September 16, 2013: I have hope.

My legs are sore this morning. Very sore. As I walked down the stairs to go to work, I felt that wonderful sensation in my muscles that reminded me of the absolutely fan-fucking-tastic past week I've had.

This past week was a prime week training-wise; I broke two personal records:

1. I ran the longest distance in my life ever.
2. I ran the most mileage in one week.

My workout week is summarized in the spreadsheet below. As you can see, I ran 13.5 mi on Sunday, totaling in 43.1 mi for the whole week!

Let's focus on the Sunday run, which is by far the most important. I used the new heart rate monitor I got in the mail a few days ago, the Polar H7. I had already bought a similar device a few months ago (Zephyr HxM) but it wasn't working well, so I returned it to Amazon. This device, coupled with my phone (Nexus 4) gives very useful data from the workout, such as position, speed, elevation, and heart rate.

Bluetooth Smart Technology - Runs only on Android 4.3 and up.

Sunday morning run across Massachusetts. Meanwhile, some of my coworkers are at work... A-HA.

My girlfriend came with me on the run, but she was on her bike that she never uses. Of course, the bike broke down after 4 miles.

Is it my foot, or the bike?

 We ended up ditching the hunk of metal and hid it in some bushes, then I tried to make her run along with me. Of course, she couldn't keep the pace I had, and soon she had to completely stop because she is so out of shape because I love her... Consequently, I had to observe numerous pauses (according to the above graph, 20m38s of them). Ok, let's be real one second, I'm trying to find excuses here, because the sad truth is: I'm slow as a turtle with diarrhea.

Sick, dude.

Pain-wise, it was fine until mile 12 where a sharp pain started on my tendon, above my left foot (the injured one). I immediately stopped, stretched said extremity for 5 minutes and resumed... the pain was miraculously gone. Maybe there is actually a God somewhere.

You're going to Hell, son.

After the run, I wasn't even hungry (thanks to the three French toasts drowned in maple syrup that I devoured two hours before running) and I was barely tired. Legs were strong. I iced the heck out of my tendons using fragments from the ice luge we had slurped citrus vodka from a mere 24 hours prior. And I drank a protein shake. Felt good. I'm kind of optimistic this time. Knock on wood.

As we all know, all good things must have an end. Around 4pm, I returned to my car that I parked on the street using my girlfriend's 2-Day visitor parking, and I found a citation under my windshield blades. It said I have "abused" the guest parking. Apparently, one can only park 2 days a week, and not any two days consecutively. Fine was $50!! Then I logged into the City of Somerville website to file a claim... only to discover I had another fine for the second day I "abused" the permit. Grand total, $100!? FUCK YOU CITY OF SOMERVILLE; THAT IS OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE.