Exercise Diary: Morning Mumble Grumble

5am: beep beep beep, beep beep beep....

snooze

5:10 am: beep beep beep, beep beep beep...

snooze

5:20 am

Up, wash, chow down a banana, surf the web, change.  Oh look it's almost 5:50, time to go.

This has been my routine for the past 2 days.

So far so good.

So for the past 2 week I had been very afraid of running.  I get really tired in the afternoons, and although I bring all my running gears with me to work I end up lugging everything back at the end of the day unused.  I make excuses: I was hungry, I was sleepy, I was tired, I felt sluggish, it's too hot out.

I think I've been afraid.  Afraid of the out-of-breathness around mile 2, afraid of the return of my plantar fasciitis, afraid of being famished and exhausted after my runs and order take out instead of cooking, and the general sluggishness afterwards that usually make up my post-run evenings.

All in all I had not been running a lot for the past two weeks.  But I did do a bunch of other stuff.  There was a hiking trip over graduation weekend, regular weekly yoga classes, and last weekend I did a group yoga thing with two of my friends who sort of got into weight losing and fitness.  And now I'm taking these two gym classes this term that make me get up obscenely early in the morning and make me seriously sweat out some major toxins.

And it's been good.  My abs are protesting, my body felt looser.  Tonight while I was walking I could feel that my shoulders are not even, with the right one higher than the left.  So I consciously tilted my body while walking and surprisingly that felt good.  Maybe I should look up on proper posture and standing, and maybe that will cure my weird and problematic right foot.

I've also activated a new Instagram account to participate in this month's blogilates challenge of doing a split in 30 days.

Above are the stretches.  We do #1-5 everyday, and starting day 6 we add the pose corresponding to the number of the day in addition to 1-5.  The whole thing takes about 10 minutes to do every day and theoretically at the end of the month we will be able to do a split (don't know about the standing split, balance is a whole other issue for me).  And as proof of our commitment we are to upload a picture of ourselves everyday on Instagram for a chance to win stuff every week.  I have a feeling that while the stretches will only take 10 minutes, taking the perfect selfie (which will involve a lot of timed capture, perfect camera and body positioning, and a lot of pain in the tush) for Instagram will take maybe an hour and half.  So we will see.  I've already tried to do a selfie today and truth be told, while the stretches felt great I look stupid (and fat) when captured on camera.  Maybe some people are meant to exercise in secret and who who are not don't really need to exercise that much.

Anyway, any exercise is better than no exercise and if I can become more fit (and hopefully slimmer) by the end of summer I will be the happiest glutton in the world.  I also need to re-think about this whole running thing.  I told myself that all the yoga and strength training are done to make me a better runner, but now I'm not so sure.  The whole point of any exercise is to make me healthier.  Although I probably won't give up running altogether, maybe it will take second or third place at least for the time being.  Is that so bad?  Or am I just impulsively flaunting myself over something new and again not making a commitment in anything?  I don't know and I need to think about this.  In the mean time, I will be very disappointed if either the number on my scale does not drop or I don't lose a few pant sizes.  I'm not drowning myself in sweat at 6am for nothing.

Exercise Diary: So much for that 10K app

First day back at running.  Did 2.5 miles in my new Saucony Kinvara 5 (the awesome blue kind with trippy green shoe laces).  Not a good run but at least I made myself go around the pond 3 times.

Today I also tried the 10K app I recently downloaded.  It's developed by the same people who made the popular C25K app, so I thought it would be really helpful.  For the 10K app they essentially extended their methodology, and employed the same run-walk-run strategy.  And it theoretically made sense.  Since I could run a 5K if I really wanted to, I started from the week 9 program, which was run 10-minute walk 1-minute for about 4 times.

In reality it didn't work quite well.  With the new shoes and my recently opened body I went way to quickly in the first 10 minutes, which actually felt really great, until I got bored/tired around minute 8 and thought, oh no, this is not going to go well.  Although the 10K app is supposed to be compatible with Nike+ and a bunch of music apps like Spotify and Pandora, it didn't work too well with my non-traditional app, and instead of voice signaling my walking break, the music simply dimmed for 2 seconds.  You eventually get used to that, but it could be very confusing at first.  Naturally I missed my first break.

I tried to make it up by walking for about a minute and keep running, but it threw off my whole rhythm.  Plus the sudden stopping to walk really messed up my breathing.  The rest of my run consisted of pain in the diaphragm, irregularity in my heart beat, and a general decline in stamina and speed.

All in all the app didn't do anything to my advantage.

Not sure if I'm going to continue using this program.  I could theoretically do my own run-walk-run routine using landmarks on my route as signals, or I could just run the whole time for a long as I could.

The new shoes felt really good actually.  I had been very unhappy with them since I had a hard time making them fit, but after wearing them for a while and adjusting the lacing they became a natural extension to my feet which is nice.  My feet didn't really hurt that much during today's run, and although the size-9.5 shoes look really big they felt like a really good fit.  I think they are a keeper.

Other thoughts:

• Up until I went out in my running gear it was cloudy all day.  So although I brought my new visor I decided not to use it.  And I immediately regretted that decision as soon as I stepped out.  The sun peered throughout the cloud and was very bright, and although there was a very nice breeze it was still very hot.  
• The right side of my forehead and neck sweat more than my left side.  This is no longer a new discovery but it was more prominent today.  I hate the feeling of sweat dripping down my neck and I don't think it is something that can be rescued by a visor.  Would I look really stupid if I run with a towel in one hand?
• Ran today with a playlist of upbeat music, which I've almost never done before.  I always run with a podcast or an audio book.  But I think the upbeat music works a lot better.  For one I don't really have to pay attention to it.  In fact sometimes I deliberately ignore it.  But the fast beat helps with the mood and my breathing, and is not as distracting from the actual running.  
• I found it to be quite helpful if I focus a lot on my breathing during the run.  I guess it's kind of like yoga, you have to make sure you are breathing deeply no matter what you are doing.  Although that idea kind of failed toward the end, but I think overall if I focus on the actual running rather than actively trying to ignore it by engaging more in what I'm listening I would feel less tired too early on.