Improving Igaduma

[Igaduma]

I managed to get up earlier this morning and go for a run.

I did that once last week, because I knew I wouldn't have the time after work and it discovered that since it's still much cooler then, the running is less annoying.  And I'm alone.

The downside is that I have to get up at an ungodly hour.

 

Still, I decided to try and do that every time now (so every other day).  The first tries failed, I just couldn't get out of bed.  But today I got up and ran

 

Every morning, I normally drink 4 sugar waters (the machine has a different name for it, but it's sugar water).  It's really the only sugary drink I have.  I tend not to drink soda's and whatever.  This morning I replaced those with regular sugarless water.  The first couple of hours my body reminded me with varying degrees of subtlety that I hadn't provided it with sugar.  But is seems to have accepted the current state of affairs by now.

[Igaduma]

This is not the first time I've tried the "start to run" program.  I always get stuck at lesson six.  Lose heart, give up and start over a (sometimes long) while later.

*drumroll*

This morning, I beat lesson six.

I completed it.  And I felt good afterwards (I didn't really want to, but if I had had to, I would have been able to run another block of three minutes I think).  The previous times I always felt half destroyed, once it made me vomit.  Not today though.  Today I came out on the other side of the session and happily walked home.  At quite a decent pace even (I really really wanted a sigaret and I don't bring them with me when I go running; which is about the only time you will find me more than 5m away from tobacco).

 

On to new and uncharted territories (like lesson 7)!

 

Yesterday I skipped the morning sugar waters as well.  It went ok.  Got hungry around eleven, so I ate some nuts.  

[Igaduma]

Lesson 7 of start to run done.  That's nearly a quarter of the way to go.

And I felt good.  Started of "bad":  my breathing was all over the place,  but it sorted itself out.

3 more and I will have 1/3 done!

 

As far as convict conditioning goes: early stages yet, but I can manage at least the beginner phase of the first exercise for everything accept handstand push-ups.  The actual exercise here is holding a headstand against the wall for 30 seconds.  Now I'm not doing it against a wall, because I know myself.  I would just lean against the wall.  At around 20 seconds I get a bit "shaky" and stop.  It's not so much that I can't hold it anymore but I get scared of falling over and breaking something.  I don't have a lot of room and if I come down in - let's put it mildly - an uncontrolled manner, I might crash into something.  So for the most part, I think I just need to convince myself that I'm not going to fall over.

 

For a number of the other exercises, I'm doing the intermediate levels of the first exercise.  That doesn't surprise me all that much.  In previous attempts to better my life, I've done harder exercises than these.  I don't want to skip ahead though.  I'm sure the author has a better idea of what he's talking about than I do (hence me buying the book).  So I'm just going to follow his program, the way he describes it.

 

All in all, I feel good.

I do miss my sugar waters in the morning though.  I haven't had one in a week now.  When I walk by the dispenser, I hear it calling my name.  So far my willpower has prevailed.

This was unintentional but I also have eaten any pasta this week.  I ate a lot more meat though.  My diet is probably very unbalanced right now.  But I'll deal with that later

[Igaduma]

Went for a walk yesterday evening.  It was warm and sunny, but there was a fairly strong warm wind.  Most of it was amongst meadows and woods.  Only had to short stretches of busy road.  It was amazing.

I did 16.5km, on average 6km/h so that's pretty decent.  And when I was done, I felt like I could go again immediately.  Me seriously wants to go do it again right now to be honest.  But I suppose I'd better give myself a rest.

 

While I was walking though, at a certain moment I put my hand in my pocket and noticed I could really feel the muscles in my leg move and that my leg was much "harder" to the touch than it used to be.  This morning when looking in the mirror, I thought I looked less "blubbery".  So I stepped on the scales: 72.5kg.  I lost 3.5kg in the last two weeks.  I would never have thought you would acutally see that small a difference, but apparently you do.

 

I feel good.

