With lesser miles covered last week, let us see what’s in store for this week!
Day 1 – Sunday, May 10, 2020 – Quarantine Day 55
The first day of the week did not go as planned.
I realized the physical toll 34 miles of biking took on my body today; so, decided to skip both run and bike for the day and took the official rest day.
This is not the ideal start for the week, but, I am optimistic about the week. With enough rest, I think, I should be able to hit my weekly 20 miles target. Let us how the rest of the week goes.
Day 2 – Monday May 11, 2020 – Quarantine Day 56
Second day of the week didn’t bring that big a good news for COVID19 positive cases. The number of cases for Michigan was in 400s, so the good part is that the numbers are not going up, and the sad part is that they are not going down either, so let us see where we go from here.
The Michigan Weather was not acting nicely today. Plus, my left knee was not feeling that good, so decided to skip the run. Also, the work has been so much that I needed something to take my mind off, so we decided to go for a lazy post-dinnner walk. It was soothing to walk for a change and could feel the cold air brushing against my bare knees. Overall, I enjoyed the walk.
And got to witness some exciting scenery too. See yourself.
Day 3 – Tuesday May 12, 2020 – Quarantine Day 57
The third day and the positive COVID19 count is a little bit up. It is just the norm now, so let us hope for the best. I think that is the only thing we can do right now.
Today was a good day for both exercise and Michigan weather. Today, we had temps in 50s which is good enough when you put a couple layers. Plus, work has been so so so busy that I desperately need something to escape at the end of the day. I decided to do almost everything that I possibly could to take a good advantage of this beautiful day and weather.
I started with a good run. My goal was to finish a 5K before heading out with my friends for the biking. I ended up finishing 3.8 miles in time and was happy with the efforts.
If you remember, last week, I finished the 34 miles bike ride, and left knee took a toll because of that. Therefore, I had to give a good 2-3 days’ rest to recover fully from this pain.
It was a good feeling to run after a couple days of rest. It felt refreshing and since I was wearing my compression socks, I felt quite fine and wished I could have gone for some more distance. Here’s the map of my run.
Immediately after the run, my friends were ready for a long bike ride. So, I had to quickly gulp down a protein bar before heading out with them on the bike. I didn’t even take out my compression socks (which I forgot to) and it turned out to be a good thing for me.
When it comes to biking now, our bodies are so in-tune with the effort that we hardly take breaks, but with kids, we need to make sure they are properly hydrated and are not overdoing things.
We took our usual 275N biking route before circling it for our start point. Here’s the map of our biking route. It was a good effort by everyone.
One more thing – while biking, we took, I think, 4 breaks and we could finish our exercises during those breaks, as we haven’t spent much time on the exercises for the last week or so.
We could finish 100 each of push-ups, sit-ups, and Russian twists. It was a good feeling, people looking at us, greeting us, when we are finishing up our reps.
Here’s how the day looked like.
Day 4 – Wednesday May 13, 2020– Quarantine Day 58
One more day and couldn’t be more excited for the Michigan weather. We had weather in 60s today, giving us the feeling that SUMMER is almost here. If you are a Michigander, you would understand what I meant when I say it is almost summer here in Michigan. One day you enjoy the sunny weather in high of 70s and next day you are welcomed with the snow. This is how the life is here and to be honest, I love every single minute of it. I cannot imagine myself leaving Michigan for foreseeable future, with all the amazing people in my life and the strong bond that I have developed over the last 2-3 years.
Anyway, getting back to the daily regime.
Wednesday was the repetition of Tuesday in terms of almost all exercises that we did.
Work, as usual, was so busy, I barely got time for breakfast and had to have it after my friends had theirs. This was the first time I missed breakfast and I wasn’t happy about that, but, I think, it happens rarely, so I am okay with that.
After the workday was over, I got ready for my run and repeated the route and distance and loved doing it. Today, Aryan and Arnav also accompanied me for the run, so it felt better that I had someone to talk to. I had to slow down and take more breaks as this was the first time they were running.
Here’s the map of the run.
After the run, I refueled myself with a bread and better and a protein bar, before heading out for biking.
We used the same route like yesterday and could cut off almost 30 minutes from today’s route. As compared to 4 breaks, we took only 2 breaks today and were happy with the efforts. At the end of the bike, we didn’t feel tired at all as we were prepping for dinner.
Here’s the map of the biking.
