I’m particularly happy with last Friday’s 4.9k run.  It actually was 4.95, and towards the end of the cooldown, when I saw how close I was to 5k, it was pretty easy to think, “I should keep going for another 2 minutes.  Then I’ll have done 5k!”  But another idea hit me right afterwards.  It was — to paraphrase — “You’ve had such a lame several weeks, you don’t deSERVE that 5k!”  So I stopped.  This might sound overly dramatic.  (And it may be!)  But here’s where it came from.

I was really moved by the HBO series “Band of Brothers” when I saw it a few years ago.  I thought of it again last week — inspired because of Veterans Day — and I re-watched the opening episode.  I felt all the same emotions as the first time, right from the first notes of the theme music; and, more than anything, it made me wish I could make my life as noble as those men did.

And when I say “noble,” I mean how they did their jobs well, simply because it was important to them to be that kind of person.  In Stephen Ambrose’s book, he says that one of the things that really stood out when you talked to these soldiers was how they chose a difficult path — becoming paratroopers — because they’d rather be with other soldiers who had chosen to do something hard, rather than be stuck with any old Sad Sack who was in the Army because they had nothing better to do.  It has nothing to do with standing up to Fascism, or braving death; though those are imposing concepts to a regular civilian.

Again, I know this can sound overly dramatic.  But I was thinking about it a lot last week.  And for some reason it popped into my head as I neared the 5k mark last week.  About how a good sergeant might have noticed how close a new recruit was to a goal, and how the sarge might well have stopped the new guy just before he reached his goal, knowing that, if the goal really was important to the new guy, he wouldn’t mope around about having missed his goal, but would rather spend every minute between now and the next chance guaranteeing himself he’d blow that goal away as soon as he was up again.

Anyway, that’s what I thought to myself:  If you really want to pat yourself on the back for running 5k, do it when you’ve actually RUN 5k, not just added two minutes of walking onto your workout.  And you know what?  It worked:  I had two really good sessions since then.  And right from the start of each of those sessions I felt I was ready to do a good, solid workout, the entire time.

So if you feel you need some motivation, think about the things that really inspire you.  Even if the inspiring thing is impossibly more important than your half-hour on an exercise machine.  It got me to really think about how well I wanted to do.  And, in this case, by holding off on something important, it made the actual attaining that much more rewarding.

Criminy.

In the spirit of actual, objective improvement — rather than self-pity, though that has it’s enticements  — I’ve looked at the reasons for this failure.  There are two.

ONE — A big vacation

Lots of stressful planning.  This was a trip to China, so you had the generic, distracting excitements of a visit to Beijing (The Great Wall!  The Summer Palace!  The Forbidden City!), to Xi’an (the terracotta warriors!  the Muslim quarter!), and to Yangshuo (the mountains! the river!); plus you had the actual logistics, which were many and complicated; plus you had the return-home week, which is always hard.  Those elements combined to wipe out a good three-plus weeks, with no exercise whatsoever, not counting the natural tourist traipsings within the trip.

TWO — A sudden lack of motivation

The week before the week before we left was great.  I was over 6km total, and I was running 11 minute stretches, at 11.4kph!  But the next week — the week before we left — it just got to be too much.  I was up late with final preparations, several generic family time-crunches began appearing, and I reached that familiar spot where I said, “Forget it.”  On the treadmill, 22 minutes in:  “Forget it.”  That was the Monday of that week, and I skipped Wednesday, and I flew on Friday.  And when I returned, I was duking it out with a cold, and had all that laundry, and you know what?  Forget it.

**********

So a month goes by with hardly any exercise.  This week, it was time to get back into things.  I ran Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for half an hour each.  I scaled back to 7-minute running segments, and only ran them at 10.7kph.  Today felt pretty good, actually, and at the end, after the cooldown, it was nice to see “33 MINUTES” and “5.12 KILOMETERS” and “450 CALORIES”.  I hope I’m back on track.

I’ll admit I had a little bit of concern about the big gap.  And by “a little bit of concern” I mean I was thinking, “Wouldn’t it just blow if I kept skipping out, and months pass, and then in another fit of ‘get it together, man!’ I’ll start from scratch all over again?”  What I’m hoping for, though, is that years from now I can look back and say, “Sure, that happens when there’s a big vacation.  You miss out for a week or two or three, and you have to backtrack a little, but it’s just what happens, and I always got right back in.”

Time = 35 minutes (2 min @ 7.0kph, alternating with 8 min @ 11.0kph.  Plus a 5 min cool-down.)

Distance = 5.55k

*Today (Friday)

Time = 35 minutes (2 min @ 7.0, alternating with 8 min @ 11.0.  The last 8-minute segment I upped to 11.4kph.  Then a 5 min cool-down.)

Distance = 5.62k

Today’s run presented an interesting problem:  What do you do when the only time available to run is some bizarre time of the day?

Normally I run in the morning, after putting the kids on the school bus.  And like many of you I have other days when the only time to run is all the way at the end of the day, after everything else is taken care of.

