supercheesegirl

This morning's jog was awesome! The temperature was around 47 degrees! It was all misty out. Compared to the past couple of weeks, the weather this morning was beautiful. F came out with me since it wasn't too cold. He mostly walked and jogged a little, while I kept my usual steady pace. For the first half of the jog, I was able to carry on a normal conversation, which is an exciting new thing--usually I'm too out of breath. F was impressed.

I kind of can't believe I'm still doing this. It's cold out there. The first few blocks of the jog are just total misery. I run like someone's chasing me, and that someone is Cold. Once I get going, it's not so bad, which is why I'm still doing it. I really need better layers, though. Today F lent me his shirt that's supposed to wick away moisture, but it's short sleeved. I had a thermal over that and my fleece over that, but I think I need something more. I was definitely freezing out there. For pants today I wore my running stretch pants (which I've owned for years, although this is the first athletic action they've seen, since I usually wear them under a skirt instead of tights) and my fleece-lined wind pants. It was a little too much, but better than not enough.

Had a good jog this morning. Need to scout a new route, as the current route is no longer long enough at my current pace--I needed to go around two blocks because I had more time left on the playlist when I was almost home this morning.

Yesterday morning I left for work early because I thought the transit strike was still on, so I didn't get to do yoga in the morning. I also didn't have much time to do it last night, but I managed to cram in half an hour. It was really nice. I'm continually surprised by how much stronger I am now than I was before I began my morning exercise program. I can hold a plank really reliably. My thighs are solid. It's pretty great.

This morning, with the strike over, I was able to get back to my Tuesday jog! I listened to a new playlist today, all songs from VNV Nation's album Empires. I have to say, it's kind of corny, but I still think "Kingdom" is one of my favorite songs. Anyway, I hadn't jogged with this playlist before, and so when I took my usual route and got home and there was a whole other five-minute song left to go, I was kind of surprised. I was only out for about 23-25 minutes, rather than 30 minutes like I'd planned. I went past both parks and everything, and I thought I'd been going pretty slow. Apparently I need to add another loop to the route.

It was a nice warm morning, but I underestimated "50 degrees"--I need something a little warmer than an Old Navy long-sleeved t-shirt, at least when I start out. But I was fine in regular cotton pants and no earmuffs. I suspect that next week I'll be back to the fleece-lined wind pants again. Today's weather was a nice respite.

If this is jogging week 9, and I missed one week being sick, that means I've now been doing the morning program for 10 weeks. 10 weeks! I hope the weather stays nice enough that I can keep going with the jogging for a while longer. However, just yesterday I was able to get my College ID card as F's domestic partner, so now I can use the campus gym--it'll require a little extra time if I'm going to go there in the morning, but it's still a good option.

There are still leaves everywhere. It still feels odd to be jogging after sunrise. Also, I saw a grey and white cat.

Made it out for a jog this morning! I missed last week because I had the flu. Today the weather was beautiful. In the past two weeks since my last jog, the leaves have been falling like crazy, and were all over the roads and sidewalks, so I had to be careful where I stepped. Because of daylight savings, the sun was already up, which I'm not used to, but it was nice. The only problem I had was that my shoe came untied towards the end of the jog, and having to stop and tie it again kind of broke my rhythm and I got a stitch in my side a block later and had to walk it out. Otherwise, really nice to be outdoors and moving!

I've been out of commission the past few days with a mild case of the flu, so my morning workout schedule is all out of whack. Monday was the worst day and I mostly just slept. Tuesday (yesterday), I did some jammie yoga (20-25 min) because I knew I was feeling better but couldn't quite tell how much better. After yoga, it was clear: not better enough. I called out sick again and went back to bed for a few more hours, and by the end of a day of resting, was feeling significantly better enough to walk to the post office and do laundry.

Today I did jammie yoga again (20-25 min), partly to test and make sure I was feeling as better as I thought I was, and partly just to make sure I didn't overdo it.

Now I am feeling much better, even occasionally approaching feeling great, where "great" means, roughly, "I'd really love to go jogging right now!" So that's a good thing. Going to try not to push too much, though, and will be putting off jogging till at least the weekend, probably waiting until my regularly-scheduled Tuesday morning. One good thing is that it was raining nastily here yesterday so at least I avoided jogging in the rain. Hooray for flu symptoms?

Did an hour of yoga yesterday! It was wonderful. It had been a few days, so it felt really good to stretch. I did the more strenuous things that I don't usually get a chance to do. It was awesome to do a headstand. A really excellent practice.

Today F accompanied me on jogwalk week 7. F checked the temperature before we went out and it was only 38 degrees. Once we got moving, though, it wasn't too bad. We went farther than we'd gone before, and so we were out a little late--probably close to 35 minutes. I was really tired by the time we got back, but I had also been worried about time and I think I was pushing myself to go faster so we could get back, and thus tired myself out.

Now I am very sore!

Yesterday morning I did 30-35 minutes of yoga. It was pretty standard, I think. First yoga practice in a while without a wrist brace. I can do upward dog if I warm up with a few sun salutations doing cobra first, but definitely can't do crow yet without a brace.

I was up a little early and so had time to do a little extra, so I listened to the slightly longer Anoushka Shankar playlist. I need to switch the order of the last two songs (a song called "Suspicious Grains", or suspicious anything really, should not be a song to meditate to), but otherwise it was fine.

