Waanie slowly builds up the mileage

[Waanie]

Thanks for your support. I'm "in the system", which consists several forms of help, including a counselor who visits me weekly for venting & planning, and whom I can call any time if something comes up. It will take time, and probably resigning my job just before the finish-line, to get better again, but I do realise that there will be a better again at some point in the future. For now, the most important thing is to break out of the negative spiral, maintain some form of social life and hope that my therapist can talk sense into my managers. 

 

For now, I have to focus on small wins, maintaining structure and realising that there are many people who care about me. Also, my cats love it when I'm reading all day and are disappointed when they need to get off my lap .

 

[annyshay]

Glad to hear that you have support in person even if it's not coming from work. That's a lot to be going through. We're here in cyber spirit.

[Waanie]

16 hours ago, annyshay said:

Glad to hear that you have support in person even if it's not coming from work. That's a lot to be going through. We're here in cyber spirit.

The support here is amazing. I agree with everyone here that it does not replace either healthcare or IRL family/friends/acquintances, but every little thing helps.

 

Week 2, Thursday

Many Pokemon got caught during my early-morning walk, slowly but surely I'm leveling up ;). Afterwards, I decided to start with the 30-day yoga challenge of Bad Yogi, since it is fast-paced, down to earth and removes the necessity to choose in the near future. The afternoon consisted of "practical counseling" (weekplanning and such) and clarinet lesson, so it was a busy day all in all.

Walking: 5.4km (21.4/35)

Yoga: Yes! (2/3)

Running/Strength: Nope (0/1,1/1)

Scales: Nope. I had clarinet lesson, but we did not play scales (1/3)

 

Also, one of my cats enjoys lying in my yoga-mat if I roll it up loosely:

[Sciread77]

I’m off the site for a few days and miss something important like this every time. Those feelings suck. I’m glad you have support. And even I, Random Internet Guy 77, is here if you ever need an ear. May the Force be with you. And may those small wins abound. 

[Waanie]

Week 2, Friday & Saturday

Especially Saturday was a really good day, with multiple fun & social activities. Climbing was a lot of fun even though I have not climbed enough in the past half year, and now I'm really sore everywhere (mostly lats, shoulders, fore-arms and glutes). In the evening we had a performance with the orchestra, which was also a lot of fun . It was a bit too much to do on one day, since today I'm very tired as a result, but that's okay. I'm also glad I started the 30 day challenge of Bad Yogi again, I secretly like her style much more than YWA, and choosing the next video is not a road-block for me this way.

Walking/running: 5.1km/2.2km (27.7km)

Yoga: Yes on both days! (4/3)

Running/Strength: Nope (0/1,1/1)

Scales: Yes on both days! (3/3)

[Waanie]

Week 2, Sunday

The first day after summertime is always tough, but it is nice to be able to walk outside after dinner. 

Walking/running: 8km (35.7km/35km)

Yoga: Nope (4/3)

Running/Strength: Running away from zombies. Even though running 30s at a time does not feel like real running, any zombies, run! workout counts. (1/1,1/1)

Scales: Nope (3/3)

 

Week 2 report

I achieved all my goals . It was mentally still a very wonky week, but not as bad as week 1. Having a fixed route to walk  in the morning makes it much easier to go out, and knowing on beforehand what yoga to do also decreases the required will-power. My climbing has become much worse over the past months, but I'm glad I started again. It will be frustrating to build up the required strength and technique again, but I'm sure it will come back in no time. Happy week 3!

[J3NN]

Sounds like you're doing good this week, I'm sorry about the ebbs and flows of that feeling. I guess if we didn't have both the ups and downs we might become complacent, but sometimes it would just be nice if things could be good for longer than a few days.

 

I'll contribute some kitty pics when I get home and find out what my three are up to.

 

Keep up the good works.

[WolfDreamer]

On 4/1/2019 at 6:58 AM, Waanie said:

running 30s at a time does not feel like real running

 

Actually, short bursts of sprinting are sometimes more effective than distance running.

 

"Sprinting and running can both help you lose weight. If you only have 20 minutes, you burn more calories with a sprint-and-walk interval than with a 20-minute non-stop run. Sprinting incinerates more calories after the workout compared to steadyrunning." via LiveStrong.com

[Waanie]

On 4/1/2019 at 10:23 PM, J3NN said:

Sounds like you're doing good this week, I'm sorry about the ebbs and flows of that feeling. I guess if we didn't have both the ups and downs we might become complacent, but sometimes it would just be nice if things could be good for longer than a few days.

 

I'll contribute some kitty pics when I get home and find out what my three are up to.

 

Keep up the good works.

Thanks for your support . 

 

15 hours ago, WolfDreamer said:

 

Actually, short bursts of sprinting are sometimes more effective than distance running.

