Walking with Weights (again) Plus Some Jogging (again)

          The past couple of months, I've been walking consistently with the Long Beach Area Walking Club at Signal Hill every Saturday morning at 7 a.m. I started using my weighted backpack again, the first time with a 15 pound barbell plate. I've been doing this to slow me down and equalize my pace with the rest of the group because I was getting bored and lonely walking alone up front. The following week, I added an extra 5 pounds and that made a huge difference in the intensity of the walk. In short, the extra 5 pounds kicked my butt and I even got chicked on the way up Stanley St. hill by two ladies. Nobody has ever passed me going uphill, ever.

          What do the weights do exactly other than slow me down? They help me resist the temptation to run so I don't injure myself, while still getting a workout intensity similar to running. As an added benefit, I can socialize with the other walkers by matching their pace.

          So it got me thinking about getting one of those weighted vests again but every time I shop around for it, the cost deters me from getting one. You will not find a 20 pound weighted vest for less than $40, and that's money I can't spare while being jobless. One of the people I walk with, Paul, suggested sand and more particularly, wet sand which is very dense and heavy, instead of the barbell plates which I'm afraid might rip my backpack any day soon. I pondered this for a few weeks not knowing how much a bag of sand might cost at a building supplies store. I checked out the Home Depot website and it showed a 50 pound bag of all-purpose sand for $2.44. So a few days ago, I finally went to Home Depot and was surprised to see how many types of sand there was other than the all-purpose type. Well, I picked up the cheapest one even though it was more than I needed because it didn't come any smaller. I'm planning on replacing the weight plates with sand as soon as I can find a separate bag to divide it and to find a way to accurately measure 20 pounds, which I hope will fit in the backpack and adhere to its shape in contrast to the weight plates which bounce around while I'm walking.

          Fearing that my backpack was about to rip due to the weight plates, I have been walking without it the past two weeks. I've been able to do some short jogs again (after injuring my left thigh trying to run full stride) and besides I found somebody with the walking group who could keep up with my pace. On the first day of March when rainstorms were hitting the Los Angeles/Long Beach area, I monitored the weather forecast and upon awakening that Saturday morning seeing no rain, I decided to show up at Signal Hill, not knowing who else was going to be there. The girl who was able to keep up with me wasn't there and I was relieved to see another walker who braved the weather. Well we lucked out because the rain, wind, and thunder didn't come till afternoon. The significant thing that happened on this walk was that I was able to jog uphill and downhill for 55 minutes non-stop, and that was the most I have done in the past several months, which was mostly on flat terrain. My initial plan was 30 minutes, but I kept adding 5 more minutes until I figured 55 minutes was enough. The rest of the way, I walked and jogged until I completed an hour and a half. At least I found a good excuse for running so slowly: going uphill, then using recovery as an excuse for running slowly downhill. Also I figured, if Obama and Biden can jog that slowly around the White House, I could do as well up and down hills.

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Getting a Little High Then Overdosing

          Darn it! I was editing a draft of this post when the Polaris Office word processor app crashed and took all the edits with it, and just as I was getting in a flow. Unfortunately, it didn't autosave the work so I have to start all over. Believe me, that lost document was much better than this.

          Puff, puff, pass. If only it were that. It's feels more like huff, and puff, and pass out. Running can feel so rough when you haven't been doing it for awhile. Waking up with what are now daily aches and pains doesn't help any. I had one of those days and even considered not running that day, even though I had been looking forward to it in the days preceding.  But hey, I figured I ran three days ago in the afternoon after working 2 night shifts, I should be able to at least try running again after having the night off. So I laced up my running shoes and got out the door just planning on putting one foot in front of the other for what I hoped was at least 30 minutes. After all I had to work off the overdose of red velvet cookies I had the night before. That was my first overdose (darn it Von's, stop putting those things on sale!!!).

          Well, it was one of those runs that the body never got out of warm-up mode. The muscles and joints never loosened, the breathing was labored all the way, and hitting a good stride never happened. You've heard of a working stiff? Well, I looked like a plodding stiff. Remember when running used to be called jogging? Can I claim to have discovered a new aerobic workout named plodding? How can you look good while running very slowly? Right now there is no way and it's just plain running ugly. Since when did a gentle rise in the road not feel so gentle anymore? I used to attack those things. Attacking hills or even the flat road doesn't exist in my running vocabulary anymore due to a certain amount of fear of getting injured. I would have to be constantly in a 'protect mode'. While on this plodding workout, I saw a school bus full of children who were probably thinking "gee mister, you're so slow". Heck, I didn't care. After all, I was out plodding. And a tough plod it was. I should train my brain to think that every run is a good run regardless of how tough it is. If there is one advantage of running at glacial pace, it is that I am reaching distances much shorter than before, so it doesn't take long before I have to turn around and run back home.

