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

[Iskaral Pust]

10 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

The absolute most i will do is 4000m, and thats only on really good day, most days its 3000, sometimes even 2000 if i'm exhausted/hung over. 

I do 500m just as a quick warm up before weightlifting.  When I was rowing as the workout, not just the warmup, I would do 5k in 21-23 minutes (depending on how hard I was pushing) but my legs were like jelly after that and my heart and lungs would be heaving as I stood up to rest.

I have noticed that my new rowing machine in my home gym has a different pace than the ERG I used in our condo gym a few years ago (when I did 5k in 21-23 minutes).  The ERG in the condo gym was an older model with a chain cable.  On a setting of 10 (out of 10), I could sprint at 1:45/500m but a long row would have a sustained pace in the 2:10/500m ballpark.  My newer ERG in my home gym uses a fan blade resistance and on a setting of 13 (out of 16) I find that 2:25/500m is a brisk warm-up pace for 500m.  There’s no way I could do 2:10/500m sustained for 5k on this machine.

i wondered if my fitness just declined a lot in the last few years but we’ve been back in that condo building in Chicago in the last two years to visit friends and I’ve gone back into the gym and used the same old ERG machine and I still rowed at the original pace.  I think there’s just a large difference in either the resistance or how the machines convert resistance into distance.  They are from different manufacturers and use different mechanical designs, but different treadmills don’t produce that kind of discrepancy.

[BigFatCoward]

6 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Sorry I'm not a drug addict. 

The only drug you need to keep you going is bickering with DMC

[3CityApache]

12 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Honestly I think a 30 mile bike ride while smoking a joint and stopping for a glass of wine/beer at the midway point isn't anywhere as close to as difficult as just putting 10 minutes in on that fucker. 

Ha ha, maybe not 10 minutes, but rowing longer than 30 is a real challenge for me. And I need to have a damn good music in headphones. Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins is a good bet. 

[baxus]

On 4/19/2024 at 10:30 AM, BigFatCoward said:

The absolute most i will do is 4000m, and thats only on really good day, most days its 3000, sometimes even 2000 if i'm exhausted/hung over. 

The most I've ever done is 10k, which was in 40-45 minutes range. Not a pleasant experience and definitely not something I'd recommend. Rowing on water, on the other hand, I could do for hours. Going out on the river in a boat with your mates is such a great feeling and I miss it dearly. Obviously, I'm talking about recreational rowing on water, not training for a competition or anything serious.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

On 2/4/2024 at 9:33 AM, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Just stepped on the scale and I've dropped 8 pounds in the last month or so. Still need to lose another 20  to get back to where I'm happy, but given all my health issues over the last year and a half that's pretty good since I'm mainly just doing yoga and the row machine with weights twice a week. 

My Japanese mother-in-law actually asked if I had lost weight when I last saw her. That's a first. Usually it's "oh, you've gained weight." The first time actually included some pokes as I was washing dishes "here, and here." 

So...that's a good sign. I'm still taking things easy with respect to my back (which I hurt about two months back), but I have been walking a whole lot, some easy exercise, and trying not to go crazy on snacks.

[TheLastWolf]

Ran 3 kms after 2 years. Like the most running I ever did in the interval was to catch the metro or a bus. Few hundred feet. 

Me who could run semi marathons in contention now gasping like a fish out of water halfway through. Couldn't even manage a third of the pushups and whatnot calisthenics I could do earlier.

Gotta get shipshape soon, been too long a lazy moaner. Nearly forgot the rush when endorphin kicks in.

[baxus]

Finally, after 4 months off due to some minor injuries, vacation, changing my job and trying to get back into the routine of training before work on a regular basis I got back to crossfit today.

We're having some public holidays (Labour Day and Easter got perfectly aligned this year) so I still didn't get up at 6:15AM, but I really needed to start, and will ease myself into getting up that early when I get back to work.

[Madame deVenoge]

On 4/28/2024 at 12:06 AM, TheLastWolf said:

Ran 3 kms after 2 years. Like the most running I ever did in the interval was to catch the metro or a bus. Few hundred feet. 

Me who could run semi marathons in contention now gasping like a fish out of water halfway through. Couldn't even manage a third of the pushups and whatnot calisthenics I could do earlier.

Gotta get shipshape soon, been too long a lazy moaner. Nearly forgot the rush when endorphin kicks in.

I’m right there with ya, kid. Too much stress and a glass of wine at the end of a long day. It adds up.

[baxus]

Since last Wednesday (including Wednesday), I've been to 3 crossfit training sessions and went on 3 runs (30 minutes, 5-5,5k). What surprised me the most is that I managed to get up at 6:15 this morning as easily as ever to go workout before work. Will try to repeat this tomorrow and go swimming before work.

[baxus]

Failed to get up early and go swimming before work on Thursday, mainly because I slept really badly that night and decided I'd benefit more from an hour and a half more sleep than swimming. On the plus side, got up early this morning and went to crossfit.

The process of getting back into the training routine is going according to plan so far. Not perfectly, but well enough.

