One More Detour on the Writing Road

A “Saskatchewan Screamer” whipped through Thursday night into Friday morning, leaving a couple inches of heart attack snow in its wake. Lots of folks got 6+ inches, but stuff around here fell as rain until well after midnight, so I guess I lucked out. Didn’t have to shovel it in the morning, and much of it had melted by the time I got home from the day job. Today, it’s temps in the 20s and some blue sky showing through the clouds. The spirea had started to bud and the daffs to push up through the ground–not sure what this winter rehash is going to do to them.

I may plant tomato seeds in starter trays this week. I want to keep the number of plants in the raised bed down to around four, so of course I bought 5 varieties of seeds: Arkansas Traveler, Black Cherry, 2 types of Heinz, and Sunset’s Red Horizon. Then the store tossed in a freebie pack of German Striped Stuffers, which despite sounding vaguely rude is actually a stripedy tomato made for stuffing. Not a fan of stuffed tomatoes, so I may give them a pass.

I don’t think I’ll plant mesclun this year. It always comes up, but it takes up a lot of room that I think I would rather give over to basil and other herbs. Gonna keep it simple. No peppers or garlic or anything else. Tomatoes and herbs.

I have not run in three weeks. Knees, this time, a sensation of tightness on the insides of both. The left is way worse than the right, and is actually still bugging me a bit. Fear of gaining back all the weight I lost drove me to the foot doctor, who ordered a different type of orthotic. Unfortunately, those are still about two weeks away, and in the meantime I’m afraid to do anything. I may try plain old walking next week, but it was the speed work that knocked the pounds off and I dare not try that until I get the new inserts.

My problems are two-fold, very high arches combined with right leg about 1/3″ shorter than the left. Can’t fix the height difference because the right ankle has compensated over the years and hurts like hell if it can’t underpronate to its heart’s content.

I never realized I had all these problems until I started to try to, you know, exercise and be healthy.

In actual book news, Modern Fae’s Guide hits the shelves the week after next, March 6, to be exact. Available for pre-order in all the usual places.

Mirrored from Kristine Smith.

Questions to runners who have added speed work to your workouts–how much do you do and how often? Do you run yourself to Chariots of Fire-level exhaustion? Do you mix it in with regular workouts, or do you do special speed work sessions?

I ask because I’m wondering if I do enough, or if it matters what I do as long as I do it. My typical workout is:

10 min warm-up
10 min jogging
5 minutes of 30 seconds run/30 seconds sprint (for me, a sprint is 6-7 mph, 8.5 – 10 minute mile pace)

After this, I alternate 4 minutes speedwalking/1 minute sprinting for about half an hour.

I mix running and walking in deference to my knees, which have been problematic in the past. Even so, I can feel the difference since I added the sprints to my workout. I’ve lost weight that just wasn’t budging before, my legs are getting nice and hard, and my endurance has definitely improved. But I’m kinda making things up as I go along, and I’m curious as to what other folks do.

Mirrored from Kristine Smith.