Today was week 6 of morning jogwalking! F decided to come with me. I was proud of myself: I didn't push myself too hard to go faster for him. I kept my own good pace, which is the pace that over the past few weeks I learned I can keep up for a full 30 minutes. My pace is slow, which works for me. F is capable of going much faster, and before when we jogged together I felt bad that he had to hold himself back for me and so I tried to go faster too, which wasn't good for me. Today, I went at my speed. For F, that meant that he had a really uneven workout--he'd jog with short little steps beside me for a while, then jog up ahead, then wait for me and walk beside me, then run ahead again. That must have been frustrating. If F comes with me again he might just powerwalk next to me while I jog. I guess we aren't really compatible as jogging buddies, but F thinks it's boring to jog alone, and wouldn't do it in the morning on his own anyway, so going with me is probably better than not going at all (although he is getting back to going to the gym after work, which for him is better than jogging). F also says he is impressed by me continuing to get up and do this. For my part, I actually like being out and about first thing in the morning, seeing people with their dogs, kids catching the bus, the neighborhood waking up, and I'm happy to go on my own or with F. I plan to continue the jogwalking until the weather makes it so I can't. Maybe then I'll add in another morning yoga practice or something.

Last night was my third dance class. There were at least three occasions when I wanted to cry and stomp out and never come back because my body just can't DO this stuff. But I reminded myself that I am a grownup, and I don't have to be perfect at everything all the time, and I am just learning, and learning something new is fun. And I did improve some, and there are some things we do in class that I do very well. Also, there are other women in the class who are way more awkward than I am and who are just as obviously having a great time and just enjoying themselves. So, I will proceed patiently and gently and with kindness. Or I'll give that a shot anyway.

This morning I invented a new kind of yoga! It's called "Jammie Yoga". It's what happens when you're totally zonked and don't want to get out of bed early to do yoga! I made a deal with my body that if I got up, I would be allowed to do only gentle poses and wouldn't have to put on real clothes. It was an excellent solution. I wore my jammies and did some cat and dog tilt, and then did a series of seated forward bends and twists, nothing strenuous at all. I am considering having Jammie Yoga every Friday. I really don't do the seated poses often enough, and it was nice to do yoga and not have to worry about strength. Also, Friday morning yoga is only 10 hours after Thursday night dance class, and I don't really want to be doing strenuous stuff back to back like that. So Jammie Yoga on Fridays seems like a perfect solution!

Friday night, F's sister Meg and her boyfriend Nick were in town to visit. We went all over downtown--F parked in the lot underneath Love Park (which I didn't even know existed), and we walked all the way up to the Art Museum, did the steps, walked back down, tried to eat dinner at a few different restaurants that F had researched but everyone else apparently had the same idea, so instead we ate at Fado, an Irish bar, which was totally fine and tasty. Then we walked down to 13th to go to Apothecary, a bar F had found online, which had really creative and interesting cocktails. Meg is a bartender, so she particularly likes creative and interesting cocktails. Then Meg and I got gelato from Capogiro, which is the best ever. I had the vietnamese cinnamon and the dark chocolate, and it was awesome. Then we walked back to the car, but by the time we got there Nick wanted another drink and Meg and I really needed to use a bathroom, so we stopped in at Tir Na Nog briefly, then got the car and headed home. It was a good night, but a lot of walking, especially when I'd just had dance class the night before. My legs and feet hurt a lot by the end of the night. Google pedometer tells me we walked around 4.5 miles.

Saturday F and I made scrambled eggs and homefries for breakfast. We walked around campus for a couple of hours, then F's parents arrived like a whirlwind and suddenly our apartment was full of chairs, baskets, and huge potted plants. We all got dressed and went to F's cousin's wedding, which was lovely. After the reception we stopped to get eggs and milk for Sunday's breakfast, and we also got a pizza, and ate it while having a few more drinks and watching CSI. Bed around 1 AM.

Sunday, Meg wasn't feeling so hot. I made us banana pancakes for breakfast, and next time I have to remember that I can put the bananas directly in the blender with the pancake batter! This time I just dropped banana slices onto the cooking pancake on the griddle, which worked fine and was tasty, but blending the bananas right into the batter might be much more effective. Need to remember that for next time.

We took Meg and Nick to the airport and dropped them off at 2:00, then drove over to my old stomping grounds, Chestnut Hill, to meet Molly and her friends Adrienne and Fred for drinks and appetizers at Solaris and eventually dinner at Earth and Bread, one of our very favorite restaurants. Molly was just in town for the night, but Adrienne and Fred live in Mt. Airy, and we liked them a lot and hope we can hang out with them again sometime soon.

We got home at 7:30ish and were pretty much zonked, but we managed to clean up a bit from the family explosion weekend and then watch an episode of Firefly. Only one more episode to go to finish the series.

I did not do any yoga in the hecticness of this weekend, but Friday was a double workout day (with yoga in the morning and all that walking at night), and Saturday we did take that nice walk on campus, so I don't feel like I slacked. I do, however, need to climb right back on the workout horse, because I ate decidedly non-healthy things all weekend long and also drank a lot, way more than usual.

This morning I got up early enough to do 30-35 minutes of yoga, which was a very good thing. Not enough time for all the yoga I wanted to do, though. Tomorrow will be a jogwalking morning, and then Wednesday I think I might try to get up extra early and do a full hour of yoga. We'll see if that happens.