But today the whole world conspired to knock my plans out of contention.  If this were a family life blog I’d give you all the amazing details — playdates, sleepovers, urgent grocery situation, and the delay — twice! — of the return of one of my children by her friend’s parents.  Then at the other end of the day is an actual dinner date my wife and I have with another couple.  Put it all together, and the window for my run — which had been a generous “anytime in the afternoon” — shrank and shrank with each sneak attack.

By the time everything was finally resolved, it was 4:45.  I had one small window left:  run from 4:45 to 5:20.  Then the kids could get their dinner at 5:30, I could get showered when they were done, and I’d make our 7:00 dinner.

The big issue at 4:45, though, was that I was not in a good mood generally, and I definitely did not feel like running.  Why didn’t I get up early and take care of my run before everyone got up?  Why couldn’t those parents come when they said they’d come, so I didn’t sit around for an hour and a half doing nothing?  And so on.

When I finally went down to the treadmill, I wasn’t happy about it.  And the first 10 minutes was not fun:  I felt stiff, my mood was cranky, I kept thinking, “Just turn it off and call it a day and do it tomorrow.”

But the nice thing was that, with each passing minute or two, I found my body loosening up; and I found that my mind was so busy threshing out all these cranky feelings that big chunks of time would pass.  That’s really helpful, when you look up and go, “Wow!  I just ran two and a half minutes without looking at the clock!”  And in the end, I finished feeling quite good about the running, and much better about the whole day.

So:  Everybody says it, but it also happens to be true:  Even if it’s a pain, you still should get out there.  If it really is terrible, pack it in and start over the next day; no worries.  But if it improves, even just a little, you’re on your way to feeling good about putting in the work again, even when you really didn’t want to.

Time = 36 minutes

Distance = 5.7k

Notes = 2 minutes @ 7.0kph, alternating with 6 minutes @ 10.8kph.  Plus 4 minutes of cool down.  Additionally, the final running segment — the entire 6 minutes! — I ran at 11.2kph.

Yesterday — Monday — was the start of Week #5 of this regimen.  It’s exciting to have the running segments getting further along in their length.  At the same time, it provides a small mathematics issue:  How to get odd numbers of minutes and segments to add up the right way.

You might be laughing, but let me tell you:  There’s some tricky math hidden in there!  (Nerd alert!  Please don’t continue if you’re put to sleep by waves of statistics.)

Last week I ran 2-minute/6-minute walk/run segments.  That’s a total of 8 minutes per cycle.  Remember that the total activity you’re aiming for in a Galloway (or Galloway-inspired, in my case) regimen is 30 minutes.  But for these 8-minute segments, it’s easy to see that four of them equal thirty-two minutes, only an additional two minutes from that 30-minute base.  So I made the entire workout thirty-two minutes.  Right?  Four 8-minute segments (2/6 + 2/6 + 2/6 +2/6) gets you 32 minutes total.  And when you break that down, you see that you get a total of 8 minutes of walking plus 24 minutes of running.  Fine.

Now we’re on to Week 5.  Time to up the length of my running segments.  Last week I ran 6-minute segments, so this week could be 7- or, if I’m feeling good about everything, 8-minute segments.  How do those cycles work out, so I know how long to set the treadmill for?

2-minute walk + 7-minute run = 9-minute segments.  Three of those segments gets you 27 minutes on the treadmill, but you’re only getting a total of 21 minutes of running (7 x 3).  Four of those segments get you 36 minutes on the treadmill, but I’d like to stay a little closer to 30 minutes at this point.  So I looked at the other possibility.

2-minute walk + 8-minute run = 10-minute segments.  Three of those segments gets you a clean 30 minutes on the treadmill.  But the total amount of that time spent running?  24 minutes!  (8 x 3)  The same as last week’s!

I’m certainly not going to do 4 of those segments — 40 minutes on the treadmill — at this point; so it comes down to whether I’d rather increase my total time spent running, or be happy with my ability to run a longer running segment.  36 minutes on the treadmill vs. 30 minutes.

It may be cowardice, but in the name of keeping a steady plan in place, and in making sure no more IT band issues flare up if I can help it, I went with the 8-minute running segments, for a total of 30 minutes on the treadmill.  That means my total running time for the entire workout is no different this week than last week’s.  To help compensate for that a little, and because I felt completely comfortable at 10.8kph last week, I upped my running speed to 11.0kph this week.

And things went well yesterday.  The higher speed was no problem; the longer running segments were no problem.  And I got a little math work done on the way.  Nice.

Time = 35 minutes

Distance = 5.55k

Notes = 2 minutes @ 7.0kph, alternating with 8 minutes @ 11.0kph.  Plus 5 minutes of cool down.

Time = 35 minutes (2 minutes of walking at 7.0 kph, alternating with 6 minutes of running at 10.8 kph, plus 3 minutes of cool down at the end)

Distance = 5.6 k

So why am I spending time on the treadmill three times a week?  And why take a few extra minutes to post the results here?

