Today I started out at a very brisk pace of 9:15/km. I was ready to climb right over the top of the treadmill. By the second km I slipped to 9:29/km, respectable but not great. On the third km I was at 9:41/km, clearly paying the price for my earlier enthusiasm (though I felt decent, really). I only saw the heart rate on the treadmill blip to life a couple of times so the light grip seems to be improving.
I originally started playing random songs for the workout. The iPhone music app now shows a list of upcoming songs when you select shuffle play–which sort of removes the surprise aspect when you think about it–and I noticed almost all of the upcoming songs were poop for workouts, so I manually shuffled a mix of stuff I deemed acceptable. Sometimes technology is great, sometimes it’s better on paper.
The stats, most of which are improved once again. BPM was likely up a bit due to the blazing pace of the first ten minutes.
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:29/km (9:35 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30:03)
Distance: 3.17 km (3.13 km)
Calories burned: 319 (309)
BPM: 144 (140)
One thing I am doing as I engage in these daily workouts is to try to not be as grippy.
When the treadmill is set to a speed of 6.5 and an incline of zero, the pace is brisk, but entirely manageable. It’s just a fast walk. Set the incline to 10 and that brisk pace now requires me to hang on for dear life.
Almost. Over the last few workouts, I have been trying to use a much little fingertip-style grip on the treadmill’s “handlebars.” Today I even went hands-free a few times, which requires not just sheer physical effort to keep from sliding toward the back of the treadmill, but also a good bit of balance, which I do not have in great abundance.
Still, I am making progress and it’s one of the things I can do to make the treadmill workouts more interesting because, let’s face it, walking on a treadmill for 30 minutes is not something that makes one’s socks roll up and down in excitement.
I felt pretty good today, but my first two km were strangely slow. Maybe I felt too good. I ramped up the effort for the last ten minutes and was much faster. I felt manly and all my stats were slightly improved.
Here they are:
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:35/km (9:41 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30:02)
Distance: 3.13 km (3.10 km)
Calories burned: 309 (306)
BPM: 140 (141)
In which I now refer to my treadmill walks as treadmill workouts because it sounds more macho.
The workouts remain the same.
Today’s workout was a bit off. I was slower, to start. Monday blahs? Tired from the weekend? Impending illness? In the last five minutes I felt a little light-headed and my legs became unto spaghetti. Well, not that bad, but I could sense the beginnings of spaghettification. As with so many things in life, I don’t have a good explanation for this.
But I did complete the workout, kept my streak intact and have these stats to share (note that the comparison stats are for a 40-minute workout; today’s was 30):
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:41/km (9:32 km/h)
Time: 30:02 (40:02)
Distance: 3.10 km (4.20 km)
Calories burned: 306 (439)
BPM: 141 (143)
Since I had time today, I decided to go for another 40-minute workout on the treadmill. Let’s see how yesterday’s workout, along with 17 km of additional walking throughout the day affected my stamina today.
I was a tiny bit slower but burned more calories. BPM was also down a bit, which goes hand in hand with being slower. Overall, the results are very similar. In terms of pace, I noticed I flagged around the 3km mark, but picked up again for the last km. I again found myself experiencing the weird sensation of having my mind go off thinking about other things than the actual exercise, something that is relatively rare when I’m on the treadmill, so this is a good thing.
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:32/km (9:29 km/h)
Time: 40:02 (40:02)
Distance: 4.20 km (4.22 km)
Calories burned: 439 (431)
BPM: 143 (145)
Concerned that the weather might not be nice and I would turn into a couch potato for much of the day, I opted for a noon hour workout on the usual settings, but stretched it out from the usual thirty minutes to forty. This allowed me to complete both my exercise and move rings early, clearing the way for some serious couch potatodom.
But instead, Nic and I went for a long picture-taking excursion through Hume Park, down the Brunette River and partway up the loop at Burnaby Lake. As I type this I sit at 21.04 km walked (26,415 steps).
