Day 52

Just a short one between skiing and trick-or-treating. No time for more.

1.16
12:00min
227cal
2.0 incline

Day 51

The downhill slope to 100 days.

1.26mi
13:30min
247 cal
2.0 incline


Took it easy with karate tonight.

Day 50

A milestone day for me. 50 days! Jammed for time, so I ran before a late lunch, just fitting it in there. I did two sprints of 7mph to push, but otherwise watching the legs.

1.35mi
14:00min
263cal

Seven Weeks

It's been seven weeks and I feel OK. My legs are definitely sore, and adding in karate last week and this has been rough. I'm hoping I can push through it, but I think I need to learn to slow down a bit at karate until I build a bit more strength.

I was surprised how well I could run last night before karate and how quickly I recovered. The endurance builds quickly and I really enjoyed running. Even though it felt like a long time, I could drop into the groove as I was going, counting in my head to track the time, and I surprised myself how quickly and easily I moved around Parker.

I've been alternating legs with the cho-pat strip, trying to head off issues. We'll see if I can keep going, but I am definitely a little motivated to hit day 50 tomorrow.

Day 49

Slipped a run in between all the kid stuff tonight and trying to get work done. A quick one, legs a little sore after 2 miles last night pounding on the sidewalks.

1.26mi
13:30min
247 cal
2.0 incline

Day 48

I was jammed up for time, so I decided to take my stuff and run before karate. I got the kids settled, Delaney in class, and I'd mapped out a route around the block near the school. I felt good and it was easy to run. At the point where it felt like I was coasting well, not breathing hard, feeling the way I felt 10 years ago when I was running a lot for training.

I decided to skip my map and extend it, thinking the map couldn't be right. Remapping now shows it to be 2.0mi. My guess on time is 20 minutes. The route is shown below.

Precor 956i

At the Embassy Suites in Orlando that I was staying at, they had Precor 956i treamills with TVs built on top of each one. It seems like an option, and it had nice controls for changing channels and things.

The treadmill, however, which seemed new, wasn't something that I enjoyed. I usually run at about 6000 ft near Denver and this is sea level, so I expect to feel differently, but the first one I used felt sluggish, maybe even .2-.5mph slower than it was reading. I also had the calorie counter feeling like it was slow.

I set the speeds and incline the same as my treadmill in Colorado, and the distances looked OK, but it felt very weird. They looked fairly new, not spanking, but not older like some of them I have seen in health clubs.

The second day I tried the other treadmill here, same model, and it felt slightly better, but still sluggish. I wasn't thrilled with the overall feel of the treadmill, though my legs felt fine after the runs (immediately) and the next day.

I wouldn't buy one of these.

Day 47

Definitely getting colder. I went to the basement to run and barely was sweating by the end of the run. This was a tough one, traveling half the day, helping kids, tired, not really in the mood to run, but didn't want to quit today.

1.37mi
14:30min
268cal
2.0 incline

Day 46

Sore knees and I'm exhausted, but I stopped by the hotel before heading out to run.

1.21mi
14:00min
156cal
2.0 incline

Day 45

A bit of a struggle to get going today. My eyes hurt at lunch, felt puffy, I felt tired and sluggish, having stayed up too late. But I have commitments tonight, so I needed to get it done.

I jumped on the treadmill again at the hotel, not wanting to waste time driving around for a route. It's threatening rain, which is my excuse for today. I tried a different treadmill, though it felt slightly slow again. The calories are reading much lower than I expected as well, but I noticed it asked for age and weight, which I didn't put in. Perhaps I put that in my treadmill at home, so maybe that's the calorie difference.

Once again I felt better once I was about 8 or 9 minutes in and decided to push a bit longer even though I was tired. I had started my run at .14 mi again, going to 6.4mph, but after a couple minutes I was struggling and slowed to 6.2. Later I realized I was set at a 2.5 incline, so maybe that was it.

1.67mi
17:30min
207cal
2.5incline

I also put my legs in the hot tub afterwards for 10 minutes.

Day 44

A long day traveling, too late to run outside, at least for me, in Orlando. Decided on the treadmill, which felt slow and off. Many, many less calories here at sea level and on a different treadmill.

