Weekly Rundown- Gratitude Edition
You know how sometimes, you know you should be practicing gratitude but you’re secretly seething over the injustices of life? Well, last week I managed to truly be grateful and stop seething. Maybe it was because I was feeling sentimental over my son’s graduation, an event that shook up my world a little. Anyway, I’m linking up with Kim and Deborah for this weekly rundown- here’s how the week went! Monday Always a day off. Tuesday Ah. Since I thought my hip was feeling better I did a thirty minute walk and threw in a couple minutes of running, just to check it out. Ouch. It was apparent that my hip wasn’t well enough to run. I didn’t have much time to dwell on it though. I came home, did a quick core workout, and got ready for graduation day. Wednesday Back to the pool for a 45 minute “run.” Thursday Here’s where I had a revelation- I’m actually kind of enjoying pool running. I don’t love it, the way I love running (I mean, I’m not insane) but it’s not so bad. This was my strength day, and I wished that I could do a pool run instead. I had another revelation, which was that some of my strength work was stressing my hip. Actually most of the things I was doing- squats, deadlifts, anything where I balance on one leg, and also planks and pushups. I’m calling this a “hip” issue, but where it actually hurts is in the front of my leg, around the hip flexors. So pushups and planks were putting too much pressure on the area. Friday Back to the pool, hooray! I have all sorts of workouts now- I called this one a tempo “run.” Also on Friday I made the decision to fire my doctor (the one who said this hip issue was nothing serious) and I called a new one, someone who was recommended by another runner. I made an appointment for next Tuesday, and felt like the problem was practically solved already. Saturday For something completely different, I did a 45 minute pool run. Ha ha. For this one, after a warmup, I did a workout of one lap (a circle around the deep end of my pool) sprinting, followed by one lap slightly slower, reducing the speed by a bit but still fast, then repeated that five times, followed by one recovery lap, and repeated that sequence four times. It sounds tedious, but actually made the time pass quickly. Sunday Long run day! In the pool, of course. I “ran” for 90 minutes, and really mixed it up speed-wise. I found a new gear I never knew I had in the pool, an all-out sprint that really got my heart hammering. I listened to a podcast for the first hour, then put on music for the last thirty minutes- kind of like I do for a regular long run. This was the best pool workout I’ve ever had! All week long I’ve been thinking about how frickin lucky I am to have a pool. Seriously, I don’t know what I’d be doing right now if I didn’t have it. It’s pretty common to have a pool in Florida, but if you take all the runners in the world, the percentage of them who can strap on a flotation belt and step into the pool in their backyard is pretty low. No complaints here. Anything special you’re feeling grateful for this week?