Oy it's a hot and humid one out there ... is it really September?I went for a short run last night (2.7 km); I ran from the fitness club after yoga home. :) It was such a muggy evening so I took it slow and steady. My hip flexors were still aching so I opted out of my scheduled tempo run yesterday, instead switching it with today's rest day. Fortunately, yoga was very good for opening up the hips and gently stretching this area so it felt better after class.
I slept in a little later today (8:00 a.m.) before heading out with William Wallace for my tempo run. I had sweat running down my body by the time I was done my 2 km warm-up; eek! It's hard to believe that it is now "fall" with the heat and humidity as high as it is today.
I set the bar lower today for my tempo run (40 minutes @6:45/km). The air was soup-like and I'm not crazy - the environment/conditions for running over-rules scheduling. My desired 6:30/km will have to wait until after my Springbank Half Marathon. Wallace and I started out on target and there were a few fluctuations on either side of 6:45, but by the 10 minute mark, I was cruising at a pace faster than 6:45/km. Very cool! I started thinking about how my ego needed this (ha!), and after Tempo #1 went so well and Tempo #2 *sucked* ... it was great to be on track for another good tempo albeit not the one I originally desired ...
... until I saw my friend, Sheila, walking her dog, Tasha. Sheila is a good friend of mine and I dog-sit Tasha on a regular basis. Sheila does not run and she is not the kind of person who would understand it if I ran by her without stopping (she is very much an English lady even after living in Canada longer than she did in Britain). She would not understand if I called out, "I'm 3/4 of the way through my tempo run ... I can't stop now!" It's just not in my nature to do this to her, either. People trump run schedules. So William Wallace and I stopped to say hello, chat and to gush over (me)/lick (Wallace) Tasha.
We chatted for awhile to catch up. It was so much in my heart to resume my tempo and go for the gusto for 10 more minutes, but my heart is not connected to my hip flexors. :( They had stiffened up in the time I was chatting, and it was quite clear that I could not resume my workout. Oh well! It was good while it lasted and I revel in the fact that I was doing better than my lowered bar when I was stopped. :) However, the rest of the run home felt long, as it often does when my planned workout is stopped mid-stream, but I took it very easy because of my tender hips.
I still don't really know what I did which created this tenderness in this area, but I think my body is needing another recovery week and I have a race taper week scheduled so this should do the trick. :)
16 km tomorrow - nice and slow and easy is on the agenda. :) Before I sign off, I want to share this link with you. One of the blogs I follow is called, Lazy Girl Running (she is running the London Marathon in a few weeks). I find her very funny and witty (I think Canadian humour tends to be more British than American in this respect). Let's just say that I had a good laugh about her post about body image and using the Red Riding Hood analogy ... I like her encouragement to be The Wolf! Amen, sister! :) While you are on her site, check out her tour of the 2012 Summer Olympics Marathon tour, too; it's very, very cool IMO. :)
GYM UPDATE
Kundalini Yoga last night was good as always, but I will say that that there were moves that I didn't enjoy as much as usual. There is usually a very sweaty and stinky kickboxing class ahead of yoga on Friday nights (I plan to join the sweaty, sticky people someday!), but their class was cancelled for the evening. I was dropped off early at the fitness club by Benny so I walked easily on a treadmill for 15 minutes so I could watch a bit of TV (not very good TV; the videos on Much Music are kind of crappy these days) until my yoga instructor showed up. She opened the room early to us and it was neat to see how most of us, casual and comfortable with each other, used this time for personal deep breathing and meditation. THIS is what I like so much about this class and the people who attend it. This is my kind of environment and camaraderie. :)
Tonight's class was about returning to the basics. I found it a bit challenging because of my hips; there was some discomfort for me as I did various poses and stretches, but I knew that this was doing what I needed it to do. Funny how we have to attend a class to do this because we won't do it on our own at home, eh? :)
It was sweet to end the class with both Judy and June asking after my mother. :) Judy was thrilled to hear that Mom enjoyed yoga and was looking for a class to join in Peterborough, and June happily passed on to me that she received pics by email of my cousin's new baby.
Did you know that I have been faithfully attending this class for almost as long as I have been running this year? Cool! :)
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