Pregnant with Anticipation

Week of September 4, 2011:

Yoga: Saturday (pajama yoga—it’s still my favorite!)

Week of September 11, 2011:

Bike: Sunday and Tuesday

Run: Monday

Surprise!  I’m pregnant!

Just kidding.  But I am pregnant with anticipation about my trip to Michigan this week, and I am looking a little pregnant in the photos above, thanks to a long t-shirt, easy-fitting shorts, and a rather unflattering angle.  (Ah, the wonders of self-photography!)  Still, I love that orange shirt, and I love these photos too because I took them on a rare, relaxing Sunday afternoon on campus.  Given the many, many hours I will spend in transit for my trip, I needed to stock up on some reading material to keep myself from going insane.  We have an awesome library at Texas A & M, and it always makes me feel pleasantly nostalgic for my undergrad days.  I used to be able to work in libraries, and I miss that.  Now the bulk of my work is experimental, which keeps me tied to the fly lab and my windowless cave.  (Not that I don’t love my job, but sometimes a girl craves a desk with a view, right?)

Sunday’s work-out was my bike ride to and from campus.  On Monday, I hit the streets for my extremely grueling 20-minute run.  Actually, it was a great run once I hit my groove.  Our heat has returned (and with a vengeance it seems, as it’s 100 degrees F out there today!), so Monday’s run was tougher and sweatier than my outdoor runs earlier this month.  Still, it was nice to be outside running, and my body did seem to adjust to it quickly enough that I wasn’t miserable for the whole work-out.

Man, I love running.  And if things keep up like this, running is going to love me back.  I can feel myself starting to get into the running groove again.

Finally, I did the bike commute thing today.  Like I said, our heat has returned, so this ride was another sweaty, summer-style ride, and I arrived at work with my legs covered in grass because hurray! Tuesdays are grass-cutting day on campus.  Yeesh, I hate grass and lawns and the whole “gotta-cut-the-grass-every-week” thing.  If I ever have a yard, I’m going to either xeriscape it or let it go mostly wild.  Low-maintenance and eco-friendly!  That’s how I want my lawn and myself to be.

And with that, I’m off.  Mitten State ahoy!

Connect Four! (August in Review)

I didn’t expect to say this, but August was a really good month for fitness.  My star chart tells part of the story; you can see that I did all my planned work-outs except for one run and one yoga session.  For a plan that averages a rate of one work-out per day, that’s pretty good!  It helps, of course, that up to three of those work-outs are my bike commutes to and from work, so it’s less tempting to skip them.  Even in the August heat, I like not taking the bus to work every day—it’s nice to have some variety during the week.

August was a hard, sweaty month, but I think that sticking with a flexible work-out schedule helped keep my spirits up.  I love exercise for many reasons, not the least of which is the way it makes me feel.  Without a doubt, regular exercise helps me stay happy and optimistic, which is really important during times of high stress and uncertainty.  Things at work were busy during the month, but I would say they were busy in a good way.  In a sense, fitness has a lot in common with experimental science: discoveries don’t happen overnight, and neither does fitness…or at least with the kind of science I do.  It’s a long, slow process, one that requires a great deal of persistence, patience, and planning.  Running and my other exercise pursuits are like that too: one doesn’t wake up in the morning, ready to run a half-marathon.  It’s a long, slow process of building up to a long distance, and you’ve got to stay both focused and flexible.  I try to keep my eyes on the prize, but I’ve learned that it’s best to stay responsive to unexpected events—an impending injury, or a little too much fatigue, or the need for a day off to recover from a particularly hard run.  I build my fitness plans (and my experimental plans) around the idea that shit is going to go wrong, so I like to have some room to make adjustments so that I can meet my big-picture goal.

August, it’s been a good run of things.  You’re always a challenging month, especially in Texas, but I think you showed me that I’m tougher, stronger, and more focused than I even imagined.  Thank you for that.  I’m not sad to say good-bye to you, but I am grateful that I made it through and I feel more confident on the other side.

Onward, September!

Paradise, or at least one version thereof

Week of September 4, 2011:

Bike: Saturday

Run: Thursday (15 minutes around the neighborhood)

It’s a beautiful weekend here in Texas, but my goodness, I am wiped out!  Today I managed to get some experimental work done, shop for groceries at two stores, talk to my sister on the phone, and cook a not-very-tasty batch of curried fried rice (bummer).  Miraculously, I even showered and washed my hair, of which I wish I had less right now.  (I really need a haircut!)  But now, I think I’m going to relax with an egg cream and a few episodes of Friday Night Lights, and hopefully I’ll wash a few more dishes before climbing into bed.

Hope you are having a lovely weekend, wherever you are.

Lovely September

Week of September 4, 2011:

Bike: Sunday and Wednesday

Run: Monday

Hodgepodge: Tuesday (a little biking, a walk, a bit of yoga)

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous this week!  It’s about 40 degrees cooler than it’s been in months, which means I can wake up in the morning, open the patio door, and the air drifting inside feels cool to me.  It’s wonderful.  It also makes it a lot easier to enjoy outdoor work-outs, such as Monday’s long run (a 20-minute out-and-back loop) and my bike commutes (the usual—about 3-4 miles each way, so a day of commuting is about 7-8 miles roundtrip).

