Focusing And Refocusing: Views From An Evolving Life

Still Lagging ...

The physical fitness efforts continue to languish, partly because of continued injury and partly because I've been so busy with work and other stuff as detailed in my other blog.

Did run 2.5 miles a week ago without major incident, though the calf was feeling a little dodgey at the end. Then the next day it cramped up on its own, so I took a rest. And then went to DC for a few days and didn't run there. Had planned to run this weekend, but ended up working. (Excuses excuses. But also true.)

Will do the stationary bike tomorrow and then running class Tuesday night, at which point I hope everything starts to click again. Among other things, running class and Shelly are great for inspiration (aka a kick in the butt).  If only the legs hold up and don't come up with any more annoying and bizarre injuries.

And, the NYCC SIG starts in two weekends, not that I'm remotely in shape for that. But I can't wait!

Fun With Flash; Hurt Again

This weekend I took a two-day Flash for Journalists seminar sponsored by MediaBistro and I will discourse upon that at great length in  my other blog, where it belongs.

The relevant points here are 1) I had to get up at 5a today to get in a run before the class (and promptly got hurt; details below) and 2) apparently embedding a Flash file into a WordPress blog (where my other one is) requires contortions; in Typepad at least I can upload it, even sloppily. So, below is an absolutely random thing I did as my first Flash lesson. Things got better after that, but weren't uploadable.

As for running: I went and got hurt again. This time it was the right lower calf -- which had never been a problem before. And there really hadn't been any inkling that something was about to go horribly wrong with it. My lower back was a little tight throughout the run; that may or may not have been a factor. Then about 2 minutes before it gave out, the leg felt a tiny bit tight. But nothing, then, to be alarmed about. Then it seized up all at once. And I couldn't walk on it AT ALL.

It's improved a bit today, but not a whole lot. So again, no running for a period of time.

I believe I will try to ride Surly to work tomorrow, however. First time I'll be on a bike in ... I don't even remember how long.

Flash fun:

Download Lesson1

Blog or Jog?

Yes, I've been a bad blogger (again) but something's gotta give somewhere in trying to do a day job plus learn new stuff plus run plus do physical therapy for the running injury plus try to remember how to ride a bike ... it's all a balancing act. And I maintain that doing all of it semi-regularly is far better than nothing at all.

Continuing to rebound from the injury -- did 4.5 miles of non-speedy speedwork in the snow in the park Tuesday night; I figure that trying to stay upright on the ice was good for core strengthening, and I managed not to mess up the leg in the process.

Then 3 miles of intervals on the treadmill Thursday morning. That was fine with the leg, not so fine with the general state of exhaustion: Because I had to get up at 4:30a to leave home at 5:30a to get to work/gym by 6:45a to be stretched, treadmilled, re-stretched, showered and dressed by 8a, which put me already late ... and then to my first Final Cut Pro class at NYU from 6p-9:30p. And not home 'til 10:50p.

Over the weekend I need to run a 5-mile stretch, either before or after a Flash for Journalists seminar.

And I need to update the other blog, which has fallen massively behind.

As for the massive backlog on my desk ... well ...

A Race That Wasn't a Race, but Still a Victory

Today I ran four miles for the first time in a year, and they were four miles with hills, and the leg so far doesn't seem to be showing any severe ill effects.

All in all I should be really very happy about this -- especially considering that I hadn't run AT ALL for the 10-plus months until late December,  and then ran a small amount, and then got hurt and stopped again, and still was pretty tentative. And heretofore my small amounts of running had been entirely on the flats -- not because I didn't WANT to do hills, but because hills were part of what caused the problem to begin with and the PT folks wisely told me to avoid them.

But now, sensing substantially less pain, I decided to go ahead and try the NYRR's Gridiron Classic -- as a"fun run," of course, not "racing" a bit, since 1) racing was ill-advised with the leg and 2) I couldn't race if I tried.

So I did take it easy, as far as the leg was concerned. On the other hand, I found out just how out of shape I am: VERY. I wasn't racing, but I'm not convinced I could have pushed it any more. The whole thing was a bit odd: I didn't feel like I was pushing anything, other than the push it took to get through four miles. But even so, I sure felt like shit especially in the last mile. And the whole day afterward. I feel like I used to feel after a half-marathon. So: I wasn't pushing, and yet I couldn't have pushed much more. How could this be??

The thing started on 67th or so, meaning Cat Hill came right away, before a warmup. Ended before Tavern on the Green, last mile all downhill. Miles 1,2, 4 were all consistently 9:30. Mile  3, up the back hills, at 9:50-something. So, basically what used to be my training pace on a slow day. Resulting in a finish of 38:24 (I can hardly imagine such a slow time) or 9:36 pace, 55.8%  YIKES.

Still, I keep telling myself that it's GOOD that I can do training pace on a slow day for four miles after nearly a year of not running, and several months of not even cycling in an aerobic way.

Onward and upward.

I took a camera but was too cold and tired to deal with it ...