Hot Summer Saturday

I was supposed to get up this morning, get myself together, get on a train and meet Ellen in Chelsea for a spinning class. Well, that didn't happen -- tossed & turned for a long time last night and woke up with a horrific, pounding headache (and, no, I was not drinking last night -- not one drop). So, in lieu of the spinning class, I waited until this afternoon and brought Lola to Forest Park for a long walk/jog. It was very hot today, mid to upper 80s with some amount of humidity, probably the hottest day so far this year. I wore my heartrate monitor and brought an ice cold bottle of water for Lola. We went for a few miles (somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 4) on the hiking and bridle trails of the Park. I allowed Lola off the leash for the parts on the hiking trails and she was very good and stayed right on my heels, regardless of whether the leash was on or not. For the portion of our outing that we were in the Park (the walk up there & back was warm-up & cool-down) I concentrated on keeping my heartrate between 135 and 155. When I was at 134/136 I would run, when I got up to 155 or so, I would walk. Of course, even just walking at a good clip up some of the steeper hills caused the HR to spike. Anyway, all in all, it actually felt like a good workout. Lola seems pretty tired now too, and a tired dog is a happy dog.