Another quiet night staying safer at home, after a long and stressful day at work…and by at work I mean in my bedroom, working remotely. I work as a Mechanical Engineer, and my job started giving us the option to work remotely back in March, so that we could all stay safe as the situation surrounding the corona virus escalated. I have been with this company for nearly ten years now ( I started as an intern just after my 20th birthday), and I have to say their caution in this unprecedented time has made me feel really appreciated and valued as an employee, as both the company and my boss have gone out of their way to keep us employees safe – for me personally, as someone with asthma I had/have a lot of fear about this virus – I know how terrifying it can be when my asthma flares up and breathing, such a basic life need, starts to feel impossible, and the thought of suffering permanent lung damage as a result of this virus is enough for me to stay home.
As New York starts to reopen this June, they have a carefully planned re-opening schedule, with the gradual re-filling of our large office. The plan includes masks and temperature checks, so that they can continue working to keep us all safe and healthy.
Well, now that I have gone completely off topic from my usual running ramblings, I guess I can get around to the usual stuff – how training is going this week! I feel like I want to document how I feel surrounding this pandemic, and that was just where my mind went as I sat down to write this blog post.
Since last week I have continued to keep my training low key, since it is not quite time to begin formally marathon training just yet. I ran a total of three days last week – it was supposed to be four, but my Saturday run was only meant to be 20 minutes long, so I rolled it in with my Sunday miles.
I got in two days of “quality” runs last week – one tempo run and one day of speedwork, which is more than I have done since last summer, before my knee injury. Both felt great – difficult, but great, and got me excited to keep following the peloton marathon training program for the time being. I really like getting audio queues and guidance on when to push the pace, rather than having my watch beep at me to speed up (although that is a useful tool for sure!).
The week one training plan called for two thirty minute strength sessions as well, which I roped Dennis into completing with me. Neither was too difficult, but they did focus largely on mobility, which is something that I have been known to neglect in the past. After my last injury, I have been much more consistent about strength training at least.
Sunday’s “long” run was only meant to be four miles, so I paired it with the “fun run” audio that was meant to be Saturdays session. There isn’t any audio for the long runs, which I don’t mind. I am hoping that by the time they get really long I will be able to spend them with Dad biking along or my friends running with me, assuming things start to move back towards normal. I wound up finishing a total of 8 miles on Sunday, split into three workouts – first three miles on the road, with the “fun run” audio, then 4 miles on the treadmill, watching some Netflix. Dennis was getting miles in on the bike trainer, and when I hit 6 miles he had about 45 minutes left in his session, so I decided to complete a peloton boot camp with a focus on arms. That brought my total up to 8 miles, plus some arm exercises that left me sore!
Monday was memorial day, and it was a weird one. Instead of heading to a big party or beach picnic, we had a socially distanced bbq at my parents house, where my dad placed chairs at least 6 ft apart from everyone else for Den and I, and we wore masks when we were not eating – but it was nice to get to see my family at least. Work was closed for the day, so I took some of my free time to complete a peloton workout that I had seen online – the “tour de peloton,” where you take a series of classes put on by an instructor. I went with the “tour de Cody,” and queued up 95 minutes of classes to work through. It was hard at times, but overall I really enjoyed it, and felt great spending that much time on the bike. I already have the next one I want to do written out on the white board, just waiting for me.
When the weekend ended I headed back to my bedroom desk, a busy and stressful work day ahead of me – I had hoped to get my miles in before work, but woke up with a pounding headache as a result of a bad night’s sleep – my sleep schedule has taken a serious toll as a result of this pandemic, and I am feeling the itch to get back into my regular routine. While I don’t need to be getting up at 6 am to run before work, I miss the structure of my days, and I miss my morning runs. I had intended to get in a tempo run, but my body was just not feeling it – and that is the glory of not really being on a training schedule yet – I did not do the run. Instead I took a fat nap after work, ate a burrito, and took some down time.
Sometimes you run all the miles, and other times you let your body rest.
I’ll get after those miles tomorrow, and pair them with a strength for runners training session. a