[SevenofSeven]

Looks like you've got things sorted. Great job.

[Igaduma]

So I failed at giving myself a rest.  

Went for a walk.  Need to go fetch something in a shop.  Normally I would take the car there but I thought I'd just walk there.  

When I left the shop, I decided to take another way home, and one think led to another.   So four hours after I had left home, I came back home from a 20km walk.

 

Unlike yesterday, I really am tired now and glad I can sit.  I'm not tired in a bad way though.  I still feel good.  Just tired.  And a couple of "small things": places that rub together making me aware that they were rubbing together.  Not hurting yet, just telling me it's time to stop.  Feet not really hurting, but feeling hot.  Those things started in the last 1-2 km, so I think the 20km was just about right for me today.  I did what my body was ok with, not less but also not more.

 

I did just toss a liter of milk and a couple of bananas in the blender and down that almost in one go.  Perhaps I should have made dinner a bit early in stead of doing that.  But oh well, I'm still 3.5kg down so I'll survive.

[Igaduma]

I was supposed to go run this morning.  My legs feel tired though.
I wonder if it wouldn't be better to skip running for now and to go run this evening.

 

 

[Igaduma]

I should have done running session 8 yesterday.  Didn't feel up to it in the morning, so I decided to try at night.  A couple of minutes in I felt it wasn't going to work.

So I gave up and tried again this morning.  It was brutal but I managed to do it.  

[Igaduma]

So euhm, I haven't posted anything for a week now.

That's because I haven't done anything in a week.

 

I hurt my knee.  Decided it would be better not to run for a bit.  Which was and is a bummer.  I was finally doing better than all the previous times I started.

My knee is starting to feel better though.  I'm going to keep on doing nothing (as far as walking and running goes) and try to pick up where i left of next week.

 

Tomorrow I have to go to an info session on transcendental meditation.  It's rather expensive, but we'll see if it turns out to be interesting or not.  The info session itself is free.

[Igaduma]

I enrolled in a transcendental mediation course last night.  It starts saturday morning.

It's a ton of money but it's been seducing me for years now.  I hope it's money well spent.

If not, I'll just have to focus more on cheap activities for the months to come, like running and working out

[Igaduma]

thursday I went for a 11.5km walk.

a bit slower than what I'm used to: an average of 5.5km/h

my knee didn't hurt.  I wanted to go for a longer walk today, but shit happened...  maybe I'll go tomorrow.

 

I had my first transcendental meditation session today... boy did I waste a ton of money.  It's not that what they told me doesn't work.  It's just that I could have gotten that out of a book as well.  In fact, I have books with that and more (and explained far better).

[Igaduma]

I still feel the TM course was way to expensive.

It does work though.  This is the morning of day three and I feel very different.  Way more relaxed.  A bit detached maybe.  I see stuff that would normally irritate me and I just let it go.  I've had similar effects when doing other mediation styles.  I've never had it happen this fast though.  And this easy.

A couple of minutes into a mediation session and my heartbeat drops like 20 beats.

 

As far as the course itself goes...  One of the instructors is somewhat annoying.  I don't know what or why but I don't like him.  Yesterday was the third time I saw him and just hearing his voice annoys me.  Only two more sessions to go though, so that isn't to much of a problem.

 

Discussing experiences with other people in the group, that (for me) was the interesting and educational part.  So far I've learned more from my fellow students than from the instructors.

 

Unfortunately the sessions are very late (for me) in the evening.  It was 23h00-23h30 last night when I got to get in bed.  When the alarm clock went of this morning, I wasn't a happy camper.  I really need my 8 hours of sleep, 4-5 hours does not cut it for me.  We'll see how I make it through the day.

This evening when I get home from work, I'll have about an hour and then I have to leave for the course.  And again it will be 23h00-23h30 before I see my bed.  And the same thing for tomorrow.

 

I was supposed to go run this morning.  I've skipped that, couldn't get out of bed in time, to tired.  And I don't see myself running tomorrow and the day after either.

