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captainsblogWhat's an ET quote doing in a place like this? Hell, what am I doing here, for the first time in weeks on a serious fitness topic? It seemed a good day to die update, since I took the quest to a new frontier this afternoon:
Outside.
Some catching-up, though, first, for those of you who've followed, or even haven't followed,this blog (the Dreamwidth one, not my usual LJ haunt of the same name). Last summer, not long after hitting my lifetime worst for weight in the low-to-mid 290s, I decided I needed to be on a smaller interstate, and thus began twice-weekly training classes to get me over the humps I'd been tripping over on my own for several years. Along with that, I also began more cardio and less calorio, to the point where I now rarely miss a day of the former and am still trying hard to cut as much as I can of the latter. By December, I'd gotten that 290-ish number down into the 270 range, and when the owner of the gym where I train started a variation on the "Biggest Loser" bit at the start of 2011, I decided to take the plunge... and have plunged even further.
My official first-week weigh-in was 274. That went down an amazing eight pounds in the first week of doing, not really, much different than I'd done the preceding six months. Indeed, I never duplicated that effort again, and have largely been no-change, or a pound down, or even one given back on a few occasions, but going into the last two weeks I was at 258- a 6 percent weight loss over the whole period. (To balance things out for the Skinny Minnies in the group, it's done by percentage, rather than gross total.) Each of those percentage points counts for 30 competition points, and thanks mainly to that first-week big drop, I've been consistently near the top for that aspect of it.
The rest of the "competition" involves doing stuff and, yes, buying stuff. One-on-one classes (which I don't do) get you five points each; the group classes (which I have done, two-a-week religiously) each count for three. Seminars and how-to-warm-up sessions vary from two to ten. Finally, and this is the part I rather dislike, there are incentives for buying supplements, gear and testing sessions from the wide variety of those on the menu. Add it all up and I've been rather consistently in fourth since the first-week fluke finally proved to be just that. The winner gets roughly a $750 prize, with other unspecified goodies for other unspecified accomplishments. (As my trainer will tell you, I'm not a likely candidate for Mr. Congeniality;)
This week is the final weigh-in and winnerism. I'm not doing anything better to try to sneak up the last-minute ladder, nor am I bailing out and getting stupid on account of the gap being too much to close. Today, though, I did work through the routine in a very different way, and I. Am. FEELING it.
----
My wife and I do our cardio at one of the Cheap Chain Joints near the Wegmans she works at. In recent weeks, she's begun going about as often as I do, but usually at different times. Today, though, we had a need for togetherness: Eleanor's truck was in the shop, and that meant we had just the one car for shuttling about. After dropping off the patient at Monroe Muffler, it turned out she wanted to go straight to the gym; I was in suit-and-tie from church and hadn't brought my bag. "No problem," I said; "I'll drop you off, go home and change, and meet you back there. If you finish before me, I'll just walk to the muffler place."
Which I did- and which, I now know from the odometer on the way back, is 2.7 miles away from the gym. Now hell, I walked that twice a day in high school for probably an average of three times a week; but THAT was when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I haven't walked that far outside in, literally, years. I have, however, walked more than twice that, almost every day, for the last several months- but on an elliptical.
Today, I first tried out the one Eleanor uses, which is one row down from mine of choice.
Mine Hers
"Hers" is really closer to a stairmaster, and it KILLS IT when you're doing the cyclical motion; there's much less stride there, almost all of it up and down. After 10 minutes, it told me, I'd done about what I typically do in 20 on "mine"- 2 miles and 200 calories- and, since she'd left by then, I didn't have the need to be next to her, so I moved up one to my usual haunt....
and, close to 20 minutes later, got thrown off it.
Not thrown from it, mind. No, one of the front-desk people came and asked me to move over to another one, because mine had developed a massive squeak that was annoying half the room. By then, between the two, I'd put in more than 4 miles and close to 500 calories (my goal is 6 and 1000 for a usual hour), so I elected to put on warmer clothes and just do my final stretch on actual terrain.
----
Have I said "ow" yet? Because, wow, OW.
I did that final 2.8 mile stretch in about 45 minutes, which works out to 3.75 in an hour, quite a bit slower than the machines say I regularly do. But those machines don't have any of the following:
* wind
* 40 degree temperature
* car-dodging on the one mile-ish stretch between Main and Sheridan without sidewalks
* wind
* a real uphill grade on Youngs from Sheridan to Main that, I'm sorry, the engineers of those "incline" buttons really can't duplicate
* did I mention wind?
I did. And was- winded, that is, by the time I got to the final destination. I now remember what shin splints felt like back when I briefly attempted running during the Jimm Fixx days, and jeebus my feets hurt more than anything. But hey- it's a first day, and it actually accomplished something in the process.
It's occurred to me that, doing sometimes closer to 7 miles in an hour on an elliptical, that, wow! I'm halfway to a half-marathon! Um, no I'm not- but I'm about 2.8 miles closer to being ready for one than I was yesterday- and I'll take that right about now.
Outside.
