Christmas pudge
I’ve been lazy. Not entirely of my own doing mind you, but lazy nonetheless. After my recent marathon, I basically took a month off from any kind of training at all. I had intended on taking a week or two off running anyway and, when I did a 10k run three weeks ago, found my ongoing battle with plantar fascitis was still, well, ongoing.
So, while I’d intended not running through the new year, I thought I’d get to the gym a little, swim a little and cycle a little. I didn’t. Not only that, but in the past three weeks I’ve consumed enough of my wife’s incredible baking to put on a few pounds. It’s not enough weight to be noticeable, but just enough to make my first run last night quite unpleasant. I’m certainly not as unfit as I was prior to training for Sacramento, but it was a real struggle to do a slightly negative split at a pace that was closer to long than it was to tempo.
Post-run, my foot is not feeling any plantar fascitis symptoms so I’m going to keep my fingers crossed and plan for my Sunday medium-long run. This week I start adding in 2008 training sessions. The plan is a very easy one hour swim tonight, bike trainer workout Saturday morning, my first coached swim session on Saturday afternoon and the aforementioned run on Sunday morning. I’m toying with a short four mile lunch run on Friday, but it might be smarter to ease into things a bit more with only two runs this week. I’d hoped to cycle commute this week, too, but have had car and dental appointments that forced me to drive. I’m hoping for one bike commute tomorrow.
Fat food nation
As if one really needs a reason to workout, what with doing races and a whole host of health benefits , I’d think this piece would be enough to convert everyone to exercise. Gladly, Vancouver is on the bottom of the list with just over two fast food outlets per 10,000 residents and an 11% obesity rate. Compare that with those cities topping out at double the number of outlets and triple the obesity rate of Vancouver, and I’m sure glad I live where I do.