Week 3 day 1

[liv]

OK, 6 degrees is officially too cold for running outdoors. Although it was fairly pleasant, since it's sunny and since I kept moving enough that I didn't actually feel cold, I wasn't really able to breathe deeply enough to run and I could feel that I was beginning to get asthma-ish spasms. I've had half an hour to recover and I'm still kind of struggling to take deep breaths. This really does mean I need to go back to the gym, even though it's faffy and smelly and boring.

Having started, I wanted to push myself to actually complete the exercise, and I did in fact manage the two 3-minute runs of the week 3 workout. Only just, and running even slower than I have been so far. So my average pace was only very slightly under 10 min / km again, rather worse than the 9 1/2 ish I was managing for week 2. Still, it looks like I am physically capable of running for 3 minutes continuously, even in unfriendly conditions, which wasn't a given.

(Runkeeper didn't get any GPS signal during the warmup and quite a bit into the run, so I've multiplied up the numbers as best as I can and they're even less accurate than usual.)

Comments

[rmc28]

Well done!

I have a cold so have missed running today. It seems better this evening than this morning, so I live in hopes of being well enough tomorrow or Monday.

[liv]

Thankyou, and sorry to hear you're becolden.

[redbird]

Yes, that is chilly, but it sounds as though you're breathing okay again. (I stumbled on this post via "network" and didn't even register this wasn't your own journal until I was commenting.)

[liv]

*waves* Yeah, rmc28 and I made a community so we could be virtual running buddies; we're going through Couch to 5K at the same time. Thank you for commenting, though.

Breathing is fine; I know how my lungs work (or don't), if I do exercise in the cold air, it'll take me hours instead of minutes for my breathing to return to normal, but from experience it's uncomfortable rather than dangerous in the absence of any chemical trigger. (As you probably realize, I measure temperatures in Celsius, I wouldn't even contemplate running in 6°F!)

[redbird]

Of course you measure in °C; not only would 6F be absurd for you to go running, if it was that cold in England in October I'd have heard about it.

[lnr]

Does running with a light scarf over your mouth help with the cold air? I know it's an approach which some other asthmatics find useful - and while it may not be ideal it may be preferable to the gym? Obviously I can understand if you'd rather not risk the discomfort of waiting for several hours to recover and don't want to try it!

[liv]

That sounds like it might well work, yeah. I hadn't heard of that trick, and I do reckon it's worth a try in order to be able to keep running outdoors for as long as possible. Thank you!