Entries Tagged 'Real-Life' ↓

J.D. Goes to Physical Therapy

About ten days ago, I had a rather depressing marathon training run. I had intended to run sixteen miles, but I could only make it three before pain in my knee forced me to quit. I then walked three miles back to the car — in physical and mental agony the entire way. This chronic [...]

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Mr. Muscle

I was nervous when I joined the local gym last March. I was worried that I wouldn’t use the facilities enough to justify the cost. But I was also worried that I wouldn’t fit in. I visualized a crowd of preening lunkheads boasting about how much they could drink and which chick they scored with [...]

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Mr. Muscle

I was nervous when I joined the local gym last March. I was worried that I wouldn’t use the facilities enough to justify the cost. But I was also worried that I wouldn’t fit in. I visualized a crowd of preening lunkheads boasting about how much they could drink and which chick they scored with [...]

Continue reading → Mr. Muscle

Mr. Muscle

I was nervous when I joined the local gym last March. I was worried that I wouldn’t use the facilities enough to justify the cost. But I was also worried that I wouldn’t fit in. I visualized a crowd of preening lunkheads boasting about how much they could drink and which chick they scored with [...]

Continue reading → Mr. Muscle

Mr. Muscle

I was nervous when I joined the local gym last March. I was worried that I wouldn’t use the facilities enough to justify the cost. But I was also worried that I wouldn’t fit in. I visualized a crowd of preening lunkheads boasting about how much they could drink and which chick they scored with [...]

Continue reading → Mr. Muscle

Mr. Muscle

I was nervous when I joined the local gym last March. I was worried that I wouldn’t use the facilities enough to justify the cost. But I was also worried that I wouldn’t fit in. I visualized a crowd of preening lunkheads boasting about how much they could drink and which chick they scored with [...]

Continue reading → Mr. Muscle

Mr. Muscle

I was nervous when I joined the local gym last March. I was worried that I wouldn’t use the facilities enough to justify the cost. But I was also worried that I wouldn’t fit in. I visualized a crowd of preening lunkheads boasting about how much they could drink and which chick they scored with [...]

Continue reading → Mr. Muscle

Mr. Muscle

I was nervous when I joined the local gym last March. I was worried that I wouldn’t use the facilities enough to justify the cost. But I was also worried that I wouldn’t fit in. I visualized a crowd of preening lunkheads boasting about how much they could drink and which chick they scored with [...]

Continue reading → Mr. Muscle

Losing My Way, and Finding It

On Tuesday’s discussion about defining fitness, I mentioned that my own pursuit of that ideal had been derailed. “I’ve been eating poorly and taking no exercise,” I wrote. “Tell us more,” said a couple of readers.
After Saturday morning’s aborted attempt at a sixteen mile run, I was feeling miserable. It wasn’t just that my physical [...]

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Back to the Drawing Board

I feel pretty defeated today.
For the second Saturday in a row, I had to cut my marathon training run short. The pain in my knee was too intense to continue. Today’s three-mile walk back to the car was excruciating. I had a lot of time to think about my progress, my current physical state, and [...]

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Positive Body Image: My Favorite Part of Getting Fit

For me, the best part about getting fit is my improved self-confidence. As I lose weight, perform amazing feats of speed and strength, and generally improve my fitness, I become much more comfortable with my body image.
And really, that’s what a lot of this is about — not just for me, but for everyone. We [...]

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State of the Body

It’s been a while since I posted about the current state of my physical fitness. Though I don’t mind rambling on about how I’m doing, I know that it gets old listening to other people talk about their physical woes and successes. Still, it’s time for an update.
Have a heart
I’ve been especially pleased with the [...]

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Surprising Myself: Run Like the Breeze

One month ago today, I ran my first 10k. That run was a mess and I injured myself. I’ve slowly been recovering. I’ve been biking. I’ve been stretching. I saw a doctor. Today I had my first-ever massage (with an emphasis on the IT band) — not frugal, but wow! And this afternoon, exactly one [...]

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What’s It Like to Get a Colonoscopy?

This is a guest post from Jericho Hill, economist, statistician, and personal finance forums administrator!
“Don’t be scared.” At least, that’s what I told myself. In truth, I was scared. I hate medical appointments. I have an overwhelming fear of needles. If you couple that with a fear of the unknown, a [...]

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Ready to Run

For the past month, I’ve been unable to run. An injury to my IT band has made even walking painful sometimes. But after a visit to a sports injury doctor last week, I was cleared to return to marathon training on Saturday. Naturally I was very excited.
I’ve been biking moderate distances (12 to 20 miles) [...]

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It’s Hard To Be Healthy With Kids

I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about kids and fitness so much lately. Maybe it’s because I spend the majority of my time either parenting, exercising, eating, or trying to find ways to get out of this darn writing funk that I’ve been in for so long.
Some may read this post and think [...]

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Cleared to Run

Today I finally went to see the doctor. It’s been three weeks since I injured myself during my first-ever 10k run. Last Monday, after waiting in vain for the pain to go away completely, I gave up my Roth stubbornness and made an appointment with a sports doctor at a nearby clinic. Over the past [...]

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Vacations: I’ll Take The Bad With The Good

Monday night, my wife told me that every diet I’ve ever failed has failed because of a vacation. And she’s right. I’ve often dieted ahead of vacations so that I could both look better on the beach AND not worry about food when I was on vacation. Then when the vacation ends, I don’t ever [...]

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190

Today marks the first time since starting this project that I’ve reached 190 pounds. On New Years Day, I weighed 207. In the past 23 weeks I’ve lost 17 pounds. In the grand scheme of things, I am meeting my goal: I am getting fit slowly.
Yesterday at my personal finance blog, I wrote about the [...]

