Drowned Rat

Boy do I feel hardcore. I was lifting weights by 5:15, and at 5:45 Housemate and I set off for a five mile walk. I dressed thinking it was drizzling negligibly, but in fact it was just plain old rain, and not so negligible. And windy, so going over the bridge we had that nice stinging rain in the face sensation. It became impossible to avoid puddles by about mile 3, where it didn't much matter anymore because my feet were already squishy. We did fartleks -- all out racewalking for the distance from one lamppost to the next, then back to a moderate pace, then fast again. We started to flag at about mile 4 and so did some intervals of skipping. Skipping is always fun, and you can't help but grin when you're sailing up and down, but it still works your calves and shins. So we did a length of superwoman walking, then we'd break into a skip for another lamppost length, and then we'd walk a resting length. My legs were feeling it by the time we turned down the road to home. And I'm soaking wet -- pruny fingers and toes and sodden everywhere else.

The half-marathon is this weekend. There's no particular anticipation about the thing, because the distance isn't a particular stretch, but I think it will be cool to participate in a real organized event, with other participants and a start and finish and water stations and all that. I missed out in Arizona on that part of the experience, and I think it'll be kind of fun.

We talked a bit about what we want to train for after this. The Portland Marathon is in October, but we agreed we didn't want to walk that. Training walks of more than three hours get cumbersome in the summertime -- there's too much else going on to want to go out on a weekend and walk eighteen or twenty miles on a gorgeous September day when you could be sailing. Housemate suggested that we consider running the Portland half-marathon. That's ambitious -- I've not run more than five miles before, and not that recently. We've agreed that the walking time is good for our friendship -- although we live together, our orbits are often pretty different, so we want to keep our Tuesday, Thursday and Friday morning exercise dates. We talked about doing a walk with intervals, like today, once a week, an outdoor swim (come June, when the outdoor pool opens) once a week, and begin running once a week, ramping up slowly. Maybe bike riding until the pool opens. We're going to look at a training schedule for running the half-marathon. Housemate has knee problems, so we'll need to be careful. I have no excuse for being cautious about running, except that I've never really taken to it. Yet.

[UPDATE: I forgot until I got to work and reviewed my email that I'd promised one of the H.O.T. girls that I would run with her after work. Well, "run" is an overstatement -- we did three and a half miles of running for a half-mile, then walking for a quarter-mile. But still, I'm feeling like the queen of exercise. It feels good.]

Comments

[pjm]

My brother is planning on running the marathon. I think this is ambitious of him, but I'm being supportive; I did his thing last winter, so he's doing my thing this fall.

I think he's using a Hal Higdon schedule from Runner's World. See http://www.runnersworld.com/halfmarathon/ and click "Training." I tend to trust Hal about these things.