Yup. Perfect week. Silly Apple Watch fun.
Goals
Tag: workout
Another Weird Morning
I wrote about some stomach weirdness yesterday. I am pretty sure I know what it was, and it was not gastric bypass related. I am not going to say specifically because it goes big time into TMI territory. Suffice to say it happened again today and it has thrown off my whole daily routine.
I got up, felt a little off, but started my day as normal. I was trying to drink a water bottle while doing my daily exercise but after about 10 minutes and 12 ounces of water I was hit with a mild case of The Foamies. Something was trying to get into my stomach but was having trouble along the route and must have gotten stuck. I didn’t feel like anything was stuck, but I got into saliva over-production mode and had to stop exercising and take care of it. It was involved enough that I had to go upstairs and ride it out for a while.
Once I felt better I ate breakfast, which I never do before I finish my exercise for the day. At that point, the whole morning workflow is down the toilet. I still had 35 minutes of exercise left to do so I restarted. I ended up doing the whole daily goal instead of just finishing the first attempt. Due to that I managed to hit all of my Apple Watch activity goals for the day. Well, not the 12 stand-hours goal, but the exercise and move (calorie) goals. That’s nice.
Now that I’m punched into work for the day I think I am back on schedule. I just hate it when the routine goes south like this, even a little bit. I feel pretty normal now. Whatever it was seems to have passed. I felt that way yesterday too and then it came back before lunch. Let’s see how things progress today.
Good luck, Robbie.
Exercise is Fun?
Wait a tick here… you put the word “fun” into the same sentence as “exercise”? That does not compute. Exercise is fun in the same way that breaking bones is fun. In the same way that surgery without anesthetic is fun. Am I being over dramatic? Yes, of course I am. Does that make my prior statements false? Absolutely not.
I do 45 minutes of exercise each day at a minimum. I jog (pronounced “yog”*) in place for what my Apple Watch tells me is about 10 kilometers worth of trotting steps and then I stop. As the day goes on I will do a little more jogging (yogging) in place to try to get my daily calorie count higher and higher. Sometimes I’ll walk in place while doing other things. I just picked up one of those stair stepper things too in the hopes that I’ll use that for at least a few minutes each day. I have an exercise bike and I look at it every day, but I haven’t been able to make it part of the daily routine. I want to move it next to my work from home desk in the hopes that I will be inspired to jump onto it for a few minutes a day. We’ll see.
Is any of that fun? No. Not even a little bit.
I guess there are some things that are fun to do that also just happen to be exercise. Walks in the woods. Visits to theme parks. Stuff like that. Want to know one super fun thing that shouldn’t really be thought of as exercise but always gets my heart rate up nice and high and works up a sweat and leaves me worn out like I’d had a major workout? Band practices. Yes, you read that right. I’m not the jumping around rock and roller type, but it does work as an aerobic workout somehow.
I guess what I am trying to say is that exercise in and of itself is never fun for me, but some things that are fun sort of double as exercise? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
*I make the “pronounced yogging” joke on this page all the time. I stole that from a movie. If you aren’t familiar with it, go watch Anchorman with Will Ferrell (and about 100 other A-list comedy celebrities). It’s one tiny throw away line that bares no significance for the rest of the movie, but it’s a funny movie so it’s worth a watch.
Feeling Like a Failure Today
I made the decision last night before going to bed. I was going to sleep a little late and skip today’s running. I just knew I didn’t have a 30 minute trot around the neighborhood in me. My legs were still sore from almost 48 hours before, I was stone dead tired all day yesterday, I just wanted to wake up an hour or so late and go down cellar and watch Star Trek Strange New Worlds and just not worry about running. I did the running in place thing (pronounced yogging) instead so my exercise ring is closed.
So in other words, I feel like a total failure today. That’s nice.
Where do we go from here? I am not sure. I should do a run tomorrow and get myself back on track. Instead, I might give myself another day and then get back to it on Saturday. I am also considering going back two trainings and instead of doing week three, run two, I would do week two, run three. Week three, run one kicked my ass so thoroughly I feel like I need to build back up to it and then try it again. We’ll see.
I don’t think I am ready to quit yet. I ain’t no quitter, but… maybe in a few days I will be. I don’t know. We will have to wait and see how complete a failure I end up being.
Week Three, Run One
Each time I got out for a run it is exponentially worse than all the times before combined. This morning was no different. To be blunt, that fucking sucked.
One minute walking followed by one minute running, repeated 15 times. Adding in a little cool down walk at the end where the coach lady wouldn’t shut the hell up, it worked out to 31 minutes and 17 seconds and a total of 2.29 miles burning 244 calories.
I was never feeling good about any of it at any point but it wasn’t until maybe the sixth repeat that I started feeling in really rough shape. After repeat number nine I was strongly considering just stopping and going home. After 12 I just said the hell with it and finished. The next run will be Thursday and it will be the same as today. I am wondering if I should repeat it a time or two more after that before moving on to the next thing. I wonder if building up a little extra stamina might be a good idea. We will see how I feel on Saturday when we get to the scheduled end of week three.
Until Thursday’s run then, I think I am going to sit on the couch and hope my legs start working again. I’m not feeling terribly optimistic about that just now.
Two Weeks Down
Wow, did that ever suck.
Today marked the third workout of the second week of the Runkeeper app’s My First 5K training. Each of the three trainings this week, and the last one from week one too, have found me increasingly convinced that I am not going to be able to finish this program. I know the whole point of this is to be challenging and to increase my endurance and all of that fun stuff, but each time I go outside and for one of these walks/runs I am questioning my sanity more and more.
