Darkness

I live right by the lake, so I am in the perfect place to go on a daily jog. The feel of the cool air, the bright sun, and the long quiet jogging path make it an ideal location for any exercise you care to name. I follow the same route since it is easy to track my journey and figure out how far I have gone in a day versus the previous day.

As I learned though, it's a whole different story at night. Usually, I jog during the day or at the latest dusk. One fine day my only chance was to go at night, and it was a totally different experience. Even though the path is bordered by a large park, there are NO lights along the way or along the path! As in, next to none the whole length. I should mention, it runs parallel to a busy road which does have street lights, but they are on the opposing side of the path. It makes for an exhilarating and slightly frightening journey, as I couldn't see the ground in front of me or obstacles. I nearly hit several branches on the way, too.

This isn't to say I didn't like it, but simply that it was unexpected. I would definitely go again. It's fun to experience the familiar in unfamiliar ways! 

Overclocked

I hit a wall pretty hard the other night.

After a week solid of jogging every day, I had an incredibly long work day, clocking in at more than 14 hours. On top of that, I had another 8:30am shift the next day (this was Mother's day weekend, Armageddon in the restaurant world). Even if I had been able to exercise, it would not have been advisable. It took most of my energy just to make it through those 2 days. So I missed one day since I had no opportunity and the next since I was utterly exhausted. My legs were like stilts and refused to be moved very far.

I initially had plans to go jogging anyway and just push past the pain. No dice, as my legs were far too sore. Even after a long series of stretches, I couldn't coax any action from them. Probably just as well, since I could have torn something from overdoing it. Don't worry, even after missing those two days, I jumped right back in the fray the next day with a steady jog, and it felt great!

Cramping

I actually had the desire to jog on my way home. That was new. I'm fairly active in my daily life. I always take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator (when possible). I love to walk or ride my bike around town, and my work calls for me to be on my feet most of the time. I even commute by bike!

But while I like and enjoy this physical activity, I've dreaded more direct forms of exercise like jogging, sit-ups, and the like. I don't know why, but I have developed a mental block about the whole thing, and it seems absolutely terrible to me. I pant, get all sweaty, and generally feel like I was just run over. The only motivator is the intense satisfaction you get when you've finished the exercise, and that can be easily dismissed by the warmth of a good lazing around.

I rarely take public transit these days, but it was a cold and rainy so I decided to give it a shot. This meant a whole of extra sitting and about an hour of time to kill. Eventually my mind began to wander and I realized I was thinking about a jog, since my legs were feeling cramped. I had gotten so used to the daily jog I wanted it to happen!

Progress of a kind, yes. But when I got home (and off the streetcar), my legs warmed back up. So it was still a few hours before I actually went and did it. So there's still some distance to go, physically and mentally.

Fully Equipped, part 2

Whenever you make definitive, declarative statements, you need to be ready for them to be proven wrong, usually almost immediately. Such is the case with my disdain for proper exercise gear. I have definitely grown to appreciate the idea of proper jogging clothes, even if I have yet to to take the plunge and actually buy some.

To be sure, I always knew exercise gear was important and that I would need to wear something more appropriate. I was just disdainful of the "pro" gear sold by the Nike store and the like. But my very base outfit of jeans and just any shirt hasn't worked out too well so far. It works fine and all, but I have been doing enough exercise that it's starting to feel inhibiting.

So, hubris.

Un-hiatused

I've gone the longest I ever have without blogging about the monthly challenge, and that kind of defeats the purpose of the whole thing. But it has been unavoidable at the most and excusable at the least. For these past few days, I have been working a lot. Nothing new there, I'll admit. But with the warmer weather, I have had a lot more shifts at restaurant in which I work, meaning I am doing double shifts for most of the week.

When you add into the mix the exercise (which I have been fairly but not perfectly diligent about; see the next post), and I have even less time. You see, the problem with this month's challenge has been it is the only one that actually takes extra time to do. Most are diet-related, meaning I just eat different foods than I normally would. Even last month, I freed up more time with my challenge, as I avoided a time waster even more. But this challenge, I have to factor in an extra 30 minutes every day to fitness, which I would otherwise spend in leisure or composing a blog post.

