December always makes me want to stay at home in bed. The weather continues to cool and I’ve been able to use a few long coats that usually stay buried in my closets for 80% of the year. Hey, for a girl who lives in a country with temperature highs of 34 degrees Celsius this year, 24 degrees is sweater weather! Then again, we had a late-season typhoon that brought calamity across the Visayas — and another typhoon is forecast for Christmas. (Click here for a list of relief operations for Typhoon Urduja.) Climate change strikes again…
It’s Week 2 of my December Running Challenge and I’m getting into a very good groove with the running — although to be honest, the plan I started in the Nike+ Running Club app is on the easy side and I don’t quite know why? The longest session on the plan this week is 15 minutes! So, to compensate, I tack on a much longer warm-up and cool-down so I can hit at least 30 minutes per run.
I have been looking into other workout options to do in between running days, though.
I think part of the reason I’ve felt so unbalanced and “off” even if I’ve been exercising regularly for the past year is because I’ve let my stretching, yoga, and Pilates practice slip. I remember in 2014 when I went on that nine-day training camp in Thailand, all the training stress started getting to me towards the middle of the stay. Then we had a glorious yoga class which was like a reset button in its effect on me. So I’ve started using the yoga workouts in the Nike+ Training Club app as well. They’ve done wonders loosening tension in my shoulders and hips, and I’m also mentally more relaxed as well. Makes me wonder why I ever stopped.
Today I saw that the Subic International Triathlon registration is now open for next year’s race on April 21-22, 2018. There’s a big early-bird discount, but I don’t want to commit this soon. I registered for this year’s edition only to have to DNS because I wasn’t quite ready. If ever I sign up for it, I might do the sprint distance instead of biting off more than I can chew with a standard distance triathlon.
What really annoys me about this whole “coming back from overtraining” drama I’ve had is that I can’t plan on doing certain races simply because I don’t know if my body will respond positively or negatively to increased training load. (At least the general trend is “positively” — although I still tend to overdo things!) So maybe I should just plan for travel and new experiences. I can still always take my running shoes wherever I go; I don’t need a race as an excuse to get out on the road.
