Ay yi yi (at least that’s how Google told me to spell it).
7 weeks until the Bluenose Half. That’s a scary thought. Mostly since we still have 5 feet of snow outside and so far have had very little “spring-like” weather.
I hate running on the treadmill. Like really, really hate it. I find it incredibly difficult and run a good 2 miles/hour slower on the treadmill than I would outside, but all of my runs so far have been on it. There have been a few days where I considered running outside, including today, but I decided that it was still too cool for my lung to work properly. I find it causes me more difficulty if I run in the cold, versus running when it’s warm, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that. I really hope we move into the + temperatures and stay there soon.
As I sat here thinking about how quickly the Bluenose is coming up, I started to worry that I was going to be less trained this year, than I was last. And that would be tragic, since I was sure this would be the first time I would get to the start line properly trained for once.
I looked up my training runs from last year, knowing that there hadn’t been very many, and was glad to see that by this time last year I had only run once, and so far this year I have already managed to get in 6 runs. Certainly, I wish that there were more, but I am already undeniably in a better place than I was 12 months ago, preparing for the same race.
Tonight I did manage to do my time on the treadmill, as usual, it was super slow but I got it done, and I’m glad I did. One good thing about me finding treadmill running so hard is that I keep my speed really slow which is great for long runs.
I was still getting pretty cranky near the end, but I started listening to a podcast about a girl who is younger than me and has had relapses of cancer 3 times now, the third time with it manifesting in her lungs. That put my crankiness about treadmill running back into perspective. So even though I’d been running for 45 minutes I upped my speed and finished strong, thankful that while my health is far from perfect, I’m not struggling with a life threatening disease so I need to just shut up and get it done. So I did.
In my last training update I mentioned that I was planning to wear my heart rate monitor for my cardio classes to get a better reading of my training load. I did for a week, and then the battery in my polar promptly went dead. -_- Anyway, the result of the readings I did get, showed that I can run a second time during the week besides my long run, but only if I keep it at a steady state short run. Anything more is putting my training load too high with the other workouts I do, and putting me at risk for over training. My God. I would hate to know what my training load use to be when I was teaching 17-19 cardio classes/week. No wonder I fell to pieces.
So with that new found info, my plan is to concentrate on getting my weekly long run in, and when I’m feeling up to it, getting in one other short run/week but I won’t be doing any speed/interval training. It’s just not worth the risk. Besides, the last time I did speed training, my lung hurt for a few hours afterwards. I think I worked it too hard, and that ain’t good.
For anyone not aware, I have a soft spot at the top of my left lung. It has partially collapsed a few times, but to-date has never required medical intervention, and that is a record I would like to keep intact! And yes, it has happened while running before. Not in quite a few years, but it has happened. And it’s not fun, so I don’t care to repeat it.
Anyway, that’s the general update around here. I’m still plugging away, I’m still not running as much as your typical runner would be while training for a half marathoner, but I’m not your typical runner.
As for this week, Good Friday is looking like it will be nice, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that, that will be my first outside run of the year. I hope I’m right!!