Monday, something came up just when I was all primed for my Bottom st workout. Dammit. I like to begin thinking about my workout or run earlier in the day and get good and psyched for it, so when I have to cancel it's a real letdown.
So yesterday, Tuesday, after two days off, I knocked off work a half hour early to get in the essentials of the missed workout, doing fast, sub-max sets so that I wouldn't be too worn out for my scheduled run afterwards: deadlifts, squats, leg extensions, leg curls, hip thrusters, and then a new one, Nordic Curls.
Thanks for the shitty music dude, but I appreciate the brevity. Nothing worse than those YouTube videos where some yahoo spends five minutes telling you how good the exercise is for your core or something before actually demonstrating it. Not sure how much good this one does, but I'll give it a try for a few weeks and then reevaluate. I got the foam pad just special for it, so I hope it works out. If not, the pad will still come in handy for back extensions. The new-gear addiction continues untreated.
Then I parked the car near my son's day care and set out on a five-mile route on the suburban thoroughfares there. It was a beautiful sunny day finally, and I could run with just a single layer. The first half-mile was mild chipseal. My feet were still a bit abraded from Saturday's run, but recovering, so, since I didn't have time to run very far, I thought a little chipseal would do me some good, help condition my feet further. Plus, after waiting all winter long for this kind of weather, and putting up with feet-numbing temps, I was very disinclined to run shod in such perfect conditions. The little snow and moisture that was leftover from last week's snowfalls felt refreshingly cool.
But I had forgotten that this was the same route and area that had abraded my feet to begin with, 10 days earlier, when it was icy wet. The whole route was covered with small debris (presumably shaved off the streets' asphalt by the snow plows), sand, and small rocks, and only had about a mile of smooth concrete underneath. The other sub-debris surfaces varied from smooth asphalt, medium grade chipseal, and a coarse sandpaper-like gravel finish on a half-mile section where I had to run on the road's narrow shoulder. This is the great thing about barefootn'--you notice stuff no one else notices. I really hate running on busy roads' shoulders though, you're just one distracting cell phone call away from becoming crow food.
My pace progressively dropped from a nice, comfortable 9:30 mm pace to plodding about a minute per mile slower as the constant abrading wore on my already somewhat sore soles. Plus, this route wasn't very pleasant during rush hour. Even on the sidewalks and bike paths, the noise from the traffic zooming by was annoying. The last time I ran in this area was on a Saturday afternoon, when most of the traffic was concentrated in and around the shopping areas. This time it was everywhere along the route. At one point, close to the end, a suburbanite about my age hanging out in the front yard seated on the top tube of his mountain bike and dressed like a teenager signaled for me to stop as he approached me with gliding strides. I thought he wanted to ask about barefoot running. No, he wanted to warn me that at the intersection ahead there was a patch of glass on the northwest corner. Oh, OK, thanks. I guess you don't have to be a barefooter to notice that. And sure enough, there was a huge patch of broken car glass scattered along the street and well up into the sidewalks. With the heads-up, I was prepared and deftly navigated my way through it. Then a little further on there was some broken bottle glass, and for that I slowed down to a walk. There's a huge difference between windshield glass and bottle glass; the latter can do some serious lacerating.
I guess I'll have to nix this route. Too much traffic, especially around the shopping area. I don't mind the debris too much--it's good conditioning--although a couple of rocks cut up into my heel fissures. Ouch. I always get heel fissures in the spring. A seasonal thing I guess. So anyway, I'm still looking for a decent route on the way or close to my son's new day care.
After dinner went around the block with the kids collecting twigs, bark, pebbles and stuff. Debris is a lot more interesting from their perspective. My Moc3s felt heavenly on my sore soles. I love those shoes, and they look so cool. I wonder if getting the Vapor Gloves was really necessary after all, but for some reason I like their snugger fit when I run. Probably just a psychological thing, I doubt there's much physical difference, the VP's tread isn't much of an improvement, and I would rather support a small business like Soft Star.
Anyhow, today, I'll try to add what I missed from yesterday's Bottom ST workout to today's Back ST workout. I feel pleasantly sore, looking forward to it. Taking two days off was rough.
Rain and snow forecast for today and tomorrow. Does RunningPirate have a guest bedroom?
I am still trying to bounce back after that nearly month of sickness and am still trying to get fully normal.
I've had prolonged viral stuff a couple of times in my life. Once for six weeks, and then this last winter for about four weeks. It takes a long time afterwards to regain you energy. You're wise to take it easy until you feel 100%.