At noon today I opted to run instead of lunch. To expedite matters, I ran on the treadmill instead of outside. It has been a long while since I ran inside or outside.
I started at a speed of 9.5, which translates to a pace of 6:12/km or so. Slower than a typical outdoor run, but fairly decent for the treadmill. I quickly realized that this was Too Fast and set it back to 9. I then realized that running at this or any other pace for more than a few minutes was lighting my calves and ankles on fire. I checked my BPM on the watch, and it was rocketing toward 170. I did not like this, so about 3-4 times when my heart rate started to climb, I dropped down to my walking pace of 6.5 and walked for a minute or so until my BPM settled.
Technically, then, this was not a 30-minute run but more like a 24- or 25-minute run. Still, I finished instead of just quitting and eating a giant pie. I consider this a good start to getting back into the run of things.
I didn’t intend to stop doing workouts and here it is almost two week since my last one. I am bad. And fat. But it is time to stop morphing into a sloth and morph into a slightly less pudgy human, and so I metaphorically dusted off the treadmill and did a workout tonight.
I made one small tweak–I set the speed to 6.0 (10 km/h pace) instead of the usual 6.5 pace. I was surprised at how different it felt. At 6.5 I have to hold onto the handgrips nearly the entire time, as the treadmill is pulling hard, trying to whisk me off the back. At 6.0 I can hold on with a loose grip and walk without holding at all, though 6.0 is probably near the edge of where that is possible, as I don’t feel entirely steady walking hands-free at this pace.
Overall, I felt fine. The slower pace helped and the 30 minutes went by quickly, even though it still took 30 minutes. The notable differences in the stats are pace (slower treadmill means slower pace, though I was comfortably under the official 10 km/h pace), fewer calories burned (naturally) and a lower BPM (also unsurprising, but nice to see it dropped as much as it did).
Maybe next time I’ll so a mix of speeds. Maybe I’ll actually try jogging. Maybe I won’t wait almost two weeks before doing something again. The world is full of possibilities.
Speed: 6.0 km/h (6.5 km/h)
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:47/km (9:31 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30:04)
Distance: 3.07 km (3.15 km)
Calories burned: 251 (296)
BPM: 132 (141)
I was not overly active today, so decided I better hit ye olde treadmill to make up for it. It was fine. I seemed to sweat more than usual. The stats almost look like I forgot to fix my copy and paste, but my pace and distance were in fact identical to the last workout. BPM was up a little, but not a lot, and I burned off a few more of the million calories I need to go through to get back to my usual weight.
Baby (elephant) steps…
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:31/km (9:31 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30:03)
Distance: 3.15 km (3.15 km)
Calories burned: 296 (284)
BPM: 141 (137)
Nothing too exciting to report on tonight’s workout. I started reasonably early compared to some recent exercises–it was only 9:30 p.m. when I hit the treadmill.
I wasn’t really feeling it, but sometime around the midway mark my mind started to drift and I muddled through, distracted from the sweating and exertion by various thoughts about various things.
Note the stats below are comparing today’s 30 minute workout to the previous, which was all of 7:28 minutes. The only interesting thing of note is that my pace after 30 minutes was the same as after 7:28 minutes, so I apparently had more gas tonight than I did the previous night.
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:31/km (9:31 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (7.28)
Distance: 3.15 km (0.78 km)
Calories burned: 284 (59)
BPM: 137 (123)
I went for a walk down to the park in the afternoon and unlike my previous stroll, I made sure to not have a few lingering minutes left on my exercise ring to haunt me through the rest of the day.
The rest of the day proved to be a rather lazy one, though, so I ended up with a shortfall on my move ring instead. I was at 90% by 11:30 p.m. and my mind was starting to click over into “too bad so sad” on missing closing all three rings. But at 11:45 p.m. I found myself donning my shorts and hopping on the treadmill, determined to close the move ring in one final burst of obsessive completionist effort. It happened at 11:55 p.m.
My exercise lasted 7:26 minutes and covered 0.78 km. The minimal stats are below. Hitting my move goal with minutes to spare gave me a perfect week on all three goals, and made me feel a tiny bit better about having a pretty lazy day overall.
