Skiing with the Boys

First, I did some more push ups last night. It was the Week 5 Day 3 section of the plan, and I did OK, all things considered. I must admit that doing the push ups, even though I haven't accomplished the 100 consecutive thing just yet, has been gratifying and has kept me sane while I wait for the foot to let me run again. I will also have to get back on the chin ups workouts too since those were going well before getting sick derailed me for a while. Anyway, the sets went 20-20-24-24-20-20-22 and then I maxed out at 72 for a total of 222 push ups. It was hard, but it was also late into the evening and I was getting things ready for our planned cross-country skiing trip...

That happened today. We left at 7:45am with my Mom joining us in the caravan. Owen and Malcolm are both signed up for lessons that go every Saturday morning for eight weeks, and today was the first day. Hardwood Hills is a bit of a drive away (1.5 hours in total), but it is totally worth it. The trails are awesome!

We had a great time! Owen loved his 2-hour lesson and at the end had the rosiest cheeks I've ever seen. I assisted Malcolm in his lesson and he had a lot of fun, even if he didn't actually learn a heck of a lot. While the boys and I were occupied with lessons, Monica and my Mom went off on their own and put in a solid hour and a half of skiing.

After lunch it was my turn and I was really looking forward to a good (impact free) workout. I picked an 8km trail and was off. The Garmin showed that I am an awfully slow skier, but the heart rate jumped right up to the 150s so I knew I was giving my heart a decent workout for the first time since November. The 8k took me almost 50 minutes to complete and I was totally overheated by the end of this one.

Since Monica and Owen were still not back from their run, and my Mom was hanging out with Malks, I decided to get rid of one layer and hit the trails again hoping to catch up with M&O. This time I picked the shortest trail (5k) and was trying to go faster. The Garmin once again indicated that I am slow as molasses, but the heart rate proved that it indeed was a workout. I completed the 5k route in about 32 minutes and was drenched with sweat. Within about two minutes of finishing, while standing outside with the rest of the family (who had congregated outside by now) I was totally frozen and decided to head in and call it a day. All told it was a great experience and I look forward to the next 7 Saturdays! It was also great to pull the Garmin out of storage and make sure it was still working OK...

The foot feels OK after the skiing, at least better than I thought it would, but I'm sure that I'll feel all sorts of aches and pains in places that I haven't felt before. It's all good though since I think it will only be the good kind of pain.

Garmin don't lie #1 and #2.

Merry Christmas!

All the best to all who celebrate the Holidays this evening (us Europeans I suspect) and/or tomorrow! Also, same wishes to everyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas specifically, but enjoys the Holidays based on their own traditions and beliefs.

I considered attempting the 100 push ups last night, but was feeling too weak and tired to do so. I cranked out one set of 50 just as a test, but it wasn't all that easy. I think I will do some more sets over the next week and get back in shape and then attempt the century. The chin ups have fallen off as well on account of the stomach virus, but I'll have to get back into that as well.

I keep seeing people running through the snow and am appropriately jealous, but the foot is not yet 100%. It has been feeling better, but with all the walking I've been doing (shopping and all) and then the three snowstorms we've had to shovel the foot has flared up again. This morning I spent an hour shoveling super heavy snow, which fell over night and then turned to rain making for great snowballs, but crap crap crap for lifting and throwing. I guess that's cross training or something...

What a scattered post! The New Year should get this whole running and blogging endeavor back on track, but for now it's time to celebrate the Holidays with the family and reflect on a great 2008. All the best everyone!

Getting Close to the Century

Toronto got hit with a lot of snow, and the place is absolutely covered! I love it. We'll be shovelling tomorrow morning for a while, but we'll definitely have a nice White Christmas. Last year we also had a snow storm a week or two before Christmas, but it all melted away by the 25th. I don't see the same thing happening this year since there is more snow in the forecast on Sunday and again on Tuesday.

Tonight was a bit surprising as far as the push ups were concerned. I did the Week 6 Day 3 routine, 26-26-33-33-26-26-22-22 and then maxed out at the surprising part: 95! The total added up to over 300 push ups (309) and becomes a new standard for me. It's amazing: the total for my first day of the challenge was 95, and now I can do THAT in a row! Perhaps the challenge should be to do 100 after doing a bunch of sets...

Still, I'd rather be running.

