I continued doing the “Week 2″ program for “Week 3″ because my endurance just hasn’t built up yet. It’s been rough, too, in the Chicago heat. I played with the time of day that I did my program, as well as what I ate, and where I went. The lakeshore offered very little protection from direct sunlight, but offered gravel and asphalt. The streets going up to Rogers Park from Edgewater offered shade, but concrete sidewalks and street traffic. Trying to do the program after a late night of beers and friends was near disastrous. Even worse was going along the lakeshore at high noon.
I ended the week with two programs solidly over 2 miles in 30 min. My endurance got a bit better, as did my breathing and posture. I’m probably going to continue at my current plan, but try to expand it a little so I can do the Week 3 properly around actual Week 5. I think I’ll do better in the cooler mornings of Seattle, and I also think that doing some strength training or stretching (yoga?) on my off days will be beneficial. I’m not sure how this will work with diving, which is also pretty intense at times, but I’ll find out, I’m sure.
Tomorrow I pack up and do my last little things and then on Tuesday I head back to Seattle. It’s been a fun trip - very tiring, though. I think another thing that’s kicked my butt has been the walking around the city when I wasn’t intending to exercise. I failed at having a bunch of time to myself during my trip, however I find that the wealth of friends I have here have given me more than enough things to chew on in my brain to set me up for some good thinking when I get home.
I’m in Chicago right now on a bit of a vacation. I completed my week 2 of this Walk to Run plan. I’m wiped out. I will continue with this week’s level next week to hope to be less winded before I move to the next level. Running in the midday in Chicago is HARD. I’m sensitive to heat, so I think I’ll try to limit myself to early morning. The lakefront trail has asphalt and gravel, which made my knees and joints happy. A new arch brace is helping my plantar fasciitis tendency. I’m enjoying my new running clothes that I got bargain shopping at REI last week. And most of all, while I’m still loving my Nike+ SportBand, I’m loving Trail Runner, which Jon found for me, and syncs to the Nike+ website. It does what I wish the Nike site did - gives me a better play-by-play of my varying speeds throughout the workout, on a timeline, where I can think about what was going on that was impacting my pace.
Anyhow - this is my new life of leisure. Hanging out in Chicago - talking about my dipping my toe into running, and wishing that Seattle and Chicago weren’t so far apart. If I could pick and choose between the two, I’d have my perfect city.
I’m loving my Nike+ so far - however, I really wish that the online portion for Nike+ gave me a bit more on the graph than a squiggly that vaguely represents speed and distance. I want to be able to mouse over points in the line and know what that pace was at a specific time frame. That way, I can think back to “Oh, that’s when I hit that intersection and I had to hoof it to keep from getting hit by that car…” The squiggle looks better than yesterday, and the end numbers are definitely improved, but I want more of a play-by-play from my little gadget. Maybe I’m asking too much, but the data is in there - I just want to see it expressed in more than a green squiggly line.
Tomorrow I take a day off from the walk/run so I can let my joints and muscles rest. I’ll try to do Tuesday and Thursday (though I leave for Chicago on Thursday.) Then, I plan to take advantage of the beautiful shore of Lake Michigan. To do this, though - I’m thinking I need to invest in more running wear. My Title Nine running shorts and tank are fantastic - but I need more than one of each. (And unfortunately, I’m not thrilled with their customer service.) Adidas and Nike have some interesting options available for running, but I just need to cough up the cash to get them. Not as easy being newly unemployed (by choice.)
We’ll see how this experiment turns out. I’m thinking of trying a 5k sometime in August or September.
This is the third day I’ve done my walk/run with my Nike+ SportBand. The site has a way to post my progress to my blog, so I figured I’d try it out. So far, in my 30 min walk/run, I’ve shaved off over a minute since my first walk/run EVER (which was last Monday.) I took two days off, and wouldn’t ya know, I’m actually at a faster pace for a more sustained period. I’m very excited about this. There are some things that I wish were better about the Nike+ SportBand system and site, but I’ll save that for another post. For now - I’m just still in an endorphin glow just knowing that this is something I can do.