 

"Sprinting and running can both help you lose weight. If you only have 20 minutes, you burn more calories with a sprint-and-walk interval than with a 20-minute non-stop run. Sprinting incinerates more calories after the workout compared to steadyrunning." via LiveStrong.com

My goal is increased endurance, as my weight is fine at the moment. Nonetheless, I do believe that building up with intervals is better than long ultra-slow running, both for my knees and my motivation. And yeah, I do actually do some sprints in my free-form run at the end (where you can choose to walk or run whenever).

 

A longer update is incoming, however I do need to go out for a walk now before losing the little bit of motivation I still have for it.

[Waanie]

Week 3 mid-week report

During the weekend, I realised that actually starting to DO things again makes me feel better. Although this is still true, I did a little too much during the weekend and first few days of the week, leading to exhaustion yesterday and today. Finding the balance will be tricky, but hopefully I will find the way up again from here.

Monday

Walking/running: 7km (7km/35km)

Yoga: Bad yogi day 4 (1/3)

Running/Strength: Nope. (0/1,0/1)

Scales: Nope (0/3)

 

Tuesday

By 10AM, I already went running, did yoga and played the clarinet. Considering the busy days before, I should have spread out my activities more, and have something left to do for the afternoon. The bean-soup I cooked for the evening was very delicious, did I ever mention that I love beans? And bacon? If you combine this with some vegetables and tomato-juice you get a very delicious concoction that's called soup .

Walking/running: 6.4km (13.4km/35km)

Yoga: Bad yogi day 5 (2/3)

Running/Strength: Running away from zombies, w3d1. (1/1,0/1)

Scales: Yes, plenty of scales to go around (1/3)

 

Wednesday

I more or less skipped everything this day, except for cooking and climbing. That's okay once in a while if I did too much in the days before, as long as it's only one day. Climbing was fun, apparently my technique is still largely there, even though my strength and endurance are not. I'm "enjoying" sore muscles now the day after, although it is cool that the pump increases the muscle-size again.

Walking/running: 0km (13.4km/35km)

Yoga: Nope (4/3)

Running/Strength: Nope. (1/1,0/1)

Scales: Nope (1/3)

 

[Sciread77]

9 hours ago, Waanie said:

 

My goal is increased endurance, as my weight is fine at the moment. Nonetheless, I do believe that building up with intervals is better than long ultra-slow running, both for my knees and my motivation. And yeah, I do actually do some sprints in my free-form run at the end (where you can choose to walk or run whenever).

 

A longer update is incoming, however I do need to go out for a walk now before losing the little bit of motivation I still have for it.

 

Intervals are the best way to increase your VO2 Max, which also helps increase endurance. I remember combining both for track, but if I take up running again I’d prefer to focus on intervals because the long distance stuff is so hard on the body. 

[J3NN]

Here's my, not so cute, Kittie as promised. She's having a grumpy day I guess.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[J3NN]

He's my vampire Kitty, I swear he must be snoring.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[Waanie]

On 4/4/2019 at 4:04 PM, Sciread77 said:

 

Intervals are the best way to increase your VO2 Max, which also helps increase endurance. I remember combining both for track, but if I take up running again I’d prefer to focus on intervals because the long distance stuff is so hard on the body. 

Cool! So doing random intervals with varying speed is actually good? That's good to know, it relieves a bit of the pressure to take more slow runs in my "free form run" - a part of zombies run at the beginning and end of the training where you should do whatever you want.

 

@J3NN, your cat is adorable , thank you for the pictures! Our cats are currently melting away their winter coat, which means hair everywhere. We have to keep up with brushing and a special paste to keep the hair-balls at bay as well at the moment. However, liquid cats have their own charm ^^.

 

Last week I had a good conversation at work, and the management structure for me has now changed (and simplified tremendously). I got everything I hoped for, so I will start working again soon. I somewhat fear falling back, but doing nothing also does not improve anything. The weekend was bad mentally, but today is okay again. I drove half an hour to a nice bit of forest I haven't visited before, and I was pleasantly surprised by the forest-ness and quietness. It's a pity it is half an hour away, as I really liked walking there.

[Waanie]

Week 3 report

Walking/running: 30.2km/35km 

Yoga: 3/3

Running/Strength: 1/1,0/1

Scales: 4/3

 

Everything together, I'm still not entirely happy yet with my achievements. However, since I had a tough week mentally, I guess that this is what is reasonably achievable at the moment. On the days that I'm okay mentally, I can do the things I set out to do, and on the others I can't. I'm happy that I went climbing on Wednesday, that was both a nice workout and a good confidence booster with my technique coming back quickly. I also did a few sets of push-ups/pull-up preparation here and there, so somewhere I do have the hope that something is better than nothing, and that at least my strength-decline has come to a halt.

[Sciread77]

1 hour ago, Waanie said:

Cool! So doing random intervals with varying speed is actually good? That's good to know, it relieves a bit of the pressure to take more slow runs in my "free form run" - a part of zombies run at the beginning and end of the training where you should do whatever you want.

