Exercise Diary: I'm back, it's back

Weekends are for long runs during times you would not normally be out.  And I'm glad that I took advantage of my weekend.  Yesterday morning I got up extra early and went to the next town over to do my favorite loop, and today I tried to do some fartlek around my usual pond.  I really need it too to burn of all the delicious I ate in the past week.

After many last minute yoga classes and pond runs, I spent 6 blissful days in New Orleans, where my lab mate and I attended this years American Society of Microbiology conference and did all the touristy things one would do in New Orleans.  There were 4 days of overwhelmingly vast choices of workshops and talks and vender and posters to attend and look at, we each presented a poster detailing our work, and got really excited about microbiology in general and our research specifically.

But perhaps more fun were the things we did outside of the conference.  We went up and down Bourbon way too many times since our hotel was right in the heart of the French Quarter and a block away from Bourbon, went to the French Market, visited many pubs and bars, looked around in many galleries and antique shops, and took many pictures.  But the reason for my runs, and the things that I was most akin to, were the southern food.  Surprisingly only very few meals I ate there consisted of fried food; somehow I managed to avoid that for the large part.  But I did make a point to eat as much seafood as possible, because why not?  So after these blissful days I managed to try beignets, alligator sausage, po-boys, gumbo (many many times, it's my favorite!!), étouffée (which tasted just like gumbo), oysters, catfish, and many other delicious things.  Not to mentions the cocktails and beers I tried every chance I got.  Unfortunately apart from the Hurricane we had on our first night there, none of the other cocktails (including a very expensive absinthe drink that was way overpriced) gave me any buzz.  At least now I know now how these traditional New Orleans drinks taste.

Both my lab mate and I were absolutely disgusted at ourselves by the end of the trip for how much we ate and how lavishly we ate.  I could feel that one of my shirts became noticeably tighter.  Surprisingly after I got home I found my weight stayed within a reasonable fluctuation of what I normally weigh, and after not eating any real meals for two days after coming back (there was no food in the apartment and I was too afraid to go shopping on an empty stomach, and I was abnormally exhausted after coming back), I actually lost a pound.  Perhaps I didn't eat as much junk food as I thought I had.  After all I did eat a lot of soup (gumbo).

But it was time to go back to regular exercising.  Although I brought my gym clothes and running shoes to New Orleans I didn't get any chance to go running.  The hotel gym closes at 11pm every night and apparently that just wasn't late enough for all the things we ended up doing every night.  On our second to last day I saw many people out running along the tram tracks that go through the middle of the road and those people made me happy.  For one, there are runners in New Orleans, and for another, none of them were very fast (though they all looked very fit).  It's probably the humidity that slowed those people down, or maybe where I am from people are just more into running as a whole.  Either way I was very happy to see them and if I had stayed for another week I would definitely join them.

Did 3.5 miles yesterday and honestly it wasn't as bad as I had thought.  I was going extra slow at first since I didn't want to burn out again after mile 1 with its steep downhill and grueling uphills, and surprisingly I managed to do the whole run without any walking.  Granted the entire thing was slow, and I wasn't really concentrating on my run since I went back to my podcast listening, but it was nice and cloudy and breezy, and I had a good time outside enjoying a beautiful town early in the morning. People were extra friendly too, every cyclist, runner, and other early risers who saw me waved or smiled at me, and I really appreciated the comradery.  On my way back I even saw one of my students running too.  Since they were taking their finals later that day I guess it's her way of de-stress.

Today I couldn't get up early enough for a run so I resorted to the pond in between my experiment.  I've long given up the idea of me lifting or doing HIIT exercises so I thought doing fartlek or interval running to increase fat burning would by my way to burn more fat.  But maybe I over did it today.  By the second lap I could feel a sharp pain surging from the bottom of my right foot and all I could think of it, oh no, my plantar fasciitis is back.  I'm not sure if it ever fully went away but I haven't had the cropping pain in a long time and my foot hasn't bothered me in a big way after my runs for a while.  Maybe given my weight at the moment and the pressure I put on my legs and feet when I try to run too fast is just not a good idea.  I will still do intervals but maybe I shouldn't push myself too hard.  I just hope today's little episode won't turn into something bigger.  I don't want to spend another summer not running and procrastinating on stretching out my plantar fasciitis.  Fingers crossed.

