Happy New Year to all of you - Ended my 2008 on a (fairly) good note, after two-to-three days of misery. The jury is still out, sort of, on what caused my 48 hours of GI un-fun-ness. I'm not ready to lay blame on a couple of food items I scarfed during the (post-) Christmas Luau; more likely the lingering effects of the flu bug I caught just before Christmas. It probably was the flu or some viral fiend, because I was still kind of feeling it even this past weekend.
The New Years' Day Pot Luck Run at our local running emporium was good fun, with some of the usual suspects on board, but a higher tri-geek-to-runner-geek ratio going down. Since we spent the prior evening at a runner-hosted New Years' Eve celebration, it's probable some of the possible participants of the next day's running event were, er, overserved.
The run was led out by one of the running emporium's employees, a nice (sliver over) three-mile, rolling jaunt. With sunny skies, a temperature in the high 50s & a very gentle breeze, there was not much to complain about...especially the obvious fact we live in FL & can go out for a run without YakTrax, three layers of tights, a balaclava from hell, etc., etc., nearly any time we please throughout the year. In fact, most of the holiday season was temperate, shirt-sleeve and/or (in my case!) short pants conditions.
The bug & its effect on my fitness level made the jaunt entertaining. I felt, throughout the entire run, like a Thor-Lo sock had been shoved down my windpipe. However, running a seven-minute-per-mile pace and sucking sock didn't seem like such a bad thing, given the realm of possible alternatives. A year ago I was in pain from achilles' tendon injury. Yes, silly, keep it all in perspective.
Hit the track for the first real piece of track work on Saturday morning. I took most of December's workouts & made them long, boring, meat & potatoes stuff. It was a lot of mileage but at an intensity level (most of the time a 7:30-8:00/mile pace) that made it possible for everyone to hang closer together & semi-socialize. Not like any of us had any races coming up...save for Ferris, who was approaching a taper for his marathon & would benefit from something that easy in pace.
Since I was doing a solo workout it was going to be a relatively no-nonsense one. I wanted to see how many miles I could get in the course of an hour, from warm-up to shut-down. I managed to get in five miles worth of running in 31 minutes with 27 minutes of recovery time. Seemed like a good start to the year...at least until I tried to do my swim workout & cramped up in the pool. I managed to get 2400 yards (a good day!) in a little over 47 minutes, so it wasn't a total loss...more like the first of many lessons learned this year.
The challenge to doing two workouts during the course of a day is providing sufficient time for recovery, which includes nutrition & hydration. Several cups of coffee & a bagel with provolone cheese & hummus, as I learned, is a little on the light side when it comes to both nutrition & hydration.
The New Years' Day Pot Luck Run at our local running emporium was good fun, with some of the usual suspects on board, but a higher tri-geek-to-runner-geek ratio going down. Since we spent the prior evening at a runner-hosted New Years' Eve celebration, it's probable some of the possible participants of the next day's running event were, er, overserved.The run was led out by one of the running emporium's employees, a nice (sliver over) three-mile, rolling jaunt. With sunny skies, a temperature in the high 50s & a very gentle breeze, there was not much to complain about...especially the obvious fact we live in FL & can go out for a run without YakTrax, three layers of tights, a balaclava from hell, etc., etc., nearly any time we please throughout the year. In fact, most of the holiday season was temperate, shirt-sleeve and/or (in my case!) short pants conditions.
The bug & its effect on my fitness level made the jaunt entertaining. I felt, throughout the entire run, like a Thor-Lo sock had been shoved down my windpipe. However, running a seven-minute-per-mile pace and sucking sock didn't seem like such a bad thing, given the realm of possible alternatives. A year ago I was in pain from achilles' tendon injury. Yes, silly, keep it all in perspective.
Hit the track for the first real piece of track work on Saturday morning. I took most of December's workouts & made them long, boring, meat & potatoes stuff. It was a lot of mileage but at an intensity level (most of the time a 7:30-8:00/mile pace) that made it possible for everyone to hang closer together & semi-socialize. Not like any of us had any races coming up...save for Ferris, who was approaching a taper for his marathon & would benefit from something that easy in pace.Since I was doing a solo workout it was going to be a relatively no-nonsense one. I wanted to see how many miles I could get in the course of an hour, from warm-up to shut-down. I managed to get in five miles worth of running in 31 minutes with 27 minutes of recovery time. Seemed like a good start to the year...at least until I tried to do my swim workout & cramped up in the pool. I managed to get 2400 yards (a good day!) in a little over 47 minutes, so it wasn't a total loss...more like the first of many lessons learned this year.
The challenge to doing two workouts during the course of a day is providing sufficient time for recovery, which includes nutrition & hydration. Several cups of coffee & a bagel with provolone cheese & hummus, as I learned, is a little on the light side when it comes to both nutrition & hydration.
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