Last night I flew into Denver for my first work conference, my first time ever staying alone in a hotel (scary!!), and my first time ever working out in a hotel gym by myself with the cooking channel on while lifting with no shoes on. It was a big day of firsts. I can see why the barefoot running thing took off more than the barefoot weight-lifting thing did. Basically doing any offbeat workout practices are better for running, because if you feel embarrassed you can just run away. Usually there are other people in the gym that I can be embarrassed in front of for an extended period of time. Even in this case, when there wasn’t anyone else to give me funny looks, it still wasn’t an ideal situation. I was afraid of getting athlete’s foot so I stood on this towel the whole time and shuffled around on it when I had to switch weights. At least I didn’t destroy my shoes with sweaty feet. I will point out that I have seen multiple people at 24 Hour in Portland lifting in just their socks. Shoes aren’t for everyone. Especially when you forgot to pack socks and ran for a mile anyway and your feet got really sweaty and you did NOT enjoy it.
Another perk to being alone in the gym: free reign to take gym selfies without immediate judgment. Only later-judgmenet when I post them on my blog -but I’m not around to see it, so I’m okay with it.
I’m glad that I found time to get one workout in even if I did have to take my shoes off, because this conference is essentially a two day force-feeding session. And when I say force-feeding, I mean they just put food out all the time that we can eat, but sometimes that feels like the same thing. When your work is paying for you to go to a conference, you want to make sure they get their money’s worth. By me being well-fed. There was no food provided for us last night because the conference hadn’t officially started yet, but I lucked out. I ordered room service for dinner and they lost my order and it took over an hour to get my dinner so then they gave it to me for free. Aside from not getting to eat dinner until after midnight, this was a pretty sweet deal.
The only downside to this conference is that I’m missing the second cross-country meet of the season for the kids I’m helping to coach. At the last meet a lot of the kids went out crazy-fast and ended up walking or at least sucking wind hard for the second half of the race, so it would be fun to watch them now that they’ve learned that lesson. Not that I ever really learned that lesson, but I have higher hopes for these kids.
The first meet of the season.
As for my own running – haven’t ramped it up that much because my leg feels a little iffy. The good news is that when you’ve only run 4 miles in a year, it’s super easy to double your mileage, which makes it sound like I’ve been running a ton. And that’s what really matters.
Miles run in 2014: 8.5
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