Exercise Diary: Yoga and Life

Yoga Tuesday again.  This will be the last Tuesday of this term that I will be going to yoga classes.  Starting next week I will have lab sessions to TA every Tuesday night.  We've agreed to move our yoga day to Thursday, but we'll see how that goes.  I foresee a lot of missed classes ahead.

And for once in a long time I actually skipped running yesterday.  I even planned to go run.  The gym  is now in full spring term hours, which means that it opens until 10 pm.  And because of that I had planned to be in lab until after 7 so I would have time for everything.

Time I did have, energy I did not.  I was exhausted by the time I left lab, I just could muster the energy to run.  Plus my calves and ankles were sore ( much better now, it really was just muscle soreness), and my plantar fasciitis is getting quite bad ( my foot is hurting right now).  I considered it very wise to have skipped gym yesterday.  But it also means that my schedule is again completely screwed up and I will probably postpone the training plan by another week.

Not that it matters anymore.  Yesterday my friend had confirmed that she will not be running the half marathon we had planned to do.  Although she said she would be happy to go with me, I quickly called off the plan too.  It's a week before I had to leave for a conference, and right in the middle of the last third of my TA.  And I just don't think I could have the time and energy to worry about it.  I thought that the cancellation of my running goal would not affect my routine, but apparently it has.

I don't think it's the only reason though.  Although I had anticipated that I will all of a sudden become very busy because I'm TAing again this term, I had not factored in how mentally and physically exhausted I would be.  And this is ridiculous: it's only the second day of the term and I had not taught any students, graded any papers, or dealt with any problems.  So far all I did was attend a TA meeting, a lecture, and a lab prep training session, and I'm already constantly exhausted and overwhelmed.  I think part of it was that because time is all of a sudden a commodity I was also trying to squeeze more experiments into certain days as others are increasing becoming unavailable.  That combined with the fact that I just don't do well if I have to get up early in the morning, is making me a very unhappy person.

And because of it I fear that my workout routine also has to change to accommodate my new (but temporary) life.  I will have to come to terms with not running as much or work out as much.  I will also have to be more efficient.  If it takes me an hour to run a certain distance, I will just have to shave off time for before and after I go so working out doesn't take up 3 hours of my life that I don't have.  And I also need to be careful of my diet since I tend to over eat and eat unhealthily when I'm tired or stressed, and to moderate my fluid intake so I will still drink a lot of water every day but will not have to go pee every 5 minutes when I'm supposed to be doing TA stuff.  The peeing part worked pretty well today, but the fluid intake part did not.  I couldn't have drunk more than 1.5 liter today, and I already feel dry.

Before I started this week I was already overwhelmed with all the things I will have to do this term, and my response to myself was to just "suck it up."  There is just simply no other way.  And the motto remains, but I have to figure our how to suck it up smartly or I will completely fall apart in probably every way of my life.  I haven't worked out how to do it yet, but I will definitely keeping trying.

Exercise Diary: tight and tired

Day 2 of pre-8pm gym adventure.  The gym was again packed.  And I somehow ended up running next to the same old man as yesterday, although I wasn't on the same treadmill.  In fact, I was on the treadmill next to the one I was on yesterday, which incidentally was the treadmill the old man was using yesterday.  I realized today that even though he ran intervals, he ran way harder and longer than I could ever do since his intervals were for 1 mile and he did like a bizillian of them.

Sadly, the only reason why I was on the treadmill next to the one I used yesterday was because yesterday's treadmill was broken.  I don't think I'm the one who broke it, but it's still sad and weird to know that just a day ago I was using it and it was fine.  Incidentally the now-broken treadmill also used to be my favorite, until I kept not able to use it and subsequently realized that all the treadmills, except for the really bad ones, are pretty much the same.

One of the result of running next to a broken treadmill was that I got to watch countless number of people getting on it, trying to start it, failing, and moving on to another treadmill or another piece of machinery.  It's kind of funny that neither I nor the girl on the other side of the broken treadmill bothered to warn them, and as far as I know no one had reported it broken to the front desk.  I didn't bother since I couldn't really talk, and also since I had been one of those people who jabbed the touch pad without success, I thought it would be fun to watch other people doing it too.

Watched almost an entire episode of Rizzoli and Isles during my run today.  Too bad I didn't get to find out what happened in the end.  But since I don't even remember what the episode was about now I guess it wasn't a great big loss.

Oh, and I also somehow had the belief that I had to do 3 miles instead of the planned 2.5, that I struggled the last half-mile for no reason.

