Running

[forgotten_aria]

I'm tired of being fat (though this is nothing new.)

I realize this is a poor motivation for exercise since weight loss is a lost cause but good health is not, but I'll take what I can get.

I've been using the Zumba kinect games (not the first one because it's horrible) and they seem to be good for improving my general well being (getting the kinks out, getting some good circulation) but not really for weight loss or high cardio.

A lot of my friends are running now. Someone said some people find it meditative. I need to meditate more, it's good for my brain. So I bought some fancy shoes that have been staring at me for a few weeks while I waited to get over this cough and for the weather to not threaten to be horrible enough to be an excuse to break any regime I got started. (They are extremely cool shoes designed to have impact protection, but then feel like a flat shoe for the take off, which should be perfect for me since I am most comfortable in flat shoes, but weight enough I need some sort of impact protection. They call them "clouds.") To keep the price down and to have the option to return them, I had to get a color I hate, but that's ok. They're bright enough they catch my attention and say, "hey, we want to go running, don't you?"



I decided to try one of the c25k programs. After hearing crs rant about the brokenness of runkeeper, I went with rundouble.

I didn't find running meditative at all. I think I would be in so much better shape if exercise didn't make me feel horrible. If I got any short term boon.

I am in better shape than my horrific memory form middle school when the whole gym class was waiting for me to finish my 20 minute mile.

I do really like the rundouble data and the updates and being told when to run and when to walk. I think the numbers might be good motivation for me. Here's my little chart. Nothing to write home about, but at least I got out there and I did at least jog for all my 1 minute intervals.

I like the shoes, though they got a little sweaty despite they're super airy tops and I kind wish they were a touch springier, but that might also be that I was too tired to use the form that youtube suggested was correct (more on my toe, so I'm more springy.)

Let's hope I keep up with the program. I need something to get me into shape.

Comments

[dcltdw]

That's either a malformed URL or chrome is cruelly not letting me click on the "little chart" link. Charts! How fun are those? (Answer: pretty damn fun!!!) But then, I just like looking at my running spreadsheet and adding MORE BRIGHT COLORS and columns that have MORE BRIGHT COLORS in them, so hey, to each their own.

Are you doing C25K? Or just going running?

Although tech and shoes are, I believe, completely trumped by the most important thing: establishing a non-negotiable routine.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this runner from the prompt start of her appointed run.

When I was first starting, I tried to treat it as a "I have to pickup my kids at x time". Not that I have kids. It was hard when more fun things came up, like "X wants to get dinner together" or "the sun is shining" or downers like "I'm tired" or "I feel whiny" or "the sun has been extinguished by aliens from Tau Beta V". This is where a support network, for me, was key: friends saying, "oh, that's your running slot? Well, of course we can't do then. How about instead...".

Best of luck. :)

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

URL should be fixed. I brain-spazed on doing a link. I'm doing the C25K program, hopefully.

[dcltdw]

Hey, that's neat!

Holy jeebus, hilly much? You're a braver runner than I am. :)

So. When's Week 1 Day 2 and Week 1 Day 3 scheduled for you? (An annoying question, to be sure, but this is exactly what I mean by a non-negotiable routine.)

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

I don't know yet. I know that's the bad answer, but I wasn't planning to start today, but I felt like it, so I did it because it was better than not doing it. I have a taiko gig tomorrow morning, but if I'm not stupid tired, I'll go out tomorrow for day two. Sunday is a bust, but likely Monday for day 3. If not Monday for day 2, Wednesday for day 3.

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

And there's just one hill, I think. I think the altitude might be smoking a little.

[dcltdw]

Shhh, it's much more impressive if you say that you're casually running up and down the Iron Mountains of Doom. Well. I suppose claiming they're the Iron Mountains of Reading might be slightly more believable. :)

[dcltdw]

It's also fine to repeat W1D1 until the right point in the week scrolls around or whatever. Have fun now, and then on March X, it becomes Very Serious Time and you have a schedule and blahblahblah. (Me, I'd have a problem that I'd keep pushing back the Very Serious date, but shhhh.)