Aftershock

The stomach flu, it seems, has not finished running it's course. Malcolm was sick in the middle of the night and I spent the day with the poor little guy at home. On top of all that his cheek started to get really red and inflamed, hot to the touch, which meant only one thing to us: infection. Off we went to the doctor and sure enough that's what it was. Now he is on antibiotics for the first time in his life and I hope he doesn't have any adverse reaction to the medication. A long time ago when Owen was on antibiotics for an ear infection his whole personality changed while taking the drugs, and that was a bit weird to witness for us first time (at that time) parents.

Anyway, Malcolm seems to have rebounded quickly and he was good enough to go to his Junior Kindergarten Christmas concert. It was so cute, and I managed to take some video clips which I will post here at some point.

Before going to the concert I managed another Week 6 Day 2 routine of the hundred push ups challenge. I did 22-22-30-30-24-24-18-18 and then maxed out at 70 for a total of 258. The max set included Malcolm climbing onto my back at the 40 push up mark, which forced me to put my knee down and get him off, so 70 was a good surprise given all that.

Foot still hurts, and I think this tendinitis, plantar fasciitis thing is just going to take a while to heal. Damn!

The Battle Continues

Well, my little family continues to battle the flu as now my wife has come down hard with the illness. At least the boys, on better the other yet to get hit (and hopefully not at all), were able to go to school today.

The other battle is the one concerned with keeping this blog going while waiting to run. Last week it seemed like the foot had taken a turn for the better, but after the weekend of walking, skating, shopping, and other activities involving moving boxes of books up and down stairs it seems to still be hanging around like an unwelcome foul odor. Three weeks and counting...

That is pretty much why I've taken to push ups and chin ups - my physiological and psychological sanity. I am redoing the same sets as last week once more and tonight I went through the Week 6 Day 1 routine (45-55-35-30) and then maxed out at 60 for a total of 225. Tonight was tough going, managing only 60 and all, but I still think the 100 is well in sight. (I think the flu going through the house has something to do with it...) The bigger challenge will be to keep up with the push ups afterwards, and perhaps that is the real reason why I am putting off the attempt at 100 in a row until next week. Anybody out there who completed the challenge find it easy or hard to continue doing push ups? Or did you just stop cold turkey?

Going through the house...

Yes, the flu seems to be taking a turn at our place this week. Over the last few days I've been feeling a bit under the weather. Not totally sick, but on the cusp so to speak. Perhaps the flu shot I got in November is helping to minimize the symptoms, but Owen was not so lucky. At about 3am he started vomiting.

Lovely, I know. Short story: I stayed home with him today and we had a great time together, as much as we could. One highlight was a rare afternoon nap for me!

I still decided that doing Week 6 Day 3 of the hundred push ups plan was a good idea, and so I did. 26-26-33-33-26-26-22-22 went the preliminaries, and then I maxed out at a surprising 75 for a total of 289. I think I will redo Week 6 again before attempting the 100.

And now, for sleep.

Not Much... Other than more push ups

Nothing much going on here in my little world. The foot is still footy, though I am cautiously optimistic that in the last day or so it has taken a turn for the better. Stay tuned.

The car mods continue: tonight I wired up a secondary power socket in behind the dash only to find (afterwards) that the fuse was blown. I have no idea when that might have happened, and it could have been something that occurred a long time ago since I've never tested the socket before and wasn't smart enough to test it before I started wiring. Anyway, I have to go pick up a replacement fuse and see what happens. I really hope that there isn't a short somewhere, and I'm pretty certain I didn't introduce a short with my mod.

I am definitely sick now, though I think the worst is yet to come. I still did Week 6 Day 2 of the hundred push ups challenge thingy, though I felt pretty weak. The sets went 22-22-30-30-24-24-18-18 and then I maxed out at 60 for a total of 248 push ups.

Tomorrow I hope to get to the pool for a swim, if I make it to work that is...

Just Git'R Done!

The paper, though technically due tomorrow, has been submitted! I am not very happy with the actual paper, but very pleased to have the bloody thing finished. I decided to submit it a day early because I knew I'd have no interest in working on it tonight. Why? Because I had some soldering to do!