I don't know how it happened.  Somehow during mile 1.5 I told myself that I was half way done and never realized until after I was done how silly I had been.  My Nike+ was also being bitchy.  Somehow now it thinks I'm running slower than before, after countless times I had to re-calibrate it for over-calculating my speed.  I think it may have to do with the way I moved my legs.  I tried to slow and lengthen my stride as I got faster to control the number of time my feet had to hit the ground, and since my Nike+ iPod uses a sensor on my foot that measures the speed and length of one's stride, I guess I could appear to be going slower than usual.  Except I think the sensor should be smarter than that.  I don't know, I hope I don't have to get a new sensor before switching to an iPhone.  Not that an iPhone would be great to use on a treadmill, but evidently the Nike+running app on iPhone allows you to input your workouts manually, so you will still have a record of your runs on Nike without having the app doing any work.  I wonder if I could do that on the webpage when I move on to my GPS watch.  So far I haven't figured out how.

Anyhoo, today's run was... brutal.  I had a banana before going and I didn't feel hungry or anything during the run, and it was a short run, but I just felt so tired and it was such a struggle.  I should not run the day after a long run, even if the long run was only 5 miles.  My legs were tight from the very beginning.  In fact they were tight all day today, and I could feel the muscles as I walked up and down the stairs.  They weren't sore, they were just tight, and you are aware of them.  Now they are sore, even after stretching and all that.  And the thighs are particularly bad since I think I used my thighs a lot to pull my feet up since the run today really ruined my right foot.  The plantar fasciitis was really acting up, right after I slowed down after my speedier pulses.  It got even worse during my cool down walk, and I really hope I can still walk tomorrow.  I also wanted to use more of my upper body to take some of the pressure away from the legs, but I didn't know how.  I tried to breathe from the core, and all it did was made me spit a lot.  I tried to tighten the core and lift my torso a bit but all that did was giving me tight shoulders.  I know strong abs help with running, but since I still don't have strong abs what am I supposed to do?

But somehow I still manage to finish my run, half a mile more than planned no less.  I didn't stop to walk or anything, and I really hope I either burned more fat than usual or strengthen my thigh muscles some what.  I went home and did two blogilates videos, one on the glute and the other on the arms.  I also resumed my thigh and butt challenge moves, Day 13 of the 30-day workout, on the 25th of this month.  Oh well, better start again some time.  It's really starting to get warmer out (I went to the gym today in my capris, a fleece and a wind breaker, it was that warm), and before I know it I will be running outside with my t-shirt and capris, and I really need to get serious about this weight loss thing.  I realize that now I'm not really trying to use running as a way to lose weight, but rather I'm trying to lose weight so I can run better.  Not just to lose weight, but also to build my muscles.  I like running, and I like to run long and far.  It would be great if I can actually be good at it.  I have marathon goals, goddammit.

Exercise Diary: Delayed Feedback

I've recently taken up recording my workouts as soon as I finish them so I develop the habit of writing about them/ recording them promptly.  But now I think maybe waiting for a bit before writing about them may give me more time to feel about the aftereffects of these workout.

For example, I did my Day 8 Beginner's pilates workout yesterday, and right afterwards I felt good that I managed to squeeze some exercises into my long Wednesday.  But before I went to bed and was brushing my teeth, I could distinctly feel my glutes hurting.  I knew why it was hurting, but I was surprised that it hurt that much.  It was the result of the bridge exercises I did as part of the total body workout video.  The move starts out like a regular bridge you would do in yoga classes, but instead of staying in bridge form you move your hips and back up and down and touch the mat with your tailbone.  I have tried this before and never felt the true effect.  The trick is to squeeze your butt cheeks real tight when you lift back up into the bridge form.  According to the video you pretend there's a penny you are clenching between your butt cheeks.  I don't think I was squeezing that hard, since as big as my butt is I couldn't quite manage to pull my cheeks in that closely.  But the effect was real and my butt was hurting all day today too.

So that was a pleasant surprise and I hope one day I will have cute bubble butt too.

