lizvogel

I upped my run today, for the second time in two sessions. Wasn't sure about that, since it is stupidly hot even at 7:30 am, with murderous sun, but it went fine. I'm now dancing around the beginning of Week 5 of the Couch-to-5K program; I'm not properly doing the program, but it's a useful guideline for ramping up.

I also went running without an ankle brace for the first time this season. Which may not have been the best idea, but I just couldn't face putting the thing on again. Had some warm-up walk ankle twinges, and some knee twinges during the first run -- but then the other knee twinged during a later run, so what does that prove?

Overall, sweat equity continues building, despite ridiculous weather and my continued inability to get started that half an hour earlier.

I don't usually make New Year's Resolutions; I prefer general goal-setting. But I'm making an exception in this case, because the sleep dep situation is getting ridiculous. I'm still trying to shake the souvenir cold I brought home from England, and I'm tired (hah) of waking up exhausted.

So, for 2020, my New Year's Resolution is to get more sleep.


I also have some goals, to wit:

1) I need to start exercising again. The knees and the back have been remarkably cooperative (I credit the residual effects of the boot-camp fitness immersion of running around London for two weeks), but that's not going to last forever; the left knee is already getting increasingly cranky. Exercise will help, I know it'll help, the fact that it's boring doesn't change that. So. Metric: By the beginning of February, I want to be doing the standard 3 sessions a week.

2) I need to start writing regularly again. This involves the dual challenges of time and focus; I need to make time to sit down at the keyboard regularly, but I also need to settle on 1-3 things to be on the front burner. This... has not been going well, lately. (Candidates include some Highway of Mirrors apocrypha, that Star Trek story I'm not writing, my original-Doctor DW stuff, a Dix Dayton sequel, revisions on the Haley novel including boots-on-ground Zurich observations, the second half of Lightning Strikes Twice, and at least three novels clamoring to be next in the queue. Yeah.) I blame the lack of enthusiasm for any one thing at least partly on fatigue (see "get more sleep"), but I am a little concerned that I can't get and stay excited about anything long enough to make noticeable progress on it. Not sure how to fix that, but I need to.

I also have a vague general goal of getting more stuff done around the house, including finishing more of the projects that are started.

One of the fundamental problems here is that all of these things work best if they're the first thing I do in the day -- but I only get one "first thing" per day. I'm pondering some way to install a reset halfway through the day, but previous attempts at that have usually just resulted in me not getting a shower until dinnertime.

The fact that I'm posting this on the 2nd instead of the 1st really says all there is to be said about my time management.

Last week I went for my first run of the season, right before MediaWest.

Today I went for my second. In the rain.

Went for a jog today, for the first time in weeks. Still not winning any races, but I rather love that I can jog 21 minutes without stopping, even in this heat, even though I haven't been keeping up on it, and still have some capacity left at the end if I needed it.

Today was the end of Week 5 of the Couch-to-5K program, when they stop with the slow and gentle progression and start throwing you into the deep end to see if you can swim yet.

And I swam. Not at all fast, not gracefully, but I did it. Despite feeling a bit under the weather yesterday, and despite not being sure I was up to it yet. A full 20 minutes of jogging without a break.

Woot!

I finally started running again this morning. I've been wanting to for a while; the ankle I sprained is mostly back to normal, and, well, the summer's not getting any longer. So, pick a day and start, which I did.

Still not in danger of breaking any speed records, and I'm more or less back to the beginning of the Couch-to-5K schedule. But I can already feel the body responding to the new demands, and I definitely felt the beautiful feeling of doing one thing and one thing only, and not being able to drop it in the middle for anything else that thought it ought to be getting done. Ahhhhh.

As always, the hardest part is making myself do all the stretching. Stretching is boring, it takes time I don't feel like I have, and it can't be rushed. It's also the difference between a satisfying, invigorating run, and an agonizing, shin-splinty mess that I can't sustain. So I do it.

Onward.

After I fed the cats at 6:00 this morning (a time established by my housemate, not by me, I assure you), I stayed up so I could get in a run before it got too ridiculously hot. And then I had to choose between getting out and running as early as possible, or booting up the laptop to do something with the words in my brain. Finally settled for a quick half hour to tap in another hundred words or so on the bakery story, then went running. And promptly came up with an excellent near-end line, which I had to keep repeating to myself through most of my 22-minute run so it would still be there when I got back.

Good problems to have.

Useful post on maintaining the writer here. Scroll down for his stretching regimen.

If you're prone to tight neck muscles, try the first two neck stretches (upper trapezius and levelator scapula; the full-size diagram is here), and the third one's not bad, either. The lying knee rollovers are a nice quick hit for a stiff lower back, as well.

I may add these to my should-be-daily stretching regimen; wouldn't hurt to just throw them in periodically during the day, either. (My neck muscles tend to knot up so badly it affects my vision, hence the post title.)

Couch-to-5K Week 7 Day 1, and what a fine day it is: Jog 25 minutes with no walking

The annoying thing is that the first few minutes are still hard. I still want to stop, and I still end up doing that shuffling barely-counts-as-a-jog thing. (This is different from the one-third sagging point, which yep, hit right on schedule at about 8 minutes. But that's becoming familiar as an old friend, and I'm already set to push through it.)

The great thing is that the last few minutes are -- well, not easy, but strong and sure and when the timer goes off, I don't want to stop at all.

Week 5 Day 2: Dear god, I've turned into one of those lunatic people who go running in the rain.

The cold, I might add, rain.

Still, two 8-minute jogs today, which is !!! for me.


I am noticing that in any run of significant duration (like, more than a minute), there's a point about one-third of the way in where stopping sounds like a really good idea. It doesn't seem to matter how long the total is, and therefore how long one-third is; just that it's one-third of the way. Curiously, this is also the point in the writing of a novel where most people think stopping sounds like a good idea -- variously known as the 30K blues, the one-third slump, or in my case, the "I don't even care about this any more, why am I even bothering, oh wait I'm about a third of the way through aren't I?" whinge. Is there some universal human flagging point at a third of the way through any endeavor?