My Most Active Weekend Ever

My body is aching but I feel so good!  I can't believe how much stuff I did this past weekend.

Friday I started with boot camp, followed immediately by 90 mins of yoga.  Then a day of work, volunteering for a race at a running store, and then more work, going out to dinner with friends (and their INCREDIBLY poorly behaved but cute and bilingual kids).  Seriously, their 3 year old probably speaks Italian at about my level, and he also knows some Arabic and English of course.  We ate pizza with them and then went out for fro-yo. 

Saturday morning I was up dark and early for my first walk with my pack.  I decided to put the weighted vest into the pack and carry it that way.  So I was actually carrying more than 35 pounds. 

It hurt.  The plan was to walk 18 miles with the pack (and then I'll do 27 miles on two other Saturdays closer to the marathon).  Yikes.  Not a brilliant decision on my part, especially since Saturday was my absolute first time wearing the pack.

I've gotten lots of experience wearing my vest that weighs 35 pounds.  I've been running with it and have gotten up to running a 10k without stopping while wearing it.  And I'm certainly a lot slower than running without a vest, but I'm not as slow as I expected.  I'd guess it slows me down about 2-3 minutes (more 3 than 2) per mile.  But the vest is fairly well distributed, and after I got used to it, it hasn't been so bad.

The pack is tough.  It doesn't have a waist or a chest strap, just one strap over each shoulder (typical military issue).  My shoulders hurt so much, and my lower back hurt too.  The pack kind of hit my lower back/upper butt the whole time.

Our local lake is just over 9 miles around, so I was able to swing by my car once in the middle.  I started off walking with a friend, then dropped her at her car and picked up another friend who'd been dropped off there.  Walked with her for about 5 or 6 more miles, then she got picked up and my hubby got dropped off.  He walked with me for several more miles, including the point where I hit my car.

There was just no way I could walk another 9 miles with the pack, so he helped me take the pack off and I put the vest on instead.  It felt better, but by then I was already getting pretty tired of walking.  It had been hours.  Usually if you run around the lake, it goes so fast, but walking is a whole different story. 

Hubby and I kept walking, then my local bestie met us.  We all walked together, and along the way, another friend, her husband and their 2 kids came to a park at the lake to say hi as we walked by, so we got to stop and chat with them a little.  Then we walked to hubby's car and left him there, then we walked another couple miles and picked up another friend, and the 3 of us finished it off. 

By the last few miles, I was sore and feeling silly.  We were laughing a lot and both of them did a great job of distracting me from the task at hand.  We sat down for my 5th break and as we sat, my favorite running coach of all time happened to run past, so she stopped and chatted with us for a long time.  I had a lot of trouble when I got back up.  Mostly my feet.  It felt like the bottoms of my feet were blistering or chafing. 

But we made it!  18 miles and change.  Way more hours than I've ever been on my feet before.  Slower than even my slowest marathon.  Not a single bit of running and not a single step alone. 

I got home and put my feet up for a while.  Hubby made me lunch and I scarfed it down and napped a little.

Then, though I really wasn't sure about it, I went to yoga.  It was another tough class for me -- mostly because it hurt so much to stand on my feet.  I ended up sitting out 2 postures completely (triangle and one of the spine series).  And I took it easy in a lot of the others, but I did it.  Another 90 minutes of exercise.

I got home and fell asleep in the bathtub before 8:00, I was completely exhausted.  Thankfully I guess I don't live alone so he woke me up before I drowned. 

Then Sunday morning I was planning to run with my group for 6 miles with the vest, and then head over to a 5k race and do that with the vest too.  Another 9 miles. 

I woke up and thought there was just no way.  I considered just sleeping in, figuring they could run without me.  But part of a running group is that everyone shows up. 

So I dragged myself up.  Still had some pain on the bottoms of my feet when I was walking on carpet (hard floors were fine), and the back of one of my knees hurt (biceps femoris area).  But nothing too bad, just sore and stiff.

Like a somewhat sane person, I decided to run the 6 miles with the group without the vest.  Whew!  Old me would have put on the vest and soldiered through, possibly injuring myself.  Running without the vest felt much better.  I haven't run without the vest in so long that it felt strange.  I wouldn't say it was easy though, even though I ran at my "with vest" slower pace. 

By the time I was done with 6 miles, I was glad I'd gone for the run, but there was absolutely no way I was going to head out to do a 5k afterward.  Not even a chance. 

Instead I went home, chilled for a little while, and then went for yoga again.  My feet were still a little sore, but I basically did everything that I'd normally do. 

And then planted myself back on couch Sunday at noon and that was it.  I didn't think I was ever going to move again. 

Those 30 hours were intense in terms of exercise!  18 miles walking, 6 miles running, and 3 hours of heated yoga.  Holy crap!  Who am I?? 

Thrilled to have gotten 9 miles with the pack over the weekend, and 9 more miles with the vest.  When I walk again in 3 weeks, I'm going to try to wear the pack for 2 loops and then wear the vest for the third one.  And when I do my third and final walk, I'll try to wear the pack the whole time.  And hopefully I'll have a waist strap that alleviates some of the pain. 

And thrilled to have continued the yoga streak.  I've now gone every single day since Jan. 7.  Not a ton, but not bad.  I am definitely taking a day off of yoga this week Thurs. since I have a work dinner that night and am running with friends in the morning (and it's not Friday so I can't do yoga right afterward and then just work from home while I'm a sweaty mess). 

I think that counts as my most active weekend ever.  Even on weekends where I've done a marathon, it's still not that many hours of activity.  I suppose when I did the MS150 bike rides in high school (my whole family participated, my parents took turns pulling my little brothers in a biking stroller thing), I was technically active for more hours.  We'd usually do the century loop on the first day (100 miles), then ride 70 the next day.  And I never rode particularly fast, so I guess that was probably technically more hours of activity over 2 days than I did this past weekend, but this weekend wins for my adult life!

Crazy to think that I'll have a couple more weekends before the marathon where I'll actually do even more.  It's like my weekend days are being converted into really long exercise days and nothing else except the occasional movie on TV and load of laundry.  Wow!  Who'd have thunk it?...