@kyleforrester87
Looks good, that is one hell of a distance, nice work! Had a little cycle myself but nowhere near that far.
I had a massage gun arrive yesterday, gave it a good go. I decided to rather foolishly use it (on a low setting) on my injured shoulder that's been in pain for years.
So far so good, the usual aches and pains I get from it are considerably reduced! Happy days.
@LieutenantFatman nice one, what gun did you get? Does it have a softer head if needed? I’m glad it helps, keep using it and don’t be too afraid of going to town with it lol*. I think they are very good for chronic pain issues. It’s only improved my various conditions.
Just to say though, if people have thought about running then go for it! I started because I needed to do something and was getting out of breath running up the stairs in my house.
I started using a cheap (£15?) pair of trainers and just went out doing my own thing. The big thing I struggled with was pacing as I used to go out way too fast and learning to go steadily while you build up stamina, distance, and (eventually) speed. The couch to 5k apps seem a great way to get started.
Not posted in a few days because I've been trying to balance yoga, playing games with easy gamerscore for monetary reward over on Xbox and trying to rejig my sleep pattern so I'm ok for my 9am start at work tomorrow (didn't work btw).
I mentioned bringing my Mon/Weds tapes forward to Sun/Tue to accommodate my shift tomorrow and I managed to do it successfully. It just means I won't be doing another tape until Friday. Probably for the best as I'll be knackered after work tomorrow.
The rejigging of the sleeping pattern sucks, especially because it's only for one day of work. (I'm planning to lock myself up for a couple of months after this obligation.) I've just been getting to sleep later and later over the past few months and more frequently I've been sleeping 9am-4pm. I've tried going to bed earlier and doing the slow breathing but I end up just getting fed up after a few hours and doing something else. I've tried staying up for the whole 24 hours and just going to bed at a normal time the next night but I normally just fall asleep around 9am anyway. I'm a bit worried if I don't sleep tonight that I might be too tired tomorrow and make mistakes or become lax with regards to taking precautions due to covid
I'm sure it will be different after tomorrow once I've forced myself to get up in time for a 9am start work, either after a couple hours kip or no sleep whatsoever. Also the lack of stress from having to do this shift in the first place will be gone anyway so maybe that will help. Though I'm sure it will just be replaced by other stress about work refusing to furlough us. Either way, I won't be so bothered about sleeping in the day instead of the night because I'll have no day time commitments anyway.
Ok back to fitness! Had to fill up my car with petrol on Monday so I drove to the nice forest I mentioned before and went for an hour long walk around it. I tried to skirt the perimeter of it and managed to avoid the trudged up mud by walking at the edges of the trails. Unfortunately the 3rd "corner" was completely slewed with a primordial gloop consistency. I avoided most of it but I had to cross it because some rudeboys were coming the other way and I wanted to give a 2 meter distance as per guidance. I did call over to them to let them know it only gets muddier in the direction they're going but they carried on anyway. Anyway, totally caked my boots in mud, including my laces which came undone during that section 🤦♂️. Sucks because I bought these boots recently because they were a really cool colour. Mainly grey with a red stripe on the side and orange on the bottom. Shame the orange is now brown considering orange is my favourite colour!
Overall it was a good walk though and I'm glad I did it. It definitely goes from being an easy walk to an intermediate/difficult level in the poor weather though! I set my watch to record the walk but it's really weird when it records the walk because it doesn't give me a calculation for minutes spent in my fat burning zone like it does for yoga. It gives me the graph in the app that shows I definitely spent some time in the zone but it just doesn't say how many minutes exactly. I suspect that navigating the muddy slew contributed to my increased heart rate. I had a really stiff neck that night too weirdly, must have been because I had to get into funny angles as I was walking around the mud.
@kyleforrester87 it was a really nice day on Sunday! (Well what I saw of it was anyway). Really nice pics you've posted there. Surrey can be quite picturesque in the right areas in the right weather! I saw your pics before I went for my walk and I was going to take some too but no particular area struck me as a place I'd be able to get a good photo. Maybe next time!
@LieutenantFatman I'm glad you managed to get some cycling in and the massage gun is working out for you!
@Thrillho nice one! How long have you been running for now then?
Are those £15 trainers from decathlon by any chance? I have them too, they are good for light runs and I was using them when I did the couch to 5K a couple years ago. I think they are permanently reduced to £10 in decathlon now, last time I looked.