I chose to do my long run (4.5 miles) today since I'm not sure if I will even have time to run this weekend.  Going to Boston on Saturday, which I already knew, and apparently now I'm going cross country skiing with my friend on Sunday, which I just found out today.  On Tuesday on our way to yoga class, as I watched two guys jogging past our car in shorts,  I absent-mindedly said that it's a shame that I never went cross country skiing this year and it's already getting warm.  So my friend came by today and basically forced me to clear my Sunday so she could drive us up to Bretton Woods, which is like more than an hour away from where we are, so we could go cross country skiing.  I was pleasantly surprised, and somewhat overwhelmed, but also worried that I won't get to do my weekend run.  I fear that I will be way too tired to do a long run afterwards, but I thought if I still have the energy to get my butt to the gym after skiing I should at least treat myself with a shorter run.  So long run today, which also meant no pilates.  It's late and I'm tired, and I still have other stuff to do before going to bed.

Don't know how I will feel tomorrow but the run didn't really tire me out in terms of the cardio.  I was doing pretty slowly so I could keep running the whole time, which I did.  My foot was hurting for like the second half of the run.  My Nike+ failed at one point so now it's congratulating me on running twice in one day.  My breathing got hard during the last half-mile so that wasn't too bad.  I watched an episode of the Middle and two episodes of Fresh Prince of Bel-air which was pleasantly nostalgic.  And the gym was empty (every treadmill was vacant when I got there) during finals week and it's kind of sweet.  But I do have to remember to pay attend to interim hours and the new schedule come next term.

So all in all a pretty good workout day.

Exercise Diary: Total Body Workout

Other than the fact that Nike+ needs to seriously get its shit together, today has been a great day workout-wise.  Granted Nike+ is currently undergoing a scheduled site maintenance (and hopefully it will sync my runs properly after it's done), at least last time (that I know of) they did it discreetly  in the middle of the night instead of in the evening when plenty of people are still getting their runs in.  Seriously, yeesh.

I read some post somewhere that in order to burn more fat (which I really need to do), it is better if you do you weights and other general anaerobic exercises first, to burn off all the sugars you ingested before your workout, and then move on to your cardio so you are tapping into your fat supply more.  It sounds like a pretty reasonable strategy so that's what I tried today.  I did my Day 6 of beginner's pilate workout, which consists of 7 minutes of the most tiring warm-up I've ever done, 6 minutes of some intense arm workout (felt great though, and no push-ups involved!), and a killing 5-minute ab workout which is bonus for today since the video was emailed to me as part of the Blogilates newsletter.  None of the moves (there were 5) were particularly hard or foreign, and you would think that doing each for a minute, and doing abs for 5 minutes total wasn't going to be that big of deal.  But I absolutely died after 2.5 minutes and totally cheated after that.  Still tried to do the best I could but it wasn't much.  That's what I like about Cassey and her workout though.  I felt stronger every day, and I could clearly feel the benefit during my runs, and she is very good at encouraging and motivating you to push through, but just as you are beginning to feel good about yourself she makes you humble again by challenging you with something that just absolutely crushes your body, so you don't get too cocky.  I like that.  I need that.

Today's run.  Well.  I'm definitely happier that the weather is finally getting warmer.  I saw at least 5 people running outside today in the 10 minutes I stood there waiting for the bus.  This is the second night in a row that I walked to the gym with only my capris and no outer leg cover.  I didn't even bother with a scarf or a hat tonight.  I think as soon as the ground becomes dry I will venture an outdoor run.  But in the mean time I will stick to the gym.

Today I tried a different running strategy that would keep me more entertained.  I did 10 minutes on a low speed, 8 minutes one button faster, 6 minute at the next speed, etc.  I managed my 2 miles (I know, it's so not a big deal) quite easily, and Everybody Loves Raymond and Julie and Julia (does anyone else still remember that it's actually two stories in one movie?  I totally forgot that Amy Adams was playing Julie and got quite disappointed that they had to cut away from Meryl) kept me very entertained.  I found Everybody Loves Raymond, which I watched only ~10 minutes of, especially funny tonight, probably because I was already releasing endorphins before starting my run.

But I really need to burn for fat to make myself weigh less.  As I got to 5 mi/hr, which really is not a lot, my plantar fasciitis really acted up, quite suddenly too.  My foot is still hurting and I think it will persist for some time.  My foot does that every time I start to run fast(er).  Whenever I persist at the higher speed it would eventually go away until I slowed down or slowed to a walk.  But as my weekly milage goes up this will really be a problem in the future.  More stretching I guess.

Overall all a great day.  Now if only I could just buck up and do my laundry my day would be truly complete.

Exercise Diary: Week 5 of HM training 3/2/4.5

Happy March!  Can you believe we are already in Month 3 of 2015?  Seems yesterday that I just came back from my fabulous trip from Japan and China.  Since I did relive my journey as I was telling a friend about it yesterday, it seems that I did.

