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Jogger's Log |
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October 2012 23:53 01/10/2012 Monday evening... October. Today I confirmed my gym membership and paid for the first month. All is good. No running yet but I can wander down to the gym now and take some kind of exercise. I can even run there on the treadmill. It's all good. I'm feeling rather heavy and ponderous in fact. Don't feel like running at all. But I can get into it gradually in a gym. Joining up was a good move. 18:00 06/10/2012 Saturday afternoon... I'm glad I started this blog. I've just read back over some of it, and I noticed that I often went out for a short run when I didn't feel like it at all, and no harm came to me as a result. There really is no reason not to put my kit on and go out for a brief jog. I've been avoiding going out running for a month or so now and I don't feel good about it. A question that springs to mind is "Why make the effort? Why bother?" Perhaps a more interesting question is "Why not make an effort?" Being 'lazy and inactive' results in one set of feelings; being active and 'making an effort' results in another set of feelings. What makes one set of feelings preferable to another set? As far as an objective view goes - to the extent that I can be objective and predict objective outcomes for particular courses of action, I would have to say that exercise can be (and has been!) harmful for my body, but only if taken to excess. A moderate amount of exercise will most definitely be beneficial. My right knee is still not right, and I still can't bend it fully without it feeling like it's going to dislocate again, but I have no reason to suppose that exercise has any negative impact whatsoever on that, ...as long as I don't try to bend it fully! It seems very likely in fact that regular walking - and running too - will help to strengthen and tighten the ligaments that have become over-stretched. Also, I am convinced - from the timing of the injury, and from the fact that both knees had come to feel uncomfortable when kneeling over the past year - that gaining weight and bulk in my legs had something to do with the injury occuring. Not 'sufficient cause' on its own, but a 'necessary cause'. I am sure that losing a couple of stone in weight would help. From my experience over the past few months, I am not convinced that regular running on its own will lead to significant weight loss, but it won't do any harm, and it may well help a bit. Everyone is different, but I sense that for myself, being overweight is potentially dangerous and could lead to a downward spiral in my overall state of health. That downward spiral is bound to happen at some point in my life - unless I die a sudden and violent death - but I'd like to delay it for at least a couple of decades yet. So, why not run? I can't think of a good reason, so on with the experiment: to run every day for a year. I know I've missed a month or so but that's all part of it. I could just let it slide and forget the whole project - add it to my list of things-started-and-not-completed - but somehow the fact that I have this blog hovering about here in cyberspace makes it difficult to forget... 15:49 07/10/2012 Sunday afternoon... Just been for a run. A short one. 5 minutes. I did feel heavy and unfit. My chest especially felt heavy. But it was OK. Yes, considering that was my first run in nearly two months it felt surprisingly OK. |