Sunday, March 1, 2009

Claritin To The Rescue

After 3 hellacious, allergy-draining weeks of constant clogging and running of my nose, I finally caved. I went to CVS and bought a pack of Claritin-D. The pseudoephedrin gives a boost of energy since it opens up your air passageways. Within a couple of hours, I felt so good that I didn't just feel like going for a run... I wanted to hit the track.

So I did. I took the scooter down to Howard Middle School, which is open to the public as long as there are no school children present. You can't beat that for a public policy.

I started off with a warmup mile run around Lake Eola, which was packed. It went up into the low 80's and everyone wanted to head out to the lake for picnicking, photobugging of the birds, letting their kids roam around the playground, and general walking around. It made the lap a little annoying, but I only had to do one, so I tried to grin it out.

Warmup done. I did a very light stretch routine. I did one hamstring stretch with my legs at shoulder width and grab my ankles and hold for 30 seconds. I also did a quadriceps stretch by holding my ankle behind me (by my buttocks) and hold for 30 seconds and then alternate legs. That's it. I was losing sun and wanted to get started.

My goal was 4x400 with 400 recovery. In my head, I was going to run these at 5k race pace, which should be around 8:00, so that equals 2:00 each. I instead ran them at 6:00 pace, which is 1:30 each. It was just right. My legs got a light burn by the end of the lap and my fingers just started to tingle.

I really felt the workout in my lower quadriceps near my knees and in my buttocks. I little more in my right side than my left, which attribute to running the standard counter clockwise around the track. I have to remember to run clockwise next time, so that I keep balanced muscle tone and growth.

Finished up with a half mile cooldown.

This workout was 3.5 miles. With my morning run on Tuesday of 5 miles, I totaled 8.5 miles for the week. For most people, this would be 1 run for the day. The forecast calls for rain today, so hopefully that will clear some of the oak pollen and I can breathe normally again. We'll see.

1 comment:

SDrunner said...

I have always had issues with my nose and Claritin is something that I've always wanted to try. The workout sounds pretty intense and it seems like you did a really good job at it. Hopefully you won't need to take the Claritin anymore.