Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 38: Jailbreak

37:21 minutes - 2.06 miles - 18:09 min/mile

Had a really hard time motivating myself to get out and do my mission today. Hardly got any sleep last night (again) and I was really tired and depressed and icky. But when 4 PM rolled around, I told myself I could just walk the mission, and only run any zombie chases (there weren't any), and went out and did it.

Kind of sad that my walking time isn't really that much slower than my running/walking time. Oh well. The temperature was around 67 F when I went out. The loop of my driveway was about half in shade, and the wind was blowing, so it was mostly pretty cool, only getting hot when I was in the sun while the wind had died down. So it was a pleasant enough walk.

 

I'm not really confident about my ability to keep up my exercise when I'm already having so much trouble making myself do it. I just feel so awful most of the time. Usually, once I start exercising regularly, I start feeling better—stronger, more energy, sleeping better—but this time, I just feel worse. So tired and draggy and dizzy. I suppose I should see a doctor, but they haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with me yet, so it just seems pointless. Blah.

Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 37: Sweet Escape

40:26 minutes - 2.09 miles - 19:22 min/mile

Another late run—too late, as it turned out. I hardly slept last night, and ended up getting up around 9 AM, way too late to run in the morning, so I planned to go out in the afternoon, as soon as it started to cool down a little. But by 4 PM, I was so tired I decided to take a nap instead and run after dinner. Slept for about 45 minutes (ahhhhh!), then got up and started dinner, fed the kitties, ate my dinner, and finally got my running clothes on and headed out around 7 PM. It was still light when I started, and nice and cool, but it started getting dark pretty quickly, and I started worrying about keeping my footing when I couldn't see the ground very well, as well as wondering if there were any mountain lions or bears out hunting who might think a running person would make a good target. I started running half-loops, doubling back to stay near the house, and eventually just came inside and finished the last three or four minutes walking back and forth in the house. So my time was all messed up—the GPS didn't know where I was half the time. My splits were 17:07 and 17:05, though, for the first part of the run, so that's probably closer to my time.

I did one lap running, one lap walking again, and had one zombie chase at 30 minutes. I'd increased the frequency of chases from 1.5 per hour to 2 per hour, and finally got one!

Starting week three and I'm still doing my runs, but I need to be more regular with my running times. The weather should finally be cooling down now, so I sleep in a bit more and still do mornings.

Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 36: One Way Or Another

35:49 minutes - 2.15 miles - 16:41 min/mile

Did an afternoon run today. I was tired yesterday and didn't set my alarm, so I slept in until 8 AM. I figured it wasn't that hot today, so I would just run later.  Was planning to run after I did chores and had my morning cocoa, but then I got a call from my mom's home that she was all agitated and asking if I'd come and try to calm her down, so I did that, and by the time I got home it was lunch time and then I'd sort of forgotten about running until around 4 PM, when I went out to put the recyclables in the shed and saw that it was cloudy and cool and thought it would be a good time to run. Of course, by the time I got my running clothes on and went outside, the sun had come out from behind the clouds and it was hot again, but I figured I could just walk and get it done anyway. But I ended up doing the one lap running, one lap walking interval anyway. The clouds came back for part of the time so at least I wasn't running in the sun the whole way.

No zombie chases again. That's what, three missions in a row? I just know if I bump up the chase frequency I'm going to end up getting four chases in one mission. Oh well. Guess I'll try it for next time and see what happens.

I still feel pretty slow, and I was thinking, here it is, two whole weeks in, and I've barely improved my time. But today's run was better. At least it was under 17 min/mile. In fact, it looks like today's mission was a full 45 seconds/minute faster than the last one. So I guess I am getting better. Although, it seems like I generally run faster in the afternoon than in the morning. I'm not really a morning person.

So, two full weeks of running! I've sort of fallen off doing yoga on my off days, but I guess as long as I get my runs in I'm not going to worry about it.

