NaBloPo: Status Update

 

Update #1: it's day 6 of 30 of NaBloPo and not only am I still in it but it's also starting to feel more natural to sit down at the computer and post of bunch of mumblings on the internet every day instead of once a week. 

Update #2: the family party last night was a ton of fun and now we have leftover pizza for days.

Update #3: I broke my non-running streak of 73 days today.  My current status is "not a runner but not a non runner".

For all things NaBloPo head over to The Inbetween in Mine 

Today's topic is workouts.  Regular physical activity has been a part of my life since college and will continue to be a part of my life in whatever form my body wants until the grave.  The motivation is a mixture of wanting to feel good, wanting to keep my body operating in top condition for as long as I'm in it, and of course weight control.

I think I've told this story a few times so bear with me, but there was that one time in my early 30s when I decided to stop working out entirely just to see what would happen.  After a few months I developed an assortment of aches and pains and just didn't feel great in general.  The best way that I can describe it is to say that I felt old.  I started working out again and was back to my normal peppy self in no time, so that was the end of that experiment.

As far as what I do, cardio was the star of the show until recently and running was my everything from late 2017 to late 2020 (backstory here) and then something went south that I fought for a long time before coming to terms with the fact that it wasn't serving me any more and that I needed to find something else.  I've always known that you're "supposed" to strength train but with a few exceptions (recapped here) it never really clicked until this summer when I took a sip of the Caroline Girvan koolaid.  After COVID in August I finally kicked running to the curb and have been happily all in on strength with a 'lil cardio since then.

Anyhoo I finished the two week BeastMode program this morning and I don't have much more to say beyond what I said last week than I liked it, I really, really liked it.  The final workout was HIIT, but it was more in the style of full body strength done at a snappy pace to get your heart rate up which is what I like.

What's next?  I'm feeling a longer program so I'll be starting the six week Fuel series tomorrow.  From what I understand it's strength with a bit more cardio, and the workouts are in the 30 minute range just like Iron.  While I didn't mind that a lot of the workouts in Pyramid and Beastmode were in the 40-45 minute range, I also don't mind 30 minute workouts instead;-)

Here's the deal with my right knee, which started acting up a few weeks after I stopped running.  I put it on blast in my post last week and said that if it wasn't better by now that I would add some running back into the mix to see if it will help.  I can't explain why I think that running is good for knees except that I do and surely no one is taking fitness advice from me because for Gawd's sake I'm just someone shooting my mouth off on the internet, I don't actually know anything about this stuff.  All I know is that I ran 1,000 plus miles a year for a few years with zero knee problems.

As soon as I clicked publish on that post my knee sat up and took notice!  It got remarkably better each day but then it started talking smack in my workout this morning.  Which was enough for me to throw in the towel on the non-running.  I ran one mile on the treadmill to let my knee know that I ain't playin no more.  I noticed the reverse of what I noticed when I stopped running and started power walking, which is that running uses a totally different set of muscles than not running.  I also feel like it puts the knee through a larger range of motion than walking.

How was the mile?  Fine except that it felt like it took forever.  I walked for another half mile after that which went by in the blink of an eye.

I'm not sure what I'm doing from here: will I run a mile after every strength workout or will I run a mile on some days and walk on other days?  Will I do some combo of run-walk?????  So many possibilities but I think it's just going to depend on the day and what my spidey sense tells me to do. 

That's all I got!  Thanks for hanging out!