Week 10

Week 10 is a "pivot" week -- I resumed lifting after abandoning it two weeks ago in favor of jogging, now I am abandoning swimming and bringing back lifting.

Hopefully having 3 activities of which I actively pursue two will keep me interested.

My weight dropped in the last couple weeks and is apparently staying down.  I'm still not sure if that's lifting-related or eating-related or jogging-related or what.  I have a bit more I can lose still.

I am hopeful that I'll continue to improve cardio-wise with my jogging - perhaps even more aggressively than in swimming - we'll see.

So I continue to progress, but it's slow going and I'm finding motivation hard to come by.

Day 48

Jogged 2.5mi (over a 3 stints interspersed with walking).

First stint was 1.5mi, which was good, but after that I kind of petered out.  It might be that I was sore from yesterday's lift.  I hope I can get back to the longer shifts -- I think I'm physically up to it, i just need a way to distract myself from the drudgery.  I wish I liked music more.

I found starting running easier than starting swimming (no cold water to jump into), but continuing was just as hard.

I'm glad i lifted again yesterday - I feel it all over and hope I am getting stronger.

Day 47

Lifted - the normal routine.

It went okay.  Some things were easier than I'd remembered, some were just as hard or harder.  I'm not really sure what to make of this.  I'll stick with the same weights and reps a few sessions before tweaking.

I'm curious if resuming weight-training will change my appetite at all.  The last week or so i've been eating less, and perhaps the lifting will make my body demand more - i remember being consistently hungry before.

Day 46

Swam - only 27 laps, but faster than ever - 2 minutes flat per 100yds.

My will to swim has all but faded.  I dread it the day before and before jumping in, and then long to get out while i'm in.  I don't think I hate swimming entirely and forever, I just need a break.  Fortunately my swim-angst comes as my ability to jog is on the rise and I'm keen on lifting again.  So for at least the next few weeks I'll try:

• MWF - Jog.
• TR - Lift.

Essentially following the pattern i've mostly done, just replacing swimming with jogging.

My average weight has been trending slightly downward over the last 10 weeks:

I credit my scrupulous weekday diet, which has become even more abstemious in the last two weeks.  I stopped eating breakfast because i work out so early, and bring a variety of things to eat, but found that by eating those i didn't need as much lunch.  So now my total caloric intake is down, but my exercise is up.

I think my jogging is also more aggressive in burning calories than my swimming.  I'll be interested to see what happens over the next few weeks as I step up jogging (burning fat) but also add lifting (building muscle).

Day 45

Jogged 2.75 miles (in blocks of 2mi, .5mi, and .25mi with walking between).

I "skipped" yesterday in the sense that I didn't go to the gym, but I did an hour of a nintendo dancing game to atone for it.  It made me sweat -- not as much as running, but i think it was productive.

Over the weekend I got fancy running shoes chosen to best support my lousy feet.  I've got a rare combination of high arches and overpronation -- most people with high arches underpronate.  So I got some Asics GT-2000 shoes in bland gray with blazing orange.  All running shoes are designed with lunatic color schemes.

Week 9

Week 9 eclipsed the two month mark and saw a shift away from weight-training in favor of jogging.  The weights were feeling heavier but the jogging was easier than previously, and I saw that as an opportunity worth seizing.

So I primarily swam and jogged this week, and as a result got my best swimming time, my furthest ever jog, and my lowest weight since starting.

I'll keep this approach for another week or so and then reintroduce weights.

I've also started sitting on an exercise ball at work in an attempt to strengthen my core and forestall potential back problems (i tend to sit with terrible, shameful posture).  So I sat on this ball all day yesterday and didn't like it.  My back was sore - i don't know if it was just muscles that weren't used to being used, or if the weight going down through my spine is just a bad way to sit.  I'll do it again today and see how it goes.

Day 44

Swam 36 laps.

...in 3 groups of 12 rather than 4 groups of 9.  Instead of doing fast and slow laps I did mostly semifast, with a fast one at the end of each group of 12.  I thought my time would be my best, but it wasn't as good as Wednesday's.  It was still pretty good, though, and that means that this week was my best on average -- a 2.11 minute 100-yard (my average over the last 3 weeks is 2.42).

My weight is down - 179 this morning - but it might be dehydration.  I was pretty thirsty this morning, but i also feel a little slimmer lately.

Day 43

Jogged 2.5miles.

