Interesting run today. My normal route was closed off because the city did not plow the sidewalk around the park; so I just haphazardly ran through a couple of neighborhoods near my house. Did three laps around Mitchel Middle School, where I attended 6th through 8th grade, and past the church where I was baptized at. Overall, very quiet and pleasant, and challenging, given that I had to jump over small piles of snow and run out into the street and back around sections of sidewalks that have not been shoveled. I'm not sure how far I ran, but I did run for 45 minutes. I only stopped a couple of times to wait for traffic (apparently those pesky stop signs are just too much for some drivers), once to hock a lugie, and once to turn on my blinking light because it got dark. For the purposes of my shoe log, I am going to enter four miles.
My right quads have been tight for the last couple of days, causing me some knee pain, so I made extra sure they were loosened up before the run. They have been tight ever since spending six hours shoveling the 22 inch snowfall on Wednesday. When I was finished running, I did some more stretching on the quads. As of one hour after the run, the quads are still tight - so I might schedule an appointment with the massage therapist at the gym this week.
It felt good to get back to running - I've been getting kind of cranky over the last few days, since not being able to run since Monday (five days ago). Although I will say that all that shoveling was a good upper body workout, and a low intensity, fat burning exercise. I am glad that I have been exercising lately; I would have given up half way through if I was in the shape I was in last year!
The temp was 28 degrees, wind chill 22, so I wore my polyester ear warmer and running cap, long sleeve shirt, running jacket, shorts, exercise pants, cotton socks. I had my standard protein shake after the run.
The next paragraph may fall into the TMI category: Again, this is a blog primarily to keep notes about my training - so don't say you weren't warned! And yes, figuring out what clothing to wear is part of training, including your underwear!
I tried the Jockey sport brief in XL size today for the second time. It seems to fit well. It's a little loose around the waist, but the large size is too tight around my legs and my... well... you know.... Unfortunately for me, the only company that makes polyester briefs is Jockey, so the XL size seems to be what I will settle on. I will go back to the large size for one more run, just to be sure.