One more thing – I could finish 100 push-ups for the day during one of the breaks that I took before having lunch. So, it was a good day.
Day 5 – Thursday May 14, 2020– Quarantine Day 59
Damn, not a good day for COVID19 positive cases in Michigan. Somehow the number of cases skyrocketed to 1,100. Yesterday, it was 370 and today 1,100 – dumbfounded me. Not sure what might be causing this. 😭
As far as the Marathon prep goes, I had to thank Michigan weather for that. It rained throughout the day, which I didn’t realize at all due to the workload and many meetings that I had to be a part of. As soon as I was done for the day, I had a banana and a cup of coffee to rejuvenate myself before heading out for the run.
I wanted to go on a long run, so I couldn’t join my friends, Monika & Anupam, for the bike ride. It was a little slippery and wet everywhere so thought it would be better to run than bike. I had a great time running such a long distance almost after a month. The pace was good and I was happy with the overall effort.
Day 6 – Friday May 15, 2020– Quarantine Day 60
Good to know that the positive COVID19 cases are steady in 500~ range and praying that even though we reopen Michigan, the cases won’t sore. In my heart, I think, our Governor Gretchen Whitmer might reopen the state starting June 1st and a couple weeks after that, we will see “a little surge” (kind of a second wave) of the COVID19 positive cases, making us to rethink our strategy to reopen Michigan.
This is just a thought, I don’t know what is going to happen in future.
Anyway, getting back to the Marathon preparation, the Michigan weather started playing tricks on us, so I was a little skeptical with the run, but when I discovered there wasn’t any rain predicted for the rest of the day, I decided to go for a long run.
All was going really well and I had high hopes to finish at least 10 miles for the run. Unfortunately, after finishing 4 miles, I felt severe pain due to nipple chafing. I just couldn’t take it and had to cut short my run at 4.3 miles. Even though I was disappointed to cut the run short, I was glad I did stop not to risk of further injury. It was a good decision and at the end of the day I was happy with my decision.
I could finish the 4.3 miles in roughly 55 minutes at 12’39” pace.
After this run, I took a soothing cold shower to alleviate the pain from the run. It was super helpful to shower with cold water. After the shower, it was time for our Friday outdoor walk.
For some reason, my Strava app didn’t give me the map of this walk, so putting the Apple Activity screenshot below.
One more day to go for the week and I couldn’t be more excited.
Day 7 – Saturday May 16, 2020– Quarantine Day 61
Here we are! The last day of the week and I cannot realize it has been 19 weeks already for my Marathon preparation. The thing that started just as an idea has evolved into a big part of my life and I am not ready to give it up easily.
Saturday brought in a new milestone for me; not for Marathon preparation but out of my love for hiking. If there are a few things I would like to do in my free time apart from Running & Reading, it will definitely be Hiking. I was not a regular hiker in the past but ever since I moved to Michigan, this love has multifold and I don’t seem to get enough of it. Last year in November, we (myself, Monika, Anupam, and kids) finished the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore hike which was ~11 miles long, which took around 6 hours to finish and I realized so many things about life and its meaning (this is me being philosophical here 😌). After that we never had a chance to hike such a long distance until today.
The place was Pontiac Lake State Recreational Area. It was such a bliss to spend such a long time in the wild, not thinking about the current events and just enjoying the chirping of the birds, the scent of the woods, and waving to the fellow bikers and hikers crossing us on our way. The hike was filled with many photo ops places and the trail was properly marked so we did not have a hard time navigating.
One different thing we tried this time was to “run” while hiking the first 6 miles. It was a good strategy to do that which helped us cover more than half the distance in a short time, which will help us to finish the hike with plenty of time on our hands. I had so much fun again while running in the trails. My legs felt fine and without any wear and tear even though I ran for almost 3 miles during the first half of the hike. I am looking forward to more trail running and hiking in the great summer of the US.
My Apple watch decided to act funny and I couldn’t capture the entirety of the hike in a single picture. Anyway, here are some of the pics and stats from the hike.
This was the part 1 of the hike, I guess.
Followed by the 1 mile run that my Apple Watch could capture.
And finally, the part 2 of the hike.
And that brings us to the end of week 19 – what seemed like such a long week. Less than 10 miles for 300 miles of running for the year 2020. Should I change my running shoes? Some of my friends think I should!
Here’s the entry from my running journal.
stochasticity 