Well, since my last post I have had both a great and not-so-great week, exercise-wise. I got up on Wednesday ready to do my super early run, but got talked out of it by my very concerned boyfriend, worried about my safety running alone in nearly dark conditions. I spent the hour before I had before work fuming about how unfair it is that women have to live in fear of being attacked any time they're alone--in fact, there will probably be a separate post about that at some point in the near future--but for now I don't want to dwell on it because I'll get riled up and upset all over again.
I did the only thing I can do... I bought a can of mace. I suppose that if you can't actually fix the issue, the best option is to react to it in the best way possible. It is extremely sad to me that this is necessary, but whatever. Such is the world. I won't stop running.
My early morning swim was also not without a hitch. Although I have gone to Mauna Kea beach in the extremely early morning several times with no issues, this week's gate guard decided that he was a very important person who needed to exert his power by not allowing me in until the exact minute of sunrise, which this week apparently happened to be 6:14am. I arrived at 6:08am (with the sky completely light, for the record), and thus could not possibly be allowed to go down to the parking lot. Determined not to be bitchy, I glared at the guy and then decided to just go to another beach. What a douche.
It actually turned out beautifully with glassy, clear water and the sun gently climbing in the sky while I swam in the sea of pastels. I was trying a new set of goggles called "mask" style in which there is no nose piece between the two eye covers (wow I don't know anything about goggles... sorry about the very incorrect terminology here) but rather one large piece, snorkel-mask style. I was excited to try them out but I quickly discovered that while they feel wonderful, putting very little pressure on my eyes, the seal around the nose was very problematic. By problematic I mean that every three minutes or so I would have to stop and pour the water out of my nearly full lenses. Dang it. I guess the goggle search continues...
Saturday, we ran. And ran. And ran. We knocked out six miles, and I ran the first 3.63 miles without stopping to walk. I am trying to increase my running distanced by .25 miles each time I do a workout. Then I walked for .52 miles before running the rest of the way back. The first few miles felt dramatically better than last time, but I feel like I faded more dramatically than last time as the miles wore on. Then again, six miles is the longest distance I've done since breaking my foot, and I was doing a faster mile time. In addition, the head wind was making me want to lie down on the pavement and cry.
All these things considered, the run actually went really well. I did an 11:57 mile average, fifteen seconds faster than last week, with a fastest mile time of 10:05, again 15 seconds faster than my previous best time. My 5k time was also the fastest since my injury.
It's not perfection, but it's definitely progress.
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