There was nothing too far out of the ordinary. Dare I say, boring. But, boring is what I need right now in life.

A quick wrap-up:

Bike: Three times, all on the trainer, for 58 fake trainer "miles" in about 3:53. I was pretty ticked I didn't get to ride outside on Wednesday. I planned the whole day around a ride, and then the weather forecast said it was going to rain all day. Well, GUESS WHAT??? No rain. I was so mad! I did an extra 15 minutes on the trainer that day in protest, haha.

Run: Three times, all road, for 17.5 miles in about 2:58. My left hip flexor is just irritating enough that anything faster or longer than an easy run starts to bother me. I keep stretching it and doing my PT and it gets marginally better.

Weights: Twice, one video and one of my heavy/body routines, for about 2:25. I tried a different order for my heavy/body routine on Saturday and it went a lot faster, so that is nice. I have also been doing an abbreviated chinup/pushup routine after my videos or online barre classes, and I feel good that at least I am doing a little SOMETHING extra even if it's not a complete round of pullups and chinups.

Swim: Twice, both in a pool, for 3200 meters in 1:34. I have been doing 800 meters of drills and a 800 meter set for time just to keep up some fitness. I'd like to start working in more drills, since I have nothing but time to improve on things right now.

PT: Twice for about 1:10.

Yoga: Once for about 20 minutes.

Total: 13 sessions for about 12:21.

Not a bad week, even if I was a bit late reviewing it.

Week in review July 13-19: Four runs, zero swims, lots of heat

Not a shabby week, and solid run and bike volume to boot.

Last week was a hot one. Three of my four runs were sufferfests in the humidity. I took ice water, which quickly became regular water, with me on two of them. Yuck.

I'm kind of disappointed in myself that I didn't make it to the pool at all. As I said earlier, I was exhausted Monday, and although we had good intentions to go Wednesday the club had a power outage. (And you still need power to run pumps, even if the pool is outdoors.) I had good intentions again to go Saturday, but I was SO fatigued after a bike trainer ride, I couldn't do much else than lie on the couch. I took my temperature to make sure I wasn't getting sick, but I was just tired. After relaxing for a couple of hours I did rally enough for a drink and dinner.

One takeaway from that is I need to have dinner ready to go on Mondays if I want to swim after work. Yesterday, we ordered enough Indian food to feed an army, and saved enough for leftovers. Maybe there's a casserole I can prep, or maybe I can get the slow cooker going again. I think that's going to be a big piece of the puzzle for Monday swims.

The other thing of note from last week was that I ran four times. But that was only because I ran every other day: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. All four were easy 5-mile slogs through fatigue, heat, and/or humidity. My hip flexor thing going on isn't 100% yet, but it's a LOT better. It's so hot, and there aren't any races coming up anyway, that easy 5-mile loops around my neighborhood are fine with me for the time being.

Anyway, by the numbers it was:

Run: Four times, all on the road, for 22 miles in about 3:49. Each run was 5 miles with my usual quarter mile warmup and cooldown; nothing exciting at all. And that's fine for now.

Bike: Three times, all on the trainer, for 56.5 fake trainer "miles" in about 3:44. I had a quick doctor's appointment on my furlough day so I skipped the outdoor bike ride this week.

Weights: Twice, one video and one online barre, for about 2:10 with the chinups and pushups I did afterward. I ran out of steam on Saturday and skipped my usual heavy/body weights routine, so I did online barre on Sunday instead. (Bonus: I recover a little quicker and can plan for another weights video this coming Wednesday.) I really want to do more chinups, but my usual routine is pretty long, so I tried just doing 3 sets of 10 standing chinups. It was a lot easier to manage.

PT: Two of my homework sessions plus rolling. I would have done three, but I had to work late on one of my usual PT nights and couldn't do a bike ride AND my PT.

Yoga: One 15-minute solo session.

Total: 12 sessions in about 11:08. Still a decent week.

I got a lot done workout-wise, I got some rest, I put in some solid work hours, and I spent some time with my husband and dogs. It wasn't a bad week for training, or otherwise. I ended the week with my body, job, and marriage intact, so what more can I ask for?

Stay healthy and safe out there!

0 for 2 on pool swims this week

Relaxing after an easy mile. (Not my beer cans.)

I'm one of the few lucky people who has access to a pool right now, but I'm not taking advantage as much as I should. The pool is a bit of a drive, and I still have to work four days a week, and it gets really busy on the weekends.

I know, I know. Excuses.

