Working Out and Hair - Part 1

Hey y'all! I know it has been a while but things got a little busy around here. Well, I did complete most of my workouts from the last post, (with the exception of WL Yoga) and I did not get a chance to workout during my trip (but I did dance my butt off one night :-)) Anyhoo, when I returned home I was mucho bloated from all the extra salt and extra food consumed during the weekend's festivities. I quickly grabbed that water bottle (I drank lots and lots and lots) and got back to working out. I am very happy to say that I was back to my pre-trip weight before the end of the week. Since then Couch-to-5K has been in full effect and I am currently finishing up the Week Two regimen. I am also adding on cardio and weight sessions on alternating days after running/walking. I am however taking a day off after each of those workout days to try to nurse my terrible shin splints ( I will do a post about that).

So, on to the subject of this post.... MY HAIR.

One of my challenges this week was having to take two consecutive days off from working out so that I could relax my hair. While this doesn't seem so bad in retrospect, it was a huge bother since I was getting into the groove of working out every other day, and I have a really itchy scalp that I had to keep in check. What I did was, I worked out on Wednesday (my hair was soaked when I was done), let it dry overnight, then detangled and oiled my scalp Thursday morning and then left it alone until today- relaxer day. Detangling was a very painful process, I lost lottttss of hair but the oiling did curb my itchyness and help me to make it to today without digging in. This morning I went through the relaxer process (a very, very long one) and guess what? NO BURNS!!! This is a miracle for me. I almost always burn during my relaxers. I will post the results once I'm done deep conditioning and drying.

My other option was to co-wash (conditioner wash) my hair on Wednesday after working out and detangling and then just leaving it alone until today but I wasn't up to it, especially given my bad experience detangling after last Sunday's wash. I would still have to oil my scalp on Thursday anyway -I guess you can call it pre-basing, but it works for me.

What are your experiences with working out regularly and maintaining your hair?