Stats (note I am comparing to a shorter-than-normal 20 minute walk):
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:31/km (9:38 km/h)
Time: 7:28 (20.03)
Distance: 0.78 km (2.08 km)
Calories burned: 59 (163)
BPM: 123 (129)
Technically I didn’t wait until the last minute, but with a mere two minutes remaining on my exercise ring, I finally decided to do a treadmill walk…at 11:10 p.m.
I cut it a bit shorter than normal–down to 20 minutes–but I figured that might also provide some interesting info on how a shorter workout would differ, stat-wise.
First, I was slow, which one would not expect in a shorter workout. I think this was due to the late start and my body basically already switching to going-to-bed mode and being suddenly shocked into what-the-heck-is-going-on mode.
But more expectedly, my BPM was down to the lowest yet at 129.
Other than being slow, the stats are pretty much in line with doing two-thirds of the usual workout. And now I don’t have to go to bed cursing myself for leaving that tiny sliver of the exercise ring open.
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:38/km (9:29 km/h)
Time: 20:03 (30.04)
Distance: 2.08 km (3.17 km)
Calories burned: 163 (266)
BPM: 129 (136)
I went for a walk in the park today, just like in the old saying, and managed to get 23 minutes on my exercise goal. I later managed another two minutes at home, somehow. Maybe I loaded the dishwasher with extra vim. This still left me with a five minute exercise deficit and it would bug me getting that close and not hitting that particular ring. This is a good example of how the activity rings on my watch work to motivate me. I push a bit, then guilt does the rest!
I had two choices: go outside for a five minute walk around the block. It’s evening, cool and the chance of encountering others is small, or I could do a treadmill workout, which would be longer, harder and sweatier.
As you may have guessed, I did the latter. I felt a smidgen guilty (see?) having not been on the treadmill for a few days, so it seemed like it was time.
I felt fine to start, but was slow, improved in the middle, then began to fade a bit the last few minutes. I am out of shape. But getting better, bit by bit.
I’m not even going to talk about what happened when I tried getting into my size 30 shorts this afternoon (hint: it wasn’t pretty). I went out wearing my sweatpants. My oh-so-forgiving sweatpants.
Anyway, I’m glad I did the workout. As for the stats, BPM was good, calorie burn was lighter, reflecting the slower pace, but overall not bad.
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:29/km (9:19 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30.03)
Distance: 3.17 km (3.22 km)
Calories burned: 266 (275)
BPM: 136 (137)
It’s my third day of being on the treadmill. The idea of running outside is acting as actual enticement to stay indoors, so it’s good in the sense that I am still doing workouts.
Tonight I started out feeling pretty good and fast (9:09/km pace) but by the last four minutes or so I was actually starting to feel blah and tired. I also am experiencing heartburn/mild acid reflux, possibly caused by stress, so while swigging water from my water bottle during the walk helped, it was still an unpleasant thing to endure on and off for 30 minutes.
The stats (BPM was down, so yay for that):
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:19/km (9:18 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30.04)
Distance: 3.22 km (3.23 km)
Calories burned: 275 (306)
BPM: 137 (141)
I really don’t want to think how high this particular series will go.
Unlike the phantom workout reported here, this one was quite real–and extra late. I didn’t start until 10:40 p.m. after flipping back and forth on whether I wanted to do a workout (I knew I should).
And I was peppier, as the stats show below. I was also wetter, as I forgot to screw the cap of my water bottle on tight enough. Oops. Other than that, things went fine and I am pleased with the result. BPM was about the same, but pace was improved, so yay.
Stats:
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:18/km (9:29 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30.04)
Distance: 3.23 km (3.17 km)
Calories burned: 306 (313)
BPM: 141 (142)
After a few days of being slothful and shamefully leaving my activity rings incomplete, I hit the treadmill at lunch today, despite the sunny weather, as I am still practicing physical distancing (no longer social distancing, because you can still yell hello to the other person on the sidewalk on the other side of the street).
