Getting into shape

[jim]

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[Freed Roger]

neck is almost healed but lingering - my schedule has me neglecting the exercises stretches that seemed to get me this far.

Starting to work upper body some-weights, pushup, but carefully. Man have I gotten weak on the side that has/had the nerve pain. My PT in-law, that was one thing he cautioned me on - strength imbalance=not good - the muscles affected by the nerve got lame.
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I'm doing a weekly speed workout program on my own. when I saw a mile time-trial on the agenda -I approached it with dread -had a long day, it was windy and nasty outside.

I appreciate the 6:40 you did-especially on your own. I was glad to get out with a 6:41 mile - the conditions weren't great and mentally had my convenient excuse of being beat going in (had jumped into an 18 mile run with a group a few days before.) Now that I've gotten over the mental hump with it - I'll probably do another mile trial in a few weeks without lame excuses.

I will always appreciate being able to run a sub-7 min mile, whether I consider myself a runner or not. it doesn't sound fast by runner standards, but it takes a decent fitness level to do.

[jim]

[.

[IMADreamer]

I've taken a step back in fitness this last month for sure. It's time to get serious about it again. Especially now that the weather is good it's time to get out and take advantage of it.

[Freed Roger]

I've taken a step back in fitness this last month for sure. It's time to get serious about it again. Especially now that the weather is good it's time to get out and take advantage of it.

I may have mentioned this before, if you are competitive type- you may be a candidate for Strava.
https://www.strava.com/

Biking or running. People upload their GPS watch data and compete. You could own the biking course segment records for the backroads of West Central IL!

I'm not on strava, but Garmin's data upload website has some similar features. If I'm on one of my routes, I'm just competing against myself or looking back at my data to see progression/regression. I like maps and [expletive] like that.

I'm 284th fastest time for running the golden gate bridge (amongst garmin connect peeps) - actually I'm 279th because the top 4 clearly did it in cars (60 mph).

I came across a garmin run segment (I don't know how it's done, but someone creates these things) in my neighborhood. It's about a third of a mile - you bet your ass I planned a flat out sprint to own that segment record.

[jim]

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[Freed Roger]

yeah, it can be overdone with the tech. I don't do HR monitor, though some people swear by using it -at least until they get a feel for staying in some sort of target zone. Now they have "wearables" that measure all sorts of [expletive] -cadence etc etc.

mainly I just use the data retrospectively - like a barometer (or post-mortem). track workouts are the only things I check out to see if I kept intervals steady.

It's all good to get a feel for cause-effect. for instance, there's a hilly trail course I do at a state park - one day I was 2 minutes faster than ever before - why, how? well - the temps were perfect. I was rested and hadn't put in a lot of miles. But my first mile was kind of slow - so it tells me that I'm better off not starting too fast.

the data is a good externalizer . We kind of can kid ourselves about fitness level, but #s don't lie.

[jim]

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[Freed Roger]

oh yeah - the machines are screwed up - not calibrated equally. I am currently trying to convince my kid that the calories burned info isn't real - It may function as some sort of general gauge, but only if you are using the same machine. I personally don't like looking at those output #s on machines, but I have a hard time tuning it out completely.

And GPS for running has variations and mistakes.

I have about 12 routes or courses I set up for running, where I can gauge how I'm doing relative to other times I ran it. granted, I don't need anything other than a normal wristwatch for that, but it's good to have the info on hand rather than keeping a manual log.

If it's a race, I'll even sometimes type in how I felt, trail conditions, or things I did wrong or right. I don't refer back to it very often, but the act of putting it in the book helps me learn from it.

[IMADreamer]

I've taken a step back in fitness this last month for sure. It's time to get serious about it again. Especially now that the weather is good it's time to get out and take advantage of it.

I may have mentioned this before, if you are competitive type- you may be a candidate for Strava.
https://www.strava.com/

Biking or running. People upload their GPS watch data and compete. You could own the biking course segment records for the backroads of West Central IL!

I'm not on strava, but Garmin's data upload website has some similar features. If I'm on one of my routes, I'm just competing against myself or looking back at my data to see progression/regression. I like maps and [expletive] like that.

I'm 284th fastest time for running the golden gate bridge (amongst garmin connect peeps) - actually I'm 279th because the top 4 clearly did it in cars (60 mph).

I came across a garmin run segment (I don't know how it's done, but someone creates these things) in my neighborhood. It's about a third of a mile - you bet your ass I planned a flat out sprint to own that segment record.

That's interesting. I might give it a try.