Date: 2/4/21
Training Day: 13
Miles: 2
Time: 24 min?
Shoes: Altra Paradigm 5
Weather: N/A (indoors on a treadmill)
Strength Training: Upper body

How It Felt: Even though my legs were already sore this morning, my felt alright. The last half mile of the treadmill “course”* had a 3-4% incline, and I was feeling strong. But I didn’t get to finish strong (see commentary). The upper body workout whooped me, and I think there’s more to it than just a hard workout (also see commentary).

Commentary: When I run a “course” on the treadmill I typically hide the stats so I don’t focus on far I’ve ran and instead enjoy the fake scenery. Each stage of a course is just under half a mile. I was in the fourth stage of my run and feeling strong. I wanted to see how far I’d gone because I planned to slow my pace before the end to start my cooldown a wee early. I pressed the arrow to display the stats and…

The fucking treadmill spazzed out. The screen went upside down, then it went black. Apparently the needed to update itself, so it did that while I cursed at it and flipped it off. That’s not the only piece of technology to fuck with me today.

After my run I did some stretching. I noticed my right hip was a weird kind of tight. Usually if I foam roll my IT band, the weirdness goes away. When I foam roll I set a timer on my Fitbit for 30 seconds. The timer worked fine for the first couple times, then it froze up on and wouldn’t let me do anything with the touchscreen. Again, there was much cursing. But instead of flipping off my Fitbit, I took it off and beat it on the yoga mat. The mechanical agitation did not help, but it started working again on its own a few minutes later.

But wait! There’s more!

It wasn’t another piece of technology that fucked with me. It was myself. Kind of. This past week I’ve been stressed out, and these past few days have been even more stressful. When I’m stressed like this I lose my appetite. Not eating enough while running and doing hard strength training is not good. I lost two pounds in two days. Some might say it’s water weight that I lost, but I’m not so sure because I drank a gallon of water yesterday.

Anyway, I think that’s why my leg workout yesterday and my workout today were so difficult. I’m not fueling body. This morning I forced myself to eat a bowl of oatmeal after my protein shake. My personal trainer also suggested I take Fridays completely off (no strength workout) to give my body more time to recover until I’m feeling better. I like his idea.

* “course” – Treadmill takes me along a trail or path, showing me the scenery while automatically adjusting the incline.

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