Exercise & Fitness: 2019 Edition!

[Ashley]

Seem to have picked up a late in the year exercise bug.

Been swimming Monday-Friday this week and done a parkrun today. Which I guess means I need to do something tomorrow.

[Will]

Good work! Are the park runs basically organized training runs? I've heard about them but don't really understand what they are.

How is everyone doing with their targets for the year? I set myself the target of running 50k per month for a total of 600k for the year. Started off pretty well then a long holiday and unplanned business trip put me well behind on. I've been running about 30k a week for the last little while and I should just about hit it. Progress chart of the data:

The blue is the cumulative target, green what I've done and red the remaining target. The July flat point is when my parents visited and we went to Japan for three weeks. If I counted walking distance I'd have added 10k a day most days during that trip and things would look much different.

One benefit of running so much over the past month is that my distance times have come down tremendously and I've beaten a couple of targets I'd quietly set for myself. Last week I managed 10k in 48:39 which was nicely ahead of my 50 minute target, then today I managed 5k in 22:39 which I never expected to get much below 25 minutes as it's just too hot to run that fast here.

Pretty pleased but I wish I'd been a little more consistent. Thinking my overall target for next year will be 20k per week but I really need to do more actual gym work and try and finally build up some muscle again. I've been saying I'd do that since university but have never properly gotten round to it.

[Ashley]

Yeah. It was my first time going but it's an organised thing. I think they're worldwide (my friend mentioned he's going to continue doing it when in Australia) but whether there's one parent company or just the same idea is done elsewhere I don't know. 

But it's basically a group 5k run. Mostly went for the social side as I vaguely knew a few people doing it. If you register on their site (which I didn't because I got invited the night before) you can then get a barcode and at the end of the run you're given a tag and they scan both so you keep track of your run and also keeps track of how many you've done. They started the day with an overview of who had done 50, who had done 100 etc.

So as it had been a while since I'd run my legs are aching today. Think I may hit the bike at the gym. 

Should probably hold off running anyway as I've got an ultrasound of my foot on Wednesday 😬

[MindFreak]

I've been thinking about reviving this thread for a little while but always forgot.

After having a son two years ago, my fitness level dropped quite a bit, and my otherwise regular exercising routines were up in the air. Now my life has stabilized a bit again and over the past half a year I've been exercising two-three times a week apart from biking 20 km a day when I go home from work.

Most of my exercise is running. I do 4-6 km twice a week and have got pretty consistent with my results. In the beginning of the year, my pace was about 4:15 per km but it has got down to 4:04-4:07 now which is great. Still aiming for 4:00 but it's damn hard to get there, I find.

When the weather doesn't allow for a run, I do 20 minutes rowing on our waterrower at home. That super effective, I feel, and I usually manage about 5.5 km each time - sometimes a bit higher but then I'm pretty dead afterwards. 

I don't do much strengthening anymore, it's cut down to once a week when I go to work at our headquarters - there is a nicely equipped gym there with a squat rack so I can do heavier squats (i.e 4x5 @70-80 kg). At home I can mostly do 60 kg and that gets boring quickly.

And finally, I try to make a rowing-kettlebell-bodyweight-workout at home once a week, sometimes alone and sometimes with my wife while our son is asleep in the middle of the day. Those are good fun and very varied.

Now I'm in the market for some new running shoes as my Inov8 F-Lite 210 is worn down. I'm thinking about Inov8 F-Lite 195 or 235 because I probably need a little more than 3 mm sole in my shoes.