Yes, the car needs an auxiliary input, and I will oblige. So, I purchased a special kit from this place on the interweb to convert the CD Changer input on the back of the stock radio to an auxiliary input (so that I can plug in my IPod or satellite radio and not have to replace the entire radio). Anyway, I bought a panel-mount 3.5mm input at the local surplus store for a buck, cut one of the many RCA cables I've managed to collect over the years, and soldered the two together with much success. This thing I ordered to plug the RCA ends of this contraption into arrived same day as shipped (amazingly!) and now I have all the pieces I need to start dismantling the dash and installing this. I didn't take pictures of the soldering process, for fear of burns as a result of distraction (ie. laziness), but might document the whole dismantling process. I'll do so not just to share with all the Honda owners out there who are pining for an aux input, but also so that I can have some evidence of how the dash was taken apart in case I have trouble putting it back together.

On the exercise and injury front, the push ups were hard and the foot still continues to hurt. It has been more than two weeks and still I am not pain free. I am getting worried that this may be a much longer layoff than anticipated.

The push ups were difficult partly because of the number and partly because I didn't get to them until after 10pm (and after eating a pretty hefty steak for dinner). As per the hundred push ups challenge program for Week 6 Day 1 I did 45-55-35-30 and then maxed out at 65 for a total of 230.

Morning Plunge

I took off early enough this morning to make it to the pool for another swim, my third of the week! Mon was kind enough to cope with getting the kids to school on her own to allow me to do this, and that is no small task as you can imagine. Anyway, I felt weak and tired this morning, most likely from the chin ups that I did last night. I think a break this weekend will be in order, especially since I have that final paper hanging over my head and due on Tuesday. I am so close to the end of my grad studies, and yet so far given that my paper is NOWHERE near completion, and the insubordinate bastard won't just up and write itself!

The swim was pretty lax and I only managed 1500m, but was happy with that. The lane was pretty crowded, with a few wide-stroking "swimmers", one of which hit me a couple of times as I passed by. Thanks for nothin', stone arms! I swam 300-200-100-200-300-200-100 and then 100 backstroke to finish off the 1500, taking 20-30 second breaks in between.

Tonight was Week 5 Day 3 of the hundred push ups challenge, and it was not easy. The sets went 20-20-24-24-20-20-22 and then the max, where I pushed out a surprising 70! I had to start taking short breathing breaks after about 35, where I "rest" while maintaining the plank position. A few times I had to readjust this a bit by bending up at the waist and moving my hands a little, partly because my shoulders were screaming for relief and partly because my hands started slipping from getting too sweaty on the hardwood floor. Either way, I take it as a good sign that I can make it to 70 any way I can. The total number of push ups was 220! In the span of a little under three weeks I doubled my max from 35 to 70, and my total more than doubled, going from 95 to 220. Now if only this foot would heal so that I could start making strides in my running.

Tomorrow I think I will head off to the library to get this damned paper done. Well, at least the first draft. That way I can take a couple of days to polish it up before submitting it on Tuesday, bringing to an end my academic career.

Gross Shower Guy, and More Pushups

A couple of (potentially) sick people have requested further details on the gross shower guy that so rudely invaded my fortress of solitude while I was cleansing the chlorine off of myself after my Tuesday afternoon swim, so I feel compelled to give a few details against my better judgement. Since I am still shivering at the thought of what transpired I'll give as much as I can, but will not go into specifics since I averted my eyes as much as I could during the entire ordeal, but obviously without total success. Although the term "shock and awe" would have sufficed for me, here is what I can offer to you (apologizing in advance for those who do not wish to sleep tonight with this imagery carved into their brains):

• 6 (at least) bottles of lotions/soaps/gels/goopy crap only found in girly stores
• shaved area that (in my humble opinion) should not be in contact with any sharp object, EVER!
• loud grunting, moaning, breathing so as to draw attention to him(it)self
• much naked squatting (Seinfeld was right - there IS "good" naked and "bad" naked and this display was firmly and exclusively a sick, twisted example of the latter)
• much naked lathering (any other context, this might qualify as "good" naked, but I suppose anything can be sullied beyond redemption)
• much naked smiling (ditto)
• much swim suited vomiting (by yours truly, if I had had anything in my stomach that is)

Tonight I did some more push ups. I am now on Week 5 Day 2 of the hundred push ups challenge, and I am still making progress. Tonight I had to take a few breaks (holding the plank, but resting for a few breaths is what I mean) on my max set, but not because of the pecs giving out. Instead if was my shoulders and whatever muscle it is that lifts your leg up on the front of my left leg. I initially felt a twinge there when I sneezed rather mightily a few weeks back while sick in bed, and the pain has been up and down since then, but has never gone away entirely. Getting old sucks ass!