So even when I'm done the exercise for that day (something requiring a feat of effort, considering the muddy, rainy, and generally too cool weather), I am disinclined to blog, presuming I had the time. But I am making an effort to correct this imbalance now, and I aim to fix it starting now. I doubt I'll get 11 posts down, but I will do my best!

Biking

I was forced to get a little innovative. As it happened, today I was unable to go for my job. I literally would have had no time to go exercise, due to other commitments from work ( I have a couple of different jobs). Luckily I had a stroke of inspiration. I was supposed to go to a work related training today, and since it was located at a relatively nearby location, I decided to try and bike it.

Now, I am a regular cyclist, and use my bike to commute several times a week. This usually takes about 30 minutes. The journey I took north today was about 40 minutes one way. On top of my usual commute, this meat a 50+ minute journey one way. Between that and the journey back, I definitely felt I had exercised my body.

Strained

I think I went too hard on the exercising. I very quickly found jogging to be much easier to work into my day. Or rather, I was more inclined to perform an activity that I had already done successfully. The other exercises I tried were fine, but without a proper mat and some more appropriate work out clothes they were difficult to perform.

So since the start of the challenge, I have just been running. Up until today, at least. I had been jogging for 7 or 8 days and had spent the day before biking for almost two hours. My muscles were sore to the point of extreme stiffness. I'm not sure, but it felt as though my muscles were in need of a break. Or rather, they forced one on me. They simply refused to cooperate, and I couldn't jog.

So I merely made sure not to overstrain anything so I could prepare for the next day, and to stretch a couple of times to keep nice and limber. Although today was not an exercise day, I have perhaps learned it is not always possible to go as hard as I can for everything.

Fully Equipped

I don't own proper jogging equipment. I mean, not of the sort you buy at the Nike store or anything. I certainly own t-shirts, shorts, and even a sweat shirt (but no matching "give up" pants). I don't bring this up as a problem. I don't particularly care about owning any of that stuff. Never have. I think it looks kinda dorky, and I am generally against any clothing that makes me look or dressed like everybody else. I mean, think about it. All of this stuff comes from only a couple of different stores, so of course it's all similar.

So far, I've been wearing jeans with a sweatshirt. Not ideal, but the air is usually chilly by the time I get outside. i have regular running shoes, of the 70's sort. I am also not a fan of most modern running shoes, which are often gaudy and neon colored and look like they fell out of an anime. Most of the ones I've checked out seem like pointless features anyhow. Sure, they may offer additional speed or comfort. But are most joggers really marathon training, or using their gear so much that performance is an issue? I doubt it. It seems more like conspicuous consumption to me.

So my gear (or lack thereof) works for me for now. I get some funny looks here and there, but when you're jogging who really pays attention to anyone else?

Improvised

After the long preliminary jog, I was way too sore the next day to jog again. But I still needed to exercise, so I decided to try something different, for the days I couldn't or didn't want to job. I came up with an exercise plan that was both slapdash and hastily put together. Nonetheless, it was surprisingly effective, all things considered.

I decided to spend the 30 minutes doing some basic exercises that I knew how to do. This is a laughably small number, consisting of jumping jacks, sit-ups, and push-ups. To keep in simple (and to keep my hear rate up) I decided on reps on 50. I alternated between sit-ups and push-ups with a round of jumping jacks in between each to keep it challenging. As this was my initial trial, I let it take as long as it needed to happen. I got about as far as two sets of sit ups before I could barely get to 15. Jumping jacks were no problem, and I compensated with extra push-ups. I can still feel the muscles in my stomach and arms. It's not exactly a pain or ache, but I can definitely feel muscles I wasn't feeling before.

