Dead Computer? Take a Walk

My computer is having problems. Starting a couple of weeks ago, hard drive access has slowed to a crawl. Today I took it to IT so they could run some test on it and was told to return in a hour. There's little I can do without my computer, so I took a walk.



Not a long walk, but better than nothing.

If you want to embed maps of your runs or walks on your blog, follow the instructions found on the Map My Run blog.

Spring Break

I swam today -- 30 laps. It will be both the first and last time for this week.

With Spring Break, I'm able to combine business and pleasure travel. What I haven't yet figured out is how to exercise while traveling. My favorite exercises are swimming and bicycling. Neither fit well in my carry-on luggage. I brought my cross-training shoes and exercise clothes in case I feel like going for a brisk walk. We'll see.

How do you non-runners exercise when you travel?

Walking Home

I walked home for lunch today. According to MapMyRun.com, the round trip is 1.76 miles. How's that for a wimpy exercise day?

A Little of Everything

I'm tired... Probably exercised too much yesterday and went to bed too late. That's okay. It made today a great day to try something different.

Rosebud wanted to swim so I brought here with me. I spent a few laps helping her with her form. Not a lot of exertion, but more swimming sideways to watch.

I also brought some training fins. They have a lot of uses:

• Increase ankle flexibility
• Increase leg strength
• Train the brain to use the legs
• Maintain speed while working on upper body form

Today I used them for the first three reasons, swimming multiple laps face down with a kick board and also on my back. I can really feel the front of my thighs, right above the knee. It seems to work the same muscles as the elliptical training while going "backward" or going down steps.

Finally, I swam a few 50m intervals on the minute. Amazing how fast it feels to use my arms again. ;-) I wasn't counting laps, but I bet I did around 20 -- 1k.

Not a lot, but probably perfect for today. It also means I swam three times this week (plus all the other exercising). I feel good!

How about you? Are you meeting your exercise goals?

More Eccentricity

Rosebud wanted to go exercise after I got home this evening. We were able to time our departure so we could "ride" the elliptical trainers during the 1/2-hour American Idol results show. Sanjaya survives another week! More opportunities for entertainment! ;-)

We tried some of the weight machines while we cooled down. It's the first time I've tried them since joining the club so I kept the weights low. Rosebud had used them before so she could tell me how to use them.

The club is fairly quiet between 9 and 10 pm. Not a lot of competition for the weight machines. I'm tempted to make this a habit, even after Rosebud returns to college.

How do you decide when you'll exercise?

"Boring" Interval Day

As predicted, I swam intervals today:

• 5 x 50m continuous - warm up, untimed
• 5 x 50m starting each 1:00, times ranged from 0:35 to 0:45
• 3 minute rest
• 5 x 50m starting each 1:00, times ranged from 0:40 to 0:45
• 3 minute rest
• 5 x 50m starting each 1:00, times ranged from 0:40 to 0:45
• 3 minute rest
• 5 x 50m starting each 1:00, times ranged from 0:40 to 0:45
• 3 minute rest
• 5 x 50m continuous - cool down, untimed

It totals 1,500m. Looking at the list, it looks monotonous, and thus, boring. Strangely, the time seemed to fly by.

In general, I think most exercise is boring. Swimming, running, bicycling, those durned machines at the club -- all boring. I suspect individuals tend to gravitate to the boring exercise they like best.

What boring exercise do you do?

Don't Go All Elliptical with Me

I didn't make it to the pool today, but I made it to the gym this evening. I thought for variety I'd try the elliptical machine. Big mistake. I couldn't figure the crazy thing out. One set of buttons made the front go up and down and another set of buttons seemed to increase or decrease the resistance. I could go "forward" or "backward," as though that makes any sense for a motion not normally seen in nature.

But I couldn't figure out how to make the exercise easier or harder. Everything seemed harder. Having the front up was a more natural motion which was easier, but it was harder. More resistance meant I wasn't moving so fast, so it was easier, but it was harder. Going backward was just painful. If sweat means the workout is good, I guess it was worthwhile.

After half an hour of abusing both my body and mind (yeah, I was watching "American Idol," too), I gave up and found a treadmill to cool off. Now there's a machine I can understand.

Longer and Slower

After the weekend, I felt like easing back into swimming, so I swam 2,000 meters quite slowly. Including a couple rest stops for water (at 750 and 1,500 meters), I averaged just less than one minute per 50 meters. That's not very fast. Guess it's time to swim some intervals.

Over the weekend, Zoho.com increased the functionality of their site. I changed to an easier to interpret 2D graph and am now tracking kilometers instead of miles. Not only are the numbers larger, but the math is easier, especially since I'm now swimming at a 25-meter pool.

Update: I changed the graph to show the laps I swim each day of the week. The colors are a little intense, but I can't change that.

A New Week Begins

Rosebud, Sally, and I went to the club this evening. Rosebud needed to exercise her knee and Sally decided she'd do whatever Rosebud did. I thought I'd try the exercise bike again and try one of the preset programs. Thirty-five minutes later, I had finished a cross-country course. Rosebud and Sally were finishing up on elliptical trainers.

After a cool down walk, we were ready for home, food, and sleep.

Slogging Tools -- MapMyRun.com

Yet another day that I didn't swim. That's okay. I never swim on weekends, at least not laps. Mrs. Blogan's sister and hubby came over with their kids. After dinner, we rode Max to the Oregon Zoo, but every other Portlander must have had the same idea. The line to get in was long so we jumped back on Max and rode downtown.

