Training Log Archive: Lori

Skiing with Sam and Presto at Yellow Barn State Forest! After a few days of temperatures in the 60s and then a hard freeze overnight, the trail was basically a sheet of bumpy ice today - possible to skate on, but definitely a challenge. There were also rocks and sticks poking through and some dirt patches, so all in all a bit of a minefield. My ankle was definitely working hard, but generally felt pretty good out there, which was good. I wiped out a few times and landing was HARD today. My butt will be sore. After that I took all the downhill super slow, which was good because there were a few random streams and/or mud puddles at the bottoms of hills, which required careful navigation. We turned around at a particularly long hill, figuring we'd had enough close calls and already skied up one hill that we were going to have to walk down on the way back. So good to get some exercise outside today!

Hiking with Sam and Presto at Shindagin Hollow State Forest! After such a short ski we decided it would be nice to spend some additional time outside, so we headed to Shindagin Hollow for a short hike. We had a lot of trouble finding a trailhead with parking, but eventually stumbled on something, and headed out. The puddles on the trail were impressively deep (several feet), so luckily there were some very solid snow banks to walk on. We climbed to the top of Bald Mountain, which was very poorly named as it was covered in trees, but gave us a nice goal point. My ankle wasn't thrilled about the sidehilling on the way back, but did well otherwise. Good to spend the day outside!

Normal stretching back home.

Biking in place after not-lab! My ankle has been feeling a bit better (walking ok, stairs ok, still a bit stiff and painful in the morning), so I was hoping that I could run for 5-10 minutes tonight. I headed out with Presto, but it hurt immediately, so I stopped. I figured I'd just take Presto for a walk instead, so we continued on. I noticed a bunch of police around my street, but there have been water main issues, so I didn't really think anything about it until they shone a flood light in my face and told me to turn around and go home. They then shone the light on a tree that had fallen across the road and was resting on the power lines on the other side of the street. Eep. So, yeah, not sure we could have escaped for much of a run regardless.

Biking felt great. My butt is really improving, which makes the entire experience more pleasant. I spent the first 30 minutes on the phone with a friend who had a rough day and just needed to vent, so I wasn't pushing very hard, and then the next 45 minutes actually getting some serious exercise.

In other news, the saga of Lori and the Curse of the Shipping Gods continues. I attempted to send a bunch of insulated shipping kits to Berkeley so they could continue shipping my samples to Cornell. Sadly, the insulated shippers arrived here instead, so today I spent my afternoon shipping everything to Berkeley.

Normal stretching.

Biking in place after not-lab! My ankle was a bit achy Monday evening after doing a ton of walking around lab, but it was feeling good today. My butt is still a bit sore, but seems to be generally recovering, which is good. My ankle felt good while biking and, since I didn't need to use a computer case today, my knee was completely fine (a big relief!). I pushed a bit harder today than I was over the weekend, since my ankle was doing well, and my heartrate was definitely higher than it was, which was nice.

Normal stretching.

The ankle is doing better today. It still occasionally hurts on stairs, but it was feeling good enough to try running a few steps. The first step was painful, but the next 10 felt good. I decided that was enough running, and went back to walking, but it's a lab day, so there has been a lot of walking, and it's still feeling decent.

Biking on the bike trainer in the living room! Wow. My butt is super sore. I got on the bike and then immediately got off again because I just could not sit on the seat. I searched around for an option to improve seat comfort and ended up settling on my neoprene computer sleeve folded in half to provide extra squishiness. I can't say that I exactly endorse computer sleeves as bike seats, but it did the trick. The only real problem with it was that it made my pedaling a little funny, so that if I didn't sit straight up (i.e., no hands on the handlebars), it made my knee hurt a bit. Um. Yeah. I'm falling apart. Anyway, I sat straight upright on my bike with the computer case and happily got some exercise for a Netflix show worth of time, at which point my knee and butt were both starting to complain, so I stopped. Certainly better than nothing, but it left something to be desired in the happy exercise time category.

The ankle felt great during and after this, so that's good at least! It is still displeased on stairs.

Normal abs and glute exercises, just in case strengthening the glutes will improve things. I figured as long as my butt was sore, it might as well be REALLY sore.

Normal stretching.