Definitely going to start that app again when I'm feeling lighter on my feet, I just don't want to wreck my arches again (I've mentioned that I get plantar fasciitis before). But yeah, it's a brilliant app for working your way into doing long runs, the results are very surprising.
I did buy some more expensive running shoes from decathlon recently (around £50) with an eye to starting that app again this year. The trainers aren't perfect and I'd prefer something with a more prominent arch but they should do the trick until I've built up my stamina.
I had some really comfortable trainers from Decathlon years ago, the Kalenji Biphon or Bipron or something for £40. I left them in the box for ages and didnt put them on until I twisted my ankle and they were like standing in marshmallows, they were so comfortable and I started wearing them all the time. Obviously they got worn out and I lost one of them to some deep mud on a trip to the New Forest one day 😂. Unfortunately they were discontinued by the time I was ready to buy another pair and I've never found another trainer even remotely as comfortable as them since.
@ralphdibny It sounds like you need to buy yourself some wellies!
I took up running when I lived by myself for the reasons I mention above. I used to be LOADS of (field) hockey at university so fitness was a given but after that I didn't do anything but it did surprise me to be so unfit even though I knew I wasn't doing anything.
That was around 2013 I'd guess. It slowly built up from doing frequent 2k runs but was well over a year before I got anywhere near doing 10k. And even then doing a run at under an average pace of 5 mins/km seemed unachievable but I can do those fairly comfortably now.
The big thing for me (and many) is the push to actually get out. That's one thing I think running has over other forms of exercise is that all you have to do is throw on your trainers and get out. When I first started, I used to make myself go straight out after I got back from work otherwise I knew I'd sit down and then never do it.
I think my cheapo shoes were from Sports Direct or something like that. I firmly believe that you don't need expensive shoes unless you're really going to get into it (or doing off road stuff). Good ones, like you say, are so incredibly light and comfortable though!
If you struggle with your feet, I'd highly recommend going to a running shop and get them to look at your feet and running style. I have incredibly flat feet so had bought some shoes with arch support but they were utterly killing my feet. When I got my running looked at, my feet go to a normal position when I run so the arch support was making things worse! Pretty weird
Lastly, I used to get problems with blisters which limited my distance running. Someone recommended TwinSkin running socks (ones that have a second lining in them) and it's made the world of difference! Mad that a £10 pair of socks have changed things so much for me!
@Thrillho haha yeah I do have some wellies in the boot of the car. I never want to wear them though because I never fancy the hassle of storing them muddy and then cleaning them 😂. I have lost many shoes to mud for some reason. It all started when I was 14 or 15 years old and I got super drunk off of that white lightning stuff. I ended up falling asleep in a swamp and when I woke up, my foot was stuck in the mire. I pulled my leg up and my Reebok Workout stayed put and I watched it submerge into the swamp! I didn't fancy going after it considering I was already lucky I didn't fall asleep with my upper body in the swamp and drown.
Since then Ive lost the Kalenjis in the New Forest. Ive lost a couple of £10 quechas in mud too. Once in the Isle of Wight and I forget where the other one was. I have loads of those £10 quechas though so no big loss! Good job I always keep a spare pair or 2 in the car for me to drive home in 😂
I only buy shorts from sports direct these days, ( I have a very specific taste in clothes that includes baggy thin shorts haha, cool and breezy). But I did get some of them moulded insoles from SweatShop (a subsidiary of Sports direct - appropriately named sweatshop I suppose!) That focuses on and specialises in running. They were recommended to me, but the trouble is that they were moulded to my fallen arches so they didn't really help offer the support to push my arches back up.
Not really had the "pleasure" of blisters from sport just yet. I deal with them in two ways, peel them off (painful), let them burst on their own and be either leave it or peel it off (both also painful)
Ended up not bloody sleeping in the end. Jobs a killer on my feet but it's been fun to get out of the house and shoot the shiznit with my buddy from work.
@ralphdibny@Thrillho Years ago I saw this documentary on the BBC about running shoes and the long and short of it was that there was no evidence to suggest that specialist running shoes actually helped and that you were better choosing ones you felt comfortable in. I had a look around and couldn't find the documentary but did find this piece which I think is pretty much sums up what they talked about...
I've found some truth in this having tried various shoes over the years and even going to see a podiatrist who made some custom inserts for me which seemed to cause more problems than they solved. Also for an interesting book on running, if you are inclined to read one, I can recommend this one...
