Staying fit improves outdoor enjoyment

I didn’t have a very productive day over in TheGarage yesterday and here’s why: I re instituted my treadmill workout about three weeks ago and since then I have burned up yet another treadmill and this time instead of purchasing another cheap-ass but very expensive treadmill from Academy, I signed up for a month at the Angleton Rec Center. Workouts are going well.

Even though I’ve had an unfortunate weight loss gain due to an illness back in ‘06 and have been sitting on my ass up until October of last year, my fitness level has recuperated quite nicely and in less than three weeks on the treadmill I am almost back up to my old routine, which is quite vigorous. I am not at the same performance level, but aerobic and endurance is good.

This is all good but the problem and the reason I didn’t get much done yesterday is that my body is killing me. And unlike my fitness level, my body still looks like shit and now it feels like crap too. I am walking around here like an old man. And it takes a little longer these days for the body to recuperate after a hard workout and the weight isn’t melting away like butter either.

Today will be the fifth consecutive day and seventh consecutive weekday at the rec center.  I am working up to six days a week while keeping ibuprofen intake to a minimum.

I’ve used this treadmill workout to lose almost a hundred pounds back in 2004-05 without having to track a complicated diet. If you are interested, here is the basic workout.

1. Warmup – However much walking and stretching it takes to get you walking at your baseline* for the day. A lot of basic upper body stretching and calisthenics can be done while walking but for step 2 you need to have your legs completely ready for some serious work and some floor stretching is recommended. About 10 to 15 minutes
2. Walk a 5K – Thats 3.1 miles. Walk it as fast as you can with the purpose of improving your baseline. The upside to this is that after a few weeks at it, whenever you are at an event that features a 5K run/walk you can sign up and bust out a 5K no problem. My fastest time so far is 42 minutes. Back at my peak in 2005 I was down to a 38 minute 5K. Fast enough to place in the top 10 or so at a lot of walks.
3. Recovery – slow down to the fastest pace that you can walk and still allow cardiovascular recovery. You will notice over time that the higher this speed is, the higher your baseline is in the 5K. About 5 minutes
4. Incline -  Make it hurt, recover. Make it hurt, recover. About 15 minutes of this. Strive for less recovery and more hurt.
5. Warm down – Reduce speed in increments to a crawl allowing your body to return to a normal state while walking slowly.

That’s it.  Takes about an hour and 10 minutes. I usually carry five pound dumb bells the whole time but you have to work up to that. I’ll probably start that regimen next week. Good balance and control are essential for dumbbell work on a treadmill.

If you don’t feel like you are floating on air when you get finished with my treadmill workout, you didn’t work hard enough.

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*Baseline – This is the term I use to indicate the minimum pace I want to walk and is usually equal to my best previous time. If I am trying to beat 42 minutes, my baseline is 4.4 mph. If I can average over that I improve my time.