Kick the Couch and business trip

Last Saturday I participated in the Kick the Couch 5k (http://worldwidefestivalofraces.com/) and came in at 37 minutes. My son was being cranky at home, so I told him he could ride his bike along side me. That probably slowed me down, especially toward the end where he kept stopping to complain, but probably not running for a week beforehand slowed me down even more. It was interesting to think that people all over the world were running at the same time.

The next day, I went off on a business trip. I spent 5 hours walking around the Fine Arts Museum in Houston, which totally wore me out. There was no way I was going to run after that. I actually had sore leg muscles after that.

The hotel I was staying at had a nice set of treadmills, so I got in two runs on those. The first day, I also did a good circuit with the free weights. I actually remembered how to do a lot of lifts. They did have some weight machines, but not a full set. I think I prefer free weights anyway. The runs were good. This time, I ran the speed I wanted rather than going off of my HRM, so I got up into the 170s. The treadmills could read my Polar HRM (as did the others I used on my previous business trip). But, they weren't as reliable as my wrist watch at correctly filtering the signal. Towards the end, I got sweaty enough that I think the band slipped a little and didn't read at all. That's annoying, but I didn't feel like reaching up under my shirt to adjust the band with a colleague running on the next treadmill over.

On the trip, I stopped at a book store and bought No Need for Speed. I just barely started it, but it sounds like just what I need to stay interested in running. Now that it is getting colder, I'm starting to wonder if I want to join a fitness center for the winter so I have a treadmill for those days when I don't want to go outside. I don't know. In the past, I've used aerobics DVDs in my basement. That worked well, but I would also like to keep running. Maybe I'll run outside when the weather is ok and do DVDs when it is not.