I've read a bit over the years where I've never really been able to get to the bottom of my knee problems so find some of these things quite interesting. You might not of course 😄
@render I think comfy shoes are key, I just really struggle to find anything that matches the majesty of the Kalenji Bipron. I opined once that my friends shoes looked really comfy. I think they were Nike V Max or something, they had big bubbles on the sole. He said they were £130 and I guffawed at it. He told me I could just buy fake ones and they would be off the same production line just without labels attached. I didn't believe him but thought it might be worth a punt for £25. Long story short, the fake ones were terrible, it was like the heel kept giving out and I kept stacking it, especially on uneven ground. They also made this awful squeaking noise every other step which was so embarrassing to be walking through London to work by City Hall. I kept thinking Sadiq khan was going to pop his head out the door and laugh at me 😂.
I have no point of comparison as I've never tried on the expensive version of this trainer so I have no idea if the real one is any better. But one thing I noticed, and this was the only time this ever happened to me for a prolonged period. Everybody would ask about and compliment these trainers I was wearing as if they coveted them. Not just colleagues, but random people that were working at the same site as me. It was really weird unintentionally being the height of fashion and I reveled in revealling to these coveters that my crepz, were indeed total fakes!
@ralphdibny Funny, I'd considered starting an exercise thread but thought it would probably die in obscurity.
I'm mostly just a jogger these days. Shoulder issues prevent me from doing any real lifting, which sucks, but such is life I guess.
As an avid jogger I would recommend a gps watch to anyone looking to start up. Not a necessity by any means but definitely helpful. Also provides a slight motivational boost by allowing you to set goals and track all the relevant info and such. Like goodreads but for jogging.
And don't forget, there's always Beat Saber.
PSN: frownonfun
Switch: SW-5109-6573-1900 (Pops)
"One of the unloveliest and least enlightening aspects of contemporary discourse is the tendency to presume that whatever one disagrees with must be very simple—not only simple, but also simply wrong." - Elizabeth Bruenig
I managed to get through work with no sleep... I finally fell asleep at 8pm last night and woke up at 11am this morning. My fitness tracker watch doesn't give me a daily heart rate graph in the app. So I set it to record a generic "workout" so I could get some details of what was going on while I was at work.
@zupertramp it may well die in obscurity still! It is still early days... I did a search and there was a similar thread from a few years back that was locked, I assume because it hit the 6 month limit.
Whats your shoulder injury? (You don't have to answer if it is too personal). My bro had/has one but I don't really know the details except that he just had to do light exercise on the muscles around the shoulder until it built up strength. It was the same with my knee injuries. I had to work on the quads, hams and calves to build up strength to support the weak knee. but yeah, my bro does lifting again now but I'm not sure exactly how much. He has a lean figure because he's a cyclist.
Beat sabres the VR game isn't it? I've seen a few exercise games in VR! I don't think I could handle it, I can barely keep the contents of my stomach down in regular VR. VR gives me a cold sweat anyway just from feeling ill lol
@render I agree to a point as those cheap shoes were some of the comfiest I owned and I think unless you’re doing serious distances it doesn’t make too much difference. I was happy to pay more for some waterproof ones with good grip for what I do though.
But I definitely agree that you don’t need anything expensive to start off. I don’t think I’ll ever agree with the people who run barefoot though!
Workout day! 5k run followed by some pressups, mixed in with another 160 kettlebell swings.
Last time I did that, my trapezius muscles were very sore for at least 5 days, as was my lower back.
So this time, I decided to do some stretches and use the massage gun. Hopefully a quicker recovery this time.
@ralphdibny nah, not too personal. Just general inflammation issues with tendons and muscles packed in there. I blame my many years of doing power cleans, upright rows, and working in pipelining. Had an acromioplasty done on the right shoulder and probably need that done on left but one I'm uninsured and two the right shoulder is only marginally better so I question the point of another surgery.
Probably there's rehabilitation exercises I could be doing for both but I admittedly don't have the patience for it. Plus it's so disheartening to be doing these pitiful little exercises when I used to plop down at a bench and crank out reps close to my body weight. Jogging is frankly less depressing lol.
As for Beat Saber, yes, it's VR but I can't imagine anyone having any motion sickness related issues. My partner, who literally gets motion sickness just riding in a car, has no problem playing Beat Saber. It's practically the only time I can get her near the PlayStation. Anyway, it's great fun and definitely a cardiovascular workout.
PSN: frownonfun
Switch: SW-5109-6573-1900 (Pops)
"One of the unloveliest and least enlightening aspects of contemporary discourse is the tendency to presume that whatever one disagrees with must be very simple—not only simple, but also simply wrong." - Elizabeth Bruenig
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