Happy Valentine’s Day! Last year Jose and I had just started dating; this year it’s been, well, more than a year. Even though I’m not single anymore, I must admit that Valentine’s Day still doesn’t really do anything for me. Bini asked me what our plans were for tonight, and I answered “I dunno. Dinner?”
Last year we went to a Vietnamese noodle place; very very casual. This year we may actually go there again — which is funny because I’ve only found one dish on the menu that I like. And their spring rolls (and peanut sauce) aren’t as good as the ones at Thai Cottage. But we’ll probably go there again, for “tradition” if not because it’ll be one of the few restaurants that isn’t packed with people who made reservations ages ago. Anyway. I don’t really care what we do as long as we do it together. Awwwwwww.
Anyway, time for the recent workout summary.
On Monday I swam 1500 yards at the rec center pool. My schedule called for 1250 with the bulk of the workout being a straight 800 yards, but I felt good so I turned that into a round 1000 yards and then added an extra 50 to my bilateral breathing practice (aka my cooldown). I did all that in about 31 minutes. I’m either just plain faster and in better shape, or the pool is short. I don’t remember being able to swim 50 meters in 1:00 consistently before, and certainly not while maintaining a relatively calm breathing rhythm of every 4 strokes. So I dunno what’s going on.
Yesterday I ran after class — on the treadmill, because at 7:00 it was still freaking windy and therefore pretty chilly outside, not to mention dark. (But I could see hints of the sunset still. Can’t wait for daylight savings time!) I was pretty worried about this run, actually, since it had been a full 9 days since my last run. Sure, 3 of those days involved biking and 2 involved swimming — but 4 in a row involved sitting on my butt being sick. Thankfully the schedule only called for 3 miles. I’m sure that low number was included with the thought that I would have run a half marathon three days before, but psssh. 3 miles it was.
I got on the treadmill and decided to start off at my standard treadmill warmup pace — 5 miles per hour, or 12:00 miles. I felt good. I had a couple twinges in my left knee, the body part that suffered the most bruising as a result of Sunday’s bike crash, but everything else felt pretty smooth. After a mile, I upped the treadmill to 5.2 mph (11:32 pace). Not much of a difference. Still felt good. After one more mile, I upped the ‘mill to 5.5 mph or 10:54 pace and to my surprise, I still felt pretty comfortable! I even added an extra half mile to the end of the run — total of 3.5 miles in a couple seconds under 40:00. I was very happy to find that my running fitness didn’t lose anything from my unplanned break.
I got new running skirts in the mail on Monday, the ones I ordered in exchange for sending them three old pairs of running shorts. The “Convert to Skirt” program gives you 45% off if you send in shorts, and I figured I’d take advantage of that sizeable discount and order the maximum number allowed — three. The black ones were not eligible, so I got a brown skirt, blue skirt, and pink skirt.
Here’s the weird part — they are all the same skirt style (GymGirl) and same size (XL), but the pink one is definitely bigger than the other two. Actually, the pink one is the one that fits best; the other two are perfectly comfortable to wear, but when I look in the mirror it looks a little tight because the stretchy fabric pulls a bit. Jose said he could see what I’m talking about but wouldn’t normally notice it, so I’m probably being way too self-critical. But isn’t it weird that one fits differently?
I took the pink one to the gym last night, but at the last minute I got all self-conscious about how pink it is (very pink) and wore my dull black shorts instead. I know, I’m dumb sometimes.