Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Personal Goals Mini Update
400m 2:11 A segment on my normal run, down hill, wind behind me. Perhaps when the lockdown is over I should look to do some track time and get some more accurate times.
Monday, April 27, 2020
Personal Bests
It's all about personal bests.
Until very recently I didn't run.
At school I walked the cross country and took short cuts. The teachers couldn't monitor the whole class on a run.
Walking, now that I could do by the mile after unstoppable mile but never run.
When I first moved to Surrey, in my 40s, I joined a gym and enjoyed running on the tread mill. I could listen to podcasts and when I got tired I would still be right where I started.
I started street running in 2019, age 48. That biological clock telling me how I should stop taking my general good health for granted and start doing some work on it. But I wasn't logging the exercise, not recording times and distances.
Though I'd had step counters in the past it was getting a watch capable of tracking GPS that has helped most with the fitness tracking.
Step count is something I've covered in other posts and it's the simplest measure but what I'm getting interested in now is getting to a point where I can run 5km and once at that point I want to work on improving my times for that distance.
Towards the middle of last year I set up a spreadsheet which automatically pulls my step count from Google Fit and records it. While Google holds the data itself you have to use the mobile app to view the information and I want the flexibility to browse the information in different ways. The idea behind this was to get some base line numbers so that when I started exercising properly I'd have something to compare with. Exercising to start properly as I turn 49, with a goal to being fit for 50!
Just over a month into doing regular runs and despite the pandemic induced lock down, my running is getting better.
I started running Tuesdays and Thursdays. First I would walk to a local playing field then run two laps around it, then walk back.
When I went to run early one morning and found that the playing field was shut I opted to run the block around the playing field. Distance wise, running the street was just a little shorter than two laps of the field itself, about 2.5km.
About two weeks ago, rather than walking to the start of the run and walking back after it, I started running from the front door and finishing back at the house too. Just over 3km.
Last Sunday I chose to run a circuit that I'd walked several times as I knew this was just over 5km.
The circuit takes me down to the river, along the river then back up before a short run back down to home.
The climb starts at about 3km, roughly where I've been ending my regular runs. On this first attempt I didn't manage to run the full 5km, slowing to a walk at 4km then another run from the top of the road.
Despite not technically running the whole route it's given me a circuit time to beat, which I'll be trying again next weekend.
As well as giving an over all circuit time to beat the Strava site that I've been using to record each run has finally got some sensible distances to register some times with, these are my starting points:
1km - 5:52
1 Mile - 9:35
5km - 33:05
As mentioned above, the route isn't flat but it's one that I'll repeat so the distance is symbolic, though it will be interesting to see the time difference for 5km over different courses and as the weather changes.
Since I started using Strava I've run 45.6km over 14 runs, a total of 5 hours 46 minutes.
Lets see where we go from there.
Until very recently I didn't run.
At school I walked the cross country and took short cuts. The teachers couldn't monitor the whole class on a run.
Walking, now that I could do by the mile after unstoppable mile but never run.
When I first moved to Surrey, in my 40s, I joined a gym and enjoyed running on the tread mill. I could listen to podcasts and when I got tired I would still be right where I started.
I started street running in 2019, age 48. That biological clock telling me how I should stop taking my general good health for granted and start doing some work on it. But I wasn't logging the exercise, not recording times and distances.
Though I'd had step counters in the past it was getting a watch capable of tracking GPS that has helped most with the fitness tracking.
Step count is something I've covered in other posts and it's the simplest measure but what I'm getting interested in now is getting to a point where I can run 5km and once at that point I want to work on improving my times for that distance.
Towards the middle of last year I set up a spreadsheet which automatically pulls my step count from Google Fit and records it. While Google holds the data itself you have to use the mobile app to view the information and I want the flexibility to browse the information in different ways. The idea behind this was to get some base line numbers so that when I started exercising properly I'd have something to compare with. Exercising to start properly as I turn 49, with a goal to being fit for 50!
Just over a month into doing regular runs and despite the pandemic induced lock down, my running is getting better.
I started running Tuesdays and Thursdays. First I would walk to a local playing field then run two laps around it, then walk back.
When I went to run early one morning and found that the playing field was shut I opted to run the block around the playing field. Distance wise, running the street was just a little shorter than two laps of the field itself, about 2.5km.
About two weeks ago, rather than walking to the start of the run and walking back after it, I started running from the front door and finishing back at the house too. Just over 3km.
Last Sunday I chose to run a circuit that I'd walked several times as I knew this was just over 5km.
