Uitwaaien, David Goggins and The Central Park Shorts Guy
Hello from chilly Florida! I know “chilly” is a relative term, but we’ll get to that in a minute. I’m linking up as usual with Kim and Deborah for this weekly rundown. It was a good week, ending with an awesome run! Let’s get started. Monday Keeping on my (for now) every-other-day running schedule, this was a Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday week. So I started this Monday with a power yoga class on the Peloton app with my buddy (he doesn’t know we’re buddies) Denis Morton. I had an exciting breakthrough where I finally, FINALLY was able to get my body rotated to do a proper half moon pose, which I had been struggling with for months. I followed this victorious yoga class with work on the pull-up bar. Notice I don’t say “I did pull-ups.” Still working up to that! I mostly hung from the bar and did sets of “pre-pull-ups” where you raise yourself a few inches only by retracting your scapula- you don’t bend your arms at all. This gets the correct muscles (lats) activated. Even this was tiring for me. Boy, am I weak. Not for long though! Tuesday A three mile run! Later in the day I did my “ten down” pushups workout. You do a set of ten, set of nine, set of eight, etc. One thing I came away with from Living With a Seal is that pushups can be done just about anywhere, anytime. No reason not to throw in a mini-workout while I made dinner. Wednesday One of my goals for this week was to do a new-to-me Peloton strength workout, so I did Jess Sims 30 Minute Glutes and Legs Strength. I liked it! So far I’m liking the regular strength classes better than the strength for runners classes. Followed this with a 30 minute yoga flow, because I had to practice those half moon poses! This was the David Bowie flow, but the real reason I chose it is the picture shows Denis in half moon. Thursday 4 mile run! Interestingly, My entire body was sore today. My legs were sore from the strength work and my neck was sore from… sleeping the wrong way? It was really bad, one of those situation where you have to turn your whole body in order to look sideways. Running was fine, but I didn’t do any other workouts this day. Friday Started the day with a 30 minute slow flow yoga class, chosen once again because the picture showed Denis in half moon. I also chose a slow flow in the hopes that it would help my neck. I’m not sure if it helped, but it definitely didn’t make it worse. I got out the pull-up bar again, and this time did some assisted pull-up with a band. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Why are pull-ups SO FRICKIN’ HARD??? Saturday We had been warned all week that a big cold front was coming our way, with temperatures down to the 40s this morning. No problemo! I got up early to get my run in before work. As I was getting ready I heard a strange… roaring sound? What in the world? I realized it was the wind, and checked the weather to find that we had this alert: I’m just imagining the thought process behind this- “These people won’t know what to do! We have to tell them about hats and gloves!” Well, 40s is already hat and glove weather for me. I hadn’t been counting on the wind though, so I doubled up on my top layer. Off I went! My first mile was AWESOME! I felt like I was flying effortlessly! Ha ha… the wind was directly at my back. Well, we all know how that goes. Let’s just say that I experienced some major uitwaaien and, for the record, David Goggins would have approved. I tried and failed to take a picture at the beginning of the run. It was so windy I couldn’t prop my phone up. Here’s the end though… So, (you may be thinking) if it was so cold, what’s up with the shorts? Well… I lived in New York City in the 90s. Boy, those were the good old days. There were literally races every single weekend, and I raced a lot. One winter I raced every other weekend (they weren’t that expensive, either) and no matter how cold it was, there would always be some guy wearing shorts. Some weeks I would think, “well, it’s twenty below. No way will anyone be wearing shorts TODAY!” But, yes- there was always someone. I’m not actually sure if it was the same guy or not- more likely it was a handful of guys who were doing it. But I always think of him as the Central Park Shorts Guy. When I first moved to Florida, I would wear tights on “chilly” running days until I realized- I hate wearing tights, and it really doesn’t get cold enough here to require it. So I’m carrying on a Florida version of the tradition and wearing shorts no matter what, a la Central Park Guy. This was a fun and invigorating five mile run, and I loved it! I saw one other runner out and I noticed he was dressed similar to me- long sleeves, hat and gloves, shorts, and he had a hydration vest so I figured he was doing a long run. As we passed each other he said “Beautiful day, huh?” “Yep!” Ah… I love runners. When I got home, my husband was just getting ready for his run… in shorts and T-shirt. He asked me about the weather and I told him it was cold. He said “Oh! Should I wear a hat?” Yes! And gloves. Sheesh- someone didn’t read the weather alert. Later in the day I did a 20 minute Peloton glutes and legs class with Jess Sims, and then my ten down pushups routine. Sunday It got down to 37 degrees overnight, and I stayed warm and snuggled in