This week feels a bit hectic to me as I get ready to go out of town.  I’m feeling a lot of internal pressure to get lots done at work; on top of that, I have various errands to run (bank, shopping, library) in preparation for my trip.  But I’m excited to fly north to see my family, and I think the time away from work and Texas will be really refreshing.  So I’m going to dive back in, and hopefully I’ll have time to check in here once or twice more before I leave.

Happy September, friends.

Gotta Run

Week of August 28, 2011:

Bike: Saturday

Yoga: Friday (pajama yoga before bed)

It’s an absolutely gorgeous day here in Texas, with temperatures that have finally dropped down into the pleasant zone.  I’m about to head out on my long run.  20 minutes of running on this beautiful almost-fall day!  I can’t wait.  So I’ll keep this short and say happy Labor Day to my American readers and happy Monday to all.

Have a good week, friends.  Lace up those sneakers and have fun out there.

Bigger

Week of August 28, 2011:

Bike: Tuesday and Thursday

Run: Sunday (long treadmill run!) and Wednesday (short outside run)

Yoga: Monday (Gentle Hatha Yoga #3)

I’ve started to transition my runs off of the treadmill.  I’m really an outdoors exercise girl at heart—I’m (almost) always happier outside rather than inside.  At this time of year, the weather is a little wobbly.  Sometimes it feels almost pleasant, other times I’m cursing the heat and the trickles of sweat dribbling down my legs.  So I take my cue from the wobbly weather: sometimes I take the easy option and hop on the treadmill; other times I embrace the heat so I can enjoy running in the evening sunlight.  Now that the sun is setting earlier, the evenings start to cool down faster, so an after-work run is a treat, even if it’s a little sweaty right off the bat.

On Wednesday, I did a 13-minute run outside (my mileage is really getting up there, I know!), and I was reminded why I love running outside so much: the grandeur of that big blue Texas sky, the joy of actually going somewhere powered by my own two feet, the feeling of disconnecting from machines in order to connect with something bigger, older, and more beautiful.  To run outside is to subject one’s self to the elements, yes, but it’s also a kind of surrender to something that’s worth a bit of physical discomfort: a sense that there is a huge world out there, bigger than your tiny self, bigger than your daily worries and anxieties.  And it’s always there, always waiting for you and your next run.

Zoom Zoom!

Hello and happy September!  To say that I’m excited about the first month of fall would be a sad understatement.  I am beyond excited—I’m THRILLED!  August is such a hard month in Texas.  It’s long and hot, and everyone is grumpy because we’ve been trying to cope with the summertime inferno for three months.  (Seriously.  Summer starts in April or May around these parts.)  September is a welcome change for us because it’s both the end of awful August and the beginning of autumn—my favorite season of all.  This month, I’m also taking my first vacation in eight months.  I head north to Michigan in two weeks, so there will be a cool respite from Texas and my worklife very soon.

I had a wonderful bike ride to work this morning.  Even though it’s only September 1st, it felt cooler outside, especially along the shady parts of my route.  I felt happy to be on the bike, happy to have experiments on the docket this morning, just flat-out HAPPY about my life.  Then I got to work and I was getting ready to leave the restroom after mopping myself off post-ride when a woman said to me, “Um, I just wanted you to know, your bottom has a big wet spot on it.”

“Yeah, I know.  I rode my bike here,” I replied. “It’s sweat,”  And thanks for checking out my ass!

Then I felt mildly annoyed.  Why did she feel compelled to say that to me?  Did she really think I didn’t know about my sweaty clothing?  Or did she really think I’d had, um, an accident?  I wonder how this reflects the local cultural expectation about appearances.  Would this sort of thing happen in Austin, which has a huge and famous cycling culture?  And did she not feel the least bit shy about commenting on my rear end?!

I refuse to stay off my bike in the summer just because there will be some sweating involved.  And I refuse to tiptoe around a local culture that doesn’t embrace exercise as enthusiastically as I have.  I think it’s important for me to look professional at work, because that’s what I am: a professional.  But summertime Texas demands certain concessions, so sometimes I look like a sweaty, exercising professional.  And I’m proud of it.

Speaking of sweat, today is the first of the month, so it’s time for our first installment of Speed Demons!  We’ve got a few speedy runners out there who deserve some applause for their hard work in August.  In no particular order, we have…

* Raquelita, who ran a super-speedy timed mile and clocked in at 8:11.  Very nice, R!

* JD, a Michigan friend of mine who is training for the Detroit Half-Marathon.  He recently finished a 5.22-mile training run at a zippy 10:11/mile pace.  That’s awesome, JD!  You are going to rock your half.

* Me.  Of course I have to mention my own speedwork!  My best speedwork last month was on the treadmill, where I did most of my August running (see first paragraph re:heat in Texas).  I’ve been doing 8:30 miles, just to keep myself challenged on the treadmill, and this work-out was my best one.

Did you have any good speed work-outs last month?  Tell me about them in the comments!  And happy training to you, dear reader.