I made it one Monday a few weeks ago and it felt good to get back in the water for the first time in months. Then someone who works closely with my husband wasn't feeling well, so we stayed home until he could get a Covid test, which thankfully was negative. So we went back to the pool Monday and Wednesday of last week, I got an easy mile in each time, and it felt great.

We had big plans to go Monday, two days ago, but I was exhausted. The thought of driving out there, swimming, driving back, and making dinner was just too much. I settled for an easy run instead, and vowed to have leftovers or a quick dinner ready to microwave next Monday.

We regrouped and planned on going late afternoon today, since today is my furlough day. Then we got the email: Power outage. No pool for you!

So I'm 0 for 2 this week. It's not like I have any races coming up, but still. 

I'm going to make it later this week, come hell or power outages, fatigue, or crowds. I will swim again! (Eventually.) 

Week in review July 6-12: Severe heat, snakes, and swimming outside

Lots of biking!

Last was another good week for volume and for variety of training. My left hip flexor/psoas is still a little wonky, but I managed two easy runs with no problems. I got to the outdoor pool not once, but twice, for two great if not short and easy swims.

Although it was in the 90s most of the week I still went to my favorite park for a couple of bike laps. It was hot, but there was a breeze and some leaf cover, so it was tolerable. What I was NOT expecting to see on one of the rollers was the biggest snake I have ever seen in the wild in Michigan. We only have one venomous snake here (one advantage to cold winters) so I'm 99% sure it was just a big garter snake, but I still screamed SO loudly. Another cyclist coming the other way just started laughing; he obviously knew what I was screaming about. I saw the cyclist again on the way back and he jokingly warned me, "He's still there!" but I didn't see the snake again. I would have stopped to take his picture — he was ginormous!

I ended up skipping my run Thursday because of the heat and humidity. When it's this bad, mornings aren't tolerable because it's so humid you sweat as soon as you start running. And it was already into the 90s by the time I wrapped up work, and I just was not feeling it. It became a rest day.

Other than that, my week was pretty boring, which is just how I like it:

Bike: Three times, two on the trainer for 38 fake miles and once on the road for 36.7 real miles, for about 5:12 total. I can't beat the excitement of a hot, snake-filled ride.

Weights: Twice, one online barre class and once through my heavy/body routine, for about 2:15. I am SORE from doing pullups and chinups after skipping the week before.

Run: Twice, both on the road, for 11 miles in about 1:53. This was once in the morning before work taking my hyper lab mix for the last mile (best! day! ever!) and once on Saturday before it got too ridiculously hot. Both boring and slow.

Swim: Twice, both in the pool, for 3200 meters in about 1:32. I've been doing half drills and half straight 800 because it's not like I'll be racing soon, so might as well just swim to say fresh and in shape.

PT: Two of my homework sessions for about 1:10.

Yoga: Just once for 20 minutes.

Total: 12 sessions in about 12:22. Not bad!

This is about what I can do, safely, without creating too much stress for myself, so I'm going to run with it. I would also like to come on here more often than a weekly recap, but some days the stress of the pandemic gets to me and I don't do much else other than work and make dinner. Right now, it's all one big balancing act for remaining mental energy.

I hope you are all staying safe and healthy, and getting in some swim, bike, and run when you can.

Week in review June 29-July 5: Easy week and some hot, hot heat

Not a shabby week.

I had an extra day off last week but that didn't help with the hot weather and general stress about the state of the world. Unfortunately, Michigan's Covid numbers are creeping back up. I was able to run, ride, and do all my other sessions without interacting with anyone.

I ended up taking two days off last week. I needed to give my brain a break on Monday, and on Saturday I needed to help my husband at our business so he could make a deadline. One of his workers wasn't feeling well, so I skipped the pool out of an abundance of caution (the worker ended up negative for Covid, yay!) and I only did one weights session, but pretty much everything else was normal.

I did run a couple of times in the morning rather than deal with high 80s/low 90s in the afternoons and evenings, which took a little adjusting. I kicked off my holiday Friday with a nice run, and there MAY have been some barbecue ordered in that day as well.

My hip, what I'm pretty sure is a strained hip flexor, felt pretty much OK. I only ran easy and for no more than 5 miles, and it seemed fine. I need to stretch more but am not even sure how to stretch out that muscle. There will probably be some Googling in my future.

Anyway, last week was:

Bike: Three times, all on the trainer, for 54 fake trainer miles in about 3:35. Normal, boring week here.

