Nerd Pride Radio

Nice running everybody!

My 4 mile time was down to 30:16 this morning, including a 7:24 last mile (slightly above 8.1 mph).

Very nice! And so speedy, my goodness!

My 4 mile time this morning was 29:46, including a 7:21 last mile. At 52 yo and after the last set of injuries, I never thought I'd get to this point again, where I'd be able to go that fast over that distance. My slow long distance Saturday morning run has been 12 miles the past couple weeks, and I'm going to try for 13.1 miles tomorrow morning. And while weight loss hasn't been my primary goal, I've lost about 10 pounds since I started working out again after the home remodel finished. And this week, I stopped drinking soda during the week (I had been drinking 2 16-ounce bottles a day during the week), and will only have a few on the weekends. That's the last bad habit I let get out of control during the remodel that I had to reign back in, so here's hoping that helps with the fitness.

The remodel thing would be enough to drive anyone to major bad habits, much less minor ones, but I'm glad you have it sorted the way you want it.

I am swimming as much as I can and doing okay on official nutrition plan - I have a lot of desires for ice cream and mint chocolate covered pretzels and calorie-laden margarita mix, but otherwise the goal is to stuff myself so full of watery, low-cal veggies that I don't have room for junk, and this seems to be a good plan! No more breakfast cereal and milk, no more massive dairy product indulgence. I make a lot of vinegary banchan and my digestive system is probably glowing with perfect cleanliness. Everything we eat now is SPICY.

Pushing into new territory: this morning's 4 mile time was 29:05. I haven't run that fast since high school/college. I know I'll never run a mile in 4:55 again (my best 1 mile time in high school track), but a 7:13 mile for a 52 year old ain't too shabby.

I can drive a mile in under five min! Oh wait...

I'm to the point where I can easily run 4 miles at a 8.2 mph pace, and can even up that to 8.3 mph and be okay. I can do that 3 days a week. And one day a week, I can run a half-marathon at 7 mph pace without a problem. I might be able to increase my 4 mile distance to 5 or 6 miles, but doing so will put more strain on my old body and increase the likelihood of an injury. So for now, I'm happy with what I'm able to maintain.

Nice job!

Been snacking more than usual, I blame the candy era that started with the Labor Day parade and ends post-Easter, but otherwise doing well.

My daughter is learning to ride a bike, so I've been running beside her on a park path to make sure she's okay and doesn't hit into other people. So I got probably a good 10 more days of this before she starts flying past me with confidence but maybe then I'll finally like running in public. Or maybe I'll be able to shoot hoops while she loops.

Crap. Went to run my half-marathon this morning, and the treadmill is kaputt. Circuit board needs to be replaced. I’ll be out of town for work next week, so I can run in the hotel fitness center. But I’ll have to see how long it’ll take to get it repaired, or if it even can be repaired. If it’ll take awhile, I may need to see about an Anytime Fitness membership so I can keep running.

On the one hand, that sucks because nobody wants the treadmill to break, but on the other hand, you've run so much that you have destroyed a treadmill and that's kind of effing impressive! If it turns out some of us are Cylons, well, we all know where to look.

That’s the second treadmill I’ve run into the ground. I ordered a new circuit board on Amazon that will hopefully fix this one. I may look for parts for the other one as well, which is currently just sitting in the basement covered in junk. If I can fix that other one, I can try to sell it.

Surely there is a Chuck Norris meme about this.

I want to have fitness and I do not have fitness and my blood pressure is going up for many reasons. Fitness is going to be necessary.

Replacing the circuit board worked! The treadmill is functional again. It may take some fiddling to get the belt adjusted appropriately again, but the biggest problem has been addressed, and I should be able to start running again next week.

Walked a couple miles yesterday morning. Ran this morning, and it took a couple minutes of adjusting the belt to prevent it from slipping and being off center (running makes it slip more than just walking), but was able to get it set and then finish a 6 mile run. Back in business!

I think the speed is off on the treadmill. I finished my 6 mile run this morning at about my normal pace, but when I look at the heart rate tracker on my Apple Watch, my heart rate didn't reach as high as it normally does at that pace. It used to be that there was a calibration mode to treadmills that would run the treadmill at the highest possible speed and display how fast it was going, and you could adjust it if it was going too slow or too fast. Unfortunately, now that treadmills come with essentially Android tablets as displays, that calibration mode is no longer available. So instead, I'll have to do one of two things.