We walked a short loop across a couple of bridges and beside the Willamette River. Thanks to www.MapMyRun.com, I know that our walk was just over two miles.

If you have regular routes you run, you can map them at MapMyRun and share them with the world. You can also enter you age, sex, weight, height, and time and it will calculate your average pace, average speed, and calories burned. Quite useful!

Confession Time

I didn't exercise today. Not a bit. Well, I walked from my car to my cube and back -- twice, in fact. I even ran one of those directions. But no, I didn't really exercise. I was too busy in the middle of the day to swim during lunch and too lazy after work. It's Friday after all.

In retrospect, it was a good week. I swam four times, walked twice, and biked once.

So, why do I feel guilty?

Bonus Exercise!

Rosebud wanted to exercise this evening. She needs to pedal on low resistance for 15 minutes each day to strengthen her knee. I went to keep her company. I'm not used to watching TV while bicycling. Then we walked a mile to stay loose.

Long and Slow

The pool today was nice, not too crowded and just a little cool when getting in. That's okay. After half a lap, I don't notice the temperature; it's just water flowing past my face. Once I'm warmed up, cooler water is definitely better.

Yesterday's swim was going to be light, but once I was in the water, I pushed it harder than planned. I decided today would be a slow swim, but longer. I swam 30 laps (1.5k) straight, paused a sec to glance at the pace clock, and swam the next lap at the same rate -- 0:55. I then swam a few more laps at a slower pace to cool down.

That makes four days this week -- a record since starting swimming again this year (though that's not saying much). My schedule doesn't look good for swimming the next few days. Maybe I'll be able to get some other forms of exercise in.

Slogging Tools -- Charts

I'm a graphical sort of guy. If I can see it, I have an easier time understanding it. And since I'm going to track my progress in an exercise program, charts and graphs will definitely help.

I normally use Microsoft Excel to create spreadsheets and graphs. Posting any charts on my blog required a multi-step process: screen capture it, crop it, save it, upload it, and finally put it on my blog. Any changes to the chart, such as exercising the next day, mandates repeating all the steps.

Thankfully, those days are over. I set up a free account at Zoho.com, an online office suite. Its spreadsheet application has charting capabilities (unlike Google's Docs & Spreadsheets). After creating a chart, I click "publish" and copy the displayed HTML code to my blog. The chart displays on my blog looking exactly like it did on Zoho.

Better yet, when I update the underlying data or the chart at Zoho, the chart on my blog is updated immediately and automatically.

I'm charting the distance I swim each week. What will you chart on your slog?

My Inspiration

I thank Toots and Sally Ride Again with inspiring me to start this slog. I discovered their blog while hanging out on the WordPress K2 forum (which is the software and theme I use on blogan.net).

Send your happy thoughts their direction. They'll need 'em -- they're training for a marathon.

Just Showing Can Feel Good

Morning arrived too early this morning or American Idol departed too late last night.

I had hoped to do a strenuous swim today but decided that just showing up and swimming would be success. Showing up must have been on other's schedule, too. The pool was full with one lane already being split. I found another swimmer willing to split his lane and jumped in.

Twenty laps (1000 m) later I was done swimming. I swam two sets of ten, and did the second set it 8:40. Not a fantastic workout, but it was much better than none at all. I'm satisfied.

The ache in my legs from walking too far yesterday is gone and replaced with a general all-over fatigue. After exercising, fatigue can feel good.

Two questions:

1. Do you sometimes declare success for just showing up?
2. After exercising, does fatigue feel good to you?

Catchup

Swimming is my exercise. Not that I swim particularly fast, but I enjoy the freedom of swimming. Or maybe it's just that it doesn't make my knees go numb like running does. I guess that makes me the black sheep of my family. Or at least, certainly not following in my mother's footsteps.

I've been swimming off and on the past three or four years. Around the holiday season, it goes to off and then the question is how long it stays that way. This year I swam first time just a few weeks ago and promptly got sick. I swam a couple times since, but hadn't felt 100% until last Friday. To celebrate I swam 35 laps on Monday.

I planned on a light day, or maybe skipping it altogether, but after a short talk at a vendor's shortly before lunch today (thanks, Mary Lou!) I decided to swim. Twenty-five laps of fox and hound later (it's always easier when the other swimmer doesn't know you're chasing from half a lap behind), I was done.

Swimming, that is. This evening, during Bub's taekwondo class, I walked a quick four miles and cooled off for another. Wow, if I'm going to do that again (and Sally wants to join me on Thursday) I'm going to need some walking shoes. I can feel blisters trying to form on the balls of my feet.

I'm going to sleep well tonight! :-)

Welcome to Exerslog

My first post in a new blog. Wow! Feel the excitement?

The air is filled with opportunity, hope, or at least the best of intentions. You see, Exerslog will be my exercise log. Sort of like "blog" is short for "web log," "exerslog" is short for "exercise log."

I see you in the front row, wearing your short sleeved shirt with pocket protector and taped horn-rimmed glasses, and waving your hand high like you're losing yet another game of tetherball. You'd like to point out that "exerclog" would be the appropriate name. Well, I see your objection, and overrule it. "Clog" is exactly what this slog hopes to avoid. (My arteries shall remain wide and plaque free.) Besides, I have slogged through enough exercise sessions to realize that slog is truly the appropriate name for this venture.

So pull up an easy chair and make yourself comfortable. Better yet, join me in this venture. Find an exercise you like to do, and slog it. After all, what gets measured, gets done.