A Philosopher's Blog

Philosophical Essays on Many Subjects

Treadmill

Dread Mill

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Johnson T7000 Treadmill @ TaiSPO 2006.
Image via Wikipedia

I am a lazy runner. I do not like speed work or hill work. I prefer to simply run distance at a comfortable pace. I have been like this for as long as I have been a runner, which seems to be at odds with the fact that I have run some pretty good times and was even all-conference twice in college cross country. However, my laziness is a relative sort of thing. Back in the day (that is, back when I ran 33 minute 10Ks and 16 minute 5Ks) my comfortable pace  for my lazy distance running was 7:00 minutes per mile for 13-16 miles. Back then, I was a running machine: I could lock into that pace and keep it mile after mile.

While I am lazy by nature when it comes to running, I also love to compete. As such, I was willing to set aside my laziness during track and cross country seasons and endure speed work and hill work. After college, I settled back into my lazy distance ways, although I would engage in some social running, even if it involved visiting a track. I did, of course, keep racing and that seemed to work out well.

Sadly, it is no longer back in the day and my lazy ways have ceased to serve me well, mainly because my comfortable pace for 13+ miles is no longer 7 minutes. While I have tried using my GPS watch to force me to run harder, my natural laziness proved to be stronger: I’ll speed up for a mile, then I’ll start slacking until I catch myself.

Thanks to my summer unemployment (budget cuts at the university) I had plenty of extra time and started going to planned and supervised track work outs. Normally I loath doing that, but there are few races in the summer here in Florida, so I just told my lazy self that this was racing (I am, oddly enough, not lazy when I race). However, I am back to teaching again and have to return to my usual schedule, which means no evening workouts. However, these had helped me so much I wanted to keep working hard. As such, I needed a way to defeat my own laziness.

As I mentioned above, I had tried my GPS watch. But its beeps and data fields lacked the power needed to be a cruel master of my running. I needed something with the power to prevent my laziness. In my desperation, I turned to the much hated tread mill (or, as runners often call then, “dread mills.”

My girlfriend recently moved to Orlando, leaving behind her very nice Nordic Track treadmill at my house (along with 7.6 tons of other stuff from her apartment). While I normally scorn treadmills, I realized that the damn thing could force me to run at a certain pace. This would, I reasoned, force me to run fast and also help retrain me to running at a fixed pace. While the readouts for distance and pace are probably not dead on, they are probably pretty close. In any case, my Garmin watch provides accurate time and heart rate data so I would know how long I had been running and my effort.

So, I warmed up by running a few miles outside, then fired up the dread mill. The first time I tried it, I must have triggered some sort of per-programmed workout or death trap: the thing suddenly sped up  to a much faster pace and activated the incline feature at the same time. That got my heart rate up pretty good before I could stop it. After re-setting the infernal thing, I was able to run a test 5K on it at a moderate 6:45 mile pace. That worked out pretty well, although the boredom almost killed me. I got some water and then did a five mile run outside. That helped me sweat out the shame of being on a treadmill.

I did find that although the treadmill has some big buttons for controlling the various settings (mainly speed and incline), working them while running was rather awkward and they did not always react when pushed. While I did see that it could be programmed, the actual process seemed to be pretty annoying and limited in its functionality. That is when I noticed the iFit slot (really just an SD card slot). I went online and found that cards could be used to load workouts. I did not want to make Jillian Michaels any richer and wanted to design my own workouts, so I did not buy any of the preloaded cards. I figured that the iFit files were pretty simply (just commands to adjust speed and incline) and found some free software to create my own files. The software is not fancy, but it gets the job done. Because of the way iFit works, it seems that workouts have to be programmed in one minute intervals (this can be exceeded, but is supposed to cause some minor problems). Fortunately, my workout cap on the dread mill is 3 miles of hard running and some rest jogging, which means I only need to program in a bit over 20 minutes. I did read that some SD cards do not work with the iFit readers (usually the ones that are larger than 1 GB). I tried a 32MB card that came with my digital camera and it worked fine. The actual files are very small, so unless you load the card with audio (you can link audio files to the workout, but I do not) a small card should suffice.

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Always Shake the Mustard…

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Australian "duct tape".
Image via Wikipedia

While it is often said that age brings wisdom, this is not always true. After all, older folks like me often do very unwise things. However, age does bring opportunities to learn wisdom, mainly from events arising from a failure of wisdom.

Some lessons are fairly minor. For example, I have learned the importance of always shaking the mustard. As you might have also noticed, the first squeeze of mustard typically results in mustard pee rather than actual mustard. This can be a bit annoying, especially if you are packing a now soggy sandwich for latter. The solution is easy enough-always shake the mustard and save yourself from the sogginess.

Other lessons are somewhat more serious. As a specific example, I learned a lot when I was helping my girlfriend pack up her stuff in anticipation of her move from Tallahassee to Orlando. On that particular day, we were moving her treadmill and weight bench to my house for storage. I had to take apart the treadmill to get it out of her apartment and found that although I had brought twenty different Allen wrenches, none of them quite fit. This taught me that it is a good idea to bring every damn size of tool, especially since it seems that every company has a different sized Allen wrench for every different product they make. I forgot to mention that on my way to move the treadmill, it started to rain-even though it had been sunny. This taught me to always pack some plastic and duct tape when moving other people’s stuff.

After the treadmill was ready to move, my girlfriend wanted to move her weight bench outside. I made the classic error of not asking her if it was secured for the move and the even greater error of not checking it to see that it was, in fact secured. Naturally, it wasn’t. So, as we moved it, a major piece of metal came slamming down on my finger. This taught me to make sure that anything I am moving for someone has been properly secured for the move.

