January 2022 Monthly Running Challenge

@quilteryoyo I am sorry that you are sick again. We’ve had a ton of people at our various worksites test positive, and almost all are vaccinated. It is spreading like crazy.

1.1 slow miles tonight, and a little bit of strength training on my lunch break.

January miles: 50.36
Streak days:18

I hope everyone feels better (or stays good)!

My plan said 8.1 km, so that's what I did. Tried a few back roads I haven't done much of before and it was nice. The air felt a little colder than it's been, but -3°C is pretty normal for this time of year. Just watch out for icy spots.

Sunrise

"Keepin' it sleasy since 1952"

1-1 7k sleasy
1-2 7k sleasy
1-3 rest
1-4 7k sleasy
1-5 4k slow
1-6 4k treadmill
1-7 7k sleasy
1-8 7k slow
1-9 7k sleasy
1-10 rest
1-11 7k slow
1-12 7k sleasy (but a lot closer to easy than slow)
1-13 rest
1-14 6k sleasy
1-15 7k sleasy
1-16 7k almost easy (but still sleasy)
1-17 rest
1-18 4k treadmill
1-19 7k slow

January Total: 95k
January Goal: 140k

Mostly cloudy, low 30s F, and a gusty south wind. Main road was clear and easy to run on; sided roads were treacherous and required caution.
Nice to see we're all inventing new words to describe our runs. Hope all the sick make a speedy recovery and all the well stay that way.

@quilteryoyo Hope you and your mom feel better soon, with two shots and a prior infection, plus booster (supposedly only takes 24 hrs to start ramping up immune system) hopefully you should be pretty protected.

I heard back from the doctor’s office finally, calcium score zero so yay on that front. However I do have multiple calcified granulomas in my lungs probably due to lupus inflammation over the years. Both x-rays and ct scan failed to see any pleural effusion so apparently it came and went on its own. Multiple very minor leaks of heart valves again probably due to years of lupus, and minor weirdness of ekg - one of my leads is inverted which can signify really bad stuff but also is normal for about .4% of people and we don’t have a previous one to compare to, so they are assuming it’s normal for me. I don’t get a follow up to talk to an actual doctor about what happens next until 8th February. My strong suspicion is that all the minor problems are downstream from the lupus flare I had shortly before my heart freaked out, since I know I was having lupus-related vasculitis at that time. I’m still really reluctant to push hard while running since it might happen again at any time. And I’m still having chest discomfort which no one has an explanation for.

My husband and I have run twice since I last posted, once on trails across the river, and once on the Greenway. He’s still without his asthma meds (FINALLY got an appointment today so he will have meds again) and so we have been running slow, short and easy. Shlorzy? Usually we run every other day, but this week there were two beautiful days in a row sandwiched between spans of absolutely heinous weather, so we took advantage and ran twice in a row. Which means today I get to lift indoors and be grateful I’m not outside getting rained on.

On the lifting front, since due to my heart issues I haven’t been able to push hard while running, and I got new weights for Christmas, I have been focusing on my lifting. Due to my very limited ancient weight set at home I was stuck deadlifting and squatting a max of 150 lbs. My dad actually got me my old weight set when I was in high school, it’s a Weider set from 1980 something made of plastic and cement, and it has served me well over the decades, but really it’s a little sad. So my Christmas present to myself involves 300 lbs of cast iron, very nicely coated so it doesn’t cut up my hands when I swap plates, and a girlie 5” Oly bar which is really a very high class bar which was on sale because the packaging was damaged, plus a rack which actually has real live safety bars unlike the tiny little safety arms on my old rack, so I don’t accidentally staple myself like I did when I failed a squat and missed the safety bar last year. So, since Christmas I have improved my deadlift from 150 to 175 and my squat to 170, and my overhead press from 65 to 75. This is still less than I was lifting back when I went to the gym but at least it’s coming back!

After my last post, I looked at the weather and realized it was going rain the rest of the day. Since I’m not traveling far for work today, I went ahead and got in an early morning 2 miles.

January miles: 53.57
Streak days: 20