Week 2: Hot Humid Slog

This entry is a bit delayed, but better late than never? I hope the handful of you devoted readers think so. And, while I'm on California time in New York and everyone's asleep (it's past 4am here) might as well jot down some thoughts before they get too old.

So, the second week was definitely tougher than the first. The shininess of embarking on a new goal has faded a bit, but it's still pretty satisfying to keep those miles coming. Not going to lie, though, the first run this week was pretty tough. Austin wasn't feeling well, so he couldn't drive me to where the bike path started. Instead I began from the house, and had to run on the side of the road for pretty much the whole 3.1 miles. That, combined with the heavy hot air (rain in Hawaii, ugh) and a podcast about Tea Partiers put me in a bit of a foul mood. Funny enough, I did the same exact run 3 days later and listened to Phedippidations (an inspirational running podcast) and ran 2 minutes faster, granted with a tad less humidity. I think the takeaway though is that while I can't really control the weather or availability of rides to places, there are certain factors I can control that will make me feel better, like what I listen to and think about.

The other two runs were a 4-miler in between those two, which went smoothly along the bike path, and the 6-miler, my first hour-plus run. The schedule for the week looked like:

Monday: 3.1
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 4
Thursday: 3.1
Friday: 6.4
Saturday: rest and air travel
Sunday: rest and canceled flight

The long run happened a day early because I thought I'd be flying all weekend: first from HI to CA and then CA to NY. The epic east coast blizzard happened on Sunday which ruined that, but that's another story. Anyway, what isn't up there is that Thursday also had an hour-long hike up and down a small mountain to see a lighthouse, so that combined with no rest day meant my legs were tired and I could feel it as soon as I started the long run. But I went slow, enjoyed myself, and stayed relaxed and happy. I was glad I had grabbed a water bottle to take with me too. (Next step: carbs.)

It took 1:17 or so of running with some walk breaks, but that with stretching and cooling down and minutes docked for fixing my hair and other things made Austin worried enough to go looking for me. Of course, he happened to set out right when I was in the backyard stretching, but his mom called him and he reappeared about 5 minutes later.

Later we met up with his friends for a 4.25 mile hike, of course, because Austin wants exercise too. After the short run and hike Thursday followed by a very long Friday, I was pretty content to sit on a plane for a while last Saturday for the return to California and ideal running temperatures. And thus concluded week 2.