Went to Boston yesterday to see a show that was postponed from snowy February, although it snowed again last night and Craig Ferguson had a big riff on that.  Met my friend that I haven't seen in a few months, had way too much food (Dim sum, cupcakes, vegan thai food, and bubble tea) that I almost got motion sickness on the bus back, and laughed so hard during the show that I was exhausted afterwards.  All in all a great day.

And now we are in week 5 of training~  I did my 3-miler today even though my Nike+ only registered 2 of those miles, which pissed me off since it was a hard run.  I didn't eat a real dinner when I got home tonight and could feel the tiredness it brings, and the fan on my good-TV treadmill was way too weak so that I was sweating through everywhere and felt very stuffy and hot.  When I sped up for my last mile my right foot protested with persisting dull pain near the arch, and I'm not sure if I will still be paying tomorrow.  I did find out that the pain I was feeling on the heel of my left foot was not from the bone (well, not totally at least), but also from the peeled dry skin I always have during winter.  That made me feel a bit better.

I'm not sure what to do about it other than to take it easy.  I think my body just can't take the extra few pound of weight I put on from the last two weeks and is telling me about it as I put more pressure on it.  So I guess I will just have to be patient until the weight get back down again.  I'm almost getting there.

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.

Running Hiatus: a quick update

It's been a hellish nightmare since my last short run around the pond.

Surprising it may be (to me), it's only been two weeks since my last run.  But it seems so much longer than that.

The day after my run I could feel that something wasn't right.  The right side of my right foot felt like it was spasming.  I didn't pay too much attention to it.  I could feel it while walking all the way to work, and throughout the day.  Finally I had to admit to myself that it wasn't just a simple spasm.  I could feel the pain with every step I took, to the point that I was limping up and down the stairs and the hallway.  I didn't know what it was; it didn't feel like a regular plantar fasciitis, or any other foot injuries that I could think of.  It was like something went wrong with whatever connective tissue that went through the bottom of my foot, connecting my heel bone to my little toe.  Just that one part of the foot.  And I know it had something to do with my heel because I felt better walking on my toes.

It got so bad that I decided to leave work early and just get to home.  I didn't know what I was going to do once I got home.  But I desperately wanted to be in the private comfort of my home and just ice, warm, and massage the hell out of my foot.  In the end through some twisted logic my friend and I decided to get a pedicure, since part of the service involved a foot massage.  I left the pedicure with a nice shade of forest green on my nails, but in terms of massage I got next to none.

The next morning my foot got worse as I walked to work and I decided that I finally had to see someone.  I made an appointment with our health center, and though I requested for someone who may be specialized in sports medicine I ended up with some random doctor because she was the only available doctor for the time slot I could do.

The appointment was not very helpful at all.  She basically told me that I have a severe case of plantar fasciitis, which is sort of a relief since it's not something else I picked up, just a worsening of what I already had.  She told me to take a bunch of ibuprofen for an extended period of time, and at the same time do a bunch of stretches.  I basically learned nothing new from that meeting, except for the confirmation of what I had and the permission to take huge doses of drugs.

Since then I haven't been running at all.  I went to yoga once and was pretty sure I screwed up my foot even more during the class.  I thought about going to the gym and do something that's less impact on my foot but got lazy.  I gained a few pounds back from my inactivity.  I took the pills regularly for about 3 days before giving up the regime, and I wasn't even doing my stretches regularly.  All in all I was just being a bad patient.

I also got a pair of Dr. You-know-who's half insoles that promised instant pain relief for plantar fasciitis, and it worked to some degree.  I put them in whatever shoes I was wearing and they did help with the pain relief a lot.  Until recently.  So I decided that it's finally time to take my injury more seriously.

I don't want to get complacent with my injury.  I hated that my weight is slowing getting back to my pre-run days.  I was sort of depressed that because of those few pounds I couldn't fit into the clothes I was able to wear.  I get sad that we have beautiful running weather right now and I'm out of the game.  I'm angry at myself for not going to the gym like I planned to.  I know now that I'm not going to run that half-marathon, but I would be so disappointed in myself if I give up running altogether.

I've been good with my pills and stretching today.  This is my first step toward recovery and toward getting back to running.  I will get back to being active again and I will go back to running soon.  The weight has to go down and the fat has to be burned.  There is no excuse anymore.