1.43
15:00min
177cal
2.0 incline

Day 43

Everything is sore. Two nights of karate really added up, more stretching, kicking, etc. Mostly my arms and back, but even my legs.

1.42mi
15:00min
227 cal
2.0 incline

Day 42

1.28mi
13:30min
252cal
2.0incline

A short one before karate. I was going to run outside, but it's raining.

Day 41

I want to start karate tonight, and so I decided on a slow, easy run. Ran at 6.0 instead of 6.2 and no high speed time.

1.28mi
14:00min
250 cal
2.0 incline

Left foot is a little sore.

Inclines

I ran for years at a 0% incline on treadmills while training indoors. I lived in Virginia, which is relatively flat as well, and I didn’t notice it much, though I wasn’t checking much. My speed increasing outside seemed to correlate with being able to push faster on the treadmill (when I had a 20 minute limit at the gym), so I thought everything was OK.

Then my wife told me a few years ago that running at 0% was like running downhill and not good. So I would put it at 0.5% when I thought of it, but that didn’t happen often, and I didn’t worry about it.

Recently we’ve been sharing the treadmill at home as my wife tries to do the every day running thing with me. And she tends to run at 2%, which I didn’t notice at first, but one day I hit the wrong button near the end of a run and saw that I had been running at 2% and wasn’t really any more winded. Running 1.2-1.5 miles isn’t a lot, so perhaps it would make more of a difference if I ran more, but since I don’t, who cares.

I started tracking my incline, but I was curious if it mattered. So I searched around and found this analysis. The conclusion is that running at 0% seems to be like track running, which is really what I’d like to simulate. It cites work done in a couple books and at the low speeds we run, even up to 15mph winds don’t seem to affect us, which is one of the reasons given for running at 1-2%.

The author says that you should run at an incline as needed for your training, not for any compensation for running inside.

This page is interesting in that it says 1% incline adds 4% more effort. Not much for any workout, but over a lifetime, that’s a lot of extra calories. Means I can still enjoy pizza!

Day 40

A short one.

1.56mi
16:30min
292 cal

Day 39

A little longer, a morning run before football.

1.65mi
18:00min
343cal

Fell good. My right knee/shin has been slightly sore the last couple days and I forgot to wear the Cho-pat strap again. Hopefully I'll be OK tomorrow.

Day 38

A quick run before lunch.

1.52mi

16:00min

297cal

2.0 include

Watching Surfwise :)

Day 37

The lunchtime run is a nice routine. I’m starting to enjoy it.

Today I stuck with a steady run and I’ve decided to add incline to my tracking as well. It’s something that I never paid much attention to, but my wife like using it, so I’m going to track where I run.

1.46mi

16:00min

285 cal

2.0inclince

Day 36

My legs were sore after some light lifting yesterday, so I kept it steady at 6mph. The sore legs didn’t hurt me, but I didn’t want to take chances.

1.43mi

15:30min

280 cal

Five Weeks

Today is 5 weeks of running, far and away the longest time I’ve ever continuously worked out. I’ve always had days off and now I’m just doing light and medium days. No heavy ones so far.

That might be the best way to do this since without a day off you can’t really recover that much. I suppose I could go heavy one morning and then wait until late the next night. Add in a massage and hot tub and that’s sounding like a decent idea.

In any case, I’ve totaled things up for now. Still aiming for 47 more weeks in a row.

Weekly Totals:

9.82 miles, about average

104 minutes

197 calories. Less than a Big Mac.

Cumulative totals (7 weeks)

49.47miles

509.4 minutes, about 8 1/2 hours of running.

Day 35

Another lunch run, long and slow. I did get up to 7.5 for two minutes, but I wanted to lift with legs a little, so I took it easy for the most part.

1.6mi

16:30

314cal

Owning a Treamill

We bought a treadmill two years ago to combat some of the Colorado winters. Both my wife and I were trying to get into shape and we had enough cold, windy days that we thought a treadmill would make a nice Christmas present to ourselves.

It was as the week of Christmas we got snowed in for 3 days, we bought the treadmill the first day we got out and then promptly got snowed in again a few times that winter.

This year I've started this streak, primarily on the treadmill, and I've enjoyed it. In fact, of the first month of running, I've done all but 1 day on the treadmill. Even on a recent trip to Indianopolis, when I had great weather and was thinking of running outside, I used the Bally's treadmill instead.