1) Get one of those distance measuring wheels, run the treadmill at a certain speed on the display, time how long it takes the belt to go a certain distance, use the time and distance to calculate the actual speed, see if it's accurate to the displayed speed, and adjust as necessary.

2) Same as above, but rather than spending money to buy one of those distance measuring wheels, I measure the length of the treadmill belt, place a chalk mark on the belt, and then count how many times the chalk mark passes a certain point while I time it. I then use that count times the length of the treadmill belt to get the distance, and use that and the time to calculate the speed.

So do I spend money on a distance measuring wheel or not?

Treadmill calibration questions aside, I've found out some interesting things on a genetics front recently. I took one of those Ancestry DNA tests awhile back, and both my parents recently wanted to take the test as well, to get more details on their potential ancestry. One of the things Ancestry has added recently is the ability to analyze your DNA traits, so I and my parents have had that done. A couple of the traits they look for is the sprinter gene and the endurance gene. It seems that both of my parents have both the sprinter gene and the endurance gene, while I have the endurance gene but not the sprinter gene. Maybe that explains why some of my sisters were good at sports but I always sucked. It wasn't until I started distance running in high school track and cross country that I found a sport I was good at.

The sprinter gene not only affects how fast you can run over short distances, but also affects weightlifters and bodybuilders developing muscle mass. That explains some of the effects I've seen from doing P90X. I can do pushups or pull-ups forever (thanks, endurance gene!) but my chest and arm muscles will never bulk up like a weightlifter. When I lift weights, I can lift a decent amount, but I don't build muscle mass, I just develop lean muscle. I'm not going to stop the strength training, but it is helpful to have a little insight into what sort of results I can expect to achieve based on my genetics. Maybe I'll think about lifting a little less weight but doing more reps.

Very interesting. I wonder if one should go with what you're built for or try to stir it up with its opposite, for fitness purposes? Needless to say a "sprinter" gene as you describe would explain my entire sports and fitness essence. Very fast, very muscle, minimal endurance. I have been curious about the DNA test lately as well. Hmmm.

I haven't checked the treadmill speed calibration yet, but this morning's run was 6 miles in 45 minutes and 22 seconds. Not bad.

I had to eat something because I won't be able to eat for very long time and I was only able to eat a little bit of cereal very early. So I drove through McDonald's and I ordered the little McMuffin but I said, just give me the sandwich because I don't even want to be tempted to eat that hash brown thing you put in there. Haha, agreed, no potato cake would be forthcoming. And then not only did they give me one of the things in my sack even though I didn't pay for it (!), they gave me a particularly attractive one that looked very fluffy and freshly made. I ate it.

6 miles in 44:23. Didn't think I'd ever get close to the 45:00 mark for 6 miles, but here I am below that time.

Oof. Didn't run last week while I was traveling. Ran 13.1 miles on Saturday at a leisurely 1:44:50 and just had the normal aches from a long distance run. This morning I ran 6 miles in 44:08, my fastest 6 mile time since high school/college. And boy, my legs are really feeling it this afternoon!

6 miles in 43:59.

Hah, today I drove 17 miles in about 15 minutes! Way faster car.

Tahlvin wrote: ↑Tue Oct 19, 2021 4:26 am Ooof. Not only am I sore from yesterday's workout and run, but I also had a doctor's appointment yesterday which involved 3 shots (tetanus booster, flu shot, and shingles vaccine) plus blood work. And the shingles vaccine is supposedly known for its side effects of headaches, nausea, fever, etc. Both shoulders are killing me from the shots, my stamina is not the best due to the nausea, and I'd really just like to go to sleep for a few weeks. So I only ran 4 miles this morning instead of 6.

As predicted, whatever cut Tahlvin down to 4 miles is bad. My shoulder is Double In Size. Double, at least. Can barely lift it to get up. I asked them to put it in my non-dominant hand and they did not do it for that very reason! They wanted the dominant hand! Why? Because I can't use the hand now. Cannot sleep because that's the side I lay on and I can't lay on the shoulder. My mom had shingles and it was absolutely terrible, so I'm not going to complain if I get protection against it. But I have never experienced the like of this!

Yes, it darn well better prevent shingles, or I'm going to have words with the drug company.

I'm laying here miserable and confused and unable to function after having one of the two vaccine shots (super eager for the next one after this). Diane Feinstein actually has shingles at her age and people are pissed because they assume all old people are cognitively impaired. A few in our family died young but mostly they all lived into their '90s and with one exception they were all strikingly unimpaired. My grandpa who lived to the oldest age was perfectly lucid and his judgment on a bad day would have been better than any person in that present House or Senate combined. We have some screwed up notions in this country. We also assume that physical slowness or disability translates into mental.