Today was 10 rounds of walking for two minutes and running for one. I made it through six before I had any real difficulty, but I think it was after three that I started to doubt whether or not I was going to be able to finish. Eventually I got far enough along that I knew I would finish today but the doubt transfered to whether or not I would be able to finish the next run, or the one after that.
Is my endurance and stamina increasing? Yes. Absolutely. When I think ahead to the next run knowing that the format will change to one minute of walking followed by one minute of running repeated 15 times, do I feel like my endurance and stamina have increased enough that I can pull the next workout off? No. Not even a little bit.
This could just be me being a pessimist, but I really cannot see me being able to run 3.1 miles at a time without stopping. It just feels like an impossible ask. Am I saying that come Tuesday morning when it is time for me to go outside and try week three run one I am going to say no thank you? No, I don’t think I am there yet. I don’t think I am quitting. I just think that I can see myself quitting at some point in the near future. Maybe I’ll surprise myself but… maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll come up with something else.
We’ll see.
Week Two, Run Two
Two minutes walking, one minute running, repeat eight times. I cannot express how much that sucked. It was different than two days ago, somehow. It seemed tolerable until the last two rounds on Wednesday. Today it got harder much earlier, but at the end I don’t think it felt as tough as it did at the end last time. I’m not really sure how to describe it.
I took a slightly different route this time. Instead of just going around the circle I went down the road a ways. My map looks different and that’s something, at least. The next run will be on Sunday and that will be two minutes walking, one minute running, repeated 10 times. That is going to suck out loud.
I knew this was going to be a tough challenge, but it’s difficult enough that I would not be surprised if I abandon this little quest at some point. I don’t know if I have running a 5k in me. I am not ready to give up, I just won’t be upset with myself if I get further along in this process and come to the conclusion that I am just not a runner.
Maybe if that happens I’ll take up bike riding. Probably not.
When I got back to the house, this scene was waiting for me.
That Makes Two
The only thing more shocking to me than starting a running program thingie is that two days after the first “event” I went outside and did a second. Really… the first one is staggeringly unlikely for me. The second… literally unthinkable.
The app I have been using keeps some stats but I haven’t nerded out on them yet. Now that I have two data points for comparison, you can guarantee I’ll be pouring over whatever is there soon enough. Up until now the only thing I’ve checked out was the super groovy GPS map that shows my route. Given that my route is just around the circle we live on, it isn’t anything terribly interesting. More of an oval than a circle. I think it’s super cool though.
Today’s drill was identical to two days ago. Walk for three minutes, run for one minute. Repeat six times. I haven’t looked into round three yet, but I did notice that it’s supposed to last longer. The first two were 25 minutes (that math doesn’t add up… think they are lying to me?). The next one says 33. We’ll see how it goes on Saturday.
I Have Experienced Hell and Lived to Tell the Tale
Wow! Was that ever sucky!
I really thought I was deluding myself but here I am, recapping the first painful, awful, baby step.
Can you dig it?
I just finished the first couch to 5k experience. I neither ran five kilometers nor actually traveled five kilometers. It’s just the first step. The app had me walk for three minutes then run for one minute, and repeat that process six times. I am pretty sure I died during the second run, and then died again during each of the remaining runs. I was planning on going to the movie theater parking lot but when push came to shove I just stayed in the neighborhood and went around the block a bunch of times, ignoring the fact that I was really insecure about all of my neighbors staring out their windows watching me the entire time, which I am 100% sure was happening at each and every house on the street.
What did I learn from this experience?
- I learned that the coach the app has chirping in your ear the whole time is an annoying person.
- I learned that jogging is a whole ton more difficult than yogging.
- I learned that, while I don’t have nearly the loose skin issue I expected I would have a year after gastric bypass, there is loose skin in my world right now and when you start actually running for real, that loose skin literally jiggles and it’s a slightly disturbing experience.
- I learned that running fucking sucks. I mean I only ran for six minutes but WOW did it suck.
Couch to 5k workout number two will take place on Thursday. Wish me luck.
On a slightly related note, I did make a friend out on the road this morning.
Couch to 5K?
When we went to Disney World* back in January we were there for the Disney Marathon weekend. The weekend ends with a marathon, but in the days leading up to it there was a half marathon, a 10K, and a 5K. Jen suggested that next year I should run the 5K.
I was thinking about it last night. I fake run more than 5K pretty much every day. At the pace I go when I jog in place in the cellar (pronounced “yog” with a soft J) I run for 32 minutes, which is enough to close my 30 minute exercise ring while also rounding off to the nearest mile, which is four miles. 5 kilometers is 3.1 miles, so my watch congratulates me for running a 5K every day.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that my faux running is about as far removed from actual running as you can get. I don’t actually run 5K, I just pretend. We are all in agreement on that, right? If I were to actually take up actual running, I would need help and I would need to carefully build up stamina before running any notable distance.
That brought me to YouTube last night when I should have been sleeping. I searched for “couch to 5k” and started watching. A few minutes ago I installed a Couch to 5K app on my iPhone. I promptly deleted it after it took all of my information and then prompted me for the $40/month subscription. Fuck you.
I have an idea of how to start based on a video series I watched last night. Now the question is, do I actually do it? Am I seriously thinking about taking up running? It would be pretty cool to run the Disney World 5K next year. Pretty cool indeed. It might even impress my wife a little, which is more or less my goal for everything I do.
We’ll see.
*More on Disney World coming soon. You have been warned.
Inside the Red Head's Head 