[Igaduma]

The TM is affecting me.  I'm not sure how I feel about how it's affecting me but it is without a doubt doing something.

Tonight is the last session of the "initiation".  And tomorrow night I'm going to crawl in to bed as soon as I get home from work.  I'm missing hours of sleep each day because of the TM course and I need to make up for those as soon as possible.

 

At the course there are group meditation sessions.  Those are... intense.  I don't know how to describe it.  But it feels good and, well, intense.

[Igaduma]

So yesterday was the final day of my TM initiation.  Tonight I'm going to crawl in to bed as soon as possible and sleep, sleep, sleep.  I should have taken a week off for this course.  The lessons were way to late for me and I've built up a tidy sleep deficit over the last 3-4 days.  But it's over and done with now.  

 

I will miss the group meditations though.

 

As far as the cost goes... I still feel it could have been cheaper but I no longer think of it as wasted money, like I did on the first day of the course.  It's having a far bigger impact on me (not to mention waaaaaay sooner) than other meditation techniques I've tried.

 

I do have a problem with how they present the scientific studies about TM.  They failed to mention that nearly all of them were conducted by TM practitioners or by people sympathetic to it.  A big part of them were performed by TM institutions...  One might expect them to be biased.

They also didn't mention that there are at least some studies out there that question the methodology of the other studies.

And the way the instructor tells things, I too get the impression that they don't pay much attention to the difference between correlation and causation.

If you don't know why this distinction is all important: here's a little study to show you it's importance.

monday I drank whiskey with ice all evening.  tuesday morning I had a hangover.

tuesday I drank wodka with ice all evening.  wednesday morning I had a hangover.

wednesday I drank amaretto with ice all evening.  thursday morning I had a hangover.

CONCLUSION: ice gives you a hangover

You see the error here?  There is indeed a correlation between the ice and the hangover.  There is not, however, a causal relation between the two.

 

Having said all that, at least to me, it feels like it works.

[Igaduma]

I went to bed early yesterday.  But like, really early.  It was heaven.  Slept 3-4 hours.  Woke up.  Slept 3 hours.  Woke up, slept for an hour and a half and then my alarm clock went of.  Since I'm not running at the moment, that was way to early though.  So I put on a podcast and listened to it for about an hour or so.  Got out of bed, got ready for work.

Meditated on the train to work.

 

I feel great.

[Igaduma]

Other than the meditating I haven't done much.

This weekend though, someone has planned two nice walks for me.

I'm curious to see what "nice" entails

[Igaduma]

Went for a 20km walk last night.  Maybe that wasn't such a good idea because I don't know what's bin store for me today and tomorrow.  It was a nice walk though. 

 

 

[Igaduma]

Went for a 22km walk yesterday.  They announced rain and it was clouded when I left but then the sun came through and it was very hot and humid.  Not the nicest weather to walk ing.  Average speed was quite a bit slower than usual.  But I did do 22km.  In the evening I went for small 3km walk just to loosen up a bit again.

My feet are swollen but I feel good.

 

Meditating right after the small evening walk was very relaxing and rewarding.  I felt good.

 

Today will not have any big walks I think.  Perhaps a couple of small ones.  We'll see.

[Igaduma]

So yesterday I had a 12km walk in the morning and a 18km walk in the afternoon.

The morning walk was a bit weird.  Sure, I was walking a bit slower than I'm used to but my heartrate stayed incredibly low.

 

The afternoon walk, I ran parts of the way.  Each time I saw my heartrate go down, I'd run for a bit (1-3 minutes at a time) until my heart rate was much higher.  And then I'd walk again (trying to keep a good pace) until my heartrate went down again.  Towards then end of the walk I noticed I needed to run faster to get my heartrate up and it slowed down again much faster as well (up to a point).