 

It really is. I mean, sure, you could eek out some extra performance improvement with a more structured and killer interval training program, but the free run variation has the advantage of being simpler and letting you push as you wish while still providing some of those VO2 max advantages. I’m a big fan of them. It’s part of the idea behind the zombie runs; make intervals more fun!  Track intervals weren’t fun. They were challenging and murderous lol. 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Waanie said:

@J3NN, your cat is adorable , thank you for the pictures! Our cats are currently melting away their winter coat, which means hair everywhere. We have to keep up with brushing and a special paste to keep the hair-balls at bay as well at the moment. However, liquid cats have their own charm ^^.

 

Melted cats are great!

 

1 hour ago, Waanie said:

Last week I had a good conversation at work, and the management structure for me has now changed (and simplified tremendously). I got everything I hoped for, so I will start working again soon. I somewhat fear falling back, but doing nothing also does not improve anything. The weekend was bad mentally, but today is okay again. I drove half an hour to a nice bit of forest I haven't visited before, and I was pleasantly surprised by the forest-ness and quietness. It's a pity it is half an hour away, as I really liked walking there.

 

Forests are great places. Did going help your mental state? I find they usually do that for me, and it makes me wish I went out to forests more often. 

[Waanie]

1 hour ago, Sciread77 said:

Forests are great places. Did going help your mental state? I find they usually do that for me, and it makes me wish I went out to forests more often.

After Friday's meeting, I'm in a good enough base-state again that I can walk without constantly thinking about work and the complicated social situation. Now that I can walk freely, I do enjoy the forest again and it has a calming atmosphere (as long as there are not too many other people).

 

Today I did strength-training, and when I tested my pull-up I noticed that I can do one with almost good form now. I still bend my right arm earlier than my left arm in the early phase, so my left arm is still not strong enough, but there is measurable progress :).

[Waanie]

Week 4, Monday

It's already week 4! Since I had a good day, I did a lot of exercise. Like I said before, I walked in the forest and did some strength-training, and I also played the clarinet and did yoga. All in all, a very productive day.

Walking/running:  11.5km / 35km

Yoga: 1/3

Running/Strength training: 0/1, 1/1

Scales clarinet: 1/1

[Waanie]

Week 4, Tuesday

I had a good day . I did some walking/running away from a zombie, walked a little on top of that during the afternoon, and also did my yoga and clarinet. I learned that 5 degrees (41F) is too cold for a T-shirt when there is a north-eastern wind. Oh well. I'm not ill, so I guess there was no damage done.

Walking/running:  9.4km (20.9km / 35km)

Yoga: Yes! (2/3)

Running/Strength training: Running! (1/1, 1/1)

Scales clarinet: Yes! G with E (2/3)

 

I'm also looking for orchestral music for running. When running to rock/metal, I'm missing the depth and epicness that an orchestra brings to music. Does anyone have tips/is anyone interested in such a playlist?

[J3NN]

On 4/10/2019 at 3:50 AM, Waanie said:

 

I'm also looking for orchestral music for running. When running to rock/metal, I'm missing the depth and epicness that an orchestra brings to music. Does anyone have tips/is anyone interested in such a playlist?

Heard this on the way in and thought of your comment:

I'd be interested in some such play list and might have some other song ideas to contribute.

[Waanie]

3 hours ago, J3NN said:

Heard this on the way in and thought of your comment:

That's great! I already had another Pirate's song in my playlist, but this is all the awesomeness of the OST combined . On that note, Indiana Jones also made my short-list, just like the superman theme. I picked out the songs I liked from the running-program of the public classical radio station here, my spotify-playlist can be found here. If I'll feel well tomorrow, I will try a subset of this list including Gershwin's "An American in Paris", Bernstein's "Overture Candide" and the Sabre Dance. Today I learned I don't really like Bach, which is the reason he's not in my playlist, and that the Sabre Dance is 20th century. 

 

On another note, I found that fashion is okay again with straight-legged jeans . I always have trouble with finding jeans that fit, let alone fit well, so I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to find a model that fit me well and is affordable. If I'm still happy with them in a few weeks from now, I will order a few more and hope they will last me the next few years .

[Waanie]

Week 4 report

Over all, the week went pretty well. My energy was much higher in the beginning of the week than in the end. However, in the weekend I still managed to go bouldering. I need to climb/boulder more, since now every time I'm sore afterwards . 

Walking/running:  39.9km / 35km

Yoga: 4/3

Running/Strength training: 1/1, 1/1

Scales clarinet: 3/3

 

Challenge lessons:

• This challenge my goals were not in line with my burn-out recovery. I wanted to do too much, and at the same time I felt like my goals were very small. This is not good. My goals apparently need to be either smaller or more focused
• If there is a clear plan, it is easier to execute it. If there is a vague plan, chances are I won't do a thing. This is true across all my goals, for example it was much easier to do yoga when I decided to follow the 30-day challenge of Bad Yogi.
• In the beginning of the week I'm generally more enthousiastic and energetic than at the end of the week.
• Climbing is still fun!
• Finding a good balance between doing too much and sitting on the couch all day is hard.

[Waanie]

New challenge is up!