Workouts

In an effort to keep up with my neurologist's suggestion to "do something everyday" I went for a run this morning. Shazam was it COLD!! The temperature was 18º and with the windchill it felt like 1º (or even colder). I haven't experienced cold like this since I moved from semi-rural Illinois 20 years ago.

Fa… fa… fa… fareeeeezing
The first steps out the door were brutal, but after a mile or so I started to warm up a little. By the time I hit two miles I had a little sweat going and actually felt over-dressed. However, when a gust of wind would cut through the Sugoi top layer technical half-zip pullover, mid-layer insulating North Face shirt and finally the base layer silk I had on I was glad I had bundled up. In the final stretch, I ran into a friend about a half mile out from where I stop/start my runs. While I only paused for maybe a minute to talk to him, without the breeze moving over my skin to help evaporate what little sweat I was producing my body started to overheat. I broke out into a pretty good sweat and really froze when I picked up the pace again.

Pudding fist
One thing I've noticed as the weather's gotten colder and colder over the last few weeks is the way my muscles react to the decreased temperature. I find that they tighten and lose a considerable amount of flexibility as the temperature dips. Much more so than they ever use to. For example, the other night I ran and while it was in the 30's it was pretty windy. I had on a relatively thin pullover with a tshirt underneath. My core stayed comfortably warm, but my forearms, with only one layer over them, got pretty cold. By the time I got home, only a focused and direct effort could get my right wrist to rotate fully. It felt like it was stuck in a bucket of pudding. Everything about it was slow, stiff and difficult to move. On the other hand (no pun intended), my left was cold, but nowhere as slow as the right.

My right leg behaves in a somewhat similar fashion though it's less so. I attribute this to the fact that my legs are working hard and constantly moving whereas my arms, while swinging back and forth from the shoulder, are locked in more or less the same position. They're not flexing and unflexing like my legs.

My right side has been a problem for me ever since getting sick. Tingling, minor transient pain, occasional slight weakness, etc. always on this side of my body. Just another odd piece of the Lyme and athletics puzzle. I guess I should us this as an excuse to only do warm weather racing. Perhaps we need to move to Florida in the winter.

That sucked. Let's do it again!
I start coaching my running groups again tonight at 7:00pm. Usually we just do a mile of alternating running/walking on the first night so my doing a four mile run this morning wouldn't have been a problem. However, I just found out that my new group reportedly has a sub-section of more advanced/fast runners. My coach told me to start them off with a full loop (3.4 miles) of Prospect Park and see how they do. Here we go again.

My coach has an eight-person CompuTrainer set up and though it's open all year around, I traditionally only utilize it in the colder months.

I rode last week for the first time in almost a year, but I almost killed myself in the process. I got too caught up in riding the way I use to and tried to control the front of the pack. The ride was short (18.8 miles), but with challenging hills — part of the bike course from the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. I barely hung on to finished second and thought I was either going to pass out, puke or both when I got off the bike. Luckily I didn't do either.

Today I tried it again. We did a 25.3 mile ride through the French countryside. I behaved myself and took it easy for the first big climb (see the brown/blue cross section above). Sitting in 4th I tooled along working with another rider until the downhill. Once I found my rhythm and locked in a pace I felt I could comfortably hold for the remaining distance I set about moving up. 

Though it's all friendly and not about racing I usually can't help it but compete a little. I finished second with a comfortable 180 watt and 16.6 mph averages. I would have been able to do this ride closer to 210 watts with a 19-21 mph average, but I try not to dwell on what use to be and just focus on what is. I just thankful I can show up and complete the workout.

I did feel pretty tired afterwards, but not entirely wiped out like last week. I came home and ate like a starved horse and chilled most of the afternoon. My head started to pound and I got a pretty good headache in the evening, but I think it was due to a little dehydration… though I downed 24oz of water during the ride and probably another 36oz later in the day. I'm just not use to sweating that much.

I hope to keep at this and maybe move up to 2 times a week after Christmas. We'll see.

So, I’ve been actively, um… active for a month now and things are progressing rather well. Again, I’m not "training" for anything, but I’m using my old routine as a blueprint for getting some miles in. However, I leave myself the option of changing or even canceling planned workouts if I feel even slightly overtired, sick or just mentally not into it. There’s obviously no need to push it right now regardless of how much I’d like to be racing. If that part of me is meant to be again, it will come in time.

Here’s what I banged out this week:

Sunday:
Run 3.4 miles @ 8:00ish pace with friend Drew.

Monday:
Run a slow 2.5 miles. I was supposed to coach, but we canceled due to rain. This was my run to and from the class location.

Tuesday:
Run 5.5 miles from my job in the West Village, Manhattan to Red Hook, Brooklyn to coach at the track. I change at work, stuff my clothes into a running backpack and book it through Tribeca, over the Brooklyn bridge and down through Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill to Red Hook. Out of curiosity I weighed the loaded backpack when I got home — 9.6lbs — but this was with an empty water bottle. With the bottle full it’s probably over 10.

My watch says pace was 7:34 so I may have to go back and remeasure the distance. I highly doubt I ran it that fast what with all the people and the occasional stop for red lights.

UPDATE…. I added the map above. The new, more refined route I take is only 5 miles from work to the track. My time of 41:36 makes for an 8:19 pace. More realistic, but pretty fast considering the luggage and traffic.

Wednesday:
Off. Feeling a little zapped from Tuesday’s run, but not as zapped as I had the previous time 2 weeks ago.

Thursday:
Run 7 miles. I coached a beginners class and we started with 1 mile of 2:00 mins of running alternating with 2:00 mins of walking. Then a 1 mile slow jog back. Running with the group was slow — like 9:30 pace, but that’s fine with me.

After class I did a 3.4 mile loop of the park plus the extra 1.6 home at 7:30 pace. This was actually a good  workout for me in that it was a fair amount of miles, but with a very slow and extended warm up.

Friday:
Off

Saturday:
Biked 30.7 miles in the park. I’ve done this for the last 4 Saturdays and it’s the highlight of the week for me. I really love my bike and missed it a lot. I also ride with a couple of friends so it’s also a social event too.

All in all this was a monster week for me. Luckily, all this activity didn’t seem to have too great an effect on my symptoms. Cardio stuff still spikes my brain fog about 4 or 5 hours after I’m done and I get some extra aches and pains. Mostly in my knees, but nothing serious. The fatigue seems to be about even or at least in line with the amount of effort I’m exerting. I remember back when I first started riding longer distances and I always had to take a nap afterwards.

It does aggravate  the tingling sensation in my right side, but not terribly so. Just one or two points on my symptom chart. This usually goes away within 24 hours.

On a side note… special props to my friend and coach Jonathan for completing the 3rd annual No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn Century in Prospect Park last night. I rode it last year (in the pouring rain, thank you), but didn’t feel up to the effort this time. There’s supposed to be an "in for dime, in for a dollar" rule to prevent people who just want to ride along for 30, 40, 50 or 99 miles and not do the full 100 from showing up. However, I see from the post-ride report that it’s not so strongly enforced. I would have hung in there for 40 or 50 had I known. Hopefully it won’t even be an issue for me next year and I’ll be taking my turn on the front.