JCC 2024 Fitness Goals

Do I went without soda for 6 months. I achieved that. Having side now I feel linda...idk, indifferent I guess? I can live without it though I do enjoy it

Biggest thing next that will definitely be harder is ice cream. Going without that will be...not that I eat a lot of it but still

 

I haven't been a real soda drinker in 24 years, but once or twice a year I still have one while I'm on vacation. I still like it, oddly not compelled to drink it often. Congrats, it's so much better for your health.

I eat ice cream about once a month. Only the non-dairy kind, I have an old lady stomach.

 

I drink way, way too much Diet Mountain Dew. Like, it's the majority of what I drink. I need to stop, but I haven't found anything else healthier to hit the same spot for me.

 

Water. Use flavored

 

I've tried that several times, but haven't been able to find a combination that I can sustain through all aspects of my life. Part of the problem is that I can only tolerate flavored water if it is ice cold. At work, for example, I only have access to cool but not cold water, which tastes okay plain, but tastes absolutely horrible and makes me gag when I add flavoring. But trying to drink plain unflavored water leaves me severely craving flavor. I am not one who can drink a steady diet of just plain water. I can drink it at a variety of temperatures, and can live on plain water during my various outdoor activities where I'm carrying around a Nalgene bottle or four (yes, four on a backpacking trip), but I have to fill my mouth with flavor at my earliest opportunity.

I also eat out a lot and flavored water is rare at restaurants (and usually tastes terrible when it does exist), and I don't want to have to remember to carry a flavoring agent or my own water mug with me everywhere I go (it's enough of a struggle to just remember my wallet and keys), and at some places I go the only economical way of ordering (or sometimes the only possible way of ordering) is a combo meal that automatically comes with a soda. And if I do get water, these places frequently hand me a tiny 5-to-9-ounce cup that I would have to get up to refill half a dozen or more times -- the only possible way to get a cup of reasonable size is usually to buy a soda, and I ain't paying $3 for plain water, so I give up and get soda anyway. And that's usually how my attempts to detox from soda fail: I try to steadfastly drink just water all the time, but I eventually get frustrated enough at the teeny tiny cups that I capitulate to capitalism and buy the soda, and it all goes downhill from there.

 

The teeny tiny cups they hand you for water are so frustrating! Starbucks will still give you a venti (20oz) free water last I checked! WTF is wrong with these places? Maybe as more places move the soda behind the counter they will return to reasonably free sized water cups...one can hope!

 

Quick little hike this afternoon on a new-to-me local trail. 1.75 miles in 45 minutes, including a few stops, with about 130 total feet of elevation gain. Mainly testing/breaking in my new boots and new backpack in preparation for a two-night backpacking trip in the Three Ridges Wilderness in Virginia this weekend. Pretty pleased with the equipment and my stamina, not so much with the trail -- a decent amount of it is alongside busy two-lane roads just outside of city limits. While you're not close enough to be in danger from distracted drivers, it is still close enough to kill the ambiance and peace that nature provides. Next time I'll use a trail across the middle to cut that section out.

 

I'm on week six of the Armor Building Formula by Dan John.

3 days a week, alternating days of double kettlebell military press and the Armor Building Complex. ABC consists of 2 double kettlebell cleans, one press, three front squats.

12 week program. Goal by the end is to complete 30 rounds of ABC in roughly 30 minutes. And 100 total reps of the military press, typically using a ladder scheme of 2-3-5-10.

I just did 80 press reps today. My last ABC session(heavy day) was 18 rounds.

Using double 24kg bells.

 

I did today what the younger me would never do. I waited for temps to warm up a bit before my run. I didn't leave the house until 9AM (lunch time if you are a morning person like me). But I had a pretty good one hour run. Not many people out it was still below freezing. But much warmer weather expected tomorrow.

 

Four weeks ago I tried to do the backpacking trip and severely underestimated the elevation gain on day 1 -- 4.5 miles horizontal and 1,800 feet vertical, almost all of it a continuous climb with very few breaks. I fell way behind and arrived at camp 30 minutes after everyone else, so on day 2, one trip leader and I split from the group and returned the way we came instead of continuing the loop. The two of us had some adventures and misadventures on our own that day and night, then we picked up the rest of the group the next morning to head home.

I think what I need to do is to run more, and by "run more" I mean run at all. I've fallen completely out of the habit of cardio training and probably couldn't run a mile right now without a walk break. But I'm currently under a lot of job-related stress, and trying to find a new job, and severely depressed as a result. Maybe some more physical activity might help me?

It's 41°F here right now with sun if I want to go out now, or it will be 52°F tomorrow also with sun. But Saturdays are far more unpredictable for me than Sundays in general, but also Tuesdays are out (personal training) and Thursdays are full (board game night in the evening), so maybe Monday/Wednesday/Saturday is the best schedule for me, and knock out the Saturday run early before the day goes haywire. And Saturdays can be a nearby parkrun event if I can drag my ass out of bed early enough and have room in my schedule. And perhaps I'll throw in a bike ride on Friday and/or Sunday to start building a base for a hopeful future triathlon.

Speaking of triathlon, I still have not found a coach to help me figure out why I can't swim right. And that's the hard blocker on registering for a triathlon right now. I've made contact with three different coaches, but all three talked with me briefly and then ghosted me. I need to find a coach that will actually follow through and do the coaching that they offered. Until then, it's pointless for me to even get in the pool because I'm just building muscle memory for bad mechanics. Unfortunately, I've given up on figuring out where to turn. Every resource I've reached out to either ignores me, ghosts me, or is too far away.