The circuit takes me down to the river, along the river then back up before a short run back down to home.
The climb starts at about 3km, roughly where I've been ending my regular runs. On this first attempt I didn't manage to run the full 5km, slowing to a walk at 4km then another run from the top of the road.
Despite not technically running the whole route it's given me a circuit time to beat, which I'll be trying again next weekend.
As well as giving an over all circuit time to beat the Strava site that I've been using to record each run has finally got some sensible distances to register some times with, these are my starting points:
1km - 5:52
1 Mile - 9:35
5km - 33:05
As mentioned above, the route isn't flat but it's one that I'll repeat so the distance is symbolic, though it will be interesting to see the time difference for 5km over different courses and as the weather changes.
Since I started using Strava I've run 45.6km over 14 runs, a total of 5 hours 46 minutes.
Lets see where we go from there.
Thursday, April 09, 2020
Reminders Of Better Days
Through March I got reminders from Google "this day in history" telling me I was climbing x mountain or walking y river. And with the weather being just about perfect for walks I'm feeling a little caged. I must not complain though as I'm "caged" in a beautiful house with amazing people and yes I'm saying this after almost three weeks of lock down. I'm also fortunate in that I'm able to work from home with little impact. I have had to go into the office a couple of times but when I have it's empty.
Wednesday, April 01, 2020
So Close
Well my attempt at 7000 steps per day for March failed, but I have a good excuse! Around the middle of March the world was put on lockdown, yes the entire world, or near enough.
In the UK we were told to limit all journeys to essential only. That meant certain workers, trips to the chemist for prescriptions, essential shopping and one trip out for exercise.
Yes that last caveat should have allowed me to keep up my daily step count but it's not as simple as that. There's still an element of guilt with going outside, a feeling that you're not "isolating" properly. With each day of this situation I feel this less and less but certainly in the first few days of isolation I just didn't feel right leaving the house.
Needless to say I'm not attempting 10,000 steps a day in April, or any other month soon.
I look forward to reading this back in ten to fifteen years time, that time when a virus had the world on lockdown.
I'm extremely lucky to be home with loved ones, have plenty of space and a job that I can do from home. In fact, before this situation started I was already working two or three days a week from home so that aspect of daily life hasn't really changed.
I'm still wearing the step counter and still weighing myself every day.
Interestingly, since isolation started I've actually dropped the final few pounds to reach my arbitrary weight goal of 13st (182lbs). There's a few things I can put this down to; first I don't have access to a vending machine as I do in the office. Those two/three bars of chocolate per day, while not adding to my weight greatly, certainly kept it around the mid to high 13st range. Second, for lunches I'm eating homemade meals. Processed sandwiches, pies or even the odd trip to Subway are my regular lunch when I'm in the office. The combination of fast food and snacking for sure has kept my weight higher.
Perhaps I need to give myself a new challenge. I certainly believe I don't drink enough. Since the Garmin fitness tracker allows for recording water intake perhaps this is what I should record next?
In the UK we were told to limit all journeys to essential only. That meant certain workers, trips to the chemist for prescriptions, essential shopping and one trip out for exercise.
Yes that last caveat should have allowed me to keep up my daily step count but it's not as simple as that. There's still an element of guilt with going outside, a feeling that you're not "isolating" properly. With each day of this situation I feel this less and less but certainly in the first few days of isolation I just didn't feel right leaving the house.
Needless to say I'm not attempting 10,000 steps a day in April, or any other month soon.
I look forward to reading this back in ten to fifteen years time, that time when a virus had the world on lockdown.
I'm extremely lucky to be home with loved ones, have plenty of space and a job that I can do from home. In fact, before this situation started I was already working two or three days a week from home so that aspect of daily life hasn't really changed.
I'm still wearing the step counter and still weighing myself every day.
Interestingly, since isolation started I've actually dropped the final few pounds to reach my arbitrary weight goal of 13st (182lbs). There's a few things I can put this down to; first I don't have access to a vending machine as I do in the office. Those two/three bars of chocolate per day, while not adding to my weight greatly, certainly kept it around the mid to high 13st range. Second, for lunches I'm eating homemade meals. Processed sandwiches, pies or even the odd trip to Subway are my regular lunch when I'm in the office. The combination of fast food and snacking for sure has kept my weight higher.
Perhaps I need to give myself a new challenge. I certainly believe I don't drink enough. Since the Garmin fitness tracker allows for recording water intake perhaps this is what I should record next?
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