August finished up by throwing us a curveball in the form of some ridiculous heat, and the first two days of September have been cloudy. Then sunny. Then cloudy again! This month is moody already.
Yesterday my leg felt pretty great. It didn’t hurt at all and I only had the slightest hint of an ache after martial arts class. I got prematurely excited because I thought perhaps a miraculous healing had taken place and I was going to be back to normal this morning. Sadly, it didn’t work out quite how I’d hoped.
I got up at about 6:35 and headed out for a four-miler. I didn’t get half a mile before my leg started to feel weird and then vaguely hurt. It’s such an obnoxious pain—not enough to make it impossible to run, but just enough to make it impossible to run at a normal speed. And the humidity. The humidity is back and it is ceaseless. Even in the dark the heat is oppressive, and I spent at least half of my run thinking about how wonderful it will be when Actual Fall comes. I spent the other half thinking of reasons that things are still pretty good. I am still running. I didn’t break a bone. There is still hope for the rest of this racing season! But I will admit that I had a sinking feeling when I realized that running (and not martial arts, of all things) is what irritates this injury. I shake my fist at that.
When I got back from my run, I decided to tackle Day #2 of one of my goals for this month: 30 push-ups and 50 crunches each day. I met my goal yesterday evening before we headed to martial arts class, but the push-ups were a little tough after having done 30 minutes of boxing. The crunches were no problem, and I even neglected my plan to save 15 of each exercise to do during martial arts class. So actually I did 45 push-ups and 65 crunches on September 1st. Win! This morning I found myself able (no doubt due to the fact that running is far less taxing on the arms than boxing) to do all 30 push-ups in one set. It’s nice to have a goal that’s still a challenge but that I can actually accomplish. My arms are tired now, but I’m cool with that.
On deck for today: avoiding being in the rain, my last martial arts class until next Tuesday (dang you, Labor Day!), and perhaps some Core Fusion. Should be another great Thursday!