 

Update for accountability:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/17711167677/share/1?lang=en

The ascent stats are all messed up (I ran laps around my apartment complex, which is not completely flat but also not that hilly), but I did a thing.

I think part of my problem in the past with keeping it up has been trying to estimate my current fitness level and jump into the middle of a beginner training plan at that point, inevitably getting frustrated at not being able to pace properly or keep up with the plan and then quitting. This time I decided to forget all of that and start from the absolute beginning. I'm using an app that provides a training plan to go from zero to 5K in eight weeks and from 5K to 10K in six more weeks. Except I'm not actually using the app (which includes the necessary run/walk timers and voiceover coaches), rather I'm extracting the workouts and programming them into my Garmin watch.

In the past I've been endlessly frustrated at my inability to maintain Zone 2 heart rate. Garmin defaults to HR zones based on percentage of max HR, which defaults to the horrible formula of "220 - age". Over time it's automatically adjusted my max HR upward from the initial 183 to (fresh off the presses from tonight's workout) 193, but Zone 2 was still 112-132 for me, which is so low that I can hit it on a walk and can't run in it to save my life. Many people have told me that % of max HR is garbage and to use lactate thresholds instead, but the only way I had of calculating a lactate threshold HR (LTHR) was the built-in guided workout test, which required too hard of an effort for too long of a time, and I couldn't complete the test (and also, it required a chest strap). Well, my watch recently got a new update, and now it can do LTHR tests with wrist-based HR (no chest strap required) and can also estimate lactate thresholds (HR and pace) from everyday workouts. All of that is to say that tonight it spit out a LTHR of 172, and once I recalculated my HR zones based on that with the recommended percentages, HR Zone 2 is now... 138-153. Which feels much more accurate, as it's not until I hit the high 140s or low 150s that I stop being able to carry a conversation, which is the general definition of Zone 2. (But I'm terrible at subjective assessments like that and need numbers.)

 

It was 37 degrees at 7AM this morning so I got my run in as soon as it was light enough for me to feel safe on the trail. It was my first 10k straight run no intervals since my injury in February. I did several 10 milers this year, but with the heat this summer all of them were 4 minute run/1 minute walk. Yes, I still count those as regular running, it's just really nice to know I can do it without the intervals. It was an uneventful run, except when I was totally enjoying my favorite part of a favorite song and this guy behind me called out to say he was passing, as to not surprise me and I was so into the moment of the song that he startled me. It was funny.

I'm actually glad that I didn't know about any such plans when I started running @jcgoble3 Not knowing anything allowed me to progress at my pace. For an entire month I just went out everyday and jogged 8 minutes and then walked home. Once I was in a routine, I started adding a few minutes a week until I was running a full hour. I was young, but out of shape. I still go by feel, I never pay attention to my heart rate, even though my watch has provided it for years. I'm even getting good about not caring about my pace.

 

I wish I could not pay attention to my heart rate or my pace. Unfortunately, if I don't, my body will automatically accelerate without me realizing it, until by the time I finally do realize it, I'm going way, way too fast and the entire workout is ruined. So I have to keep a very close eye on both my pace and heart rate, whether I like it or not.

 

Let's check in on our 2024 goals!

And the quote grows...

• Unfortunately I am back up to 183 pounds as of this morning. And it is not all muscle weight as I have noticed additional fat around my waistline.
• I did the indoor triathlon (which was double-inverted -- run, then bike, then swim, and each for a fixed time rather than a fixed distance). Unfortunately, my swim skills never made progress beyond where they were a year ago, and I left my instructor in April and have now been searching for a new coach that won't ghost me since then, so I had to cancel both of the standard triathlons I was registered for as I could not safely complete the swim.
• As with forward swimming, I never made further progress on treading either.
• This I did with my personal trainer: 1) pull-up accomplished in September, though as of today I can't do it again due to weight gain; 2) accomplished (and a one-rep max of 210 pounds); 3) not there yet though we hit 125 for 1 rep today (next week will be a full one-rep max test).
• Nope, never found the motivation to keep up with training. Couldn't run 5K without walking at all right now.
• Also nope.
• Unfortunately nope; I had a bad experience on the Middle Ocoee in early June that shook my confidence, and then due to a lack of available PTO, travel distances involved, and the difficulty of being forced to plan weeks in advance in a sport where almost everyone plans less than 24 hours in advance, got very few opportunities to paddle downriver since then. I did get back out on some slightly easier Class III water on the Lower Youghiogheny in August, but as of now, that was my last opportunity to paddle a natural river. It's frustrating because I feel like my skills are regressing, and actually right now, I'm not sure if I could handle the Lower Yough again due to lack of recent "seat time".

So yeah, not a great year for me in this department. Also had job stress to the point that I was forced into mental health medical leave for five weeks in September and October. Just a whole bunch of things all colliding at once.

Goals for 2025, deliberately scaling back to be more achievable:

• Get back down to 165 pounds
• Find a new swim coach and figure out my blocker on progressing my swim skills
• Get back to doing a pull-up again
• Run a 5K without walking (stretch goal: under 30 minutes)
• Run 5 miles
• Find a new job so I can move somewhere where I'm not forced to plan my whitewater trips weeks in advance so I can get more seat time on natural rivers
• Rebuild my kayaking skills enough that I can have a comfortable run on the Lower Yough and feel ready for the Class IV Lower New (even if I don't get to run the Lower New in 2025 because of schedules)