Coming off of yesterday's good swim, and the day before's decision not to bother with weights while jogging was going well, I set myself the ambitious goal of jogging 2.5 miles.  I intended to do 1.5 miles first, then walk, then jog .5 mile, walk, and jog .5 mile to round it out.  Instead I jogged the 2.5 miles straight out (at 7.5mph, up a "1" incline).  I walked for a while afterward so that my ultimate result was a hair over 3 miles and supposedly 400 burned calories in just under 30 minutes.

At the end my heart was going 185bpm, which seems pretty high.  I'm hoping the jogging cardio will make swimming easier so i can go at both more aggressively.  I think I can jog like that again, it was unpleasant but not amazingly difficult.  Maybe i'll try getting an enthralling book on tape or something - the morning news isn't doing it.

I'm not sure how to treat weights now -- I think the swim/jog is better for me, but I don't want to neglect strength entirely.  I'll finish my week's hiatus from lifting, but whether i go back or instead try to do push-ups and crunches at home is undecided.

Day 42

Swam in the afternoon -- a good one: 39 laps in 40 minutes (new best 100yd time).

I didn't feel terrible and I didn't hate it as quickly for whatever reason.  I did try to swim a little faster a little more often, which probably helped distract.  I also had a firm time I had to leave and so i tried to do what i could while i was there -- it worked out.

When i got home both Elijah and Shelley said I was looking slimmer -- that's a nice homecoming.

I'll keep trying to go fastish when i swim - it makes it less dull and probably makes it better exercise anyway, if briefer.

Day 41

I'll pretend I intended to jog instead of lift today.

I jogged as my warm-up, as has recently become habit, but my lifting was nearly totally non-existent.  Yesterday I thought my recent under-performance was nutrition-related, but now I think that jogging really takes it out of me.  I figured it would make me tired at the time, but maybe it's completely debilitating me.

Normally I would experiment by excising jogging and resuming my earlier routines, but I think in this case my recent lifting failures play to my advantage -- jogging is probably better for me.  So what I might do going forward is reallocate my lifting days to try to get better at jogging and continue swimming on the other days.

So I jogged just over 1.5mi (up a "1" incline, at 7.4mph), and walked a bit on either side of it, then added 7 more minutes of "random" walking after my failed lifting.  That's an improvement jogging-wise.

Next time I'll probably just skip the weights altogether and try to do even more jogging.

Day 40

Swam 36 laps (in 40 minutes).

It wasn't easy -- mostly from a morale standpoint: I kept wanting to stop.  It slowed me down to ponder whenever i stopped (more frequently than usual) for breath.

My time was actually decent because I did swim pretty hard for a number of laps, so that much at least is good.

I need some sort of exercise-morale shot in the arm.  I am slimmer than I was, but pure vanity and pride in my responsible lifestyle won't be enough to keep me going.  I require immediate gratification -- preferably in the form of not hating exercise.

Weekend 8

The weather was really nice, so to spite my natural lethargy (and perhaps atone for the cake, ice cream, and cookies I ate) I tried jogging outside.

It was terrible!  The pavement is hard and jarring, the grass is slanty and hurts my ankles, and I can't get enough air.

Even so, I was able to go 1.7mi, of which probably 1.5mi I jogged.  That's a lot more than i could have done a few weeks ago.

View Jogging in a larger map

Week 8

A good week -- I was able to jog!

I guess I am getting fitter, and I am still visibly getting a little slimmer.  Most of the week I was no lighter, but at my friday weigh-in i was down to 180 -- 5 lbs less than when I'd started.

I feel pretty good.  The lifting is still quite hard, but as noted earlier i'd gladly sacrifice it for better cardio health.

Things are proceeding according to plan.

Day 39

Swam 36 laps.

Did my 4 groups of 9 with the 9s being broken into 3 with 1 fast and 2 slow laps each.  It went fine - I found myself wanting to swim fast more often, but unable to because of a lack of stamina.  The result of going faster was that I finished my 36 laps in only 38.5 minutes -- 2.14 minutes per 100 yards -- a new personal best.

I am becoming more aware of the asymmetry of my stroke -- I don't know if it's because I'm unskilled, or because I can only breathe comfortably on one side, or because my left shoulder is worse than my right.  Maybe I'll get a lesson... one day.

Day 38

A mixed bag today - On the down side I truncated several of my weight sets (skipped squats, did only 2 sets of lat pulls and overhead press) because i was feeling very sore (still!) from Tuesday.  I think it may have been the jogging that hit me so hard.

The bright side of today was that despite sore legs I jogged for 9 solid minutes at 7.2mph which is more than a mile!  This is a positive trade-off in my mind - I think lengthier jogging bespeaks greater general fitness better than specific lifts.  I am more interested in cardiovascular health than strength.

Any time I can cannibalize lifting to fuel vigorous cardio, I will do so.

