A week off

As of today it's been a full week since I got any formal exercise. We just had two absolutely beautiful, sunny, warm-but-not-hot, low humidity days and I was stuck in meetings and running errands and not able to get in any exercise at all. Today was the first day that I could, and of course it's raining!

So I planned to go to the gym and suck it up and just run on the treadmill, but when push came to shove, I just couldn't make myself do it. The treadmill is so awful and boring (and it doesn't help that I haven't updated my iPod for a while so I'm out of podcasts) that I decided I'd rather just get wet, so I went running in the rain instead.

It wasn't really raining--just a little drizzle, so in many ways it was more pleasant than running in the sun--no squinting and baking, and very little sweating. I did my usual lunchtime tempo run, but tried to push myself a bit (I read recently that if you aren't able to exercise as much as usual, you should make the workouts you do harder; since I didn't have more time I just had to put in more effort) and it paid off--I did the run several minutes faster than I've done it all year. I ran at a pace of 9:16 per mile (my normal is somewhere between 10 and 10:20 per mile). Of course my heart rate was also higher than usual, but only by a few beats per minute. I doubt I'll be repeating that any time soon--I'm sure it was a perfect storm of being rested after a week off, comfortable because of the temperature, and willing to push myself harder than usual.

Tomorrow I have Claire's IEP team meeting in the middle of the morning so I won't be able to get a workout in then (and scouts after work, of course), so I'll have to go hard again on Friday.