Oh yeah, the sets: 19-19-22-22-18-18-22 then the max was 60 for a total of 200 push ups. The double century!

Car Stuff and More Pushups

I had the car rust-proofed over the weekend, which was a good idea since they use the nastiest salt on the roads here and it rots cars from the inside out it seems. Anyway, I don't know if that procedure had anything to do with it or anything, but the next day the "SRS" light came on on the dashboard (d'ya like that? the "do do" in a row, and I wasn't even talking about my 4 year-old!) and it was not going off. Naturally, what with this car being new to us, I started to wonder what the heck was going on. Turns out the SRS system has a multitude of sensors all over the place, like in the airbags, the seat belt buckles, under the front seats, and in the tensioners on the seat belts. These sensors are particularly sensitive to voltage fluctuations, and I wondered if the rust-proofing that was sprayed all over the engine affected the alternator or something.

Anyway (and I'm sorry for this boring recount, but if you own a Honda you may actually find this interesting) we talked to our mechanic this morning and he recommended I disconnect the battery for a few minutes, and if the SRS light stayed on afterwards to bring the car to him or get on the horn with the dealer who sold the car to us. He even said he'd talk to the dealer on our behalf! What a great guy.

However, disconnecting the battery would also make our radio inoperative since it's one of those "anti theft" kinds and the code that unlocks it was nowhere to be found. Therefore I went to plan B: erasing the memory of the computer that stores the SRS data. If we managed to do that and the light still came on I knew the problem was serious enough to involve a professional. If it stayed off, we'd be OK, at least for the time being. I should also mention that this is a problem that is common to all Hondas, and I was assured that the danger of the airbags deploying without warning was non-existent.

So, tonight we managed to reset the computer using a pair of tweezers from a Swiss Army knife. It involved turning the key to the "on" position, and then going through a series of steps where the tweezers were used to complete a circuit in this wire doohickey located in the fuse box. The instructions I found on the Internet said it's likely this would take more than one attempt since the sequence had to be followed precisely with proper timing, etc. We got it on the first pass and the SRS light is off! We'll monitor the situation and hope that this solves the problem.

Also of note, on my bike while heading home I noticed not one, but two Honda Civics of the same vintage pass me with their SRS lights clearly visible on the dashboards! You'd think Honda would deal with this somehow since it seems to be a prevalent issue.

Oh yeah, this isn't a car blog, and I am not a car guy... But hey, I can't run so I might as well write about what I'm up to, right?

Tonight I did do some more push ups. The sets for Week 5 Day 1 went 36-40-30-24 and then I maxed out at 58 for a total of 188. It was not easy.

Swimming and Pushing

This morning I made up my "missed" swim from yesterday (on account of another High School meet bouncing me from my usual lunch time sojourn). I was a little late leaving the house, but managed to bike to the pool by about 8:15. I was on deck five minutes later and ready to go. On Friday mornings only half the pool is open for drop-in lane swimming and the "fast" lane had six other people in it. The other half of the pool I can only assume is reserved for the UofT swim team, but today it was totally empty. Navigating the other swimmers was going to be a challenge also since a couple seemed to be pretty quick and the others slower than me. In the end this was not much of an issue since I could only manage 200m at a time before my shoulders screamed for rest, and that allowed me to let the faster folks pass and to find a suitable spot to start again on another 200. I think the chin ups from last night were the reason for my shoulder fatigue, but I was not expecting this at all! I managed 10X200m in 35 minutes and made it to work a bit late, but glad to have gotten the workout in.

When I arrived, my manager dropped by my desk and gave me his extra copy of Run Less, Run Faster, which was very cool. I read this book a few months ago, and now have a copy of my own to follow throughout 2009. As good as that is, it does have me thinking of some goals for the year, the first of which is to try and get my 10k under 42 minutes so that I can dream about achieving a BQ time in the marathon of 3:15. Yeah right! The book does state that that's the equivalent time for the marathon distance, but my body may have something else to say about the whole thing. For the time being I am committed to taking the rest of the year off and waiting two weeks after my foot is completely pain free before starting to run again.

