Day Ten - Project 6 (Project Complete)

    Was looking for Mary and Magda outside the grocery store and its connecting strip mall.  So I jogged back and forth.  YEAH!  LETTER OF THE LAW ALL THE WAY, BABY!

  Total cop-out.  

  In other news, I knit, like, every day now.  I'm making a giant, Saint's Row purple gang colour scarf for myself.  Mary has completely surpassed me in creativity and skill with the knitting possibly out of spite (either with me or knitting itself), but I'm still happy with where I am, skillwise.

  So, I'm not a runner.  I might try to find a day or two in the week to do it occasionally, as it does seem to give me more of a full body exercise compared to my bike (which I do for the diabetes), and even with the less than 50% success rate, I found my endurance did improve a bit, which I need if I'm going to tackle any sport in the near future.

  I've decided on "Learn how my car works" as my next project.  Tomorrow, I'll be starting to look at just what the heck an internal combustion engine is.  Trust me, I think I understand how Zefram Cochrane's warp drive works better, so this won't be easy.

-Mike

Day Nine - Project 6

PARTY.  HAPPY.  NO RUNNING.  HAPPY.  NO GUILT.  TOO HAPPY.

-Mike

  

Day Eight - Project 6

  So, I've done really cold, really rainy, and now, really freaking big headache.  That felt like a victory.  Plus, I've been dropping the number of walking steps in my walking intervals, and adding steps in my running ones.   Still haven't done my bike cardio.

  Also, this project overlaps with my gang's annual board game night.  It's kind of everything that's wrong with me and the reasoning for the projects, but I started it nine years ago, and my friends all still humour me, so I am so excited I can hardly breathe.  No, I'm just out of breath from running.

  Right foot is starting to get a little sore from my old hand me down sneakers, courtesy of the successful baby brother.  Can't really afford new ones, so c'est le guerre.  Anyway, I've got lots of pre-Easter chores on Friday morning, and all day Saturday, so I'm betting I'll rationalize away any last chance of making this a successful project.  To thine own self be true, right?

  Mine own self seems to be trying to sabotage me lately.

-Mike

Day Seven - Project 6

Did a little better tonight.  I was all "Here I Go Again (On My Own)" by Whitesnake, and within about twenty minutes, I was "King of Pain" by The Police.  You know, the part where you're in the pouring rain.  But. I didn't quit.  Mostly because I am so completely sucking in this project already.  Didn't do my regular exercise bike workout afterward, either.  I am racking up the owed minutes on my exercise bike cardio.  And I can't jog earlier in the evening, because that's the time I have with my kid.

  And the early morning is just a stupid time of the day.  Not just for working out.  It's stupid for everything.  It's sometimes good for dragging oneself to bed after a late night.  Other than that, no.

  -Mike

Day Six - Project 6

  I finally got back on the mule.  I reduced my intended distance.  I thought I did anyway.  I just googled it and I only took a kilometre off the whole round trip compared to last time (now I'm scared again).

  I did stretch and warm up, and I also cooled down afterward.  There was one snag.

  A freight train was travelling in the same direction as me on my return leg.  This was not some POWERFUL LOCOMOTIVE, it was huffing and puffing its car-carrier-cars along at a nice slow clip.  I mean pleasant-speed-the-trainyard-bulls-won't-catch-us-Big-Rock-Candy-Mountain-Awaits-other-hobo-reference.  Nothing too fast.

  But you see, I like Superman.  The comic books, cartoons, movies.  Christopher Reeve was on my wall when I was little.  I jumped off low rooftops with a cape and a dream.  And I remember when he ran home from high school in the 70s Superman.  So, yeah, at the end of my run, I started to put on a little racing speed.  I don't know what I was expecting.  Of course I beat it.  It stops frequently.

  So I'm guessing I overdid it again.

  Tomorrow is going to SUUUUUUUCK.

  -Mike

Day Five - Project 6

  So, the suggestions on the sites I looked at say I should stretch and warm up outside, in the weather in which I'll be jogging.  And man, everything I've ever read says you have to cool down after a workout.  I hate that.  I want to just slam on the brakes and be done.  That's how I roll.  By not rolling.  Just shifting into PARK and the engine be damned.  Hmmmm.  I think my analogy is teaching me things.  All right then.

