{"id":2255,"date":"2015-07-10T15:28:02","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T22:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/?p=2255"},"modified":"2015-07-10T15:28:02","modified_gmt":"2015-07-10T22:28:02","slug":"running-on-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/?p=2255","title":{"rendered":"Running on"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_2243\"<\/a>My six-year runniversary, celebrating the start of my informal middle-aged commitment to running<\/a>, slipped by without me noticing. When I began running at age 46, I was really excited by the whole endeavour. I enjoyed the milestones, I liked noticing my progress in mileage, speed and endurance. I ran a few races, I had a few injuries, I logged everything using apps and spreadsheets and loved watching the graphs I could generate<\/a>. I participated in online and in-person running communities as much as I could.<\/p>\n

And then for a couple of years I swung the other way. I ditched all the fit-tech, the races, the goals, the groups, the tracking. I just wanted to enjoy the process of running by myself, the zen of being out there, not focusing on the numbers my activity would generate.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Vivoactive also has quirky custom watch faces: what more could I want?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now my\u00a0pendulum has swung back. I’ve just replaced my old Garmin Forerunner 305 with a swanky Garmin Vivoactive. It\u00a0has some smartwatch features that work with my phone, is small enough and comfortable enough to wear as a day-to-day watch, does accelerometer-based fitness tracking, talks to a heart-rate strap, and most importantly to me has a GPS chip in it that tracks all my self-powered outdoor travel. It does the tracking\u00a0without the help of my phone, and because it’s waterproof I can take it pretty much anywhere without any worries.<\/p>\n

I’m not training or setting any goals at this point. But I enjoy seeing my numbers improve, particularly since I’ve just introduced regular road-biking into my life and that’s changing my fitness. Cranking up the steeper sections of the mountain roads here several times a week is building my muscle mass, for sure.<\/p>\n

I do have a chronic running-related injury in my left ankle\/heel stretching back three or four years now. It has defied all my efforts at repair and rehabilitation. It’s always there, but if I limit myself to\u00a0at most 3 or 4 times a week, totalling 20-25k maximum, mostly at a 6:00\/km pace or slower it stays under control. So the cycling, which doesn’t bother the heel at all, is filling in the rest of my exercise week really nicely. I can alternate an easy run with what are for me harder days of hill-climbing on the bike. This works beautifully and will continue to be a great way to stay in shape at least as long as\u00a0the snow is off the roads.<\/p>\n

Now that I’m both running and biking regularly, there’s a niggling voice in the back of my head muttering “tri, tri, tri.” But I am not a good swimmer, nor do\u00a0I much like swimming,. And the lake is too cold 10 months a year. And the pool in Nelson is about to be closed for months for asbestos removal. And, and, and… So\u00a0I’d be surprised if a triathlon\u00a0ever happened for me but I suppose you never know.<\/p>\n

\"If<\/a>
If Erin weren’t so damned fit, this result would make me younger than she is.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here’s a cool result from a nifty if fairly crude tool. The worldfitnesslevel.org<\/a> calculator quizzes you about your age, gender, size, weight, resting and maximal heart rates and exercise habits, and gives you a\u00a0“fitness age.” I come out looking pretty healthy these days.<\/p>\n

Just for fun I repeated the quiz with what I think were my stats just before I started running. I came up with a fitness age of 40 vs. a chronological age of 45. I’ve definitely widened the gap since then!<\/p>\n

Lately my life seems to go like this: Cooking, cleaning, computering, RUN! Cooking, cleaning, computering, RIDE! And repeat. Whatever. It works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My six-year runniversary, celebrating the start of my informal middle-aged commitment to running, slipped by without me noticing. When I began running at age 46, I was really excited by the whole endeavour. I enjoyed the milestones, I liked noticing my progress in mileage, speed and endurance. I ran a few races, I had a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-being-active","category-running"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2260,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255\/revisions\/2260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nurturedbylove.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}