In an episode of Star Trek: the Original Series, the crew of the Enterprise encounters a planet in the Omicron Delta area of space upon which they take shore leave and discover that anything they can imagine is now coming true. Of course, this becomes a huge problem when their imaginations run amok and it takes Kirk and Spock no end of suspenseful machinations to right the situation. Fortunately, my recent days in Louisiana have not been nearly as dramatic.
I travelled to New Orleans with my husband last weekend to spend a few days actually relaxing (rather than checking on an ill parent or doing a snowshoe race like the previous two weekends). And a relaxing time it was — eating delicious food, enjoying music, sightseeing for a whole four days — with very little exercise. Here’s how it broke down:
February 9, Thursday
45 minutes of mixed intervals on the Dreadmill. After having spent most of January doing 30-45 minute workouts during the week (and mostly 30 minute running workouts), I feel like I need to make the move closer to the longer efforts that really make a difference in my fitness level. I used to say “nothing less than 3 miles” when it came to walking/running, but I’ve been consistently doing less than that since the beginning of the year. My main issue has been the morning darkness that prevents me from getting out of bed and feeling awake. But since that is slowly changing back to the daylight that seems to be my energy source, ít’s time to get moving faster and going longer. Having no particular plan today, I did a mixture of walking at 3.5 mph, jogging at 4.5 mph and running at 5.0 and did pyramid distances of 1/8 mile, 1/4 mile and then 1/2 mile and back down again. It was nice. Even though I hate the fucking treadmill, I felt good at the end.
Friday, February 10
3 miles easy running/walking outdoors. I originally had it on my schedule for Saturday, with today as a weights day, but after seeing the single-digit temps on the Weather Channel’s website, I did a switch. It was a little blustery and 32 outside but I warmed up quickly. I did the first mile walking at 4.0-4.2 mph, then alternating walking and easy running for another 2 miles, then a short cooldown walk to finish. I didn’t do much stretching at the end. I haven’t this whole week, and I know it is a bad bad thing not to stretch. I needed to get to work on time though, and something had to be sacrificed. My only two choices were stretching and breakast. And I don’t skip breakfast. 🙂
Saturday, February 11
A travel day. OFF, with no exercise.
Sunday, February 12
A nice, if cold, day in New Orleans. We walked around the Quarter for a while (slowly like tourists) then we went to a plantation. After we came back, I covered a couple more miles with my friend Mattea. Of course it was between bars, but I walked nonetheless.
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Monday, February 13
Warmer weather and more walking. Probably just 3 miles total. Yeah, I’m slacking.
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An OFF day to travel back home.
Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis.
Boldly running where I've never gone before 
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