Activitybased Lifestyle

As a way to keep my health, I've returned to treadmill running the last three days now. Nothing spectacular, I simply wake up every morning, turn on my ipod and jog on my treadmill. Maybe I should return to the gym starting this week. So far, I managed something between 40 to 50 minute jogging on treadmill each day. That's all for now. I need to finish reading Sanjay Gupta. I am interested on his thought about Cancer. Yeah, the big C.

Later...

I know I am entitled to it after all these months of working out and working hard in my job. I decided to do something grand this week: Do nothing! And it's working pretty well for me.

It has been a hectic week and I swear, every afternoon, I keep promising myself to pass by the gym to work-out before heading home. But my body is literally screaming at me - it says -- home home home, bed bed bed. I surely follow my body. Another thing is, I am still having a residual cough which is gradually vanishing but still lingering and my afternoons are the worst.

So, yeah, I am not ashamed to tell you all that this is a week of laziness as far as workouts and running are concerned. I know I will get cranky soon if I keep this up but I am not complaining.

After worrying about this race due to my recent bout with cold ( I am still coughing actually) I tried to pull this last half marathon held in Fort Lauderdale. It's my 3 half marathons in 3 months. Surprisingly, I did good with this last one clocking 02:18:40 which is much better than my previous two half marathons. Not that it matters to anyone but it feels good to better myself each year. This one race though is a race of cramps (again) because I sort of 'gave my best'. No Garmin, no worrying about pace, Lord, even my right arm was cramping - I just had a cold so I thought of finishing the whole damn thing as fast as I could and then go home to sleep. I was worried to death about making my coughing worse. One thing I learned is, when cramping, either stop and walk or lessen the speed to as slowly as you can. I need to work more on this - but really, I don't have time anymore to contemplate my running - I am just tired of it. For now, the three halves are done and there.

My next goal is to get better with speed - I'm gonna focus on some 5ks. I will continue with the normal training though. And oh, yeah, I need to go back to the gym. After sleeping the whole day, I feel good.

What I worried about, my cold, is almost all gone, except for the occasional coughs here and there ( I don't trust the ventilation of my work place - every time I work, I feel sinus issues which clears up when I stay home. We probably need to clean the vent system). Anyway, after my long run last Sunday, I developed a late onset of muscle soreness no amount of active recovery or stretching could relieve. I won't take pain meds. Again, I am anti-pills especially pain relievers, that's just me. I don't trust them. I'll take them if prescribed but I won't take over the counter pills if I can help it. Now the soreness is almost gone as well. I think I still can run the Feb 22 race. But I am not talking of breaking personal records here. I will run merely for fun. I will be with friends but as I said in my previous post, I might spend only very little time with them because what I need nowadays is major REST. I have books to read, blogs to write, miles to run, and hours to sleep. Sleep, I am beginning to put value on sleep again. Sleep is the major vitamin man can utilize. Sleep makes the body recover the lost energy, it repairs, regenerate and replenishes the lost tissues damaged by wear and tear, it clears up the mind, it frees one from dreaded stresses, it balances the imbalances of the body. Sleep is a very important medication.

For the last two days, I have been limiting myself to slow recovery walks and jogs on my treadmill. My quads and calves were killing me. Oh BTW, when I ran 12.5 miles last Sunday after being sick for ten days? Uhm, don't do that. It was what I called a desperate run, meant only to check if I could pull a half marathon this coming Sunday. The soreness would be severe if you do something like that. In fact, a beginner runner might sustain an injury for doing that.

I mentioned this to my friend Matt as well after he ran 5 miles (which he never did before - the most he did was 3 miles prior). A few days after the run, he said he could not get up due to severe back pain.

For runners, lets all remember the 10 percent rule. You increase your weekly mileage only by ten percent. Especially long distance runs, don't increase them more than 10 percent weekly.

I would probably extend that rule to everything. I like the number 10 anyway. In the book Outliers, it says to become a 'specialist' or 'expert' on anything, it takes 10 years to regularly practice. In hospital setting, it takes only 10 days on bed before developing malaise and cachexia/de-conditioning and when you resume normal tasks, you'd get so dizzy because of orthostatic hypotension. It took me ten days to recover from my recent cold. Ten miles running should make you ready for half marathon. Ten is such a magical word. You change the first digit of your age every ten years.

Ok, I am turning goofy now. Let me sign off. For weights, it's also safe to follow the ten percent rule.

I'd probably run in the park tonight.

And swimmers too. Make sure you put some mechanical stress on bones at times:
From LA Times