I can’t believe it’s December already!

So, the bad news first. My ankle still hurts. AND I think I overcompensated for it on my right side because now I’m getting some pain in my right upper thigh. Sigh. I’m going to an injury screening Monday evening to see what I can do about this.

But the good news is I got in several (slow) runs last week.

Tuesday evening was gym day. As I said last week, I’m doing intervals where I increase the running portion by 30 seconds each week up until the Disney Half. So, this week, my intervals were 1:30 running with 1:00 walking breaks. On the treadmill, I did the first ten minutes running at 5.0, the second ten minutes at 5.5, and the last ten minutes at 6.0. My walk breaks were done at half the speed of their corresponding run speeds. So, it looked like this:

Despite how slow I was going, the treadmill said my max heart rate was 198. I say it every week, but I swear the thing is harder than running outside. After I finished my 30 minutes (well, I actually did 32 because I included a 2 minute cool down), I did 15 minutes on the recumbent bike, trying to maintain my heart rate around 170.

After a delicious Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, I went out for my second thirty minute run of the week. Luckily, I got to do this outdoors and not in a stuffy gym. I somehow, though, set up my intervals wrong. They got set up as 1:30 running, 2:00 walking, so I tried to start running before the walking break ended and kept running for a bit after the running interval was supposed to end, so it probably ended up being about 2:00 running, 1:30 walking. And at one point, I realized I had been walking when I was supposed to be running. Even with all that, I still managed around a 13 min/mile pace, which seems to be the norm lately. (Oh, remember when I was getting close to 10 minute miles for a 2-3 mile run? Those were the days.)

The next day, my mom and I went out for a brief 20 minute walk through the woods around my parents’ house before I headed back to Nashville. She has knee problems, but she has been doing water aerobics and water walking at the pool, which she really enjoys. She says she’s going to take me over Christmas if the pool is open.

I got up bright and early on Saturday to go down to Nashville Running Company. Does it seem like I’m spending all my Saturday mornings at running stores? I, at least, managed not to spend money this time, despite the abundance of cute running clothes that they had. (Gift certificates may be appreciated.) Anyway, the East Nasty Running Club was having their information meeting on their annual Country Music Half Marathon training. However, they started out the meeting with a five mile run. I wasn’t planning on participating due to my ankle, my thigh, and my slow speed, but I felt weird being the only one who didn’t head out with them, so out I went. I started off pretty strong, without any walk breaks, just going slow. I met up with a girl (also named Jessica) who was running with her dog. She said she had injured her knee on an eight mile run, so she didn’t think she could run the whole thing. I breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t the only gimpy one. She ended up heading back a little after a half mile in. I kept going for two miles (with a few walk breaks), just enough to circle back to the running store. We hung out and looked at all the cute stuff for sale while we waited on the others.

Honestly, I could have kept going and finished out the five miles, but it was just so cold, and I’m a wimp when it comes to cold. I ended up waiting till it warmed up to about 58 degrees (aka perfect running weather) and went out to the greenway to do another four miles. I did do my 1:30/1:00 intervals on that run, and I was pretty worn out by the end. It frustrates me so much to know how quickly I can lose fitness after being off just two weeks. My legs were generally okay (minus the obvious injuries), but I was getting out of breath insanely easy. It didn’t help, of course, that it seemed like all my running intervals were timed to go uphill, while all my walking intervals were downhill. Unfair. It was like speedwork that I hadn’t planned on doing (but probably need).

I found it interesting that I did two runs on the same day, merely 3 hours apart, but what I had to wear for each of them was so different. For the group run (around 32 degrees), I had on tights and two long sleeved shirts. I wish I’d had my gloves, but, like I said, I went not really thinking I was going to do the run. I wore my hair down to keep my neck warm. For my run on the greenway (58 degrees), I changed into shorts and a tank top. I wore arm warmers at the beginning, but took them off about a mile in, after I warmed up. My hair was in pigtails, and I used a headband to keep my bangs up off my forehead. So funny.

In addition to all this running I’ve been doing, I’ve set a reminder on my phone to go off at 8pm every night to focus on stretching, yoga, and strength exercises. As part of this, I’ve started trying to do a brief headstand every night. I’m still having to do them up against the wall right now, but hopefully after I build up core strength from doing them so often, I’ll be able to do one anywhere.