Day 37

Swam 36 laps (or maybe as many as 40 -- it's hard to count).

I was very stiff/sore from yesterday's lifting -- not sure why it was so hard -- but as i've previously noted that soreness disappears while I'm in the water.  It was still boring, and I was angry for the first 18 laps or so.  I wonder if all exercisers find the first half of their workout to be the harder because of how much remains.

I've decided to mitigate the monotony by breaking the 36 laps into 4 groups of 9 (stopping for breath between), and doing the 9 lap block in a pattern of three threes:

• normal, normal, fast.
• normal, normal, fast.
• normal, normal, very fast.

This might also count as interval training and help me get stronger/faster, but my goal is just to divert myself from the oppressive boredom of being face down in a pool of water for an hour.

Day 36

Completed the 3 sets of 12 reps routine.  It was still very, very hard on my arms, was harder than usual on my legs too.  Somehow I am getting weaker.

I figured by now I'd have adapted to the 3x12 -- this is the 4th time I've done it and it's spanned 3 calendar weeks.  I don't think this would be the "overtraining" I hear about, but I'll keep an eye on it.

The good news is that i was able to jog a mile in my warm-up.  I was feeling fairly spry - possibly because i went later (after some morning meetings) or was well-fed (I ate at home this morning).  Whatever the case, I jogged at 7.2mph for 10 minutes and so went over a mile.  That's a big "milestone" for me, since it was just last week that i nearly perished trying to jog for 3 minutes.

Current exercise mindset:

• weights: vexing, but not daunting.
• jogging: improving, but uninteresting.
• swimming: increasingly tiresome.
• biking: occasionally appealing.

Day 35

Lousy day swimming - only 24 laps.

It wasn't really a physical limitation, I just had a really hard time getting into it -- it was all I could do to keep from quitting after about 12.  I pushed and got up to 18, and climbed out of the pool.  Then conscience kicked in and I went back and swam 2 hard laps to see if a change of pace helped.  Then i swam 2 more normal laps.  Then I climbed out again.  Then i got back in once more and swam two more hard ones.

The good news is that I:

• resisted the temptation to quit super early
• swam 100 yards in 1:40, which is a mere minute off of the world record.

The bad news is that for no physical reason I despised swimming and gave up at 2/3 of my normal distance.

It's tempting to blame the time change, or the weekend's above-average activity, but I think I just "wasn't into it."  If I can't get back in the game later this week I'll need to find something I can do instead -- perhaps try the couch-to-5k jogging system, or maybe step up my biking now that the weather is hopefully improving.

Weekend 7

A few physical activities worth noting from this weekend -

• Family walk to and from the doughnut store = 1.8mi - blue line
• Bike with Clark to friends' house = 6.4 miles - green line
• Family walk in the park = ~1 mile - purple loop
• Family walk in the woods = ~1 mile - red line (second picture)

View Out and About Mar 9-10 2013 in a larger map

The walk down near my work:

View Out and About Mar 9-10 2013 in a larger map

Week 7

Week 7 was a week of faltering and perseverance, but also of breakthrough and hope.

The lifting was very hard for me, and I wasn't able to do it fully on Tuesday (but, with difficulty, succeeded on Thursday).  The swimming saw a huge increase in the amount of consecutive laps I can do between rests OR the speed I can swim (but not both).

I feel run down after this week -- it might be that i slept less, or ate differently, or pushed harder in some of the workouts.  I'll be extra glad for the break this weekend.

Hopefully next week my body's response to these various challenges will continue to jell and I'll find a more comfortable rhythm (that still lets me progress).

I've still not lost any weight, but my belly is smaller while my arms and chest are subtly bigger.  I need to refine my diet a little - my body wants more food than it used to, and I'm not sure what to give it.  This week's practice of feeding it giant strombolis daily was enjoyable, but probably not a good long-term plan.

Day 34

Swam 36 laps.

I don't know if I did better or worse today - I had to stop more and I feel much worse, but even with the stops I swam faster.  36 laps took me 40 minutes -- that's 2.22 minutes for 100yds down from 2.5 on wednesday.

I stopped 3 times -- after each 9 lap stint, but I intentionally swam fast for the last lap of each ennead.  I didn't consciously try to go faster in general, but i think I recognized at times that I was doing so.

Usually I feel good after swimming, but today i felt pain deep and low in my chest -- a feeling somewhere between heart-burn and birthing a xenomorph chestburster.  It may be that i was recruiting more of my core i swam -- i could feel something (obliques?) working as i twisted and rotated.  I'm not worried - it's fading and I am glad i was using the core.

