Exercise & Fitness: it’s a marathon, not a sprint

[MercenaryChef]

the crew and i did our 100 mile fixed gear ride to Delaware and since then I've seriously dropped in my fitness and health goals

i changed jobs, went from a couple drinks here and there as a reward to again drinking to relax, my diet took a dive, i stopped taking my vitamins regularly. i couldn't really work out proper for a few weeks between getting a gnarly burn at work and getting a massive tattoo, both which needed to heal.

for me i function better by setting goals and sharing them.  that makes them real. it feeds my desire to compete to complete these goals and not disappoint people who believe me.

so, my goal beginning today is 20 miles a day for the next 30 a combination of peloton workouts (had my first in weeks today. i missed how hard they can be), commuting to and from work and weekend rides with the crew. 

as well i need to get my diet and consumption under control again. been in a funk. and with fall coming it is likely only to get worse if i don't get my shit together. 

[aceluby]

Had a good HIIT session today focusing on legs.  I think this PPL+Upper+Lower schedule has been great for getting bigger and building some solid muscle.  Definitely stronger is all of my lifts, but holy shit has my diet gone to shit.  Up to 225 lbs right now, with WAY too much around the love-handles and zero ab definition.  Next week I'm doing a "cleanse" with my wife - which is all home cooked meals, controlled healthy snacks, and no alcohol.  She wants to do it for 5 days, but if I can get through that I'm going to just keep going.  I really need to cut 25 lbs (of fat), so Monday is where it starts.

[MercenaryChef]

20 miles a day is going good. missed the total a couple days, but exceed it most days. 

aside from a couple taco meals been doing a vegetarian diet again. cutting back on drinking a lot. 

on the 2nd i challenged my bike crew to try to hit 500km by Halloween.  there are 10 of us involved right now.  i am sitting in 3rd place w 209km completed.  I'm a competitive person so i have been adding sometimes 20 miles to my rides home at night as well as making sure i through in a 30 minute peloton workout in for good measure. 

I'm gonna be so sad when it becomes too rainy,   snowy or cold to ride. 

[BigFatCoward]

4 minutes ago, MercenaryChef said:

. 

I'm gonna be so sad when it becomes too rainy,   snowy or cold to ride. 

How cold/wet does it get where you are? There are very few days where I check the weather forecast and its too cold and wet for decent overshoes, waterproof jacket and a good pair of gloves. Snow you can't do anything about. 

It's the dark I hate, drivers refuse to see me even with high vis jacket and 5 different lights on my bike. 

[MercenaryChef]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

How cold/wet does it get where you are? There are very few days where I check the weather forecast and its too cold and wet for decent overshoes, waterproof jacket and a good pair of gloves. Snow you can't do anything about. 

It's the dark I hate, drivers refuse to see me even with high vis jacket and 5 different lights on my bike. 

i don't have rain gear yet. need to invest. 

i love night riding! dc becomes empty after 10pm in most areas. it is fun as could be to crush streets without cars threatening you or needing to adhere to street signals. my bucket list is to ride until dawn after work sometime.

[BigFatCoward]

27 minutes ago, MercenaryChef said:

i don't have rain gear yet. need to invest. 

i love night riding! dc becomes empty after 10pm in most areas. it is fun as could be to crush streets without cars threatening you or needing to adhere to street signals. my bucket list is to ride until dawn after work sometime.

It's dark at 1600 as well though, the roads are manic on my cycle home.

Though both my serious accidents were in Broad daylight. 

[baxus]

My shoulder injury was looking good, I finished physical therapy and all that, gave it a week-week and a half of rest after all that and then I felt confident it's in good enough shape to try playing basketball which turned out not to be a good idea at all.

Now I bought some resistance bands and will work on increasing strength and flexibility of my shoulder muscles for a couple of weeks before trying anything similar again. Will have to do some running (weather is crap so that drains my motivation for that), jumping rope, yoga (if possible with a dodgy shoulder) and football once a week with my friends from high school.

[aceluby]

One week down - many, many more to go.  This week is going to be a deload week.  Basically just a lot of yoga, pilates, and a little bit of cardio.  Then hitting it hard again starting next week on a new lifting program with my wife.

[Starkess]

I did it! Had to basically drag myself across the finish line, but I made it. The weather was unseasonally hot and humid, which didn't help, and that hip injury came roaring back with a vengeance in the back half. Somewhere around mile 18 things started to get pretty bad, by mile 23 I ended up having to walk 2 miles. Not sure if was worth it, as the main issue was muscle pain, and every step hurt whether running or walking. At least with running I would have been done about 10 minutes sooner! But when running and in pain it's very easy to think "it won't be as bad if I walk" and then hard to get started again. But at mile 25 I decided I would be damned if I didn't run across the finish line, and I managed it from there. My time ended up being 5:02:27 (so close to 5 hours!), but given my injury during training and the weather, I'm just glad it's done.

