In the Pursuit of Wonder

Still sick, called into work.

Objective: Run slow and see how far I can run without walking.

Ran 2.51 in 31:21 AHR 149, 71% of max, HR Range 148-163, 20.54 in zone, peak 162, cal 686 based on 232 lbs. 12:29 pace. Brooks Addiction.

I have had a head cold/sinus infection for a few days, but I really didn't want to go 4 days in a row without running.  So I did some nasal lavage/irrigation so I could breath and went for a run.  If you don't know what that is I recommend  googling it. It is not as gross as it sounds.  I am a big fan and if you are brave enough to try it I would be glad to give tips.  Anyways, normally I run kinda fast (for me) and then walk when my hr monitor gets above 163.  That has proven to give me much better times than running at a more even pace.  But since I am sick anyway I thought it would be fun to run really slow but run for a long time.  I made it the entire run without walking or my HR monitor going off.  I made it about .8 miles before my HR reached 147 which is the bottom of my normal training zone which I usually reach in less than 1/4 of a mile.  I am now wondering if I could do an entire 5k that way.  Even though my time would be really bad.  It was a nice relaxing run and I felt good the entire way.  The front of my shirt looks kinda gross from running with a sinus infection, but I haven't enjoyed a run that much for some time.  A little slower than 12:30 pace seems to be where my prefered gait changes from walking to running.  Kind of an interesting number to know.  Should help me with some hiking time predictions.

My boss just came in and told me to go home, so I must look pretty sick still.  I hope to run tonight.

I signed up for a military study at ASU.  They said the military has a lot of personel who have to be placed in a desk job because of stress or physical limitations, so the military is funding a study to determine if they should target recruits who have lower responses to stress stimuli or meet certain physical characteristics.  He basically already invited me into phase two which would involve them giving me a free personal trainer and access to ASU's workout facilities.  Today was the first day of 3 different days.  My next day will be a Vo2 max test.  but today they tested cortisol production and stress.  After filling out forms and signing disclosures they inserted an IV.  Then they took me in a room and put heart monitors on my chest and a heart monitor on my finger.  They said that by having the heart monitors in both places they can tell how long it takes blood to reach my finger from my heart.  Not quite sure how that works, but it sounds interesting, even if it was an overly dumbed down laymans explanation of what they were doing.  They had an ekg maching running that showed both pulses.  Also on two of my fingers they put some pads that they said measure how much I am sweating.  They said that is what they use for lie detector tests.

Then they put me through a bunch of stessors.  First they put different colored words of color words on the screen.  For example the word would be green but the text color would be red.  I would have to say red.  These blinked by quickly and there was a beep and I had to say the color of the text before the beep.  This is all while some guy is drawing my blood in one arm, the blood pressure cuff is going off on the other arm and a guy is tapping his pencil on his clip board saying things like concentrate, you can do it faster than that, and what not.  Then I had to do multipication and division problems.  77 x 8, 3/246 things like that in my head.  They showed 6 on the screen at one time and when time is running out, a beeping sound gets closer together and the images fades away.  Once again the guy was there with the clip board trying to get you to encourage you to do it faster and trying to stress you out.  Then the same routine where I had to do anagrams.  Then they put my hand in a bucket of ice water for two minutes.  It was freezing cold.  Throughout the study they kept asking if I was ok and they kept telling me I could take my hand out of the water if I wanted.  I asked how many people took that option and she said about half.  After about a minute my hand was numb and I could have left it in forever.  Then for the final test they had me talk about a stressful event in my life and tried to get me to feel those same feelings again.  In between each test I put this cotton thing in my mouth to soak up saliva and whatever cortisol my mouth produced.

 Yay! I finally got a run in.  Still coughing up a storm.  I've decided I must have become a runner, otherwise I wouldn't feel such guilt for missing runs.  Especially when my mind thinks I have a good reason to miss it.

 Ran 2.93 in 33:29 AHR 153, 74% of max, HR Range 148-163, 25.58 in zone, peak 166, cal 766 based on 232 lbs. 11:26 pace. Brooks Addiction.  May fine tune distance tomorrow.

 Last half of run, toes on my right foot went numb and got kind of painful near the end.  Not sure what caused that.  My shoelaces weren't too tight.  Hopefully that was a one off thing.  My other issue is last saturday I got sunburned working on my car.  Now my neck is sticky with sweat and my shirt collar seems to have irritated the brand new skin.  Someone flashed their brights at me in irritation even though I was in an ample bank lane and there was little other traffic and he had two lanes and a median.  Americans are trending toward far too much pride these days.  Temperature right now 56 degrees.  I was a little chilly on my run.  Also, my time includes an excursion to water the creosote bushes.