[JGP]

On 4/20/2024 at 3:10 AM, baxus said:

The most I've ever done is 10k, which was in 40-45 minutes range. Not a pleasant experience and definitely not something I'd recommend. Rowing on water, on the other hand, I could do for hours. Going out on the river in a boat with your mates is such a great feeling and I miss it dearly. Obviously, I'm talking about recreational rowing on water, not training for a competition or anything serious.

Late to this, haven't really participated in this thread, but when late for my sessions [4x a week] my trainer would punish me by starting off with row sprints-- 10x 300m sprints with 30 seconds rest [ie: diamond push ups] in between. 

He made me throw up twice... and I was never late again.  

Edited Friday at 04:58 PM by JGP

[RhaenysBee]

Well, I’ve been meaning to share my swimming journey. I used to swim in middle school, nothing serious just practice twice a week, local amateur competitions for swimming pool ice cream and the sheer joy of being in the water. 
After what stretched into an inexplicable 17 year gap I started swimming again in January. The first time went like, let’s do 500m in one go without warmup because hey I used to swim in middle school. Yeah. Right. I could not lift my arms for the rest of the day and since I was stupid enough to do this the day before getting blood work, it also blew my results and my liver enzymes were out of the roof (they went right back down in 6 day when we repeated the test, they are fine).

So for these reasons, the second time went like, let’s do 150m, take a 10 minute break and let’s do 150m again. Which is a joke, it’s like 10 minutes in the pool, it’s kindergarten swim practice. Never mind. We will take it slow, and work it up to 1000m (which is still less than half my middle school swim capabilities), no matter how much time it takes, that much I should be able to do at least. Third time, 200, break, 200. Then 250 break 250, 300 break 300, etc. when I was I getting really f’ingbored and annoyed with the breaks, I skipped them and switched swim styles to force myself to slow down (I’m significantly slower in anything that’s not breast stroke). So I started doing 500 breast, 150 back, 150 breast (I hate free style and my arms are still way to weak for butterfly, which I used to love too) and built from there. 
For the past two weeks I’ve been steadily doing 1000m split 6:4 between breast and back. I will do two more weeks maintaining this and then we are onto 750 breast and 500 back. I love swimming, it makes me feel liberated, powerful and at peace. 
anyway, this long and tedious ramble is trying to say that fitness can be build (back) up no matter how small you have to start (And yes I know my 1000 m swim goal is minuscule compared to people who go from couch to half marathons in a year. Good for them, but my little 1000m goal is my little success that makes me proud and happy and takes me back to a part of myself I used to love and that’s what counts). Yay? 

Edited Saturday at 12:06 PM by RhaenysBee

[baxus]

7 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

anyway, this long and tedious ramble is trying to say that fitness can be build (back) up no matter how small you have to start (And yes I know my 1000 m swim goal is minuscule compared to people who go from couch to half marathons in a year. Good for them, but my little 1000m goal is my little success that makes me proud and happy and takes me back to a part of myself I used to love and that’s what counts). Yay? 

Definitely yay! Good for you!

[VigoTheCarpathian]

Did a sprint triathlon “trial” with my friend who’s doing the full with me in July on Wednesday, and did a 25 mile bike ride yesterday in the morning.  Learned a few things and am feeling pretty positive overall.

1. Running on a treadmill in the winter did no favors to my idea of pace (and ability to actually run on the road) - I’ve done a few 5ks and 10ks during training, but it did not translate well to real experience, and I hit some walls from bad pacing and not being conditioned the right way.  Need to do more road running now that the weather is improving, and pay attention to my heart rate.  Plus the first 1/2 mile is just working out how to run after getting off the bike.

2.  Need to buy a camelbak - my hydration was not great, I would have had fewer problems/cramps if I had something easy to use on the bike to make sure I’m tipped up for the run.

3.  I’m an amateur swimmer at best, but am doing ok and just need to increase my distance slowly while practicing intervals every once in a while.

4. Gotta make sure to take allergy meds - I usually am not bothered much while out in nature, but I think 3 hours of hard breathing pulls in too much pollen for my usually-robust system to handle.

[VigoTheCarpathian]

On 5/11/2024 at 5:04 AM, RhaenysBee said:

my little 1000m goal is my little success that makes me proud and happy and takes me back to a part of myself I used to love and that’s what counts

I’ll suffer through a few months of training to be able to meet a goal, but this here is what it really is about.  Feeling pride and joy and connecting to something that you will keep showing up to do, because you love it - that’s what I feel like fitness IS - well-being that you can carry through the rest of your life should be the true goal (not just being able to go couch to marathon). Congratulations on finding that again!

[The Big Stink]

I'm going to start training for a 5k. Does anyone else her run small distances? What are your best 5k times?

[3CityApache]

@The Big Stink My PB for 5k from few years back is 22:07. Wouldn't make anywhere close to this now though, sadly. I stopped doing organised races after the injury and never got back to the same shape to try and beat PBs.

Edited 16 hours ago by 3CityApache