Last week was another lazy week. However, this was not my fault.
If you’ve read the news or watched it, you may have seen that California currently has an unprecedented number of fires. While the fires near my city and in my county have been small and put down quickly, the same cannot be said for the rest of the state.
What time is it?
While our fires were small, the smoke was not. Something about the way our county sits seems to make it a settling zone for the smoke from other fires. It’s happened with other fires over the years but this was a new level. Our air quality made headlines last week and not in a good way. The one site only went to 500 for AQI and we were maxed out.
I spent very little time outside all week and had the air conditioner maxed at home (with a new filter). I still ended up having asthma troubles most of the week and ended up going home sick on Thursday. Boo. So it was a very low key week.
The beginning of the week was crazy. The middle wasn’t much better.
A heatwave- all days above 100*- rolled in on Friday.
A migraine followed that for Saturday and Sunday.
I did not run at all last week. Zero. I didn’t do any workouts.
Hell, even my step counts look horrible. I work in a 2 story building with a stand up desk and I was never anywhere close to 7500. Which is the goal set by my calorie tracking app.
To add to that insult- our bathrooms broke on Wednesday at work. So that meant each time I needed the restroom, I had to go outside, cross 2 parking lots and an alley to get to the bathrooms in one of our other offices. Which I did twice. I still didn’t hit 7500.🤦♀️
The weekend brought more than heat and the migraine. Severe dry lightning sparked several fires around the state- 3 in my county- which brings the smoke into the county. I usually sleep with my window open a bit and my fan going full steam but after waking up choking, I won’t be opening that window anytime soon.
So here’s to hoping for an improved week to come….although the heat warning is still in effect. For at least another 7 days.
All though I loved the time I spent in the dirt on the trails last week, parts of my body did not.
The sun burn lingered for a few days but had mostly eased by Tuesday. What had not eased was the pain in my foot. To the point where even coworkers commented on my limping. Not good.
I wore flats all week instead of heals or boots and kept my feet up as much as possible at home. Which, let’s be real, that’s not too hard to do with my new recliner and general slacker-ness.
I did that for 7 days… Sunday through Saturday. I will say not running due to foot pain felt different than not running due to laziness. Ha!
Sunday, I wanted to test things out. I taped up my foot with KT tape and headed for a soft surface. I went to the beach.
Dude, where’s the pier?
A heavy marine layer meant it was not as crowded as I had feared but there were a ton of dogs out! They all wanted to play.
He was cute! Watched his family.
I started off real slow, with around 3/4 of a mile walking. From there, I moved on to intervals of 1 minute run, 1 minute walk. I tried to keep the pace real easy and focus on how I was landing. I also had the marine layer keeping my pace down- this is the same beach I’ve had a massive asthma attack on. I didn’t climb any rocks and turned around at the rockiest point.
My right foot- the injured foot- felt pretty good the whole time. And I did take my shoes off for the final .3 miles.
Not cool was that my left foot went numb around 3.5 miles in. What?! I had that problem at the beginning of last year but it got better. It did! Plus, I was wearing my PureFlow’s and those were the one pair of shoes that they never went numb in. Granted, I have turned this pair into beach running shoes but still. I slowed to a walk while I tried to stomp feeling back into my foot. It came back around 3/4 of a mile later. Grrrr.
Other than one of my favorite songs, that word rarely means good things.
At work I have a bad habit of saying that I focus on the big fires first than double back to the little ones. Figuratively, of course.
Except last week there was a literal fire in the parking lot. Really 2020?
All is fine and it was put out quickly with no lasting damage. But it did make me realize I needed to better acquaint myself with where the fire extinguishers are.
A heat wave also rolled in last week and made my usual slacker-ness even easier to do. It was so hot, I actually ate lunch in the building on Thursday and Friday. I usually eat lunch in my car.
After a week of hot weather and laziness on my part, I wanted a woodsy trail on Saturday. So I headed for Cerro Alto. I somehow forgot that Cerro Alto begins the canyon down to the ocean and retains our temps and not beach temps. It was 90 degrees. I was struggling 3/4 of a mile in and knew it was only going to get worse. I knew I could likely finish the 6 mile hike but I would also wreck myself. I wish I could say it was all common sense on my part but it mostly my absolute refusal to become a news headline. “Hiker rescued after becoming dehydrated, air lifted out”. Seriously, that happens all too often out here.
So I turned around and headed back to the trail head. 1.5 miles with around 350 elevation gain in the first half.
But I wasn’t done, I refueled both myself and my car as I hadn’t been planning on making a circle of the county and headed to Harmony Headlands. And the temp dropped to 60, so much better.
Harmony is pretty easy, the dirt path is well defined for 2/3 of it, so I have troubles considering it a “trail run” or a “hike”. The last portion does turn to single track but it’s still what I would call easy. I rarely even take water. I had my pack bladder filled for Cerro Alto so I figured I might as well use it. I power hiked, climbed some rocks and enjoyed some ocean views. 4.3ish miles bringing me to under 6 for the day. My watch tells me Harmony has an elevation gain/loss of 340 each way but I swear it’s flat.
While I didn’t end up dehydrated or with a killer heat induced migraine, I did wind up with a sun burn. Really??! My shoulders were fried as well as the backs of my knees of all places. It was the kind of burn that messes with your internal temp control so I just napped on Sunday. Not that I was super eager to brave the 104* weather outside.
It was little but it was a good week. Onward and upward.
Slacker Runner 