Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Tolerable Work Outs?

Did 30 minutes on the treadmill today. Make no mistake: I'm still not running. Not because I don't want to, but because I'm not able to run for any amount of time yet that makes it worthwhile to change the speed on the treadmill (if you saw how my laptop is set up on it, you'd see why).

To compensate for not being at a fitness level where I'm able to run and being unwilling to change the treadmill's speed, I change up how I walk in time to the music. It winds up forming little intervals where I'll be out of breath, then I can return to walking normally to catch my breath.

(Also, I accidentally increased the incline while setting up my laptop a few days ago and just left it. Figure it's good for me. As a result, I've begun striving for 30 minutes instead of an hour. Anything over 30 minutes is gravy.)

Admitting to my silliness on the treadmill embarrasses me a little, but I feel some ridiculous need to prove to you that I'm not just plodding along at the slowest possible setting.

Since I've starting using the treadmill recently, I haven't felt happy to be there. It's like taking medicine--the endorphins (however small the dose) are drugs to help me improve my life.

Slogging through treadmill time made me think of something else I've wanted to get into, but I keep starting and stopping. I figured I'm not doing crap while I'm on the treadmill, so I might as well try to meditate at the same time. I didn't know if it was possible, but I knew the Internet would tell me how others had fared when trying.

So I googled "meditation while running," and it brought me to this Runners World article. I actually read the whole thing (took me hours, starting and stopping--I feel almost constantly distracted). I don't know that meditation on a treadmill would be ideal, as part of the meditation is mindfulness of surroundings. But I figured, "Hey, if I can do it on a treadmill, doing it on a track or in the neighborhood will be a piece of cake."

I intend to try tomorrow; I'll let you know how it goes.

Today I looked a bit into building a playlist that I give a crap about because I thought maybe the radio's commercials were bringing me down. I simply don't have the patience to cobble a playlist together. There are several available to download for free online (many in line with Couch-to-5K (C25K) training), but lots of them are just, like, rave music or something. I kind of need familiarity, otherwise the music's just irritating.

It may seem weird that I'm harping so much on this treadmill stuff when I'm not exactly sporty, it's not making me lose weight, etc. But it's the only part of my life and therapy I'm willing to share at this point. It's something. Maybe it'll help someone.

In other news, I've been reading some FlyLady and have set a timer to do a little something toward improving my environment every 30 minutes or so. In the course of this, I found a study guide I'd been looking for since it arrived via UPS. I'd left it in the box and put it on top of another nondescript box.

Heigh-ho, on we go.

1 comment:

  1. Fitness is something I've been trying to work on lately too. I need to run more, even though doing so makes my knee worse. Bleh.
    I don't like the treadmill at all. I never have... Elliptical isn't bad, doesn't hurt my knee as much either.
    As for your music dilemma, is there anything against Pandora? You can hook it up to a stereo, play it on your phone, use headsets, use the laptop, etc.
    Side note: not sure why your posts haven't been showing up in RSS feed... How odd. I only saw this one on twitter.

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