 

All in all I felt really good about the walk.  I'm fluorescent pink though.  I was so busy walking and running (and at some point being REALLY thirsty; I didn't bring anything to drink, I thought I'd just hop get a drink in a café somewhere when I got thirsty; turns out I picked the only part of my country that is almost completely café-less) that I forgot about the sun.

[Igaduma]

Finally went for a run again yesterday.  It sucked big time.  It feels like I have to start all over again.

I'm not going to do that.  I'm gonna start with a lesson about half way through and see if I can finish that.

 

So when I noticed yesterday the running wasn't working, I thought I'd go for a long walk in stead.  Around 6-7km in all hell broke loose as the weather was concerned.  The first couple of minutes it was really refreshing and gave me a boost.  I even started running again.  Then it became cold.  And then it became really cold.

It's going to take ages for my running shoes to dry.  I wonder if I can put them in the dryer.  Probably not.  I guess that might ruin the shape of the shoe.

 

On the bright side:

Meditation is going well.  I feel much more relaxed all day.  When people are being irritating, I can just let it flow over me much easier.  Some people commented that I'm much friendlier lately.  I don't think I am, I just have a longer fuse

[Igaduma]

I ran this morning!

Went back to half of where I was in the program and did it.  It wasn't "easy" but it didn't completely destroy me either.  In fact, I made a mistake in my program: in stead of doing

2 minutes running, 2 minute walking

3x 3 minutes running, 3 minutes walking

I did

2 minutes running, 2 minute walking

3x 3 minutes running, 3 minutes walking

4 minutes running, 3 minutes walking

 

To make the start of my day even better, I actually managed to get out of bed at the correct time to have my run and do my morning meditation before leaving for work.

I usually do it on the train to work because I can't drag my lazy ass out of bed early enough.

Funnily, it turns out I like the meditation on the train better, which is weird because there's a lot of noise there and when I'm in luck, the thing is actually moving.  Also, apparently I'm so used to meditating on my morning ride already, as soon as I sat down, my brain tried to sort of shut down

 

[Igaduma]

I just compared what I ran this morning to where I left of when I hurt my knee... it's spread a little differently but there's only a 1 minute difference in the time spent running.

Maybe the day after tomorrow I should try that lesson again.

 

If I pull that lesson of... it ends with a block of 5 minutes running.  That would be the longest I've run in one go.  I know that might sound pretty pathetic to a lot of you out there.  For me though, it would be no small victory!

[Igaduma]

So I couldn't wait until tomorrow.  This morning I tried the 9th session of the running program...  And I did it!

According to my watch, it was a "reasonable" training session.  Fuck you watch!  I sat on a bench for a couple of minutes before I could bring myself to walk home.

 

I ran the longest stretch of time I've ever ran (5 minutes) and the session was the longest I've ever done in km (warm up walk, running and walking in between running all together: just over 5km).

 

YAY ME!

 

 

[Igaduma]

I hurt myself meditating on the train though!

My meditation was being really awesome, I was totally relaxed.  Felt my self swaying with the movements of the train.

And the train stopped really abruptly, making me sway a bit to hard and I banged my head against the window.  So hard that literally saw stars

[Igaduma]

So yesterday evening I went for a walk after work.  I didn't set a specific route or goal.  It just had to be at least 15km.  I ended up walking 31.5km.  That's a personal record I think.  At the very least it's the longest I've walked in a long long time.

 

I thought I'd feel worn out today but I don't.  I'm itching to go out for a new walk.  I game across some arrows for a walk-route laid out by the city of whatever.  Followed it for a bit and it looked nice.  Maybe I shouldn't overdo it.  On the other hand, I walked 76km last weekend and felt perfectly fine.

 

Last weekend I also noticed during one of the walks that my heartrate stayed really low.  I thought that the reading was a bit off or that it was because I was walking in a really flat terrain (I was visiting a friend who lives in another part of the country, a part that is flat flat flat; where I live, I don't think there's a level street to be found).  During my walk yesterday though, I also noticed that for most of the walk, my heartrate stayed down.