Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Caídas!

I learned a new word! I think it's Spanish (do you know, Jayne?) or maybe Portuguese?

Either way, Caídas! It means fall, as in tumble, in English and when you plunk it into the Google video search thingy, you find gems like this:











Am I a sadist for loving this sort of thing?

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Sexy ducks and lotsa ducks.

Seen during recent run/walks...

A pair of wood ducks. Gorgeous, eh?



And, how to pull birds:

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Sweaty Sunday: Mumbai Motivation

Last Sunday to Tuesday, I felt pretty gross. Wednesday's 'run' was not great but ok considering I had been ill. Thursday, I walked a million miles. Friday, I did some leg strength work (squats, lunges).

All good but Saturday's 'run' was my best since taking up this masochistic activity. I still alternated walking/running but I was impressed with my myself all the same! Eventually I'll string all these mini running segments into a steady, continuous actual run... and when I do? Neil Tasker has promised me that he'll send me a bag of Bombay Mix* when I can run a full mile without stopping!


How's that for motivation? mmmmmm.....

Anyways...

Here's where I'm at! The meat of Saturday's 'run' (excludes the warm up and cool down):
5 mins - walk
1 - run
3 - w
2 - r
3 - w
2 - r
2 - w
3 - r
2 - w
3 - r
2 - w
1 - r
2 - w
2 - r
1 - w
1 - r
2 - w
3 - r

40 minutes of sweat; 19 of it running.
No knee pain. (thumbs up!)
No pain or DOMS today (tomorrow's still a possibility though!).
It felt good and, most importantly, I enjoyed it!

One whole mile at once? Bring it on!!! (eventually...!)

*Punjabi Mix in Canadaland... imported from India by Indo-Canadians for Indo-Canadians, ie, it's very, very, very hot!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Sweaty Sunday: On a Tuesday

I keep forgetting to do my Sweaty Sunday posts on Sunday. So, Tuesday it is!

Warm up walkies - Ross Bay Cemetery, beautiful.

My knees have healed up nicely and while they did I focused on strengthening my quadraceps, walking, stretching and rest. It was frustrating but a good lesson in patience.

About two weeks ago, I started to run/walk again... very gently. I bought a stop watch and made sure I only ran for one minute (yeah, one single whole minute) at a time. A total of four minutes of running... but I just wanted to go very easy. All was well, no pain before, during or after. Great!

Stretching on the sea wall.

Between then and now, I've gradually upped the duration and frequency of the running segments of the 'runs' to this:

Warm-up walking/stretch.

Click 'go' on my stop watch.

walk 5 mins - brisk walking from here on in
run - 1 min
walk - 3
run - 2
walk - 3
run - 3
walk - 2
run - 3
walk - 2
run - 3

... and then cool down with 5 mins of slower walking.

I run from here to the top left bit of the bay...

and back and then through a bit of a neighbourhood.


This past Saturday's run, however was not very good. Actually I barely ran at all. Ok, I mostly walked. Ok, I strolled about 100 feet and turned around. I had zero umph. Then Sunday I felt all achey and spaced out. Then Monday, yesterday, ugh... upchuckitis. I must have caught what half the people in my art class had. I suffer for my art. (ha.ha.)

I feel better today but no energy to run, maybe tomorrow.

The photos are where I run... counter to Neil's advice to find some grass or chip trail. I don't listen very well but look at the view!



Can you blame me?!