A few have commented on my lack of running updates. Well, last week was kind of a slacker week for running. It was feeling unusually difficult and tiring and I skipped a run and wussed out on the full time another. On Sunday (after procrastinating all day) I decided to go back in the Couch to 5K program and do an older run based on distance, which went well, and involved sprinting up the Lake Park Bistro stairs at the end of the second interval!

And then this week I started doing a few of the 20 min fitness solution workouts, which do incorporate a run each weekend. But they also incoporate more pushups and pullups and squats! Yesterday's workout was overhead bodyweight squats and sprints (well, at the end they were more of fast jog than a sprint). I used my old bokken for the overhead squats so got to walk down the street in exercise gear carrying a wooden sword. Uwe came out to keep me company and play with his camera. Now my thighs don't want to let me go down stairs.

ETA: I can hardly walk...

I did it. Twenty solid minutes, not a single step of walking. Wow. 40 days ago I couldn't even run for two minutes. I realize now that I didn't actually know how to jog back then, though.

The first ten or so minutes were fine. I started to feel it around 13 minutes, checked the timer for the first time, then sprinted ten or so steps to keep myself going. I started getting a stitch around 16 minutes. Slowed down, breathing in on one step and out on the next, slow-motion jogging through it. Then I sprinted across a road and got back into more of a regular jog.

I'm still pretty slow. I didn't make a full 2 miles in the twenty minutes. I kept going for another minute or so, though. Then I stopped and rested my hands on my knees and let my face burst into flames for a while.

Now that I know I can do that much volume, I'm going to start pushing for speed a little more. I've been holding back a little, afraid I won't be able to make the whole distance if I spend any extra energy. But I've been able to break into a sprint in the last 10-20 seconds of each, and it feels oddly good to run while tired. Like I'm forced into efficient smoothness, too tired to micromanage my movement.

Plus after next week the Couch to 5K instructions are all "Run 25 minutes. Run 25 minutes. Run 25 minutes. Ok, now run 28 minutes. Run 28 minutes again..." I'm going to have to start paying attention to speed otherwise I'm gonna get bored out of my skull.

I'll run for 20 straight minutes on May 31st.

I'm thinking of starting a Thesis in 90 Days Challenge on June 1, as la novel_in_90. Writing 750 words a day. I may need to work up to this with some sort of write/goof-off interval training plan. Couch to Thesis? I don't know if 750 words is the best metric, either. Three full latex-formatted pages a day. With images? Publication-quality images, with stored data and generation scripts.

My first wedding anniversary is June 3.

I am accomplishing life tasks!

1) Jogging from the Couch to 5k plan is no longer on a weekly pattern, but mysteriously changing each run! And, midweek, I am scheduled to jog twenty minutes without stopping. O_O

2) Our community supported agriculture boxes started last week. This week's haul is spinach, lettuce, kale, asparagus, rhubarb, salad turnips, cilantro, and green garlic. The newsletter points out that this early in Wisconsin's growing season, so everything is the first developed parts of plants.

I don't exactly know why I find this so thrilling, but I am absolutely entranced by the seasonal availability of produce. I'm eating the first shoots of spring! This is what comes up in May! Wow! Shoots and leaves!

We had enormous salads yesterday for lunch. They were awesome. Salad turnips are tasty! And we ate the greens, too.

The newsletter also talked about how to grow things this early, they have to be ready at a couple forecasts' notice to go out and haul row cover over some of the more delicate seedlings, to protect them from frosts. And how they could tell afterwards that the cover was needed from the black spots of frost damage, even though the recorded temps didn't dip that low. Also thrilling!

I've been thinking a bit about starting jogging, and how it relates to some other things going on in my life.

I have had some habitual self-classifications: I'm the messy one. I procrastinate. I slack off, and do everything in bursts at the last minute. Of course, being Smart, I can pull this off**. And also, I hate cardio (except for rowing) and I particularly suck at jogging.

I'm wondering if learning how to jog is some sort of physical expression of also trying to learn productivity skills at work. It's the same shift from bursty ability to sustained activity, the same shift in learning a skill that challenges something I once thought was a pretty fundamental property of myself. If I can jog for thirty straight minutes, I can maintain a steady flow of productivity at work. I can change my picture of myself.

I always felt, when I started the intervals of jogging, that I was barely going faster than my rest periods of walking. One of the most amazing things about the increase in jog-to-walk ratio on run 10 was the confirmation that I actually am going faster when I jog. And I've had to jog slower, to keep it going for that long. But it is still faster than walking. And it's faster than walking with bursts of speedier jogging. I slow down, I can sustain the pace, and I go further in the same amount of time.

The increase in interval seems as much learning how to pare down my movement to the minimum that keeps the jog going as an increase in physical power.

I have a feeling that these are lessons I need to learn with work as well. Sustainable, consistent, productivity. The elusive skill that will help me make physics an actual career balanceable with the rest of my life.

I may just be telling myself this because the run this morning, with less of a thrill from rounding the top of the park half way through, was really hard. I actually stopped jogging for a few steps, in the last five minute period. That is my first plan-departure since day one. And it was really really hard to start back jogging again after only a few steps. And my face was red for a half hour afterwards and I was exhausted. So this better damn well be worth it, eh?

** complete with fears of actually needing to put work in negating said smartness a la all those praise the process articles about kids learning some time ago

Today, in a fit of spring, I wore capri-length low-rise jeans and a shortish t-shirt. The combination leaves an inch or two of exposed hip. I realized this afternoon that the overall effect is that I got dressed this morning, left the house, and then suddenly grew two feet.

I used my new jogging super powers (as honed yesterday morning in my ninth (ninth!) jog) to catch up with a group of people for lunch. I paused to talk to John and then sprinted to catch up.

Week four of jogging begins this Saturday. I will be moving to 2:1 jog to walk ratio, and up to five minute jogging segments. Note to self: remember the painfully slow jog? DO THAT.

Week 3, Day 2: I decided to go jogging in the morning today, as an experiment. It went well! I didn't get dizzy or pass out, which I've had trouble with for morning exercise in the past. I drank my milk and coffee, two glasses of water, and had a banana and a rye cracker before I went out.

It's interesting how the soreness has moved around. First it was shins and inner thighs, then calves, then knees, and now I think quadriceps and ribcage, actually. Although I may be conflating the ribcage with back soreness from playing around on the pullup bar.

Three minute segments. Wow. I can jog for three minutes!

It feels a bit like the runs are getting shorter. There are only four running intervals this week, compared to six last week and eight the first week. So in one sense it feels like I'm doing less. But also, the three minute run is long enough to actually start thinking as I run, if that makes sense. I'm not focused on the interval pattern so much.

I'm enjoying running without music or anything. It's kind of meditative.

Also, there was a group of people doing strongman training in the park where I start my run. That was cool! They had a sled, sandbags, a big concrete sphere, and farmer's walk handles. It looked fun. Perhaps for my next project? :)

Pushed myself a little hard, again. My knees were a little sore after Monday, so it was probably for the best that I procrastinated the jog until today. It's kind of amazing how easy it is to break into a run at the start of each interval. The two minute walks are feeling longer. Next week is 90s run 90s walk alternating with 3m run 3m walk. Three whole minutes in a row! That's double this week's runtimes. Exciting!