The walk on the treadmill, meanwhile, went well and I felt peppy, maintaining a good pace for the first three km before flagging a wee bit in the final stretch.
The stats are boosted where expected with the extra distance, and it was nice to see the extra time did not result in any real change in BPM (ie. not higher) and my pace was technically better, too. Overall, another pleasing result, and I kept my exercise streak going.
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:29/km (9:30 km/h)
Time: 40:02 (30:04)
Distance: 4.22 km (3.16 km)
Calories burned: 431 (320)
BPM: 145 (144)
For today’s noon workout I thought I would try an experiment, by setting the incline from the usual 10 (steep) to zero (very much not steep) and see what difference it made in terms of energy expended. After a minute of this I had burned a whopping four calories, so I was putting in a little over a third of the effort. I no longer had to hang on for dear life. I probably could have started dancing a jig. I set the incline to 10 and finished the workout as I normally would.
I made sure to add some extra zip to the closing stretch of the workout and was rewarded for my effort.
The stats show the difference, with everything improved over the last workout. Even the BPM was marginally better.
I am pleased.
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:30/km (9:44 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30:04)
Distance: 3.16 km (3.08 km)
Calories burned: 320 (311)
BPM: 144 (145)
Odd because I usually finish strong, but the last workout was the opposite and today, I felt for sure I finished stronger on the last km but was in fact slower.
I have no explanation for this.
But I did sweat a lot. And I am two for two on my 30 minutes of exercise each day thing, so that’s good.
The stats are mostly worse than yesterday, though. Bluh, I sez.
Speed: 6.5 km/h (6.0)
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:44/km (9:41 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30:03)
Distance: 3.08 km (3.10 km)
Calories burned: 311 (300)
BPM: 145 (140)
Starting, let’s say…today, I am committing to a 30-minute workout every day. Yes, all seven of them, every day that ends in “day.” That workout could be any of the following:
treadmill walk
treadmill run
outdoor walk
outdoor run
30 minutes of pushups. Actually, this would probably cripple me.
Today I did a 30-minute treadmill walk. It went fine, though I actually got slower as the walk progressed, which is the opposite of what usually happens. I don’t have any particular explanation for this.
The stats are all slightly worse than the previous walk, except for BPM, which was down a wee bit due to me not trying as hard. Maybe I was weighed down by the ravioli I ate last night.
It was good ravioli.
Speed: 6.5 km/h (6.0)
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:41/km (9:34 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30:05)
Distance: 3.10 km (3.14 km)
Calories burned: 300 (321)
BPM: 140 (143)
I did another lunchtime walk on the treadmill. Nothing unusual to report. I reverted to the 6.5 speed setting and did not collapse into a ball. I sweated decently.
The pi was achieved by covering 3.14 km. Mmm, pi…
The increased speed increased also increased all my stats, including BPM, though not to an alarming degree. This is closer to my usual treadmill workouts, which is nice to see in my current flabbo state.
The stats:
Speed: 6.5 km/h (6.0)
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:34/km (9:54 km/h)
Time: 30:05 (30:04)
Distance: 3.14 km (3.04 km)
Calories burned: 321 (272)
BPM: 143 (136)
A day after doing a 5K run and a lot of walking for the first time in more than two months I decided (with it raining outside) to get at least a little exercise by going on the treadmill for a 30 minute workout at the more causal speed setting of 6 (bumped to 6.5 for the last five minutes).
Every muscle that had been worked yesterday screamed. Then they eventually stopped screaming. By the end I was feeling tired (I had been feeling sore and tired all morning and wanted to nap, not work out).
Overall, it was not too bad an effort and shouldn’t contribute much to even more soreness in the days ahead. I am going to try to hit the treadmill more often at noon, either walking or running, when the weather is not nice, to insure I get a little exercise every day. It won’t make me shed pounds, but it will help keep me a little healthier. Plus, it keeps my AirPods from getting lonely.
The stats (previous workout in brackets). As befits my current flabby state, BPM was a bit higher and pace was a bit slower, but nothing too egregious.
