EN OS, Week 3

Not much to report this week.  Tuesday I went to see our massage terrorist, Ron.  I had initially made the appointment expecting to have him work on my back, hip and legs.  My legs, hips and lower back felt pretty good after the half-marathon, just the usual soreness.  Severe coughing for a week negated any work that I might need on my lower extremities in favor of my back, shoulders, and neck.  Surprisingly, I hadn’t put my ribs out of alignment this time, but everything else was knotted up pretty good.  While it certainly wasn’t a relaxing massage, it was beneficial.  I’m still coughing, but not as badly and my body is now better able to handle it.

Up and on my bike before the crack of dawn

I hit my targets for the bike this week.  On all three rides, I even added intervals.  Joe initially thought that I might need to retest to adjust my thresholds, but then changed his mind since I’ve passing out exhausted in bed before ten each night.  Prior to the Outseason, this was a rarity for me.

My runs this week have been just okay.  Don’t get me wrong – I still love running, it’s just prior to starting the OS, I had been only doing intervals once a week.  And the training plan that I was on had me running almost every day.  Now, I’m running only four days a week and doing intervals or negative splitting on every run.  Parts of each run is challenging, but not overly so.   I have another half-marathon in three weeks so I’m still trying to keep my long-distance fitness on my Sunday runs.

All my running "reminders"

Jo wanted me to skate with her, and
to, "Not talk (to anyone else), Mom!"

I hit my targets this week, however, the run on Sunday was tough.  That’s probably because I got up early on Saturday, did my workout, and then took my Girl Scout troop ice-skating.  Since most of my girls have very little, if any, experience ice-skating (except for mine), Ms. Gen spent most of the two-hour session teaching the girls how to ice-skate.  It’s actually quite a lot of work to keep a bunch of 2^nd and 3^rd graders upright on the ice and out of harm's way.

Running alongside my partner in crime

One nice thing about my Saturday workout - the kids were asleep for most of it.  Translation: no referring, no interruptions, etc.  When it was time to do my run, Joe was doing his bike workout on his trainer so we actually exercised next to each other for a time in comfortable silence.  Comfortable silence is probably a misnomer since we were both huffing and puffing while doing intervals, the uber-strong fan was blowing fake wind in our faces, the treadmill was humming and Joe’s rhythmic pedaling did make a little noise, but you get the idea...