Treadmill workout: Because running is hard

My wee 2.5K run on Wednesday proved one thing: Taking 37 days off is an excellent way to reduce your stamina to nothing.

Today, I mulled how much I wanted to do that and settled on doing a 30-minute brisk walk on the treadmill instead. I may resume actual running next week, but my priority for the moment is just regular exercise and improving my stamina.

I think I actually sweated more today, too. And as always, the weather was mild and pleasant indoors.

I started at a more leisurely pace f 6.0 then ramped up to 6.5 for the majority of the workout, hence the more leisurely pace as noted below. BPM was up, though, because I remain soft and flabby. This should improve over the next few weeks. Excelsior!

Stats:

Speed: 6.0-6.5 (6.7-8.0)
Incline: 1 (1)

Pace: 9:35 (7:26/km)
Time: 30:01 (15:04)
Distance: 3.13 km (2.03 km)
Calories burned: 271 (159)
BPM: 137 (127)

Parenthetical numbers are from the previous treadmill run.

The problem with time travel

If you go into the future, you don’t know what you’ll find and who knows, you might get eaten by some future hybrid dinosaur and never make it back to the present.

If you go into the past, you’re then morally obligated to prevent some historic tragedy, like the sinking of the Titanic or John Sculley becoming CEO of Apple.

Reference:

Finishing that 5K run I started on December 30, 2024

Today is February 5, 2025. The last time I ran was, as mentioned in the title, December 30, 2024. That was 37 days ago, or just over five weeks. The last time I ran was on the river trail, with a brief trip out to the sidewalk, where I tripped and landed hard on my hands. I wanted to give my hands time to heal a bit before running again, even though, as you probably know, you don’t use your hands to run. Or at least not in the same way you use your feet.

Still, it seemed prudent.

Then the infection resumed, this time in my kidney and I spent 11 consecutive days visiting hospitals for IV treatment. Then I felt I should give my body time to recover from the infection, the antibiotics and other miscellaneous trauma.

Then it snowed.

I actually checked the river trail yesterday and as of then, the trail, though covered in a few cm of snow, actually seemed like it might be doable for running. The snow is very light and pliable, not hard and icy. I don’t know if it’s still that way now, as we are experiencing overnight lows well below freezing at the moment.

Regardless, I didn’t think it was a good idea to tax myself further on my first run in 37 days by doing it in the snow and in freezing temperatures, so onto the treadmill I went.

And I felt every one of those 37 days off. Normally, a 2.5 km run is a blip for me, but I could feel the burn (not the good kind) about a km in. Around the 8-minute mark, I briefly paused the workout to give my lungs a break. I paused again around the 13-minute mark (I probably could have pushed through, since it was only another minute, but I was not feeling adventurous).

My stats may be slightly better, especially for BPM, because of the breaks, but not by too much. Each was only a few seconds.

One stat that doesn’t show is my peak heart rate–163! That is quite high for a treadmill workout and a good indication of how soft and flabby I am.

Here’s to becoming gradually less soft and flabby over the coming weeks, hopefully while staying upright the entire time.

Run 906 (treadmill)

Speed: 9.0 (9.0)
Incline: 1 (1)

Pace: 5:41 km (5:38/km)
Time: 14:13 (28:19)
Distance: 2.51 km (5.03 km)
Calories burned: 166 (330)
BPM: 141 (140)

Parenthetical numbers are from the previous treadmill run.

The Culling: Miscellaneous software

Today I uninstalled a few programs on my Windows 11 PC I no longer use and made the great leap to open source office software (technically I already did, because I installed LibreOffice a while ago, but now it will be my default).

Uninstalled:

  • Facebook Messenger (can’t use without a FB account, anyway)
  • Arc browser (did not like)
  • Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, etc.)
  • Microsoft Bing Search (I didn’t even know this was installed)
  • Microsoft Teams (I thought I had uninstalled this already)
  • Mind Over Magnet demo (I have the full game)
  • Proton Mail (switched to Fastmail)
  • Red Notebook (did not like)
  • WhatsApp (did not use, plus more Meta junk)
  • Zettlr (did not like)

My brain is complicated and is thinking on its own (I think)

As I’ve reported before, my trusty Garmin Forerunner 255 has been reporting that I have been under a great deal of stress, experiencing high stress while sleeping and generally having Very Stressful days for about two months now. At first, I thought it was misinterpreting my kidney infection as stress and acted accordingly. But I’ve been off the antibiotics for a few weeks now and haven’t seen any return of symptoms, yet the Very Stressful reports persist.

So, I thought, maybe it’s something else. What else has coincided with the infection over the past few months?

  • I have basically stopped running. This isn’t permanent, I took a break after tripping and hurting my hands on my last run on December 30, then got hit with resurgent infection, finally seemed to recover from that and now there is snow on the ground. But I will run again.
  • Dealing with the infection and aftermath (there are more tests forthcoming for other things discovered that may be innocuous or could be more serious).
  • I have done little in the way of creativity: few drawings, no work on the game. I have been writing, but it’s mainly been the nonsense you’re reading on this blog right now.
  • Dealing with condo/strata stuff, as we restarted our efforts to shed the current council and management company (the latter of which specifically started harassing us last summer).

So, that’s a lot of stuff. Some I can deal with easily. I can fix not running by running. I can fix not drawing by drawing. The health stuff I just need to put aside for now. I feel fine and there’s nothing else to be done at the moment.

But the condo stuff, this got my attention this morning when I realized something: My mind wanders over to it constantly. When I say constantly, I am not engaging in hyperbole, or even just regular bole. Multiple times this morning, I caught myself thinking about condo stuff. It just comes up, unbidden, in my mind. Really, it’s kind of weird. It’s like my brain has adapted to just slotting in thoughts about the condo/strata whenever I’m not focused on anything else.

I think this may be a large part of my Very Stressful days.

Now, I do and will have to deal with strata stuff for at least a few more months, so there is no escaping it. But I don’t need to be constantly thinking about it. So my goal is to somehow train my mind to not think about it or if I do, to quickly divert to some other thought, such as:

  • Kittens
  • Puppies
  • Pop Tarts (just thinking, not eating)
  • Grassy meadows
  • Summer
  • A nice relaxing bubble bath
  • Walking alone among sequoias
  • Etc.

Basically, anything that will focus me away from strata and onto something relaxing.

I’ll see how it goes and report my findings soon, in the name of science and possibly my sanity.