So yesterday's overly ambitious plan to get up at Oh-five-thirty ("What does the "O" stand for? "oh my God, it's early"), and run, then go to work for a day full of meetings, and do lunchtime pilates, oddly enough fell on it's face. But that's ok. I crammed enough stuff in that even though I didn't hit it all, I still did 40 minutes of pilates at lunch. And then I got up this AM and took the dogs for their normal walk, dropped Fred off, and Ginger and I went for a run.
Today was more measured than Sunday's rather pathetic "blow the pipes out" kind of run. Blow the pipes out physically doesn't make any sense if you aren't already in a good spot for endurance. Mine looked like a race for a block, with insane slowing for the balance of the run, ending in a pathetic shamble while Ginger pulled her rather stupid owner along. But mentally, I love to RUN. I don't particularly love to jog. Sunday was all about "I need to run, even if it really is just a block." Hopefully in the longer term, that RUN will be for more than that.
But back to today. With my more measured stride, and Ginger pacing along besides me, I added probably another quarter mile-ish to my run. Downhill. Does that count? Definitely a better, saner run, and I actually didn't feel quite as horrible off the start. Instead of getting 2 steps into my run and the brain telling me how ridiculous this is, why am I doing this, your lungs are about to explode, blah, blah blah, well it must have been sound asleep today. Because I wasn't thinking anything except that Ginger is turning out to be a heck of a running partner. She's a completely different dog, more focused, running next to me, less interested in other distractions, when we run. I need my brain to be more like Ginger. And good heavens, that has never been said before. Except for the running next to me part. I don't want the brain to run next to me.
Thoughts on Pilates. They offer these classes at work at lunch time for free Which is sweet. The bad news is they're all done by one fitness person, and I think we have a "jack of all trades, master of none" scenario happening. I have no doubt she's good in the weight room, but she seems oddly lacking in an understanding of the theory behind some of the stuff she's teaching. I was floored when I attended her nutrition class, and she said she didn't know how vegetarians got protein. Wa-hhuuh?! So she flounders sometimes in weird ways. Pilates is taught off of a list of moves, and I don't think she's really teaching form that well. The end result is that this gets to be a "good enough" class instead of a good class. For free, I can't complain. And I can hang with my friend Anastasia, and I feel more of an impetus to go. Thursday's class is core/flex, and we'll see how that works. But I think if I want to do Pilates with any regularity, it may behoove me to pay for classes at the local studio now and again, so that I do learn form.
Mileage: 1.5 miles total, 0.75 miles running.
go you!! yeay! pilates and a morning run. way cool. Too bad the pilates is not as good as it could be, but like you said, it's free.
ReplyDeleteway cool you and Ginger are such a compatible running pair. Wag was perfect that way, for everyone, any pace. My mom says that too.
The downhill run definitely counts! downhill running can be harder on the quads, so you can call today your quad training day ;-) or your Boston qualifying practice run if you want to really impress people.
and one of these days your jog may be closer to your run pace, and you'll have exactly what you want! and I might have more than I expect as an 8-mile pacer at the end of a marathon :-)