          Hard days and easy days? Ha! They are all hard days. If I ran any slower, I'd be as good as stationary. My arm carriage is so high, it's like having a permanent shoulder shrug. Not very efficient or loose at all. Even with all that difficulty, I went out plodding again two days later and lasted for a full hour! What a hard way to get high. But it wasn't that which made me high, although it helped. It was checking my exercise log and seeing that I had done three runs in the past week. Hard to believe that I was capable of doing that anymore.

          Persistence, or lack thereof is probably one of the reasons people give up when they first try a new exercise program. For me, this plodding workout might as well be a new exercise program. Despite the difficulty I am having now, barring injury, I will persist until it starts becoming a habit again rather than a chore. For now, persistence is having managed to do three very slow runs last week.

          Apart from getting a runner's high and overdosing on red velvet cookies, I had a second OD last week which was caused by too much caffeine. I had such a tremendous buzz from overcaffeineation that it took more than 4 hours to come down from it. I needed some help from a little vino to come down and lots of water to decrease the caffeine concentration from the body, and so I could excrete it through urine. So how does one get overcaffeineated? The darn Gevalia coffee tasted so good, I kept sipping it without regard to the consequence. It was one of those times when I brewed it to perfect proportions as far as taste was concerned, but apparently too strong for my body to handle. If I were still able to run long distance, I might have finished a marathon on that buzz.
       
          So there it is - three high inducing runs, I mean, plods, two overdoses, and lots of persistence. You can't get any much higher than that. Anybody wanna join me start a new plodding boom? Then I can rename this blog -Thoughts About Life and Plodding.

Slow(er) and Short(er)

A little bit more running, or jogging, or shuffling, well anything a bit faster than a brisk walk anyway. A couple more attempts at this addictive exercise were made in the past week or so. First was a round trip to Walmart to buy some small things that I could stuff in my jacket pockets thus freeing my hands. I even considered carrying a small backpack but I figured the pockets would suffice. Off I go jogging for 4 minutes and walking for 1 minute, and because of how slow I have become, it took almost half an hour to get to the store when it used to take me about 22 minutes. No matter, after all, the goal was to try to run again regardless of my ankle ailments. I was going to stop at 45 minutes but managed another 5, then walked about a half mile back home. Nowadays, I would consider that a successful run because it freed me from the stationary machines at home.

Several days later, it was back to the treadmill. I’ve never liked running on the treadmill as much as on the road but I’m beginning to change how I feel about that. The cushioning really helps lessen the impact of my very heavy stride and thus enables me to run continuously without the walk breaks. In this case 45 minutes of non-stop jogging/shuffling. Another major accomplishment for someone who is not supposed to do this type of exercise any more.

After I wrote the draft of this post, I managed a three more runs. The first was last Thursday and lasted a whole hour of the 4 minute:1 minute run/walk. The next run last Saturday also lasted an hour but in a different way. I planned to skip the first walk break but ended up skipping the next and the next and the next until I reached 30 minutes. I did the run/walk the rest of the hour. Surprising that I was able to do that but even more surprising was that the pace for the 30 minute run/walk was about 15 seconds per mile faster than the non-stop jogging. Perhaps I was trying to protect the ankles too much or maybe the second half hour was faster because I was already warmed up. Oh, I also got caught in a 5 minute shower on that cloudy day. Last but not least on Tuesday afternoon, I shuffled for an hour and eight minutes non-stop on the treadmill. Whoa! Easy boy! Remember: shorter! No wonder my ankles were burning afterwards.

 When I run/shuffle/jog nowadays, I have to be very mindful of my stride, i.e. constant awareness of how I plant my feet upon landing so my inner ankle pain is minimal. That means no more pushing the pace even if my breathing feels good, be satisfied no matter how slow I run, and keep the distances a lot shorter than what I’m used to. If that’s what it takes, then so be it. So much for citius, altius, fortius. Hmm, I wonder what the Latin version of slower and shorter are. Anyone???

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