Speed: 6.0 km/h (6.5 km/h for last five minutes)
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:54/km (9:47 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30:04)
Distance: 3.04 km (3.07 km)
Calories burned: 272 (251)
BPM: 136 (132)
Run 648Average pace: 6:28/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 12:53 pm
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 32:33
Weather: Clouds and sun
Temp: 19ºC
Humidity: 53%
Wind: light
BPM: 163
Weight: 175.1 pounds
Total distance to date: 4850 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8
Shoes: Saucony Switchback ISO (210 km)
I would say it’s hard to believe it’s been 70 days since the last time I ran outdoors–March 22, just days after everything started getting locked down in B.C.–but when you look at my stats, it’s actually quite easy to believe, because I was not so much slow as struggling to keep moving over a distance I would in peak condition find trivial to run.
I knew I was in for a challenge when I walked the 4 km to the lake and saw my pace averaged 10:02/km. It would normally be about a full minute faster. And this was just walking.
Undaunted and without madding crowds due to the early afternoon start on a weekday, I made a pit stop at the Jiffy John (no sanitizer–boo, are they trying to give us Covid?) then set off on a five km course counter-clockwise around the lake, setting a steady pace and knowing that the goal was merely to finish.
And finish I did, though at several points it felt like the run was going to finish me instead.
You can see graphically what happened in this map of the run (Apple, please make these maps available on iPads and the web, thanks, and change them back to being light instead of dark. Dark is weird and ugly. Or at least make it a toggle):
The GPS did not fail twice, but my body did!
As you can see, I started out slow and occasionally–such as when the ground slopped downward–got a little faster before going slow again. Partway into the Piper Mill Trail my lungs were ablaze and I had to do something to keep them from scorching from the inside out, so I paused the run, then resumed once my breathing and heartrate settled a bit–before I reached the end of the Piper Mill Trail, at least.
I puttered along until I got about two-thirds of the way down the Cottonwood Trail. Again, I struggled to keep going and paused for a minute before resuming, after which I was abler to keep going through to the end.
My total time was a perhaps worst-ever 32:33, with the average overall pace being 6:28/km. I’m certain that is my slowest average pace ever. It certainly felt like it.
But I did it and while I may be sore as all get-out tomorrow, right now I don’t feel too bad. My BPM was 163, which is actually lower than my previous run, but this was likely due to the fact that my pace was so incredibly sluggish.
I did refill the tank to run a bit on the way back, though, so I have some dim hope that things will improve if I keep getting out there.
The weather was decent–pleasant, but not hot, partial sun and a light breeze. There weren’t a lot of people out, and the majority of those that were made little to no effort at physical distancing, except where it was impossible to avoid, such as on the narrow boardwalks. A surprising number of joggers were out and even more surprising, I passed one of them somehow. They must have been in casual running mode.
Despite some recent heavy rain a few days earlier (which was unusual compared to the weather trends we’ve seen this spring), the trail was in good shape, so puddle jumping was not needed, with one major exception.
This section of trail was completely submerged for some reason. Luckily, it’s right off the fields and you can actually detour around it by heading up the access road and hooking left at the first turn-off to rejoin the main loop.
A river runs through it…but shouldn’t.
Overall, while I am a bit shocked at just how slow I was, I can’t say that I was surprised at being slow and finding the run a bit of a struggle. Seventy days is a long time between runs. I will try not to go another seventy days before the next one.
It was noon, I was waiting for a delivery and didn’t want to go out for a walk and miss it, so I stayed in and thought I could do a workout. But I didn’t want to be in the middle of some hardcore exercise when the delivery showed up, so I got on the treadmill, set it to 5–a leisurely pace of 12 minutes per km–and walked for exactly five minutes. I did not sweat.
But I did burn nineteen calories. Woo. Behold:
I gained more than 19 calories back later just by looking at a container of Goldfish crackers.
The delivery showed up about a minute after my workout was complete, so I like to think I handled the whole thing perfectly.