I have never really tried to do anything like that before, so for a first time it went pretty well. I will definitely need to vary my exercises and come up with an actual routine though. Otherwise, it's only going to end in injury. Of that, I'm sure

Mantra

My jogging has been far more successful than it has ever been before. In part, this is due to my increased motivation (however self-inflicted). But I have accidentally hit upon another factor.

Every time I've gone jogging, I have always listened to music. And I do mean every time; I've never gone jogging without it. My thinking was that it would keep me distracted from the jogging itself, which is what I really don't like. This is sound reasoning in theory, but fails to work in practice. My brain could not trick my body when it knew I was trying to trick it. If anything, I would say I would get tired more quickly, as I focussed in on the fact I was paying no attention to the music and could barely hear it anyway. In other words, it knocked me out of concentration instead of into it.

Well, the first time I went jogging this month, I found that my phone had died just before I was ready to go. Having finally psyched myself up to go, I didn't want to wait for it to charge and left without it. Once again, this was the first time I had ever done so.

Well, it worked incredibly well. Without the music distracting me, I very quickly got into the zone and was able to focus on what I was doing and also kind of let my mind wander. Previously, I would set some goal for myself of how far or long I was going to job and just barely make it every time. This time, right out of the gate, I went an extra 15 minutes and felt great about it once I got home (as opposed to sweaty and miserable, I was merely sweaty). True, I was pretty sore afterward. But this was due to a lack of proper warming up, something easily remedied. I actually look forward to the jog now, a definite change. Hopefully, I can make it last!

Leg Cramps

Things got off to a bang with a nice long jog, my first since last summer. I prefer to jog outside, which is rather hard to do in the dead of winter even you are highly motivated (which I am not). While I have used a treadmill at various times before, I am not a fan. I find it extremely difficult to maintain my interest jogging this way, since there isn't really anything to distract you. Sure, sometimes there is a TV above the treadmills at the gym, or a little glowing counter on the dashboard.  But that doesn't really do it for me.

When I jog outside, I am able to spur myself on by setting arbitrary landmarks to hit as I continue on my way. For instance, keep going until you hit that tree, and then until you hit that next sign post. With that motivation, I can keep going longer, even after I am starting to wear down. Using this method, I was able to continue my jog past the point I intended. I had planned to go for half an hour and ended up jogging for 45 minutes, as I kept finding new mini-goals to hit.

It was exhilarating to jog after so long, and so I kept going for longer than I should have. So when I was done, my legs were extremely sore. I tried to take proper precautions before and after by stretching my leg muscles. It was only a minor stiffness at first that grew more sore as the night continued. I did some more stretches right before bed, and by the time I woke up it had abated. Next time, I'll have to be more careful, especially with a month of exercise ahead.

The Month Of Exercise!

I don't take care of myself properly.

I don't exercise, and lead a fairly sedentary life. Even though I am still fairly active (I bike to most of my destinations, and enjoy taking long walks), I also spend a lot of my day stationary. When I get into a show or video game, I can sit with it forever, until my butt is sore.

As well, my diet is far from ideal. I will use the excuse that I am always in motion, shifting between jobs and am rarely home enough to allow me to cook at home. My girlfriend does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to meals, and thankfully she leans towards healthier fare. Left to my own devices, I will eat the grossest, fattiest, saltiest foods imaginable; there is no novelty food too extreme for me to at least sample.

Despite some half-hearted attempts in the past to be more in shape, I still have never managed more than a couple of days a week for a couple of weeks before I rationalize my sore muscles as reason to stop. So this month I hit upon a different idea.

Instead of going without a bad thing, let's include a good thing! I have never managed to make a regimen stick before, so this month is where I make it happen! This month's rule!

1) Exercise. Every. Single. Day.
I am a total novice at this so expect mixed results. I have never joined a gym before (except for a brief period a few years ago for a month), so I will probably try and at least do a trial at one of those. I am also going to say the time I will spend of this will be no less than 30 minutes a day, but with no cap. Who knows what will happen? I don't!

So far today, I have biked uphill to one job and back again going as fast as possible and arriving way faster than my previous best time. Tonight, I plan to go jogging. Wish me luck!