Run: Three times, all on the road, for 15.5 miles in about 2:42. Easier and lighter than usual, but still boring. I'll take boring right now.

PT: Three times for about 1:45. My usual.

Weights: One video for about 50 minutes. I ran out of time to do my usual Saturday heavy/body routine and help out my husband, so I had to skip. At least I got something done.

Yoga: Just once for about 15 minutes.

Total: 11 sessions for about 9:07.

A light-ish week but nothing too far out of the ordinary. It wasn't terrible to hunker down inside in the air conditioning for a few days and take it easy.

I hope you are staying safe out there.

June in review: Slowing down on the bike and run a bit

It's been hot, and stressful, and my hip didn't cooperate for a good chunk of June. So I wasn't surprised when I added up my numbers and found that I'd done less in every discipline compared to May. May was something of an anomaly, but I was hoping I could keep my running and trainer riding up, at least. Oh well.

My hip flexor started giving me grief mid-month, so I had to take a bit of time away from running. I think it was a combination of running with bad form while tired, plus crappy daily posture not sitting at a real desk anymore. It seems to be mostly back to normal now with stretching and rest, but I'm still doing only short and easy runs for the time being. I did get to ride my bike outside last month, and swim in a pool, so those were big victories for me.

I needed to take days here and there for mental breaks, as well. June started off with Black Lives Matter marches, city curfews, unrest, and big discussions and changes happening in local government. Michigan relaxed some of its Shelter in Place restrictions, and then a bunch of morons got more people sick and guess what, we are back to square one. The joke going around is that watching the states shut back down is like doing all the work in a group project; well, I did all my work back in March and April, and now I am failing the class anyway because of selfish people. It's so damn frustrating.

A tiny slice of good news is someone who works closely with my husband was sick, and his Covid test just came back negative. We've been hunkering down this past week even more than usual as a precaution, and I am happy that I can (carefully) probably get back to the outdoor pool and maybe do another outdoor bike ride soon. July is off to a slow start so far, but I'm hoping to get back into a groove.

June was:

This is pretty consistent bike volume, and I'm happy with that.

Bike: 12 times, 11 on the trainer with 205.5 fake trainer miles and 1 on the road with 33.38 road miles, for 16:19 total. This isn't a bad month at all; I only skipped one mid-week trainer ride all month. I would have liked to get on the road a few more times, but I don't trust other people to social distance, so my options are limited to going out on my furlough days. That will be a goal for July. Overall, I am feeling pretty strong on the bike. I should do another FTP test but I kind of don't see the point right now. I think I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing for now and call it base building.

My run mileage dropped off a bit, but overall I'm happy with the volume.

Run: 10 times for 62 miles in 10:29. I did not mean to run 100 K exactly but that was fun to see. June started out with two good weeks, then the hip strain, then two very easy weeks. I also randomly logged the fastest mile I ever ran since I got my current Garmin. I'm probably going to be off speed and long runs for a while, but the good news is things are feeling better. Well, it's probably not a huge loss because it's beastly hot out right now anyway.

Weights: 7 times, 3 online barre classes + 3 heavy/body weight session + 1 video, for about 8 hours. I'm actually really happy with the consistency here doing my heavy/body on Saturdays and then a video or online barre during the week.

PT: 11 times for about 6:25. This was three times per week for three weeks of the month so I'm counting that as a success. Three times seems to be that sweet spot where it's doable and I'm reaping significant benefits. The 6:25 isn't really accurate as it really takes me 1.5-2 hours to do all my exercises, but since I am usually making dinner or watching TV, I've been using 35 minutes as the guesstimate of actual PT time. One of these days I will use a stopwatch and calculate how many minutes it actually takes!

Yoga: 6 times for about 1:45. I will take it!

Swim: Once in the POOL for 2000 m of mostly drills in about 1:05. I was just so happy to be in the water, I don't even care how long it took me to do my drills. I would have liked to get in a couple more times, but I will have to fit it in my schedule on days when I know the pool will be less busy.

Total: 47 sessions in about 44 hours. This is pretty close to what I did in March and April, so I'm not mad. Like I said, May was kind of an anomaly. Not a great month, but a solid month, and I was able to work around some setbacks. Yay!

There's no real point to mileage or volume goals right now but in July I'd still like to get back to my usual running routine; bike outside a few times; go swimming; and keep up with the weights, yoga, and PT. Train enough to keep me sane — maybe that should be my motto for time being.

Stay safe and for God's sake, stay HOME if you are sick!!!!