Why?

Part of it is time. The treadmill is always here, even late at night and it lets me get the run in and then move on to the rest of my busy life. It's efficient to come downstairs, warm up, run, and then go cool down with the kids or my wife or go on with the rest of my life. Outside I tend to go a bit longer, since I don't have an exact point that's a mile, and I struggle a bit more since we have some big hills here. Either I'm struggling up them, or pounding hard down them.

Part of it is that I like watching TV while running. I can feel like I'm doing two things at once, and get distracted a bit. I used to run around some parks and that was fun, I could just run without worrying about anything.

That was one reason I didn't run in Indy. I was in a business area, lots of concrete and sidewalks, I didn't have time (or a car) to find a park, and so for now, I thought it was more fun to run on the treadmill, watch TV, and let my mind drift. Outside I have to pay attention, especially when I'm going up and down sidewalks.

As I travel more, I'll look for some places to run. Already I know I'll have a car in Florida and I like Orlando, so I'll map out a route there, probably the same thing in Seattle, though that will be hard to do given the weather up there in November.

Day 34

I like getting this out of the way early. Went a little harder today, did 2 min at 7.5 instead of a steady 6.2. Feeling OK, could have done more, but trying to take it easy and plan on lifting tomorrow.

1.56mi
16:00min
304cal

Day 33

It's miserable, lightly raining, foggy, misty outside, so I got the run done early today, starting "GoldMember" as my entertainment. A quick one

1.31mi
14:00min
227cal

Day 32

Fitting it in around work on a rainy Saturday.

1.42mi
15:00min
277 cal

A good run and I had to hold back and not try to push too hard on the knees.

A Month of Running

I've completed 31 days of running today, consecutively, the most I've run in a row ever. I've surprised myself that I've been able to do it. Even with some busy days, a trip to Indy, and the beginning of bad weather, I've managed to run every day.

Tia says that it's hard to quit now, but I've had some soreness and I wonder how long I'll be able to go. I had a sore knee when bending down, but I wore my cho-pat strap a couple days and I feel better. I've even run through some sore ankles and they've felt better.

It's been hard to maintain easily. I've often run just a mile, enough to build up a sweat and get my heart beating. I've found it hard to rein myself in and gone some longer distances a few times, closing on 2 miles, but I haven't wanted to hurt myself, so I've really worked on just doing the mile slowly. The last few days were like that.

I think it's not a week to week thing, now that I've passed 4 weeks, and it's moving to a month to month thing. Or maybe it will be trip to trip. I have one at the end of this month, and if I'm still going, it will be 45 days. The trip after that will be close to day 60, which will be two months and very exciting.

But it's still a day to day thing and I have to make an effort to find time to run every day.

One interesting thing today in Jubak's column on investing. He mentioned one thing to make your retirement money last longer is to get into shape, get more healthy, and hopefully avoid large health costs when you're older. This is one way I'm doing that.

Day 31

A month of running!

Didn't wait too long today, electing to go before I eat lunch.

1.26mi
13:30min
238cal

Day 30

Ran out of time earlier, didn't get home from football until almost 8. Still made it.

1.36mi
15:00min
266 cal

Day 29

Legs are sore, especially the shins a bit. It has me worried, so I'm going to keep an eye on it and go for some shorter, slower runs for awhile. I'm also going to try running a night and the next morning and then laying off for 36 hours.

1.3mi
14:00min
254cal

Day 28

4 weeks of running. I feel good.

1.54mi
16:00min
290 cal

15 Minutes At A Time

We have a our treadmill in the basement, mostly because we have space and it doesn't disturb anyone else when it's down there. We have a TV built into the Reebok model we got (I don't recommend that), but you have to look down to watch it. I didn't mind, but my wife hated it.

So I knocked together a shelf unit to hold our old TV. We put our 31" tube model down there, so I went for sturdy rather than aesthetic.

In any case, it's nice to watch TV down there while running and it helps to pass the time a bit rather than staring out the wall or out the window. I run with music at times, but it's more motivating and distracting if I know I can see something in front of me.

My wife watches her horse training tapes, trying to be more efficient with her time and learn a few things. That works out well for her, but I'm not that interested in those. I tried watching some sitcoms we have on DVD (Heros, Northern Exposure), but 15-20 minutes of those leaves you hanging more often than not.

