jducoeur

Note to self: if I go by way of Skilton Lane, Shaw's is 1.9 miles from here. That means that a brisk walk there and back, to pick up an admittedly-mediocre but healthy enough salad for lunch, makes a fine alternative to my usual morning jog on the elliptical.

So instead of watching an episode of DS9, the entertainment today was a couple more chapters of The Light Fantastic, which is proving pleasantly diverting. (In between big novels by people like Gaiman and Stephenson, I'm using Pratchett as a palate-cleanser.) A fine diversion on a nice day...

Having finished Star Trek: The Next Generation last week, today was the start of Babylon 5. First up was The Gathering, the introductory movie. As I remembered, it had lots of weak spots, but was still pretty intriguing. I'm looking forward to watching it side-by-side with Deep Space Nine for the next year. ("Year of the Space Stations", I suppose.)

Despite this being at least the third time I've watched the whole series, and probably the fifth time I've seen The Gathering, I'm still noticing details for the first time. My favorite this time around was when Ben is being attacked by the faux Lyta, and grabs a pipe off the wall to hit her with -- knowing the series (and his opponent) well enough by now, I practically cringed, going, "No, no, no -- worst combat mistake *ever*."

The hardest part of the morning run is keeping my mind off of how hard I'm working. Running is kind of like Douglas Adams' version of flying -- I can only really do it if I'm not paying attention. B5 is looking excellent for that: I set a new stamina record today, despite being pretty tired. 9.06 nominal miles in 99 minutes = 5.49 MPH at level 8 on the elliptical. Not bad -- I suspect that one will stand for a while...

Today's exercise TV watching was the beginning of Deep Space 9 (I'm still going through Next Gen, but decided to start DS9 at the appropriate place in the cycle). That starts with a double-length episode, and I was up a few minutes early, so I decided to go for it.

So: 8.32 miles on the elliptical in 94 minutes (on level 5) = 5.31 MPH. Not going to set any land-speed records, but it's good to know that my stamina is reasonably solid...

For months now, I've been using the elliptical semi-regularly, and I've gotten almost casual about it. It raises a good sweat, but it doesn't affect my breathing or anything much. Which would make one think that my cardio condition is pretty good. But that's at odds with what I've observed in real-world cases, especially the few times I've tried swinging a sword or something.

So this week's experiment is to try really using the *arms* on the elliptical. I've tended to treat the thing as a low-impact treadmill, running with my legs but having my arms just along for the ride. Now, I'm trying to actually use my arms to move the thing. As it turns out, that kicks my butt remarkably fast. I can "run" on the thing for 4.5 miles easily, at a steady pace, but it only takes about 30 seconds of real arm pushing to tire me right out and get me breathing hard. And now, a couple of hours later, my upper arms are still remarkably tired.

Which is actually fine. I'd kind of hit a rut with the elliptical -- still making progress on the running side, but very slowly, and it was getting a little easy. By switching to arm-focused regularly, though, I kick it back up to being a *really* serious workout. For the moment, just 30-60 seconds of that is enough to wipe me out enough that I have to slow to a modest jog for several minutes, so it's clear that this is a fair way to keep pushing on the cardio front. And it's probably going to improve my wretched upper body strength, a necessity if I'm to be anything more than a tentpeg with sword-and-board...

5.05 miles in 45 minutes = a sustained 6.73 MPH. Finally got through the 5-mile barrier. Next big hurdle to work up to is 5.25 miles, which is the 7 MPH mark...

4.94 miles in 45 minutes = 6.59 MPH average. Only .01 further than my last milestone, but I wasn't pushing as hard this time: it was just a real but moderate run for most of the distance, finishing with a sprint. One of these days, I'll actually crack five miles for my morning run...

Here's a question for the DDR experts (specifically DDR Max 2) in the audience:

I just unlocked Endless Mode (having decided that, to keep my stress levels down, I'd better get some exercise between characters). It's a lot of fun, especially once I turn off regulation and configure it to my taste -- it's great for exercising.

But the problem is, I'm sort of in-between skill levels. I've mostly beaten Light Mode: there are one or two songs that are still kicking my butt, but I'm getting As and Bs on most of them. I'm still very much *enjoying* Light: while I'm doing it well, I'm not yet at the point of being bored with it and needing to move up to Standard. So in Endless Mode, I can pretty much just keep going indefinitely in Light Mode.

The problem is, I don't have endless *time*. I usually have 30-45 minutes to exercise, and then I need to stop and get to work. What I would *like* to do is stop and save at the rest break; failing that, I'd like to say, "Okay, enough: take my score and call this a game". But there's no apparent way to do that, short of just letting myself die on the next song. (Or turning off the machine, and simply not keeping my score, which is a valid but annoying option.)

Any suggestions? Is there a way in Endless Mode to say, "Game Voluntarily Over"? I'll survive if not, but it's a mild pity...

Roight -- when my complaint is, "Damn, I'm bored with the elliptical machine", the correct response is to pull out the DDR pad instead. Less intense from a cardio POV, but a better full-body workout, and a great way to shake off exercise boredom. It's been over a month since I last used it, and I find that I really *missed* that. (Doesn't hurt that the break has gone and popped me up a quarter-step, either -- pushed several more songs into A or AA. Sometime soon, I'm going to have to give up on Light and move into Standard...)

4.93 miles in 45 minutes = a sustained 6.57 MPH. Required spending pretty much that whole time in the cardio zone, but the fact that I can *do* almost 45 minutes in the cardio zone without discomfort is a good sign.

(Of course, that's all on the elliptical. Shouldn't fool myself into believing that translates directly into real running, which I know is harder on me...)

4.8 miles in 45 minutes = a sustained 6.4 MPH...