I was a lot pokier than Monday’s effort, but not too bad overall. BPM was accordingly down. I listened to They Might Be Giants (brand new album) Flood and how can it be 30 years since that came out? I just checked and the two Johns are 59 and 60 years old. Time is weird and frightens me. But Flood is a good album for exercising.
Stats:
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:29/km (9:09 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30.03)
Distance: 3.17 km (3.28 km)
Calories burned: 313 (328)
BPM: 142 (151)
Today started out pretty nice–the temperature got up to around 12 degrees, it was mostly sunny. A beautiful day to go for a walk or, in my case, a run.
I planned to go to Burnaby Lake, and was set to run clockwise, starting on the south side of the lake.
There were a lot of people on the river trail as I made my way to the lake. I feared the worst, but pressed on. At the lake so many people were crowding on the top of the dam that I actually stood back and waited a few minutes for them to clear out before making my way across.
I had to pee. The Jiffy John was, naturally, occupied.
I came out and there were groups of people on the trail near the parking lot (families and such), so I thought I’d walk to the road and actually start my run there, allowing me to go directly onto the Avalon Trail, which is wider and can more readily accommodate more people and the social distancing that is the vogue in these plague-filled days.
Sign at entrance to Burnaby Lake
The idea of maintaining 2 meters on a park trail is largely a fantasy because the trails are often barely that wide to begin with, and people aren’t terribly likely to traipse through the skunk cabbage just to comply. But still, it’s possible to at least spread out and do your best. Besides, Burnaby Lake isn’t exactly the seawall at Stanley Park in terms of popularity.
Except today it kind of was. I looked down the road to the Avalon Trail and it was packed full of people–more than I’ve ever seen, groups moving in both directions, with more feeding in from the trail connecting to it from the parking lot.
And the parking lot? Normally in late March, even on a nice day, the lot would have maybe a half dozen vehicles in it. Today they were parking in the middle, the lot nearly full.
Avalon parking lot. Some of these cars are not maintaining social distance.
The lot is rarely this full during the peak of summer.
Now, I get annoyed at having a lot of people on the trail when I’m running when there isn’t a pandemic. But during one? It’s dumb. These people are basically doing the opposite of what they should be. Instead of staying home, they are going out. That itself is fine. They are going to a park. Also fine.
They are all going to the same park and jamming the trails with huge crowds of people. This is not fine. This is, in fact, how you spread the virus.
Metro Vancouver is partly to blame here. In the city of Vancouver the Parks Board has shut all of the parking lots for parks and beaches. While that won’t stop everyone, you can see by the above photo that it may have stopped dozens.
I was initially looking forward to heading out because the forecast was for rain showers and while some would still be out no matter what the weather, a lot would have stayed inside and watched Frozen with their kids for the billionth time. But the weather changed and instead we got a mix of sun and clouds.
I left without running. The stress of having to push through the crowds was too much. I wouldn’t have enjoyed the experience. Ironically, partway on the walk back it did start to shower a bit, but too little, too late.
My next outdoor run will only happen if it’s raining even before I step outside.
On the last day of the first full week of working at home, I chose to not go for a walk at noon–not because it was cool and rainy (that’s oddly nice right now, because it means fewer people are out and aboot), but because I wanted to start getting back onto the treadmill regularly again.
Strangely, I was peppier than expected, especially during the second km where my pace was a zany 8:48/km. I don’t know if the music* got me revved up or if I was working out frustrations, but I motored. And felt pretty good, too.
There’s not much else to say because, well, treadmill. I am thinking of doing an actual jog on the treadmill soon, but I think I want to do a few more outside in the plaguelands first.
Stats below. Compared to the previous walk, my BPM is a lot higher, but again, I was trucking, so no surprise there.
Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10
Pace: 9:09/km (9:22 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30.05)
Distance: 3.28 km (3.21 km)
Calories burned: 328 (277)
BPM: 151 (133)
* the music was Brian Wilson’s 1988 solo album, which I actually quite like, despite the weird, almost formal-sounding vocals