SPOILERS

Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 35: Dog Days Are Over

42:40 minutes - 2.43 miles - 17:35 min/mile

Another run! (Yes, I'm still amazed at myself that I'm actually keeping it up this time!) I haven't been good at all about getting up early on non-mission days. I even skipped yoga yesterday—not intentionally, I planned to do cat chores first and yoga later, since I'd slept in until 8 AM—but I forgot about it once I got into my morning routine. Still, when the alarm went off at 6 AM, I got up and got dressed and went out to run. It was actually kind of chilly this morning. I wore my long-sleeved Star Wars shirt that I got at the Disneyland Half Marathon last January and was still shivering until I got warmed up. Still only 55 F right now, with the sun up. Looks like the weather is finally going to start cooling down. Maybe I can start running at 7 AM soon.

I am still doing a one lap running, one lap walking interval, and still pretty slow. Won't be doing any half marathons at this speed! I felt like I was going faster today but my time hasn't improved very much. No chases again today. Maybe I need to boost up the frequency a bit (and then I'll immediately get four chases in one run). Well, it's only my second week back, so I won't worry yet. I don't have any races planned anyway. Except maybe the Zombies, Run! virtual race on Halloween, which would only be a 5K or 10K and virtual besides. I should check into signing up for that, but it's still a ways away. Will try to make it to the park on Saturday. With the weather cooling down, I expect I could still get up at 6 and start my run at the park at 6:30 without getting too hot.

SPOILERS

Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 34: Ready To Go

36:02 minutes - 2.04 miles - 17:41 min/mile

Week 2! Another slow run, but I got out there. I was a little worried about getting up early, after sleeping in until 8 AM Sunday and Monday. Plus, I didn't sleep in the afternoon yesterday, and had a hard time getting to sleep at night, lying awake until after midnight. Then I woke up at 4 AM and couldn't get back to sleep, so I lay there drowsing until about 10 minutes to 6, when I went ahead and got up and ran. Turned out to be fine to get up and run—I'm still pretty slow, but that's at least partly because I'm going slow on purpose to save energy in case of zombie chases. I'll probably be tired later, but I don't have anywhere I have to go today, so I'll just take a nap if I get sleepy.

Anyway, the run got done. No zombie chases today. I suspect, if I'm going to run with chases on, I'm going to have to just run as best I can and take my chances if there are chases. But I do want to ease into running again after taking so many months off, so these first few weeks I'm not going to worry about speed, just getting the missions done.

Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 33: Athena

43:34 minutes - 2.45 miles - 17:45 min/mile

Woohoo! An entire week! Heh. I hope this means I'm officially back into it. I had thought I'd go to the park and run today, but if I go to the park to run, I should get up even earlier—at 5:30 AM instead of 6 AM—so I can get to the park in time to start my run at 6 and finish by 7, when the sun starts to hit. And I was really really tired yesterday—hadn't slept well at all, got up early anyway and did yoga, tried to nap in the afternoon but only got a little sleep, so I decided to just stay home and run today, so I could sleep that extra half hour.

I did go to bed early last night and slept pretty well, so I was awake and ready to go when the alarm went off at 6. For today's run, I decided to do one lap running, one lap walking, while keeping the running down to a slow jog. I was mostly trying to keep my time slow so I could handle any zombie chases that came up, but there weren't any today. (I wish the zombie chases were a little less random. At the same setting, I've had as many as four chases in one mission, and as few as none. It would be nice to be able to specify "2 chases per mission" or something like that, instead of an average per hour.)

My splits were 16:47, 18:26, and 17:22, which I think I can put down to the GPS being off, because I really doubt I slowed down by a minute and a half for the second mile. I've been running with WiFi turned off, now that I have unlimited data on my phone—I don't want to use up my home data—but I think WiFi helps with location accuracy, so maybe I should turn it on while I run. Not that the mileage really makes that much difference on these timed runs.

I started to do cat chores as soon as I came in and changed clothes, but I got so dizzy while I was scooping litter boxes, I decided to take a break and sit down with a protein drink and do my running blog for a bit and wait for my blood pressure to come back before I finish chores. It won't hurt the cats to wait another half hour for their breakfast, even though Mister thinks he's starving.

SPOILERS