Today was quite a day. Or at least, I’m feeling rather triumphant. Last week I purchased Runner’s World Complete Book of Women’s Running. I read all the parts to get started, and today I went to Super Jock ‘n Jill and got a not-too expensive pair of running shoes. I even jogged in them before I bought them. I then picked up some sports bras and shorts (and a nifty visor.) The last thing was the Nike+ SportsBand, a nifty little gadget that clips to my shoe, and a wrist band that plugs into the USB of my computer that works as a pedometer and more. It connects to the Nike website and I can track my progress, and even set up a training program.
I’m pretty excited. I found out today that I have some pronation in my right foot, and my new shoes are supposed to counter that a bit. I’m glad I’ll have the sports bras, just because the brief jog I had earlier has made me a bit achey. I took my Nike+ out for a calibration walk, so I’m already having fun.
This is my last week at my current job. The week following I go to Chicago for 2 wks. I’m looking forward to a walk/jog down Lake Shore Drive. Tomorrow is diving again - with a smaller wetsuit.
I was going over my last.fm while trying to figure out what to listen to next. My top music picks are similar to what I was listening to 15 years ago, with some additions. One of those is the Afghan Whigs.
Growing up in the Cincinnati area, I knew who the Afghan Whigs were. They played them on local radio, and I heard they were pretty cool. I passed by the albums at the used cd store more than a few times, and I knew they were chocked full of latent awesomeness - and I had rocked out to “Honky’s Ladder” on the radio.
Despite my curiosity with the Whigs after I saw their CD’s easily available in Dublin, Ireland in 1996, it wasn’t until 1999 that I remembered that the Afghan Whigs were worth devotional listening. This I have Lev (of BoingBoing Gadgets fame) to thank. He and I made the long trek across country to Burning Man in 1999, and of course every good road trip requires good tunes. I got reminded of the awesomeness of the Whigs on that trip and became desperately hooked.
I’m still hooked to all things Dulli (Greg, that is). I’ve loved the Twilight Singers, his solo work, and his joint project w/ Mark Lanigan, The Gutter Twins.
Black Love - which I’m listening to now, is still one of my favorite Whigs albums. I feel a need to listen to it from start to finish, every song in order, as if there is some divine completeness to it. The first song, Crime Scene Part One is perfectly bookended by Faded. Love, violence, sex, drugs and alcohol with an intense reverence to classic R&B, funk and soul played - this is what I love about the Whigs, and Greg Dulli.
Just thought I’d share - because hey, it’s my blog, and I don’t write in this thing enough.
A colleague asked me how I got over my apprehension about diving (he was asking me in order to relate some of my current struggles in the workplace to my diving success, though he made that point without saying it.)
What I told him was that when I got anxious underwater, when I was scared or wasn’t sure of myself, I would stop, slow down, and just look at the world around me. Look at that fish - that anemone - that kelp - and breathe. I’d soon forget I was worried in the first place, and would move on.
Note: Diving in the Puget Sound is much more challenging than my recent vacation dives in Hawaii. There’s much more to be provoked by, from poor visibility, to cold water making your exposed cheeks a little numb, to realizing you’re over-weighted (you have to wear weights so you can sink under water) and you’re sinking too much, making it hard to compensate.
Just thought I’d share that.
It’s interesting that I find it easier to stop and breathe underwater…
Until I can get this issue resolved, I will be continuing my blogging outside of LiveJournal at quasilaur.wordpress.com. I’m considering just pointing my domain to there, but I’m not sure if I really want to do that. Checking quasilaur.net every day and deleting long strings of spam that’s being slipped in is becoming wearing. And for those of you who might be curious, I’m unable to update Wordpress on my end, at least, if there is a way, I don’t know what it is.
And of course, this post will be spammed below, likely until Wordpress is updated, so here it is, SPAM SPAM SPAM:
I’m putting up this post until I can get the situation rectified that allows spammers to exploit this generation of Wordpress I’m using. It seems to be only attaching to the most recent post, and then it only seems visible when viewed from RSS or another manner. I’m not a nerd, and I’m unfortunately not able to update Wordpress on my own, so I’m getting creative.
I am a social worker, artist, academic and consumer who has spent most of my life winding my way through thought and expression.
In 2007 I became entranced by the idea of reconciling America's emotional need to consume with the practical need to promote well-being
and true sustainability. Many of my posts log my exploration of what I call deliberate consumption.