Recapping week 4 continues!
Wednesday: On Wednesday, I was sore from the gym, so opted out of my planned morning session. I had every intention of running after work, but ended up doing a whole lot of nothing, except for some downward dogs in the edit suite. I’m not proud of this. As a punishment (or lesson learned!) I’ve already made a rigid schedule for week five and plan, for social plans and fitness plans, and have every intention of sticking to it.
Thursday: I was supposed to run a 10 minute warm-up, 4k at half-marathon pace (5:05-5:20), then a 10 minute cool down. I did exactly that, but found it extraordinarily difficult to maintain the HM pace, even with the stop lights granting me frequent breaks. The lesson I learned from this? I am not in race shape and need to work harder if I want to get there anytime soon.
Friday: I was still feeling it from the gym (I think it was all the weighted squats), so started the day off with 30 minutes of gentle yoga. It was my LAST DAY of double shifts at work, which meant it was a long one so there would be no post-work work out. But the last one!
Saturday: It was wet and snowy (the kind of snow that’s perfect for snowballs). I met up with my friend Trish to do 8k along the waterfront in the west. It was good to see her, as it has been forever, but she also pushed me to run faster than normal. The trail in the west end of the city is salted, so it was the first time all training cycle I had a run that was continuous — no street lights! And, boy, that made it hard!
When I got home, I put on the new Roseanne Cash album and did 30 minutes of DIY yoga. It felt good to stretch and it was nice to just get into the zone with some music on. It snowed and snowed and snowed outside, which was pretty from the window, but knew it might make my Sunday run a little treacherous.
Sunday: On Sunday, YakTrax were a must do I decided to get adventurous and give the Don Valley Trail a go. It was crunchy and snowy and a lot of work to get into a rhythm. I turned around 1.5k in, but eventually found a groove and kept to the Martin Goodman trail, heading west because it was closer to civilization that way. In the end, I powered home 3k short of what I was supposed to do, but I think the effort that went into this one more than makes up for this transgression.
And then I went to Leslieville Market’s Souper Bowl and ate French Onion soup in the freezing cold. It was worth it.
Another week down. Two steps forward (finding a gym and discovering the Nike Training Club app), one step back (short-changing my long run). But I am making progress. Even if that progress is only the passing of time.