  Oh, also, they said don't try to start off with too much.  Apparently you can put a lot of strain on yourself.  Interesting.  Just do a short neighbourhood jog.  Huh.  I guess that makes sense...for wusses!

  (He says still feeling residual soreness three days later)

  All right.  I have the information.  I have a battle plan.  I am ready to go.

  (Few Hours Later)

  I didn't go.  It turns out, I'm a-scared.  I have this horrible feeling that everytime I try this, I'm going to hurt myself more and more, and then die.  And I can't die yet.  I should have more of a story arc than that.  Maybe when I've only got one more project to do - for the "Oh, how sad" factor.  Or, maybe when I'm a month from retirement, and than the maverick rookie student teacher I've been training has to go on a mad spree of revenge!  "Old Schooling", starring someone I like from a while ago, and introducing someone I've never heard of, in the summer blockbuster of the...summer.

  I will run tomorrow, okay.  I promise.

-Mike

Day Four - Project 6

 Oh, COME ON!  I hurt more today than yesterday!  This is a rip!  This is why we fat people stay fat.  Mary said I really need to talk to someone who knows how to run, or look at a running clinic's website, or do some kind, any kind, of preparation.  Yeah, right.  That makes sense.  There's probably some kind of drug on the market that makes this stuff easy for atrophied slobs.  They should give me some of it.  Free.  Because I deserve it.

  Okay.  I'll get some running tips.

-Mike

P.S.  Ow.

Day Three - Project six

  Ow.  Ow ow ow.  Groan.  Hiss.

  I am prematurely old.  This is a condition which I have caused in myself.  I know this.  What I don't seem to know is that I can't just up and start new physical activities without paying for them the next day.  "But I did things just like I did when I was 18, and I could do it then."  Boo, idiot.

  Too much pain.  Can't run.  Weak.  Feeble.

  -Mike

Day Two(!) - Project 6

  Ok, so as it turns out, in knitting parlance, I dropped a stitch.  In real terms, the Shakespeare project and the trip to visit family and freaking Love's Labour's Lost means I miscounted.

  To tell the truth, I can't believe it took five projects for me to screw up the count.  I'm going to have to do a double run sometime during the next nine....eight days.

  It's Friday night, I jogged for close to an hour, then did my exercise bike cardio for over an hour.  I have decided to not feel guilty, and to drive a variety of cars off a variety of bridges in Grand Theft Auto.  I will write something cute and heartfelt and witty and insightful tomorrow.

-Mike

Day One(?) - Project 6 (Start jogging outside)

  I really needed a break from all the big think.

  I put this one on the list because for a number of reasons.  One is that it is a really good introductory Physical Challenge project.  It might help me with endurance, with the eventual sports, and possibly help me become a faster runner.  The second reason it that it is cheap.  I can run on a treadmill all day long (or an hour), but treadmills are expensive.  So are the gyms that frequently house them.  The outside world is somewhat free if you simply want to walk on it.

  Lastly, that fact about running on a treadmill is absolutely true.  No matter how out of shape I am, I can jog on a treadmill for a LONG TIME.  I don't know why.  This will seem unimpressive to the rest of you, but for me, it is very strange.  When I am outside, jogging at a pace slower than I would use on a treadmill, my lungs  start to burn.  It only takes a few minutes.  My lungs don't do that in a nice, air-conditioned gym or on a friend's treadmill.  In summer it's bad enough, but it winter?  I really don't ever want to be in a life or death struggle in the cold.  Wolves that would never come near the smell of man would take a look at me and say, "Come on guys, this is the DEFINITION of weeding out the sick and old!  let's put the human out of its misery!"

  I'm sure someone knows why this is.  I never quite hit something useful with my searches on the internet.  I think I'll have to ask my doctor about it next time.  In the meantime, if it is not killing me, I have to try and beat it.

  I went for an easy jog tonight.  I did an interval run to the drugstore two kilometres away (2.2, actually, thankew, Google),  I don't have a pedometer, or in fact, a watch, so I simply counted every right footstep.  After a hundred, I switched to a walk, then after a hundred count again, back to jogging.  I went to the store, bought water and orange juice, stuck it in a backpack, and continued the same to home.  I even counted the steps in the store.  How obsessive is that, huh?  I'm going to look into jogging tips on the internet tomorrow, and then see if I should make it a little harder tomorrow, or go at the same level to see if I can do it with a little less hunka-hunka-burnin'-lung.  That's terrible imagery.

-Mike