Ozempic and its cousins:
Some people are pissed off that other people are taking them for weight loss because they think they should be restricted only to those who have the prescription for original purposes like diabetes, and the shortages should affect primarily those taking it for weight loss.
Some people are pissed off that other people are taking them for weight loss because they think weight loss should be done the hard way, or at least not in this particularly effective medicinal way.
Some people are pissed off that other people are NOT taking them for weight loss because they think fat people are morally or aesthetically failed and need to do whatever it takes, including the medicine, to fix themselves.

The whole discourse is poisonous. I am troubled by the fact that everyone I know who has/is taken/ing one of these drugs is both shedding weight incredibly quickly and having terrible GI problems. In the scales of life I dislike GI problems more than I like the prospect of losing weight, that's what it boils down to. I'd rather my doctor told me to lose weight once a year and then go home and be happy and enjoy my food. The people on Ozempic - anecdotal evidence, sure, but it seems like a common set of side effects - cannot be sure whether they're going to enjoy their food, either because they lose interest halfway through or because it comes back to punish them later. I love food, I want to maintain loving relations with my food at all times. I don't know what to think about all this.

Taking a little break from running. Have a sore Achilles tendon in the left foot, and am replacing the treadmill because of various issues with the other one (they get plenty of use!). In the meantime, the wife wanted to try a rowing machine, so we picked up a fairly inexpensive one. So I've been doing some rowing rather than running. It's not as good of a cardio workout. And while I'm in good shape, the rowing sure as heck makes my forearms burn like heck! I can see why Popeye had such big forearms now.

Very nice! I love rowing. Since it's summer I've been trying to swim more and find the movement similar to/enhanced by rowing in the winter. I'm struggling with the whole fitness category lately. I'm hoping that having better sleep will help.

Trying to make a renewed commitment to fitness but really sucks because my swimming buddy is gone at the moment and nobody else will go swimming with me.
I think swimming is so inherently pleasurable that I cannot understand why somebody wouldn't want to do it. But especially if you've got a buddy going with you, why not?!

My wife swam competitively in high school and college until her shoulders gave out. She's hoping to start going to a local fitness club with a pool to do laps, now that school is starting back up and there won't be as many kids there during the day. It's a great full-body workout.

As for me, I'm a runner. But it's hard to run when you've strained your Achilles tendon in one foot. The new treadmill arrives tomorrow, but I think it may end up being a few weeks before I'm able to start using it. In the meantime, I'll row.

The doctor said, since the antidepressants and the hormones worked and you're hardly taking any, why don't you just go ahead and stop taking them? I did. Here's what happened: I didn't need the hormones anymore. Or if I do I'm living without them.

But I became gradually more and more depressed and anxious! I regained my fear of heights, which weirdly applies mostly to other people in high places and not even just to myself! I grew uncomfortable in balcony seating. I became grumpy. After a few months of this I realized, this isn't good. I thought maybe it was work stress, but there's an interactive relationship between the work stress and the brain, rather than a one-way street. So I started taking the antidepressants again at the lowest possible dose

Within 2 weeks I was feeling really quite good again. I started going to CrossFit again after three years of wandering in the zone of comfort eating and desultory efforts at exercise. It comes back surprisingly quickly. The exercise makes you feel better in an exciting feedback loop with the antidepressants. You start sleeping 7 hours a night. You start feeling like the food you've eaten is too much. That's bizarre. The normal amount of food is filling. It's all so surprising and yet this is what they say will happen and they don't lie. I did 12 chin-ups today y'all. I had to have assistance from a King Kong sized rubber band at the bottom of the pull but It's flat crazy that I can do any type of chin up. It is definite proof that previous gains have not completely dissipated even though we packed a lot of fat stores around them. Anyway, here is my proof of life of the kind I like to see occasionally.

I've been working so hard on the damn fitness thing and unfortunately as you get old, the body gets fragile. Somehow I injured my arm and it's just been two weeks of excruciating pain up and down. Yet I don't think it's injured in a way that should completely stop what I'm doing. It's a mess... It's also interesting at this point to observe the patterns of sugar addiction or other things the body does on its own, sending strong signals of demand via brains. Maybe that's the wrong way to characterize the brain and rest of the body in this process but that's how it seems: The body wants different types of comfort and the brain acquiesces readily and has trouble fighting with its own self about it.