Day 33

Weights -- I successfully completed three sets of 12 reps each of the standard routine.

It was still very hard on my arms - particularly the tricep push-down, the military press, and the bicep curls.  The dead lift seemed harder too, but I think it was because i was trying to do them better (using more rump and less leg).

I did a shorter warm-up (only 5 mins of vigorous walking and 2 minutes to cool down) and a brief but aggressive cool-down (I jogged for 4 minutes at 7mph).  Jogging got my heart to 185bpm, which is probably too high.

I was sore today - I don't know if it was residual from Tuesday's lift (I don't remember being as sore yesterday), or from the swimming (which doesn't seem like it should make one sore).  But it was fairly pervasive and concentrated in the shoulders, so maybe swimming is starting to hit my muscles more now.

Keep on truckin'.

Day 32

Forrest (Evanda) runs (swims) again!  I did my ~36 laps in two chunks of ~18, stopping for couple minutes in between.  It turns out that my staggering anomaly is repeatable!

I could have gone on, but I want to keep the bar reasonable, because I still get annoyed at how long it takes to complete.  36 laps took me about 45 minutes rather than the hour it did before when i stopped a lot.  It probably also means my heart rate stayed higher, which i guess is somehow good.

100yd time is a metric swimmers on the internet seem to use -- this morning on average I did 100yds in about 2.5 minutes, which is pretty slow by endurance racing standards, but not off the charts slow.  I am pleased with having a new metric to track -- I'll add it to the metrics tab soon.

Day 31

Weights today, but poorly.

I had a really hard time with some of the arm exercises today -- Tricep push went beyond "hard" and into "painful" and all the exercises following it seemed to use triceps.  I also got confused and thought it was 30 minutes later than it was and so I stopped the military press and lat pulldown after 2 sets each and didn't do the bonus ab twist or calf exercises.  I also did a shorter version of the cool down walking (but I jogged at 7mph for 3 minutes in the warm-up -- more aggressive than usual).

So not a great day, but I did get all the main exercises at least twice, and most of them 3 sets.  I think it was enough to continue progressing, at least.

I also brought myself a ton of stuff for lunch, since i was hungry yesterday:

• mango greek yogurt
• banana
• apple & cheddar cheese
• strawberries for my instant oatmeal (which i eat for lunch)
• week-old leftover fajita steak bits
• orange
• olives
• almonds

Day 30

I don't know what that was about.

Before starting i was reluctant to get in, after 3 laps i was depressed that i had 33 more to go, after 6 i was tired and cranky, and after 9 i was planning how to never swim again.  I persisted, though, and was feeling better as I rounded the halfway mark (18), and back to normal as I hit 24 laps.  Then something changed --

It was like a forrest gump moment - I swam but didn't get tired.  I wasn't getting more air, but I stopped feeling like i wasn't getting enough.  I swam 18 straight laps without stopping (so I hit 43 laps today), and only stopped because it was getting late.  I could have kept going, possibly indefinitely -- when i stopped I felt fine: more relaxed and less winded than I did after 3 laps.

I wonder if that is how normal people feel about exercise -- that it's boring, but not horrible the whole time.  I really hope i can hit that rhythm again.  Laps in that case wouldn't mean anything, I could just swim constantly for a period of time (which is less of a pain to manually count).

Week 6

Week 6 is a week of records and the start of a plateau.

My weight program has me where I am now for at least 2 more weeks before I'm supposed to tweak weight or rep count.

I don't intend to swim more than 36 laps in the near future either - I want to get better at the ones I'm doing, make sure my shoulder gets with the program, maybe take a lesson or two, increase the number of laps i can do at once, and start increasing my speed before I try for additional distance.

I'm glad - I feel my body has responded well to the aggressive program so far, but I also don't think I can push it much harder without repercussions.  Giving it a few weeks to settle in will be nice.

I haven't lost any weight, but i am visibly slimmer around the midsection - so i guess i am losing fat.  I know i'm gaining muscle - i can feel it in some places, see it in others, and prove it with my improved lifting.

I'm pleased and will continue.

Day 29

Swam 37 laps - 36 freestyle and 1 idle lap in the middle to rest.

I am pleased to report that despite swimming the same number of laps, I did it in a more demanding way: in groups of 3 laps at a time (rather than 2 which i recently managed after graduating from 1 which I moved to from increments of half a lap between breathers).

I wasn't as sore as I expected from yesterday's increased effort -- maybe its being lots of reps rather than lots of weight reduces that.  So I feel pretty good - swimming tires me for the hour afterward, but invigorates me for the following few hours.