It started off bad, then it got worse, but it got better at the end.
Weight Check: 175.3, down 3.3 pounds from last week. Uh, wow. There were a few more miles this week. But there was also an interesting experiment. I decided that I probably wasn’t going to be able to get rid of caffeine, but maybe I could switch to something with fewer calories, like, say, 0. So I tried Coke Zero Sugar, and it was weird, but not completely terrible. Then I tried Coke Cherry Zero (which apparently hasn’t been re-branded yet), and that was…decent. The problem is that it’s not as widely available as some other sodas. This week, I’m going to try Diet Mountain Dew, and possibly *shudder* Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. In a perfect world, I’d cut out all caffeine, and probably sleep a lot better, but until I get to that point, I can at least not gain weight when I drink caffeinated soda.
| Day | Scheduled | Total Miles |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 20-30 minutes run with run/walk intervals | 2.28 (30:11) |
| Wednesday | 20-30 minutes run with run/walk intervals | 2.17 (30:07) |
| Saturday | 20-30 minutes run with run/walk intervals | 2.37 (30:05) |
Total: 6.82 miles
I’m back to scheduled runs. Going by time instead of distance is weird, but I’ll be switching back to distance next week.
Monday was my first outdoor run since my surgery. I had the day off work, so I figured I’d go over to the greenway, because it’s flatter than my neighborhood. I figured I wouldn’t be ready for my neighborhood. I apparently wasn’t ready for the greenway either. It was rough, and I had to take several walk breaks, but I did sort of rally on the last partial mile, and I made it the full 30 minutes. No issues around the area of my surgery, just issues with very out of practice legs.
On Wednesday, it was 65 degrees and humid. Seriously. On February 21. The weather would have been terrible if I was at peak fitness, and I’m nowhere near peak fitness right now. My legs still felt pretty bad. It’s hard to tell if they felt better Wednesday than Monday since the weather was much worse. I did manage to speed up a little bit at the end, though. Still it was not fun.
Saturday, I did not want to run. The only thing that got me out there was that it was supposed to get up into the upper 70s, so I needed to get out there before it warmed up. (Again, this isn’t something I should need to think about in February.)
I’m glad I went out there, because it was so much better than Wednesday.
The weather was still bad, but only 60 degrees, so not quite as warm as Wednesday. My legs didn’t hurt this time, which is a huge improvement. They still got tired, especially toward the end, but I pushed through and gradually improved my pace.
Also, I managed to stick to my coach’s recommended run/walk interval, 8 minutes run/1 minute walk, with a run for the last 3+ minutes, so there’s that.
I didn’t get my Huntersville Half recap done because I was busy watching the Olympics. I will be popping in at some point this week, since Wednesday is the drawing for New York City. For me, that’s just when I find out if I have to out and raise a bunch of money for charity or not, because I’m running the 2018 New York City Marathon, no matter what.