things and things

[jazzfish]

Let's see.

Chaos

Is doing fine after being nuked. He's gaining weight (anecdotally, he feels more substantial when I pick him up), there's been no cat yuke to clean up, and he just generally looks better than he has in months. I feel a little bad for not having caught it sooner... but it was a pretty gradual drop-off.

Running

Is ... going. My knees (more accurately, between my knees and shins, on the inside of the leg) have started hurting, so I've had to cut back. This is deeply frustrating, in a HOW WILL I GET ANY BETTER IF I DON'T PUSH MYSELF kind of way. There's a good chance I need new shoes; will perhaps go get those this afternoon. My lungs remain terrible; I blame the humidity.

As far as running-related goals go, I'm pretty much guaranteed to miss them. 'Run 10k without stopping to walk' by next fall might be doable. '5k in 25 minutes' is almost certainly not. 'Run or swim [or other acceptable exercise] 3x/wk for six months' relies on not getting sick, hurt, or traveling someplace where it's difficult to get out, which is both unlikely and not entirely within my control. Oh well.

Weather

Bright and sunny and warm enough that I'm noticing the humidity: upper-twenties this week, supposed to break thirty next week. Ugh. I console myself by remembering that the highs here have been the *lows* in the DC area for the last couple of weeks.

Other

Apartment-hunting has been fruitless so far.

Apparently pimento cheese is a Southern thing. uilos made some and took it somewhere as a snack earlier this week, and it was met with suspicion and confusion. Huh.

Is there a statute of limitations for when semi-unexpectedly encountering certain people makes one start twitching? Asking for a friend.

Comments

running help per knees

[cthulhia]

5k in 25 minutes? wow, that's faster than I'll ever be. Then again, I've never had issues about taking walking breaks. I'm not sure I've run 10K in a row without at least a water break. If you're aiming in 10K in under a certain time, work on sprints, with breaks, rather than just a long slog.

Anyway, if your knees are hurting, up the strength training.

Also, if you can't do more than a mile total at a time, do sprints. Max speed for 1/3 time span (30-60 secs), recovery speed/walking for 2/3 time span (60-120 secs). Cycle this until you're at a mile, more if your knees and schedule allow it. It will allow you to work on your pace until you're ready for longer runs again.

Re: running help per knees

[jazzfish]

Yeah, 5k in 25 was based on "i recall a guy on the track team in high school running three miles in under 20 minutes, there's no way i can do that so i should scale it down a bit." I may have overreached.

I have no idea whether I can handle 10k at a go or not. By the end of last summer I'd worked up to 5k. Currently I'm running ... mm, just over two miles, says the map.

I'll try the sprinting/walking thing; it sounds very unpleasant, which probably means it's what I need. Thanks!

[kittenchan.livejournal.com]

I am so glad that Chaos is doing better; he's an awesome cat.

I agree with cthulhia, strength training will help with you knees immensely. I was running last summer and had to stop because of knee pain. Now I train my quads and glutes and no longer have knee pain. Best of luck with all of your goals!

[jazzfish]

Thanks! I guess I'll see what I can do with it. The thing about running (over gym work, and even over swimming) is that it's not *boring*, I'm not looking at the same thing over and over. I'd much prefer to be able to keep doing it.

[culfinriel.livejournal.com]

Glad kitty is better.
Admire the running, etc. I have been trying and, well, am not encouraged by my efforts. Mostly, I think I need strength training, but that means I have to go off and find some way to do that.
Pimento cheese is interesting. I gather it is traditionally a southern thing, but my mom says it was a universal thing in the 1950's/60's, and she remembers both being fed it, and it being a hostess sort of thing to serve. She is as far northern as it gets in her upbringing, so it must have spread at some point in the past, retracted, and is now part of the general comfort food revival of southern style foods. Conversely, I got that reaction when I tried to serve wild rice to people in the "south". Who knows. I'll bet her pimento cheese tasted great, though!
Depending on the history, there may or may not be a limit, unfortunately. Hopefully, the twitching is not too severe and goes away quickly.

[jazzfish]

Ugh, getting started with running years ago was *awful* for me. I kept at it mostly because I was in a place where it was less unpleasant to go out and be stiff and sore and miserable in the heat and feel like I was flailing and failing, than to stay home and yell at myself for all manner of other perceived failures. (I was, um, not the most well-adjusted of Tuckers in the spring/summer of 2006.) It took months before I could run for five minutes at a time. If you're unfamiliar with Couch-to-5K, I do recommend looking into it.

re pimento cheese: huh. I was not aware there was a revival of southern/comfort food! (Mostly because I just think of it as 'food.' Kind of like how I never realised 'watermelon and fried chicken' was considered 'black people food.')

Pretty sure there is no actual limit, especially not with all the only-tangentially-related stuff that those memories drag up. Um, or so my friend says.

[selki.livejournal.com]

I would try her pimento cheese, too. Most storebought is too mayonnaisey (or worse, has corn syrup) for me.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad to hear that Chaos is much improved.

And, very impressed by your running and your running goals.

If you'd like some warmer weather, I'd be happy to send some of ours your way. :)

[jazzfish]

Thanks! And no, I'm good with the weather we've got, thanks. :) Got up to ninetyish here over the weekend; we've had to break out the portable air conditioner we picked up when last summer got to be too much.