Lots of Exercise

Yesterday evening I had a practice with my tennis team.  I played pretty well, going through two rounds of doubles and a round of singles.  We only had 20 - 25 minutes per round, so I told my ladies to imagine we were finished up a timed match, and we had 20 minutes left to win.  I'm not sure that really influenced how anyone played.

This morning I did Insanity Core Cardio & Balance.  I was not really in the mood for any workout this morning - a little tired, I guess.  But I got through it and burned about 190 calories.

This afternoon I did a tempo run.  I ran 6.0 miles in something like 57:46, which averages out to about 6.24 mph.  That average speed was my goal for the tempo run.  However, I unfortunately achieved it by going out pretty fast (more like 6.5 mph) and then having to walk some at the end.  I was using Pace DJ, which definitely kept me at a specific pace, but I think I had my BPM a bit too high.  The run felt a lot like my 10K race in Columbia, which was not really what I'd been aiming for.  Also, it bothered my IT band again.

Today I went to Road Runner Sports to do a gait analysis and get some new shoes.  It turns out that I have very high arches, which I didn't know.  I also don't pronate as much as I thought I did; I don't pronate at all on my left foot, but I do a bit on my right foot.  I had some custom insoles made.  Unfortunately I had to go home and do my run and make dinner before I had a chance to try on some shoes.  I went back after dinner and bought Saucony Guide 7 in 7.5 wide.  I really felt quite a difference running in them with my custom insoles.  I'm hoping the new shoes (a stability type) and insoles might help with my IT band/calf problems.  I'm planning on moving the insoles into my tennis shoes when I play tennis, too.  We'll see.

There is the possibility of a new meteor shower tonight:  the Camelopardalids. One of the comets discovered by the LINEAR survey had a gravitational encounter with Jupiter, changing its orbit enough so that now the Earth crosses it.  There's no danger of impacting the comet, but the comet's dust along its orbit may make a good meteor shower.  It's still uncertain how many meteors will be seen.  Unfortunately my house is one of the worst places to try to see a meteor shower because of the city lights and the trees surrounding our backyard.  I might have tried to get somewhere out of town to see it, but we are leaving early tomorrow for vacation, so that didn't really work.  Hope we don't end up regretting that!