September 10, 2007

exercise updates

So, I've been hitting the gym basically every day since April, getting myself into shape to join the Marines.

I'm doing really well. I mean, I never thought of myself as unfit previously, but I did notice that I didn't have an easy time doing physical activities. While I enjoyed hiking, I was also often miserable during it. My breathing rate was high while diving (too high to be a good cave diver). And then, of course, I got weighed at 197lb while getting a flight physical.

The past few months have made a huge difference. I can do 15 pull-ups (I should hit 20 by the time I leave). I can run 1.5 miles in 12:30, in the Texas heat and humidity. I can do 110 crunches in 2 minutes. And my weight is down below 175 (below 170 without clothes, probably).

The biggest single thing that's made this possible is quitting WoW. It's made finding an hour during the day to hit the gym pretty easy to do, generally.

I think I'm mostly posting this as a reminder to myself, about how much better I feel when I'm exercising regularly, and how much fitter I am than I have ever been (even as a kid). I'm sure boot camp will be an even more intense physical conditioning, but I've put in enough prep work that I'm not afraid of it :)

Posted by jeff at 05:50 PM | Comments (0)

May 26, 2007

Jog jog jog

(Hard to come up with interesting titles for these)

13 laps, 30:35 (pace 26:00)

Posted by jeff at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2007

Running times

5/19 - 16:20, 7 laps (pace 14:00). First mile in 9:30
5/20 - 33:10, 13 laps (pace 26:00)
5/22 - 9:00 mile (first!)
5/23 - 32:20 2.7 miles

Tomorrow's an off day for running, I'll get in some squats and the 15 minute situp/pushup cycle (got out of work late today, so all I got to do were chinups. Chinups/pushups are on alternate days, now.)

I turned off LJ repost, I hate spamming the friends lists of people with exercise info that's really only meaningful to me.

The 9 minute mile is huge. It was during interval training, so I need to repeat it at pace, and extend it to 7 laps (for a 14:00 time), but that's really my big goal and I'm glad to see it's getting closer.

Posted by jeff at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)

May 01, 2007

Clumsy

I was just sitting around the office being a slacker, when "Clumsy" by Our Lady Peace cued up. It's often amazing how intrinsically music gets tied to my memories, often due to how often I'll leave songs on repeat. In Spring of 1998, I was working as a tech at a lab in the Blocker building of Texas A&M. We had an old Mac that was the only computer in the lab with and audio card. It wasn't much, but it was (barely) enough to play an mp3. It was a pain to load a mp3 on the system, so the only one that got loaded was OLP's "Clumsy". Listening to it now reminds me of melancholy and bittersweet times working in that lab.

Last night I jogged 54:30 for 18 laps (4 miles). Annoyingly, endorphines only kicked in after the 10th lap. Tonight, in a bit, I'm going to go do some interval running. It is nice, though, to get my distance up to what I used to run regularly.

Posted by jeff at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2007

What all this fool's been up to

Just some updates on what I've been up to the past few weeks... er months... er probably close to a year, now.

After raiding with Fist of the Horde for more than a year, I finally quit earlier this month. Everyone else was leaving, and I'd been planning on quitting anyway. I ended up giving my account to a couple of guildmates. I could've sold it for a decent amount, but I would've felt bad about doing so.

For my (28th) birthday, I bought myself a pistol (Kimber UltraCarry 2). It's a nice little gun, and I've been trying to make it out to the range twice a week or so to shoot. To facilitate this, I went ahead and got a range membership (and a lot of practice ammo from an online reseller).

Last week I got a membership at the university's student rec center. I've been going there during the time I would've otherwise been playing a video game of some sort, and it's been nice. I found out that I'm a lot more out of shape than I really thought I was, and it's been painful getting back into the swing of things. My immediate goal is to get down to a 9 minute mile, which is not something I've ever been able to really do. Since I'm there anyway to jog and use the stationary bikes, I've also started working on my arms, abs, and legs. I'm significantly older than I was the last time I tried to get in shape, and stuff repairs slower, but I think I'm making some progress.

Those are the big things going on with me right now. If I have any interesting updates, I'll try to make a post :)

Posted by jeff at 06:54 PM | Comments (0)