There’s a long answer, and there’s a short answer.  The long answer is for another time.

The short answer is that for three decades I didn’t work particularly hard at anything.  And most of the time I was fine with that.

I would occasionally see an article on some impressive athlete, or writer, or musician, or scientist, and think, “Gosh, I wish I could be in that position.”  But the immediate follow-up to that was always, “Yes, but that takes work, and sacrifice.  You say you’d like to be doing something impressive, but you prefer to be relaxed, low-key, casual; stay up late watching TV if you want; have a second cocktail; eat the rest of the ice cream; surf the web for a few hours; etc.”

And I had to admit that that was true.  I did prefer the way I was living.  No reason to beat yourself up if you actually are happy the way you are.

Then a couple of things happened in short succession that forced me to rethink that.  The first is that the kids got old enough to be in school full-time.  The second is that we moved to a major metropolitan area.  And by major I mean one of the world’s great cities, where everything is designed to be done for you.  We’re in an apartment complex, so any repairs go through the management.  The flat comes with a maid, so the cooking and the cleaning is done for you.  Every single shop in town delivers:  sandwiches, furniture, dry cleaners.

That sounds like a dream come true:  A few years where you don’t have to do anything.  But I’m here to tell you that it gets to be a little weird after a while.  And, soon enough, I found myself thinking, What am I doing?

This isn’t particularly new, or dramatic, or even interesting.  But I decided to look through our life — everything, from big concepts like diet and exercise to mundane matters like scheduling a time to do homework or scheduling a weekly computer backup — and think about how to do it well.  (Or, in some cases, how to do it at all.)

And running became something new on the list.  “Running” in my case means both the regular exercise and the appearance in a race now and then.  It also means being disciplined enough to follow through on something you’ve chosen to try doing.  And the posting of the results here is hopefully a way to keep me honest, as well as a place where progress hopes to be seen.

Last Friday I finished the end of my third week of Galloway-style training.  That training, to be overly general, aims to have 30 uninterrupted minutes of activity as your baseline.  Even if you can only run for one minute, you still continue moving by walking for one minute; then back to running, and so on.  If you can only run for one minute and have to walk for two, that’s OK.  As long as you stay moving for 30 minutes, you’re on your way.

I began that first week with 2 minutes of walking alternating with 2 minutes of running.  I found I could do that for the entire 30 minutes.

Then — again, being overly general — you add more running time with each passing week.  The idea is that over time you gradually teach your body to go longer, so that, after x number of weeks, you can run for the entire 30 minutes.  In my case, for Week Two I went to 2 minutes of walking alternating with 3 minutes of running.  Last week, Week Three, I walked for 2 minutes and then ran for 4 minutes, back and forth.

Today begins Week Four.  And, because I’d felt good throughout the first three weeks, I increased the running segments to 6 minutes of running.  I kept a close eye on my right knee  –  one of the main reasons I’d begun this method of training is IT band trouble in the past, which I’ll talk about in a later post  –  but it never gave any trouble, or even hints of trouble.

So by the end of today’s 30 minutes, I felt good enough that I ran for one extra minute!  That’s not much in the world of running, but I was impressed with myself.  I say, if you’re not in danger of injury (or re-injury), and if you feel like kicking it in at the end — whether by adding another minute or two, or by speeding up a notch or two for the final minutes — freaking go for it, man.

Totals for today

Time on the treadmill = 35 minutes (23 minutes of running, 8 minutes of walking, 4 minutes of cool down)

Distance covered = 5.5k

This morning, on the treadmill:  Tell them what we’ve got, Johnny!

Time = 30 minutes

Pace = 2 minutes walking @ 7.0 kph, alternating with 4 minutes of running @ 10.8 kph

Total distance, including cool down = 5.01 k

Time on treadmill = 30 minutes

Walk/Run ratio = 2 minutes walking / 4 minutes running

Total, including the 3-minute cool down walk = Exactly 5k.  That’s right, baby!  I’ve now officially finished a 5k.  In just 33 minutes, no less.

So the alarm went off at 5:50am.  Not the most ideal time, but I managed to get up.  Details:

30 minutes on the treadmill

12 minutes of walking + 18 minutes of running

Same as Wednesday, except that I cranked up the running speed for the final three minutes, from 6.5mph to 7.0mph.  Just like I did last Friday.  Sort of a “that’s RIGHT, I’m kickin’ it in, ’cause I hit all my days this week!” kind of thing.

In the end, that three minutes of running half-a-mile-per-hour faster only increased my distance from 4.85 km to 4.90 km.  But you know what?  I’ll take it!

In the meantime, I began looking at just how to get from here (Hong Kong) to there (Siam Reap, Cambodia, for the Angkor Wat 10K).  Early signs?  It ain’t gonna be cheap.  Ah well.  I suppose it’s a good test of one’s determination.  By Monday I hope to have a real itinerary.  I’ll let you know what I figure out.