A Few Moments of Calm

Running has not existed since last Sunday for me, and that run was probably not a good idea. I've been extremely sick for the past week, and the two of those days were spent in the psychologically grueling experience of an interview for a university faculty position. I woke up Thursday morning feeling the worst I have in a long long time. I have a feeling, though, that this was more from overdosing myself on various cold medicines to get myself through the interview process than anything else. I also stepped on the scale this afternoon, which read an eye-popping 142.6 pounds. This is at least 5 pounds below my normal low end fluctuation in weight.

Hopefully I'll be back to running soon. The sickness is clearing out now, although my tubes are still pretty scratchy. If any of you have Riccola stock, you might want to sell now though, and buy back once it stabilizes again after my candy sucking spree.

I actually slept (off and on) until 1-2 pm today. That was pretty awesome. The whole family was all napping for the whole morning. We're gonna have to make that a Saturday tradition until R grows out of it.

So running....last run was Sunday, weather was really nice (which is why I went out against better judgement). It was about 4 miles, and I didn't even bring the watch.

It's gonna be a little while before I'm back up to speed, especially since I've got another interview this next week, but hopefully I'll at least be healthy by the end of that.

Thank you kindly for the bum-rub

So yesterday I cashed in on an old gift card for Spa Nordstrom that my wife gave me for our anniversary some 6 months ago. An hour of full-body deep-tissue massage seemed appropriate given my recent meltdown. It was an interesting experience at the spa...a little too frilly beforehand. I didn't feel 100% right being the only male in the pre-massage room sitting on a bunch of oversoft chairs with my feet soaking in some herbal tea or some crap like that, but in truth it was very relaxing, and I didn't care. The massage itself was just awesome. The masseuse spent a little extra time on my calves (which have been giving me trouble in recent months), and on my stabilizers (read "my ass"). My IT band also had an up-close-and-personal with the woman's knuckles. No surprise to me, my upper back was also pretty tight from doing mind-numbing calculations and editing my presentation 12 hours a day. I was a little sore in a couple spots afterwards, but nothing too bad. I could definitely feel the scar tissue in my left calf for about 40 minutes after, so that still needs some work.

I ventured out for a run this morning, and it went pretty well. I didn't keep it super easy, but I didn't run hard either. 6 miles at 6:50-7:00 pace. I really needed a generic run to get my mood up again, and this did the trick. I probably should have been running 8 minute pace, but my brain needed a recharge. My back didn't feel bad at all, so hopefully I'm just about over this little setback.

So thank you, stranger who rubbed my bum, and thank you, wife, for the great present that I put off using for far too long.

A Perfect S*** Storm

So I'm out of the running picture this weekend, and next week will probably be fairly laid back. After a speed workout last Thursday, I pinched a nerve, or something, in my upper back. An attempt at jogging on Friday resulted in pretty severe spasming and pain. Ibuprofen has done a good job of helping with the pain, and presumably the swelling and inflammation. Hopefully I'll be good enough to jog tomorrow.

This is in the middle of the wife and son both being sick. His fever was terrible for us to go through, especially since he had an infection when he was 10 days old, and the hospital experience was *NOT* a fun one. He's also old enough now to get very scared in hospitals. Thankfully the fever faded pretty quickly, but now it's replaced by the less stressful, but still very non-fun stuffed up baby. The biggest issue is that the little guy needs his nose to breathe while he eats. Most of you guys have kids, so I'm sure you're familiar with all this. So we've had the humidifier going full blast all week.

It's also in the middle of me trying to finish a project and get this job interview together. Tough stuff this week.

So this week has really sucked runningwise. I've only run on Tuesday and Thursday, and the little 3 miler jog on Friday.

Oh well. Time to get back to work.

Stop...Nanny Time

even more awesome than Hammer Time. We had a new nanny start this week to help out so my wife can actually work on her Ph.D. She seems absolutely great. Like night and day compared to our last nanny. Now we have to make sure we can keep her. Boy's sleeping habits have been adjusted slightly, just in time for the nanny to be able to put him to sleep for naps. Phew.

Yesterday we woke up to another 5 inches or so of snow on the ground. Ugh. It's a big sloppy mess in my neighborhood right now, and nobody seems to be interested in plowing our street (it's been two days, and still nothing). I've been doing too much running on the indoor oval and treadmill, so my Saturday aerobic intervals were done on the lakefront path, despite there being a cm layer of snow everywhere, making it pretty slippery. I was extremely surprised to find myself hitting the prescribed paces, and even a little faster.

2m WU
1600m (5:28) 1600m rest
3x(2000m on 600 rest) with the 1st mile of each 2000 at 6:11, 6:08, and 5:54
20 min CD

HR averages were 167 - 164 - 170 - 172 for the timed miles.

The other workouts this week were pretty decent.

Thursday saw a 4x(300m fast, 300m rest) 49s-49s-50s-51s

Tuesday saw a 10 miler at 80% (6:32 pace)

The other days were recovery / strides.

Tomorrow will add a 15 mile long run to the week, putting the total precisely where it has been for the last 4 weeks...60.X miles. I've been a little disconnected from the other posts this week. Getting to be crunch time for these talks I have to prepare.