Missing those Humidity-less Days!

Well, faithful readers, I have again been neglecting my blog, and my running! After the final ORC Summer Series 5k, I found it tough to get back into the swing of running, despite my best intentions. However, last Saturday, I woke up early, saw that it was only 70 degrees outside and felt that I NEEDED to run.

I gave myself the goal of 35 minutes, but it turned out that the humidity was pretty high that morning, which sapped all my endurance. I decided that rather than beat myself up for getting so tired during my runs lately that I have to include some walking breaks, I'd just admit that the summer's humidity was getting to me, and make the best of them. So I managed to get in 25 minutes of solid running, broken up with a total of ten minutes of walking breaks. Not too bad.

After that decent run, I felt motivated to get back into my three-day a week schedule. I decided that part of my problem was not getting to bed early enough, so I've been working (successfully) on making myself get into bed and trying to fall asleep before 11, to give me a solid 8 hours of sleep before a 7am run. However, it seems that my body has had other plans. Every night this week, starting with Sunday night, I've had a violent nightmare, scary enough to wake me out of a deep sleep. And since I'm such a great sleeper to start with, it then takes me anywhere from 30-60 minutes to fall back asleep, which has left me exhausted in the mornings. So I've been skipping the runs.

However, much to my own surprise, I haven't been sitting on the couch. Sunday morning, I took a nice thirty-minute swim at the condo pool (which sounds cool, but honestly, I can only do the breast stroke, and only with my head above the water. I'm so sporty.), and Monday and Wednesday, I took evening bike rides. Monday was my first time on a bike in about fifteen years - when I was a teenager, I rode my bike through what I thought was a small pile of sand. It turned out to be enough to turn my wheel and result in a crash - nothing like falling right onto sand and pavement. I haven't really been on a bike since, but my dad recently got new tires for my bike (which I honestly didn't still think we had) and my brother-in-law and sister dropped it off last weekend. So it was clearly time to get back on the bike.

I didn't want to put the bike in my shed, partly because I knew it would be a convenient place to just forget about it, and partly because my creepy neighbor was sitting outside at the time and I didn't want to deal with his interrogation and snarky remarks about my bike. So instead, I'm storing it right in my living room. I've found that's a good motivator. So Monday night, I took it easy, cruising around some of the side streets near my house and realizing that if you're going to live at the beach, you really should have a bike to ride. I would have ridden again Tuesday, but anyone who's been away from bike riding for an extended period of time, only to come back to it again, knows that it takes a WHILE to readjust and get comfortable.

Yesterday, after yet another nightmare ruined my plans for a morning run, I figured I'd give an evening run a shot. Until I saw that the temperature at 5:30 was 90 degrees. And it was still humid. While some people like to run in the humidity, it gives me an almost instant headache, so I decided instead to break out the bike again. This time, I pushed myself hard, putting the bike in a tougher gear than Monday's ride and pushing myself a bit so I could really feel the burn in my quads. When I run, I really feel the run more in my calves, so I think biking will be a good off-running day activity to really strengthen my legs. I rode about 5 miles in a half hour (I want to think that's pretty good, but I think some triathletes are doing between 25-30 an hour, so I feel a bit wimpy as usual). But I definitely felt as if I could have fallen right over by the time I got back home, so I was happy with the workout nonetheless.

This morning would have been a perfect morning for a run, because it was cool, low humidity and raining. But I again had a crazy nightmare that woke me up, and the sudden wake-up combined with the weather was a recipe for the perfect migraine. So instead of running, I took three Excedrin migraine, ate a yogurt to coat my stomach, put my eye mask back on and tried in vain to get comfortable or fall back asleep. So no running today, but some yoga might be in the cards for tonight! I'm hoping this weather sticks around for the morning, so that I can get a nice run in tomorrow!

I'm also looking forward to those humidity-less days that will hopefully come with September. I found a new plan on CoolRunning.com for doubling my mileage (for those 5k slowpokes like me), and once it cools off a bit, I plan to put it into effect. But meanwhile, I have to get my mileage back up for the Run for the Fallen run coming up in a couple of weeks - good thing we'll be breaking at each mile marker, though I still highly doubt I can keep up a 9:30 pace with those soldiers!