5.0 in 40:14, 2 degrees of incline, 8:03 ave. My legs still felt beaten up from the Battle of the Bulge Tough, but they were runnable. I stretched for a long time beforehand, to minimize risk. It wasn't a long run, but it was decent.
On Thursday, I hosted an game night at my place. I've had like 5 one-off guests visit in my two years here, at separate times. Suddenly, I was going to try hosting a gathering for like 15. I went all-out, spending like $300 on food and supplies. I wanted to make sure there was enough food, with options for every kind of preference. It's kind of crazy. I could've just ordered food from or at a restaurant, for that kind of cost. It was good, though. We played Settlers of Catan and Blockus. A couple of my co-workers had recently discovered Settlers, so I was more than happy to share the love of Settlers, which I had discovered 10 years ago during college.
That's most of the food, excluding the entrees, which I didn't even take pictures of. They were BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, chicken tenders, and sweet potato fries. One side-benefit of this was that it forced me to finally move out some of the unpacked boxes that have been in my dining room since I moved there.
This was also a remarkable week in that after a lot being up in the air about my future, things got settled. It had been an emotionally turbulent time, but I'm thankful for friends who were there to support me, and supportive co-workers, too.
Saturday, Jan 26:
I was intending to do a long run, since I was only a little more than a month out from my marathon, which meant that it should've been time to start tapering, but I haven't even started doing long runs yet! I went to Latta Plantation to do the run, but I tried a pre-workout drink with 3000mg caffeine beforehand and probably went way too fast to sustain for a long run. I fizzled out and had enough after 7.2 mi in 1:05:01, 9:00 average, which is pretty fast, for a trail. Granted, their trails are mostly flat, but it did feel like tempo effort. I felt great, but it wasn't going to last, as hard as I was going. It was a little bit muddy in parts, but not that bad.
Monday, Jan 28:
45 min strength session
- Crunches: 400/side
- Plank: 2.5 + 2 min
- Squats: 75
- Adductor/Abductor Leg Lifts: 95/150
- Pushups: 15
- Single-leg Squats: 60 + 60
- Lower Leg Extensions: 75
- Russian Twists w/ 12#: 45
- 4-ct Flutter Kicks: 60
- Assorted dumbells
Wednesday, Jan 30:
5.0 in 38:30, 7:42 ave. A progressive run after an evening work event. Part of the reason I went fast was that I wasn't sure how long I'd be able to stay before the gym closed. I felt suprisingly fresh during the run, despite being under the weather.
Friday, Feb 1:
GORUCK had a second consecutive month of a free virtual challenge. Ruck a mile a day for the month of February, increasing your ruck weight each week, and you get a patch at the end. "In!" I kicked it off doing 5.2, since my new 25L Rucker v2.1 with side-handles had recently arrived, and I wanted to test that out. I like the stiff back of 21L Ruckers when it comes to doing overhead PT, but I also liked the longer length of 26L GR1s so that I could get the weight to sit on my glutes a little bit, to move the weight to my hips more easily. I wanted to see if the 25L Rucker would give me the best of both worlds. My legs weren't in the mood for a run, anyways.
I also wanted to try out the Road Warrior App and practice using it, to prep for the ATL Star Course 26.2. It's a route optimization tool where you can plug in a list of waypoints and a couple of other constraints, and it gives you a recommended sequence of stops. The Star Course doesn't have a designated route. It gives you a set of mandatory waypoints to hit, so an app like this is a must, for avoiding unnecessary miles.
Things that I Learned in this First Trial:
- The app's route mileage calculated number doesn't include any off-road walking you have to do to get to the waypoint. For example, a very long parking lot that I walked through didn't get counted.
- The UI isn't very intuitive and has many opportunities for improvement. Buttons aren't where it would've made sense to me to put them, for example, and I still have issues figuring where to go to do different things. It's easy to fat-finger the buttons, too... and that's coming from someone with smaller hands.
- The user manual is incomplete.
Saturday, Feb 2
I was kind of hoping for a long run, but that rarely happens on treadmills. 6.0 in 51:01, 8:30 ave. I didn't get out until the evening.
Sunday, Feb 3
Hot outside! Abnormally warm weather. Went 13.6 in 2:58:45, 13:06 ave, at the Whitewater Center. I ate about 3 gummy bears every 30 min, until I hit palate fatigue in the last hour. I didn't need water, suprisingly. It was a good long run in terms of duration, although the miles are way lower than the 18 miles I'd normally get in 3 hours on the road during marathon training. This training cycle has been pretty pitiful, so I'll take what I can get. I did Zombies, Run! during this, for the first time in a long time.
I started using a midnight ruck strategy for the February mile-a-day challenge. I rucked for 1 mile before midnight, starting at like 11:40pm, and then rucked a second mile back, ending at around 12:20pm. I'd end up repeating this many times during the month. It involved being careful about what time I headed out, and sometimes, it involved waking up from a nap to go out that late, but I had fewer sessions to worry about.
Wednesday, Feb 6
Ruckingchallenges.com's February challenge was to ruck 86 floors to honor the 86 US firefighters who lost their lives in 2018. At first, it was going to be an 83 floor challenge, based on the published list, but it turned out that during the government shut-down, the list hadn't been updated, so the real number was 86. The organizer had already ordered the patches saying 83 for 83, but at his own cost, he ordered new ones with the correct number. That's integrity.
I decided to go for it a a parking garage. I didn't want a place like my workplace, where co-workers would think I'm crazy, and security cameras would be watching. The parking garage had more floors than I realized, which was great. There were 5 flights, and it was the perfect amount. I could've gone through the trouble of using the elevator to go back down, but it didn't feel right to use it when that convenience isn't around for firefighters fighting real emergencies, it would waste electricity, security might wonder why I kept riding the elevator, I didn't want to subject people to being stuck in an elevator with a potentially sweaty me, I would've had to walk through the parking lot to get to the elevator each time, etc.
I wasn't sure how long it would take, but it ended up being 50 minutes, about 2.5 min per lap up and down the 5 flights. At the top of the garage after my last lap, I was rewarded by a nice little view of Uptown Charlotte. It was a good little workout. My outer right knee felt it a bit towards the end, so it was just about the right length.
