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September 28, 2005
There's Something About Wednesday
Actually, it really has nothing to do with the actual day of the week. I would venture to guess that over 90 percent of the days that have some statement about feeling like crap in my log book are on Wednesdays. It could be any other day of the week for other people, but with the way my week is laid out, Wednesday is the crappy day. It is the day when all of the mileage and intensity of the week catch up with my body. It is a good thing that it is always an easy day for me.
This morning was so nice for running, yet I felt terrible. Nothing hurt or was bothering me, I just felt tired. This can also be attributed to being woken up extra early by the lawn mower. Our guy was definitely looking to make an extra buck because he cut the grass last week and there has not been any rain to make it grow since then. A little bit later on in my run when I was trying to figure out what was wrong, I came to a few realizations. The first is that I am not a particularly good morning runner. My body needs to be awake some in order to function well. Running in the morning is OK as long as it is a short run, but when I want it to be better, I need more time to get the blood flowing. The other realization had is that on Wednesday it is getting toward the end of the cycle before I take a day off. So I had Saturday's long run, Sunday's double (if I choose to do a double), Monday's hard workout, and Tuesday's double on my legs. For me, this added up to 53 miles in four days. This may not be a lot to some people, but other than this year, I usually would only aver 50-55 miles in a week, so it is a lot for my body. Taking it very easy today was exactly what was needed.
This afternoon I went to the gym and rode the bike for an hour. The time went by faster than normal because I had some interesting reading to do. After riding I wanted to lift, but it was getting late. I did do some lifting but the free weight area was being taken over by the meatheads while I was there. I felt like a total and complete idiot while I was bench pressing with the dumbbells. I decided to try to do some more weight than usual, so I was using the ten pound dumbbells and could not figure out why it felt so much harder than usual. I looked at the weights after the second set and realized that I had a twelve pounder in my left hand. Well, duh, no wonder it felt so hard. It is nice to know that I could maybe do some with twelve pounds, but it was very hard.
This goes back to a question that Alison brought up a few days or weeks ago; does anyone know anything good and tasty to do with butternut squash. I saw pre-cubed fresh butternut squash in Trader Joe's today and would like to try it. I don't want to get a "real" one and do all of the work getting it ready to find out that I don't like it, so I thought getting the pre-peeled and seeded would be worth it to find out if it is even a food that I would like to eat.
Posted by Blondie at September 28, 2005 07:50 PM
Comments
I don't consider myself a good morning runner either. Alison has convinced me that you just have to get used to it. I find that I need at least 30 minutes to wake up, whereas some people can head right out the door. I guess we have to get used to it, since most races are in the morning!
Posted by: Caitlin at September 28, 2005 09:22 PM
Blondie, i am SURE you can bench press two 12 lbs dumbells. Completely sure. Next time you go, try!!
I am more of a head right out the door kind of person (the unavoidable result of sleeping until the last possible moment-when you hope you don't hit the lights wrong!).
Posted by: Audrey at September 28, 2005 10:14 PM
I have a hard time running first thing as well, I always start out kind of creaky and sluggish.
You have been running quite a bit, I can't wait to see how you do in Boston - sounds like the training is going well (except on Wednesdays).
As far as squash I think what most people do with butternut is either make soup (I have always wanted to do this) or bake it with brown sugar and butter on top. I will try to email you with soup recipes in the next few days.
Posted by: Barb at September 28, 2005 11:56 PM
I ended up baking and mashing mine. I wasn't overly impressed with it, though, so I've now moved on to sweet potatoes. My sister's boyfriend, who's a serious cook, was offering to make it into a bisque for me, but I would have felt too helpless dropping it off at his house and having him do all the work! The nice thing about the whole squash is that it seems to keep for a while.
Posted by: Alison at September 29, 2005 08:41 AM