Seeing the blood spraying out from it, I first checked to see if my finger was still attached. It was, but I could not see the extent of the damage. So, I went to her bathroom to clean of the blood and determine if I would need stitches. I could see that the wound was probably not in need of stitches, but I was still bleeding and needed to put a stop to that-at the very least to keep her from becoming annoyed by my repainting of her apartment.

I asked her if she had any gauze or even band aids. She, of course, did not. This taught me that when helping people move, it is a good idea to bring my own first aid kid. Realizing that the toilet paper was not going to cut it, I looked around and then though “ah, she’s a chick, so she has to have some feminine products.” I spotted the maxi pads and pressed one against the wound. I was now faced with two problems. First, I needed a way to secure the pad. Second, I had a maxi pad on my finger, which was clearly a threat to my Y chromosome. The solution to both problems was, of course, duct tape. It held the pad in place while simultaneously balancing out its feminine influence. This was yet another lesson in the awesomeness of duct tape, thus confirming the old adage that you should never leave home without it.

The treadmill and weight bench eventually made it to my house, with only a little more of my blood being shed (a small leg wound). This experience confirmed my past lesson about moving. First, try to avoid owing anything that you cannot move yourself. Second, it can be well worth it to pay a professional to move things that are really annoying to move. Third, if you have a girlfriend, she will always expect you to help her move. Fourth, if you have a truck, she will expect you to move all her heavy stuff and you will probably end up bleeding at least a little.

 

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Easy Exercise I: Time

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There are two types of people: those who like to exercise and those who do not. If you have read some of my other blogs about running and my recent quadriceps tendon surgery, you know that I not only like to exercise, I am a fanatic. Well, a reformed fanatic these days-I finally accepted the fact that I’m no longer an indestructible running machine. This blog is for the folks who are not crazy like me, the folks who think they really should get around to doing some exercise, but have a hard time getting started and sticking with it.

Most people talk about getting into shape and some even try to start exercising. But, it can be tough. Exercise takes time and it is, for most people, painful and unpleasant. So, the main challenge in sticking with exercise is overcoming those two main hurdles: time and pain. I’ll focus on time in this blog.

In addition to my (reformed) fanaticism, I am also lucky to have a job that allows me to fit in exercise quite easily. While I tend to work 50-60 hours a week, only 20 of those hours are fixed (12 hours of class and 8 hours in my office). So, I can easily fit in exercise. Most people don’t have such a flexible schedule.  I’m also divorced and don’t have kids, so that also gives me a great deal of time that married folks and folks with kids lack. But what if you don’t have such a flexible schedule? What if your week is packed with things that are keeping you busy? What can you do? Here are some ideas.

Television
Television is, in many ways, the bane of the body and the mind. It is so very easy to plop down with a bag of Cheetos and watch one reality TV show after another. Not surprisingly, people who tell me that they can’t find any time to exercise often have well used remote controls that are coated with Cheeto dust. While TV is thus often seen as the enemy of fitness, you can make it your fitness friend. While there are all sorts of fitness videos that you can watch, these would obviously interfere with your usual TV patterns. What works best is using the time you already have set aside for TV as exercise time as well.

The trick is to find an exercise that you can do while watching TV. Naturally, it has to be something that allows you to watch the shows while also providing exercise. Since people sit while watching TV, the most obvious exercise is to ride an exercise bike. These bikes are fairly inexpensive (although you can blow a fortune on gym grade equipment) and provide a reasonable amount of exercise. A treadmill is also a good choice, although a good one is more expensive than a decent bike.

The downside to exercising while watching TV is that most people find it difficult to keep up their workout intensity while watching TV. However, even lower effort exercise is better than no exercise.

Work
While some jobs provide plenty of opportunity for physical activity, most do not. For example, if you work 9-5 in sales, your main activity will probably be walking around the store. While working out seriously and building up a sweat is not an option at most work places, there are opportunities for exercise. Some of these are the obvious ones: take the stairs rather than the elevator and walk around at every legitimate opportunity. Some of these are less obvious. For example, there are some limited exercises that can be done while sitting down at work. These are mostly isometric exercises. If you have a lunch hour, you can get your lunch to go and go for a walk.

Getting to and from work also provides the opportunity for exercise. If you live close enough to work, then walking or biking can be a good option. In addition to saving you money, it will also improve your health. Of course, most people live too far from work to do this and most American cities tend to be very dangerous for biking. When I moved to Tallahassee, I thought I’d be able to bike to work year round. But, after several near death experiences (we did get bike lanes a while ago, but drivers use them as extra road space and a place to dispose of glass bottles) I finally gave up. Weather is, of course, also a factor. But, if you live in a bike and pedestrian friendly place, this is an excellent option.

Play
These day, many recreational activities provide little or no exercise. For example, playing video games or watching a movie do not do much for fitness. People do, of course, set aside time for entertainment. One way to work in exercise is to replace passive activities with more active activities. For example, rather than having the kids play a skating video game while the adults watch  sports on TV, the family could go for a bike ride, play tennis, or do some other activity that is truly active. If someone has time to play video games for hours, then they have the time to exercise. Yes, there are video games that purport to provide exercise opportunities. These are, of course, better than nothing. However, they are not better than doing real activities. While I do like video games, it always struck me as really odd that people would play games that involve things like skateboarding, soccer, running, or basketball when they could go and do these activities for real-thus having fun and also getting some exercise.

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