I Had Forgotten How Lovely Ice Baths Feel

It's Week 4, Day 1. Today's workout was the Fartlek intervals again, just like last Monday. It's a lovely day, temperatures cooler and less humid, so I got it done outside. Outside is better because I don't baby myself as much as I do on the treadmill. I do the warmup faster, I get some hill running in, and I run the intervals more on perceived effort than some artificial pace that I set on the treadmill.

I went out around 10:30, following a long dog walk around the park. I decided to do a route that covers the Murray Ave. trail, because that would give me a good stretch to get the intervals in without having to stop for traffic. The workout was supposed to be 10-20 minute warmup followed by 8-10 time 2 min at 5k to 8k pace, with 1 minute recovery jogs, followed by a 10 to 20 minute cooldown.

So I did about 20 minutes of warmup, did the intervals as prescribed except for the recoveries I walked 30 seconds, jogged 30 seconds, and then finished up with a bit over 10 minute cooldown. My total time is a little bit approximate because I forgot to start my watch until I got out to Erie Ave., but it was about 57 minutes and I covered 5.77 miles.

The route was out to Erie, down Erie, around the Broadview loop, back out Erie and across to Murray Ave., out to Settle and back, up Erie, and around the neighborhood.

I felt a little gimpy, especially at the start, probably as a result of the weekend of agility and maybe not getting enough sleep. I'm also a little congested and have a slight headache (maybe a sinus thing, or maybe again, just fatigued). But I didn't have any particular problems during the run.

On the intervals, I switched the Nike pace band over to show pace instead of miles, and I just tried to keep it around 8:30. Of course, I went up and down depending on the hills. The route worked out pretty well, because I got around 6 intervals in on Murray, and then finished the last two on the hill, so the cool down was around the neighborhood. The only times I had to stop for traffic were in the beginning when I crossed Erie at Saybrook and when I crossed over to get to Murray.

When I got home, I fixed my glass of chocolate milk and I was ready to sit down with the bag of frozen peas on my left knee. But then I started thinking about how my hips and my thighs really felt stiff also, and decided to take an ice bath. Haven't done that in awhile. So I dumped all the ice out of the ice maker into the tub and filled it up with cold water and hopped in for ten minutes. I had forgotten how great that can feel after a hard effort.

Right now I am sitting outside on the patio with the dogs, because it really is a very lovely day. My head still hurts a little but overall I feel pretty good.