And I'm never doing a marathon again! Glad I did it (or at least, I will be once I can walk normally again), but yeah, that's too far.

[MercenaryChef]

way to go,  Starkess!!!!!

[aceluby]

Have been ridiculously sick with a cold for the last week and finally got to move my body a bit this morning, which felt really good.  My wife and I have started a decent lifting program, but so far the workouts seem to be a bit short (ie kinda easy for our fitness level), not doing progressive overloads, and seem to be pretty much total body every day.  It's only the first week, so I'm not going to judge it until we've worked through at least 4 of the 8 weeks, and it has kicked my wife's ass pretty good so far - but I am a bit skeptical of the theory behind the workouts.  It's only 8 weeks, so I'll finish it and probably move back to the 6 day schedule I did last year that I got some really good gains from.

[Iskaral Pust]

The past two weeks have been tough for exercise.  I’ve been working late every night and I’ve had family stuff over the weekends.  I’ve had just one weights session per week.

Healthy eating victory: After years of eating a dessert every night, which got more indulgent this past year, I’m now four weeks clean.  The first week was tough but now it’s a new habit.  I’ve probably cut 3,000-4,000kcal per week considering I had been eating an entire pint of ice cream twice a week (1,100kcal per pint), plus a third of a cup of chocolate on the other nights.  But I’m not suddenly shedding a pound of fat per week.  I’ll have to sustain this for months.

Injury update: I strained my calf muscle playing soccer five weeks ago, but it’s healing slowly.  It’s easily aggravated by anything more than a short walk.  It limits the warm-up exercises I can do (running or rowing are out) atm but squats and deadlifts are still fine.

Once this crazy period at work abates, I’ll get back to more consistent exercise.  Early September saw swimming, soccer and gardening largely replace weightlifting, then I got back to consistent weightlifting for three good weeks, and then I got buried in work.

[Impmk2]

Have stuck with running a couple times a week, 3-5km. In about 25min/5k shape now, which feels terribly slow given past form. But not sure if I can be bothered to put the time in to get any quicker.

[BigFatCoward]

On 10/12/2021 at 2:12 AM, Starkess said:

 

And I'm never doing a marathon again! Glad I did it (or at least, I will be once I can walk normally again), but yeah, that's too far.

Heard that so many times for various hard-core activities. But it gets under people's skin. 

But even if you don't, at least you've done it once. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by BigFatCoward

[Erik of Hazelfield]

Slowly getting back on track with the training. I haven’t gone to the gym since before the pandemic and a few weeks ago I was probably in my worst shape ever. Could hardly run 3 k without stopping and feeling weak in general. I decided enough is enough. I don’t want to feel that way. Also with everyone in the household finally fully vaccinated I have no more excuses to avoid the gym.

I’ve now done 5 or 6 different sessions over the past two weeks, from swimming to spinning and running, and I’ve also started biking to work again after having worked from home for 1 1/2 years. I think it’s already having an effect, though that might be imagination. I do feel better though, and I realise how much I’ve missed the exercise. It’s fun!

 

[Iskaral Pust]

Two good weights sessions over the weekend, but nothing during midweek.  I’m still working late every evening.

I hope to get back at least some midweek evening time for exercise starting in a couple of weeks. 

[apovsic]

Did my first marathon yesterday. It was hard, very hard. Not as painful as shorter distances can be, but just draining after 30 km. Last 5 km felt like when one is swimming in the sea and then tries to walk last couple of meters to the shore with water above waist. And in the finish I didn't even get the promised endorphin doze . My brain kinda zone out at 35 km and when I stopped I was just confused, like  "What now?" . Also I lost 3 kg, I was shivering after 10 min and had to put like 5 layers of clothes, just not to feel cold, I was sick and my throat was burning.

So, it was awesome, can't wait for the next one.

Spoiler

I ran 2:46, if you also need this info.

 

[Liffguard]

I really dislike endurance events, and nothing I've read on this thread about marathons has convinced me otherwise.

[aceluby]

Continuing our "total body every day" workout program and it's starting to get brutal.  Today was cardio, and even that had weights and a ton of squats, squat jumps, and KB swings.  Yesterday was a heavy lifting session, and Saturday was more of an endurance lifting session.  I'm still trying to figure out the method to the madness and haven't come up with anything beyond "we're gonna kick your ass all day, every day - and rest on Thursdays".  Tomorrow is another lifting session, so we'll see how that goes.
 

[apovsic]

2 hours ago, Liffguard said:

I really dislike endurance events, and nothing I've read on this thread about marathons has convinced me otherwise.

Good, that just mean you're not insane