Sunday, September 6
Waking up to work on a Sunday when the US has a long weekend is always a little bitter–especially this year, when the fall Jewish holidays fall mostly on weekends, so I don’t get as many days off. Oh well, it’s not like I have anywhere to go!
Speaking of traveling–I have a trail race at the end of October in Northern Israel. It’s near-ish Zichron Yaakov, a town Lior has wanted to visit for awhile, so I suggested that we make a weekend out of it. I searched on Airbnb and found a reasonably-priced yet nice looking Airbnb hosted by an Airbnb Superhost, with a generous cancellation policy, should we need to cancel. The plan is to drive up on a Thursday after work, I’ll run the race Friday morning, and then we’ll have the rest of the weekend to hang out in the area. Fun!
Tonight’s workout was cancelled due to the heat/humidity. If possible, it’s actually worse now than it was in July. I can’t wait for cooler weather, when I’ll be able to go on short runs during my lunch break!
As I do want to run a 12km race on October 23, I do want to start increasing my running a bit. The race is a trail race, and I don’t intend to run it all out, especially because it will likely be hillier than what I am used to running. Nevertheless, I do want to work on my running stamina. I happened to register for a virtual 5K that needed to be completed over Labor Day weekend, so I decided today was the day to try! I ended up running 3.7km in 21 minutes, before deciding to call it and walk the rest. I was out of breath, it was insanely humid, and I decided it wasn’t worth possibly aggravating my knee. This decision lasted for about 3 minutes/.3km, after which I decided that I felt better, and I should run it in. I realized that if I ran fast enough, I had a chance to finish in under 30 minutes…I ran 5.02km in 29:59! For where I’m at, I feel good about that effort. I later did the math and realized that if I had kept my initial pace, I would have instead finished in 28:22. Would it have been worth it to suffer for a 1:37 faster time? Honestly…not today. At any rate, I can say with 100% certainty that I would not have pushed myself so hard if I did not have a virtual race to run, so I’m glad I took the opportunity…but am happy to return to 20 minute runs where I don’t push the pace too much. I’ll be even happier once the heat and humidity break!
Nowhere near my PR, but I’m still proud of it!
Anyway, including the warm up and cool down walks from my apartment to the beach, I covered 8.7km and completed 3 more runs/walks towards my Great South Run goal!
Monday, September 7
Physical therapy went great today–I am officially cleared to run 5K! Honestly, with the current heat and humidity, I don’t feel like running much more than that. Today’s exercises also included one legged jumping onto a large foam pad. The activity looks stupidly easy, but by the end I was so sweaty that I needed a post-PT shower. Also, I learned that I was wrong–I’ve been having issues with my LCL, not my ACL. Whatever, the human body is complicated and this is why I leave the training/exercise planning to the professionals! #notadoctor
Even more great news–the running shoes I ordered at the end of July finally arrived, and I didn’t have to pay any extra tax on them!
Unfortunately, I learned that my workout class is cancelled indefinitely, so now I need to find a new strength/cross training option. I’d prefer a class outside of my apartment because I need friends!
I felt tired/low energy in the evening, so I decided to not go for a run. Sorry, today isn’t a two shower kind of day! However, Lior went for a run! Maybe one of these days we’ll get out and run together… 🙂
Tuesday, September 8
Office day! I missed the bus I usually take, so instead of arriving to the shuttle pick-up painfully early, I arrived juuuust in time. Gotta love Tel Aviv traffic…
Today I had my semi-annual performance review at work. I have some concrete things to continue to work on, and some less concrete things to try and work on that are challenging due to the whole global pandemic/people working mostly from home situation. Overall, I feel pretty good about how it went! Even better–I got approval to work remotely from the US for two weeks in November! Lior and I are looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving with my family, and as a side bonus, I’ll get to stock up on things from the US that I miss!
After work I walked 2.3km from the train station to complete some errands, and in the evening, Lior and I met up with some of his friends.
Wednesday, September 9
I had no energy today, so after work I just stayed inside and chilled. But Lior went for a run!
Thursday, September 10
More physical therapy! Hila said that I am improving! After work, I went and tried a new yoga class. It was held behind Gordon Pool, with a great view of the Mediterranean Sea. I liked the class, but might try for something closer.
After my yoga class, Lior and I took another trip to IKEA, to buy him a desk. We managed to only pick up a few extra snacks and knick knacks, and I didn’t have a panic attack this time, so it was a successful trip!
Today in the evening, we got the news that we may be heading into a 2 week lockdown, likely starting next Friday. All nonessential business will be closed, restaurants will be delivery only, and we will only be able to go 500m from our homes for nonessential things. This means I will likely literally be running in circles around my neighborhood, but it is what it is. I sincerely hope that this go around, the coronavirus infection rate goes down and stays down.
Friday, September 11
Today Lior and I did our shopping, (mine included a 3.1km walk) and he made hamburgers for lunch and also picked us up some special desserts for an early Rosh Hashanah celebration! Later on we built his new desk and he reorganized his office/our storage room a bit.
In the afternoon I decided to take advantage of the fact that I still have free movement around the city to go for a 5km run to the beach. It was hot, but also glorious–and I had no knee pain!
Saturday, September 12
Today was a chill day–we cooked, went to the beach (walked about 2km), and went to a friend’s birthday party, where I made a new friend and we registered for a Pilates class for next week!
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