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Better Safe Than Sorry

It’s eight o’clock on Saturday morning. I’m at my desk writing this entry.
Some of you will recognize right away what this means: Saturday mornings are my time for marathon training runs. If I’m sitting at my desk writing, I’m not outside running. My sore quad is still enough of a concern that I opted not [...]

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No Pain, No Gain?

Two quick anecdotes of physical fitness and pain:

When I started lifting weights three months ago, my shoulders were weak. They were so weak that it hurt to do even three-pound seated dumbbell raises. Well, my shoulders are still weak, but they’re getting stronger, and the pain has diminished. But I haven’t really been testing them. [...]

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Up the Lazy River Post-Race Report (from J.D.)

It was the best of races, it was the worst of races.
At 9am this morning, Mac and I ran the West Linn, Oregon “Up the Lazy River 10k” race together. Going in, we both knew he would run at a faster pace than I would. His goal was to finish in 55 minutes; mine [...]

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Up the Lazy River Pre-Race Report

It’s 7 a.m. Together this morning, Mac and I will run our first-ever 10k road race. I’m excited, but also a little bit scared. I realize I’m only racing against myself, but I’m still anxious to do well.
I’m gradually prepping my mind for the run. I’ve run 63.22 miles this month (and 42.30 last month). [...]

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Dork on a Bike

I’m getting a lot of milage out of last Saturday’s marathon workout session, aren’t I? Well here’s a little more.
As we were reaching the end of our biking path, Susan pulled a daredevil stunt. Sitting upright, riding with no hands, she turned sideways for several seconds and snapped a few photos of me, including [...]

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Getting Ahead of Myself: The Consequences of Trying Too Much at Once

There are many interesting things about writing a blog. For one, when I’m completely honest, my successes are there for the world to see, and so are my failures. For another, I’m able to learn from the feedback of dozens (or hundreds — or thousands!) of readers.
At my personal finance blog, my public life is [...]

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The Most I’ve Ever Exercised in My Life

It is Sunday. I am exhausted. But I don’t mind. Yesterday I exercised more than I ever have before in my life.
In 1997 and 1998, I would make long bike rides, but never longer than fifty miles. These rides took about three hours to complete. And I’ve hiked several miles at a time, but again [...]

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Active Adult Living–Not As Bad As I Thought

Last week, we were out of town again. Just like with Hawaii, being out of my home element was difficult on the fitness and diet fronts. On Thursday after preschool, we jumped in the van and headed south to Pam’s parents house in Lincoln, CA.
I had a very active week: I played [...]

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The Inner Game of Health: Battle in the Cereal Aisle

Driving home from this morning’s workout, I craved cereal. Sugared cereal.
I don’t keep sugared cereal in the house. That’s dangerous. In fact, the only thing we have that’s close is Trader Joe’s “blueberry morning” instant oatmeal. Blueberry morning instant oatmeal is a poor substitute for Lucky Charms. So although I knew I shouldn’t, I [...]

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Don’t Let’s Start: Coping with Oncoming Injuries?

Yesterday was lower-body day at the gym. I did leg extensions, leg presses, leg curls, seated knee raises, and more. The workout felt good. I had taken the day off from my last lower-body workout because I felt like I was overworking my legs, so it was nice to do some more exercise.
When I got [...]

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J.D.’s April 2008 Fitness Report

Greenman2001 sent me e-mail the other day:
We haven’t heard much about your workouts in the blog lately, and I’m curious how they’re going.
I haven’t written much about my workouts recently because I’m trying to “mix it up”. I think a blog full of workout reports would be boring, so I also write about pouring salt [...]

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In Praise of Mental Toughness

At her personal site, Mac’s wife — Coach Pam — has the story of her recent 20-mile race. She’s a life-long runner. Reading her story gives me insight into the mind of a veteran. I particularly like her approach to the end of the race, where she keeps telling herself she can walk in a [...]

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Sometimes, Your Heroes Need Help Too

I received this email from J.D. yesterday morning:
Yikes. I just got up. It’s my swimming day, but I do *not* feel like going. Is it wrong to skip a workout? I’m not sick — just lazy. I could always go for a run in the afternoon…
–j.d.

My first thought after reading this it was: “Why [...]

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Gluttony Is Its Own Punishment

Just to be clear, not everything in my current fitness regimen is peaches and cream. My exercise program has been going very well indeed, but like Mac, I’m beginning to have food issues. Maybe that’s stating it too strongly. What I should say is that last weekend was difficult for me.
Most of the time, [...]

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A Little Positive Feedback

It was “lower body day” at the gym this morning. Methodically, I worked my way through the major muscle groups:

Quad: Leg extensions (from 12×50 to 6×80, with a peak at 12×70) and leg press (12×180)
Hamstrings: Lying leg curls (from 12×40 to 6×80, with a peak at 12×50) and straight-leg deadlifts (12×25)
Calves: Seated calf raises (from [...]

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Healthy Choices While on the Road

Kris and I recently spent a long weekend in San Francisco. I was worried about how I’d handle my fitness regimen while away from home. Turns out I had mixed success.
On the down side, I didn’t get any regular exercise in at all. I didn’t have time. My three days were scheduled from start to [...]

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Working Out When You’re Sick?

I am sick. I have a cold: My nose is stuffed, my throat is sore, and I’m exhausted. It’s 7:51, and I should already be at the gym. But I didn’t sleep well last night. I feel like I didn’t sleep at all.
Though I could tell I was coming down with something last Saturday morning, [...]

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Marathon Training, Day One

Some of my friends think that my plan to run a marathon is crazy. Maybe they’re right, but not for the reasons they think. To me, the crazy thing is doing Cycle Oregon just one month before the run. To meet this goal, I need help. I need a coach. Fortunately, Mac’s wife, Dr. Pam, [...]

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