Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Exercise Diary: iTouch fixed!

Ever since my acute manifestation of plantar fasciitis on my right foot I have not been running regularly at all.  And now that the summer, and fall, are over, I'm saddened that I probably won't be running outside until maybe April of next year, which is about a month after I started running this year.  Not that I have not been hopeful: last week at TJMaxx I bought a running jacket that looked as if it could fend off some cold.  Useless for the dead of winter, but I'm still leaving myself chances, should I want to run outside at some point.

I have been very hesitant to run outside, partly due to my laziness, partly due to my self-consciousness of being seen, but more due to the fear that half way through my run my foot would throw me a curve ball and I would be stuck in the middle of nowhere.  So the result is that I haven't been running outside at all.

But for the past few weeks, especially since the end of September, I have been running or ellipticaling  every Monday night from 10-11pm.  That particular time slot because Castle is on TV.  Since the cold set in I embraced the fact that I will not be wasting the nice NH weather by choosing to run inside, but rather I no longer have a choice (especially if I want to run in the evenings, although before this week there are plenty of hard core undergrads who run really late at night).  And watching an episode of good TV show really pass the time.  And on Tuesdays I sometimes go to yoga classes.  That's less consistent, because although I have a yoga buddy we are very good at talking ourselves out of going due to laziness masked as tiredness.  But I went last week and will go again tomorrow so hopefully the pattern gets to keep going again.

So the iTouch thing.  My GPS watch doesn't really do step count or stride measurements so it's useless if I'm running nowhere indoors.  Before I got my GPS watch I have been using the Nike+running app with a sensor that I bought separately to keep track of my runs.  Although the sensor works quite well I really wanted a map of where I went, and make my own routes, so the urge that got me the watch.  But during my recent runs something went wrong.  The sensor was obviously working, as it accurately tracked my pace, and the timer on the app was happily ticking away, but no distance was measured.  It happened twice and didn't make any sense.  I ended up fixing it by the oldest tech method: I turned my iTouch off and back on again.  And it worked...  My iTouch is old and has been behaving strangely lately.  I hope it doesn't die before I get an iPhone sometimes next year (although how I'm supposed to track my treadmill runs with an iPhone without holding it while running is beyond me).  But I really hope the iTouch won't ever poop out, as least not before the battery on my sensor dies.

More running news: I got another pair of running shoes.  I know, I know.  Although I haven't been running regularly lately at all (I even lost interest in my Runner's World magazines) I still have the urge to buy running-related gears.  Since the pond disaster I have purchased another pair of sports capris, sports bra, and running jacket.  And now the shoes.  They are Saucony Cohesion 7, not very high end within the brand and they were on sale on Amazon.  But I've always wanted to try a pair of Saucony, and ended up buying a pair of size 9.  They fit fine; felt slightly bigger than my normal shoes but not by too much, and after replacing the insoles with my own Dr. Voldemort (You-Know-Who, get it?)'s special insole they actually felt really good.  I did almost 4 miles today in them and my foot didn't really act up at all during my run.  My Archille's heels were unhappy, not sure if it's because of the shoes or the insoles, or just because I'm overweight and don't exercise regularly.  But my plantar fascia always acts up during my previous runs and it usually takes a week of not doing any more exercise for it to be normal again for the following Monday.  So hopefully with the new shoes my foot won't be as agitated and I can get more runs in during the rest of the week.

On the food side, lots of fall-related recipes tried over the last two months, mostly desserts.  Will dedicate a separate post on that.

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