Tonight we watched Monsters Inc. with the boys, and I snuck off to do my push ups and catch the end of the Raptors game on TV. The Raptors are looking OK this year, though they are continuing their historic pattern of win a few lose a few, never stringing more than three or four wins together at a time. Chris Bosh is playing like an MVP, but I'm worried that the extra minutes he seems to be playing just to keep the team around .500 will result in injury as they did every other year he's been asked to play this much.

On the push up front I completed Day 3 of Week 4 of the hundred push up challenge thusly: 29-33-29-29 and maxed out at 50 for a total of 170. I'm definitely feeling stronger with this program, and am quite confident that I'll be able to do 100 in a row by Christmas. The question that comes to mind is will I be able to keep it going afterwards? Not to do more than a hundred, but to maintain that level of strength. It seems easier somehow to work towards a goal rather that aimlessly "working out"...

Waiting, Wonky Ankle and All...

Or perhaps the title of my blog should be changed to "Waiting, Wonky Plantar Fascia and All"? Like other running bloggers I am faced with the prospect of maintaining a running blog while unable to run. Even though I am early in the process, already I find the task tedious... Where is my creative side? Maybe THAT's what's stuck in the bottom of my foot causing all this pain!?!

Then again, maybe not...

Since I am not running, I am now contemplating other ways to stay in decent cardiovascular shape. I already swim twice a week, and may add one more into the mix. I bike to and from work every day, but that amounts to between 15 and 20k and I can't really call it a workout since I never really get my heart rate up even when I try to go hard. (I have a Frankenbike that is modified to one gear and I cruise pretty easily with it, but when I push harder I just spin out.) I am also thinking that maybe picking up a stationary bike somewhere and sticking it in my house might be a good idea since I would be able to get on that thing every evening for a bit and burn some calories.

But those are all ideas at the moment, and likely will have to wait until I am finished school. For today I managed another round of push ups and some ab stuff. The push ups went better than on Monday as I did 25-29-25-25 and then maxed out at 54 for a total of 158. Then I did the exceedingly boring crunches in sets of 50, all three of them for 150. I actually did more push ups than crunches! How pathetic is that? I also started back on some hip flexor and glute exercises since I have let these slip for a long time and figure it can't hurt to do them again.

At the Crossroads

I've come to a point where a decision must be made, and it pains me to no end to have to do this. As much as I would like to run the Boxing Day 10 Miler in Hamilton, I think that training for this race (keeping in mind that I would only run it to complete the distance and not all out) may impair my ability to train properly for the entire year of 2009. This realization comes from the fact that my foot, even though it's been OK to run on, is simply not improving.

Now, I could run through this pain, and have done so for over a month now (with that two week break after my race), but I think that a 10 miler has the potential to put me out of commission for a long time if I am not careful. My tolerance for pain is pretty good, but this works against me. Also, the guilt I feel at not training has the effect of forcing me to push through, all the while believing that things are bound to improve.

Well, they haven't. So my options, as I see them, are thus: stop running right now until I am totally healed, even if it means taking the rest of 2008 off (and here's hoping that's ALL I'd have to do!), or train until Boxing Day, run the ten miler, and then take all of January off.

I am leaning towards option #1 because:

a. I am hurting now.
b. I have to finish my Masters Degree in the next two weeks, and have to focus on my last paper. c. I have access to the gym for the rest of the year and can at least do some cardio on the stationary bikes or something.
d. I will need as much injury free time as possible to prepare for the Around the Bay 30k at the end of March.

Anyway, this is more difficult for me than I thought it would be, and I must admit that I am totally bummed out right now. Even though the weather's been totally crappy today I was still planning on a 5K this evening while biking home from work. It was then that I really started to think about the potential consequences should I continue down the path toward the 10 miler and beyond, and so I did not go running this evening. In the end the desire to be pain free, after almost two months of suffering from this plantar fasciitis, won out.

But hey, at least I can do push ups and chin ups! Tonight I managed 21-25-21-21 and then maxed out at 45 for a total of 133. I am a bit surprised that my max was lower than what I managed on Friday of last week (46) given that I had the weekend off from push ups.

Getting Bumped

The makeup lunchtime swim did not happen because of a high school swim meet that was going on. I didn't even think of checking the schedule online, so live and learn. I got bumped by a bunch of high schoolers!

We watched The Polar Express with the boys tonight, and enjoyed it very much. We've had this movie out before, but for one reason or another I'd never watched it. Both of my guys really liked it, but the younger one especially since he didn't remember watching it a couple of years ago when he was only two. Now that he's four he really understood the movie and was riveted throughout the whole thing even though it ended way past his bedtime.