Some catching-up, though, first, for those of you who've followed, or even haven't followed,this blog (the Dreamwidth one, not my usual LJ haunt of the same name). Last summer, not long after hitting my lifetime worst for weight in the low-to-mid 290s, I decided I needed to be on a smaller interstate, and thus began twice-weekly training classes to get me over the humps I'd been tripping over on my own for several years. Along with that, I also began more cardio and less calorio, to the point where I now rarely miss a day of the former and am still trying hard to cut as much as I can of the latter. By December, I'd gotten that 290-ish number down into the 270 range, and when the owner of the gym where I train started a variation on the "Biggest Loser" bit at the start of 2011, I decided to take the plunge... and have plunged even further.
My official first-week weigh-in was 274. That went down an amazing eight pounds in the first week of doing, not really, much different than I'd done the preceding six months. Indeed, I never duplicated that effort again, and have largely been no-change, or a pound down, or even one given back on a few occasions, but going into the last two weeks I was at 258- a 6 percent weight loss over the whole period. (To balance things out for the Skinny Minnies in the group, it's done by percentage, rather than gross total.) Each of those percentage points counts for 30 competition points, and thanks mainly to that first-week big drop, I've been consistently near the top for that aspect of it.
The rest of the "competition" involves doing stuff and, yes, buying stuff. One-on-one classes (which I don't do) get you five points each; the group classes (which I have done, two-a-week religiously) each count for three. Seminars and how-to-warm-up sessions vary from two to ten. Finally, and this is the part I rather dislike, there are incentives for buying supplements, gear and testing sessions from the wide variety of those on the menu. Add it all up and I've been rather consistently in fourth since the first-week fluke finally proved to be just that. The winner gets roughly a $750 prize, with other unspecified goodies for other unspecified accomplishments. (As my trainer will tell you, I'm not a likely candidate for Mr. Congeniality;)
This week is the final weigh-in and winnerism. I'm not doing anything better to try to sneak up the last-minute ladder, nor am I bailing out and getting stupid on account of the gap being too much to close. Today, though, I did work through the routine in a very different way, and I. Am. FEELING it.
----
My wife and I do our cardio at one of the Cheap Chain Joints near the Wegmans she works at. In recent weeks, she's begun going about as often as I do, but usually at different times. Today, though, we had a need for togetherness: Eleanor's truck was in the shop, and that meant we had just the one car for shuttling about. After dropping off the patient at Monroe Muffler, it turned out she wanted to go straight to the gym; I was in suit-and-tie from church and hadn't brought my bag. "No problem," I said; "I'll drop you off, go home and change, and meet you back there. If you finish before me, I'll just walk to the muffler place."
Which I did- and which, I now know from the odometer on the way back, is 2.7 miles away from the gym. Now hell, I walked that twice a day in high school for probably an average of three times a week; but THAT was when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I haven't walked that far outside in, literally, years. I have, however, walked more than twice that, almost every day, for the last several months- but on an elliptical.
Today, I first tried out the one Eleanor uses, which is one row down from mine of choice.
Mine Hers
"Hers" is really closer to a stairmaster, and it KILLS IT when you're doing the cyclical motion; there's much less stride there, almost all of it up and down. After 10 minutes, it told me, I'd done about what I typically do in 20 on "mine"- 2 miles and 200 calories- and, since she'd left by then, I didn't have the need to be next to her, so I moved up one to my usual haunt....
and, close to 20 minutes later, got thrown off it.
Not thrown from it, mind. No, one of the front-desk people came and asked me to move over to another one, because mine had developed a massive squeak that was annoying half the room. By then, between the two, I'd put in more than 4 miles and close to 500 calories (my goal is 6 and 1000 for a usual hour), so I elected to put on warmer clothes and just do my final stretch on actual terrain.
----
Have I said "ow" yet? Because, wow, OW.
I did that final 2.8 mile stretch in about 45 minutes, which works out to 3.75 in an hour, quite a bit slower than the machines say I regularly do. But those machines don't have any of the following:
* wind
* 40 degree temperature
* car-dodging on the one mile-ish stretch between Main and Sheridan without sidewalks
* wind
* a real uphill grade on Youngs from Sheridan to Main that, I'm sorry, the engineers of those "incline" buttons really can't duplicate
* did I mention wind?
I did. And was- winded, that is, by the time I got to the final destination. I now remember what shin splints felt like back when I briefly attempted running during the Jimm Fixx days, and jeebus my feets hurt more than anything. But hey- it's a first day, and it actually accomplished something in the process.
It's occurred to me that, doing sometimes closer to 7 miles in an hour on an elliptical, that, wow! I'm halfway to a half-marathon! Um, no I'm not- but I'm about 2.8 miles closer to being ready for one than I was yesterday- and I'll take that right about now.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 10:51 pm (UTC)I need to get outside more in the coming nicer weather...but I really like the elliptical, being easier on my joints than walking.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 01:16 am (UTC)FWIW, from the couple of pictures I've seen, you look great. Yet we can always look- and feel, and be- better than we are.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 12:28 am (UTC)Shin splints. Ow.
Good work! Keep it up! :)
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 10:51 pm (UTC)