It's been a low key week, I can barely remember how the days went, all I know is that I managed to do all my workouts and a few more, which kept me in good mood despite de craziness in the office. Weather has been also extremely good with insanely warm temperatures (May-June), so I can't complain one bit. Actually, I'm going to complain just for a second because today I went on an hour long run and overdressed, which made me really cranky, reason why my subconscient must have decided to go for a negative split instead of a "steady and constant pace". If I had worn a swimsuit instead of a fleece I would have probably enjoyed it ten times more. Oh well, got back home and decided that such a warm day called for an ice bath too. See, I am just one week away from the Around the Bay Road Race and my right calf is still bugging me with pain in my arch (go figure, but grab an anatomy manual while you're at it, that's where I learned the trick) and despite my constant stretching and icing, it hasn't gotten better over the weeks. So I figured I'd give it some shock therapy. The water was really cold since we're barely out of winter, but after 5 minutes everything was numb anyway. Stayed in the tub for 20 minutes and of course my Raynaud's acted up all the time I was in there and for 30 more minutes after I got dressed. Freakin' blood vessels, can't they just understand that ice bath or not, it's almost summer outside?! Get on with the program, for chrissakes! For those who don't know what Raynaud's does, well, it cuts the blood flow in the fingers (and sometimes toes) because the blood vessels spasm when I'm cold or anxious. It's usually not all fingers at once, they each turn white, then blue, then red in sequence. In the picture below, the color show started with the middle finger, then went to the surrounding fingers, then it cycled back to middle finger and so on. No thumbs are usually affected in this process.
Each spasm lasts for about 10-20min, depending on how quickly the recovery is. In the ice bath, not so quick. Oh well, I knew this was gonna happen, but ice baths are too good to be abandoned because of fingers putting on a freak show.
Moving on... next week I'll be tapering since it's race day on Sunday. Hope to be able to go back to the pool and improve my swimming because this week I went for a long session on Wednesday and I just could not relax. I worked on my breathing, alternating 3-5-7-3 breaths (apparently it's a good exercise to improve your lung capacity) because I ended up being too frustrated with my technique or lack thereof. There are days with and days without swimming mojo, that is.
Well, that's about it for the news this week. I'm going back outside, the sunshine better turn this mood around.
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