New Thing #264: Running To Time

I've written a few times before about the running I did this summer. And there's kind of a lull in Trying New Things right now, so let me tell you about what I did with my running this summer that was new.

(You'll notice the dates from the screengrab I did of my Nike app there are from mid-August. As I suspected would happen, once September hit my running regimen was severely impacted.)

The best thing I did this summer was change the way I run - instead of running for distance, I ran for time.

I've been running for a while - but in the past couple of years it had become a little more of a struggle.

Not that it became any more difficult really (outside of one injury where I think for one summer I couldn't run at all) - it just became really, really boring.

I had a path that I ran over and over. At most it would take me 3 miles...but often I would decide to pull up short and cut it after a mile and a half or two miles or so.

I had nothing holding me accountable for anything longer than that.

I don't know why it took me so long to do it, but this summer I decided to start with a 30 minute run and then just keep adding time. I went from 30 to 35, then 40. (I run roughly a 10-minute mile, so we're talking up to 4 miles or so.)

I stuck at 40 for a bit, then started pushing myself to distances I'd never reached before - up to 5 miles, and then that 6-and-a-quarter-mile run you see in that picture above.

Unfortunately, that was the high-water mark. That was August 13. Shortly afterward, I went to Florida, then back to school, and I haven't had the time to run that much since. I was hoping to write about this as a New Thing when I was consistently up over 6-mile runs.

It's really hard to find an hour when it's not dark where I can get a good run in like that these days.

If I get out I'll go a couple of miles at a quicker pace to feel like I'm doing something...but I know what it felt like over the summer when I was doing these long runs and it's not really the same.

Fall into winter is always a tough time to keep up the good work I do running in the summer.

This year it feels like a particularly tough dropoff.

But you can bet that as soon as the weather is passable - or I get a few extra hours on the weekends - I'll work to build up my stamina again.

Because now I know how to do it.

New Thing #229: Home Gym

I don't want to beat a dead horse (who would? what kind of sicko beats a dead horse? a dead anything, come to think of it?), but I haven't belonged to a gym this year. As a result, I've needed to show some discipline inside the house in order to get workouts in.

Now, understand - home is the place I stayed when I didn't want to go to the gym when we belonged to the gym.

So you see the problem here.

But I bought a couple of elements to add to what I already had here and I think I've done a pretty good job of maintaining a workout schedule, gym or no gym.

The picture above gives you an indication of what I'm working with.

I've told you about the kettlebell, and I've had those dumbbells for years. Not pictured, there's an ab roller and a big bouncy ball that my wife has had for years that I use occasionally as well.

But this is about the new stuff.

And after I got some sports store gift cards for my birthday, I added the medicine ball, the jump rope, and that yellow resistance cord to my collection.

I use the medicine ball for work on my abs. I don't have a full understanding of how to use a medicine ball, but I have a much better idea about it than I did with the kettlebell. I've only scratched the surface of the resistance cord, I'm sure. I use it for my arms, mostly, but I'm sure I can do some leg stuff with it as well.

I haven't had much opportunity to use the jump rope yet, since it's a strictly outdoor piece of equipment and the other stuff is for the indoors, but I like having it. Someday I'll bring it with me on a bike ride, find a quiet place where no one is around to laugh at my jump roping ineptitude, and work on my jump roping.

Storage is a problem right now - I don't have a designated spot for the workout equipment. Right now I leave everything pretty much out in the open in the same area as a lot of my daughters' toys. In practice, this is not ideal, because I realize there could be a trip and fall and knocking a head into a kettlebell situation happening...but psychologically, the equipment is right in front of the TV, so if I'm sitting watching TV and doing nothing else, I can lift some weights at the same time.

And my daughters have so far proven responsible around everything. But if I'm not using things for a while I'll move them out of the way.

I always thought having a home gym meant I would have the luxury of a spare room where I had some benches and some serious workout equipment - like what you see at the gym but in your own home.

Turns out, a bunch of small workout equipment in the same room as your kids' toys can do the trick just as well.

New Thing #74: No More Gym

You know how it usually goes when the new year hits: "This year I resolve to go to the gym more often." That's usually me.

And actually, in recent years I didn't necessarily need to resolve to go - I just needed to maintain my multiple times a week schedule.

We were members of the local YMCA and working out was part of my normal routine.

But last year, especially since school started in September, I just wasn't going.

So my wife and I resolved to quit the gym.

It's not the first time we've left a gym - we've been members of numerous gyms, and when we moved or found something better we've had to cancel our memberships to numerous gyms.

The Metrowest YMCA, our most recent membership, was pretty great. Especially for  a family of 5 with young kids - we had a daycare option, and my oldest took a tee-ball class a couple of falls ago.

But we just weren't using it enough.

The New Thing here is really that I've been working out at home a lot more. Along with keeping track of my weight and watching the calorie intake, I've been keeping track of my workouts. I've been trying to do push-ups and sit-ups every night, along with other, newer exercises. (Stay tuned for those. And for those skeptics out there, you're right, I haven't been doing it every night. But I've been doing pretty well.)

Those exercises, coupled with the occasional basketball game and then running once the weather gets warmer, has me feeling good about my new exercise routine.

My wife and I have talked about perhaps enrolling in another gym once the summer rolls around. We've also talked about some other New Things we could possibly do. I'm kind of excited (and maybe a little nervous) about one particular option.

I'll be sure to let you know about it when it happens.

New Thing #48: Weighing Myself Every Day

I'm trying to take care of myself these days. In the coming days, weeks, and months I'll feature New Things dealing with fitness, diet, and overall health.

As a starting point for all of that, though, I decided to try a little experiment in 2013, and here we are almost 50 days in and I've kept it up:

I'm keeping track of my weight every day of the year.

I'm sure there are hundreds of people who do this all the time, but it's very new for me.

Actually, the concept of paying any attention to my weight whatsoever is pretty new to me. I always had a general idea of how much I weighed, but I didn't give it much thought.

There were times I'd feel like I was putting on weight, but I kind of expected it - the holidays, the dead of winter...times when I knew I was going a little overboard with the dessert.

My hope, I guess, is that I'll catch myself before I go too overboard. I kind of have a range of weights that I want to stay within...but I'm not really going to panic if I go over. I'm not actually sure what my target weight should be.

I can already anticipate some problems here - when I'm away from home I might not have access at all to a scale...and the times I will, it might be a scale that calibrates my weight differently.

But I'll try - even if I'm weighing myself more than 300 times this year, that's a good 290+ times more than most years.