So I moved on to watching movies. I tried "The Matrix" first, one of my favorites, and since then I've gone through "The Fantastic Four", "Goldfinger", "Hoosiers" and now "Iron Man", each of them 15-20 minutes at a time as I run. It seems that matches up well with the chapters and I haven't had much issue re-watching some parts. I tend to pick action movies since dialog is hard to hear and you want something light, but I might try some comedies as I run out of things to watch.

I recommend trying a TV near the treadmill, even if you like music. You can always have an iPod or something playing in there, but being able to pop on a movie is great.

Day 27

Back at home, on my treadmill. Too windy outside to run comfortably for me.

1.58mi
16:min
293calr

Day 26

A rough start first thing in the morning, but I got through it. Struggled through the first half, but then felt better. Almost ran more, but decided the pounding last night was hard and didn't want to hurt myself.

1.4mi
15:00min

Day 25

I made it to Bally's just in time. I walked in, gave him the hotel pass and he said they closed in 10 minutes, at 6pm. Yikes! I begged for a couple more minutes and got upstairs to run.

1.44mi
13:30min

I had to cut the warm up short by a minute, but I ran a bunch at 7mph and felt good. Much easier to run at sea level.

Day 24

Indianapolis, near a mall and not a lot of time, so I didn't experiment outside, maybe Sunday. I went next door to a Bally's, forgot my iPod and ran looking out the window, suffering to an episode of Maury. I ran for 10 min at 6.2mph, jumped to 8 for 2 minutes and felt good, so after a minute at 6.2 again, I went to 7.0, then back to 6.2 before cooling down.

1.78mi
18:00min

I checked my heart rate when I was halfway into the 7 and it was 172, then when I dropped from 6.2 to 4 it was down to 147, then 133 a minute later. Not too bad.

Day 24

In Indy for the weekend. I made Andy take a break so I could go run before dinner. Went a little long since running at sea level is always easier.

1.78mi

18min

No idea on calories. Using a strange treadmill in Ballys.

Reining In

The other day my wife and I went running together outside. We don't do it that often, mostly because of our schedules, but also because we run so differently. We have different paces that we like and I have a hard time slowing down sometimes to her level.

Not that I'm a lot faster, just that I like to run at a quicker pace for exercise. She's quicker in the sprint for sure!

In any case, we had a nice jog, me holding back to her pace for the most part, but I asked her on the way back if she wanted a quick segment. She was the one that told me a quick minute or two during the working really pays dividends, and I'd been doing that on the treadmill. She wanted to, so we decided to go from our mailbox to the first loafing shed on the right, likely a good minute run and about 1/8 of a mile.

We got to the mailbox and took off, her ahead of me at a good pace, but only slightly as I was trying to build my steady 8-8.5mph stride. We got about halfway there, about 30 sec in and she pulled back to a jog saying she wasn't ready for that. I kept going, counting the minute in my head and making the loafing shed and then jogging slowly back until she caught me and then we continued home.

I was worried she was hurt, and she said that she felt she almost was. Her legs weren't ready for the pounding yet and she needed a few more weeks to build a good base. I felt fine, but the next day felt a little more sore than normal. Granted we might have run close to 2 miles, and I wasn't at all winded, but I was still worried about the effects for the next few days. After all, I'm in this for a year, not for a few weeks.

In the past I've struggled to run at reasonable paces for a long time. As I get stronger, I want to push myself more, but I've also broken down my body quite a bit and often had to pull back from running for a few weeks here and there. I'm trying not to do that this time, going slow and really limiting runs to 1.5-2 miles and even less if I can.

It's easy to get over confident, something we humans seem to do. We get confident, sometimes overconfident and push things too far. I know I've done it before and seen others do it as well, not just in running, but almost anything people try.

A heart rate monitor might help, and perhaps that would keep me from overdoing it too early in the process. It's been a few weeks and the legs feel strong, I just realize now that I need to rein myself on and prevent injury.

Day 23

A bit of a hurry to get to work on my presentation, so I got this out of the way early.

1.23mi
13:00min
240 cal

Day 22

Slightly sore legs, but they loosened up.

1.4mi
15:05min
273 cal.