The only exercise I managed today was push ups as part of that whole getting to 100 by Christmas thing. The sets went 22-30-20-20 and then I maxed out at 46 to end the first week of the plan. Tomorrow morning I'll be heading out for an easy 8k, and then we're off to pick up the "new" car. I received a call from the dealer today to update us on the results of the safety inspection, and was pleased to hear that the tires did not pass so they put a new set of Michelin's on for us. I must admit that even though it was obvious as anything that the tires were pretty much devoid of tread I was expecting the mechanic doing the inspection to pass them. Perhaps I have become too cynical or something, but used car dealers have a bad reputation and this experience seems to be the exception to the rule. They also changed the wiper blades, did an oil-lube-filter job on it, and although they couldn't fix the cable that runs from the lever by the driver's seat to the trunk lid in time, the part has been ordered and once it arrives they will install it for us. So far I have nothing but positive things to say about Pickard Lane Leasing of Bolton, Ontario. I just hope the car proves to be a good one.

A Snowy 5K

This morning Monica and I drove out to Bolton, a town about 45 minutes northwest of Toronto, to check out a used car that we spotted online. Long story short, we liked it and bought it. It's a 2001 Honda Civic with only 59,000 kilometres on it! It's going through a safety inspection and emission test over the next couple of days, and if all goes well we'll be picking it up on Saturday. Yay! Sorry, no pics of the new wheels since they pulled the ad off the Internet, but if I feel inspired I'll take a pic once we bring it home.

In my post from this past Monday I wondered if running in -2 Celsius temperatures (and the dark I might add!) counted as a winter run. Laurel from Lily on the Road commented that in fact this did NOT count, but I wonder what she would say about my 5K this evening? Once again the temperature was somewhere in the -2 Celsius range, but this time it was snowing! Yes, by the time I got home all the sidewalks and roads were covered in snow, and it was still coming down. I got dressed, strapped on the Garmin, and headed out as fast as I could given that the snow was not slowing down and I didn't want to run on anything deeper if I could avoid it. The footing was slippery, but I stuck to the sidewalks even though the accumulation there was thicker since the roads were much more slippery, especially where cars had packed the snow down and turned it into ice underneath the freshly fallen snow. The stuff was coming down pretty good and it was getting in my eyes the entire run, but I had a great time! No accidents, lots of strange looks from many people that I passed along the way, got cut off by a couple of cars and one bus (dumb ass! you totally saw me, and did it anyway!), and made it home unscathed.

I was a bit surprised by my pacing upon uploading the data since I didn't look at the Garmin during the run, preferring to watch the road and my footing instead. I completed the 5k in 25:32 for an average pace of 5:06/km (or roughly 8:12/mile). This was a bit faster than intended, but it felt good so I'm not going to worry about it. I iced the foot down while eating dinner, and will do the whole ice water/hot water routine later after my push up routine. I think the plan calls for sets of 20-25-20-22-MAX, so we'll see what happens.

Garmin don't lie.


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Update: I had the push up numbers a little wrong as I was going on memory, so tonight the sets went 20-25-15-15 and then I maxed out at 40. Tomorrow, chin ups, pull ups, or something resembling the two as much as I can manage...

A Mostly Uneventful Day

Not much to report other than:

1. I got my flu shot today, and my shoulder feels like someone punched it a little bit.

2. I got in the pool at lunchtime again for another 2000m, this time in about 29 minutes.

I should mention that last night Monica and I started our own little 100 push up challenge. I did 14-18-14-14-35. The goal is to loosely follow the 100 push up challenge of Internet fame and to achieve 100 by Christmas.

Added to this I have started doing lots of pull ups since I put the chin up bar in the door to our bedroom (is there a difference between a "pull up" and a "chin up"?) Pretty much every time I enter or leave the room I do 5, though this is not likely to continue. However, I did a set tonight that consisted of 7-5-4 wide grip overhand, and 6-5-5 close grip underhand. Later I will get some ab work done, and do another easy and short set of lunges. The last time I did this (sometime last week) I only did 10 lunges on each leg and I definitely felt it the next day. Pathetic, I know! But that is why I have made a commitment to improving my leg strength over the winter.

Right now I have to keep moving my foot from ice water to hot water, so g'night! Tomorrow? Another 5k, perhaps even in the morning...