![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Fitness Challenges
May. 18th, 2015 05:31 pmI've participated in three fitness challenges over the past 15 months and they have improved my prospects for fitness.
Employer's Physical Activity Challenge (2014)
Last spring, my employer had a physical activity challenge. The official goal was to walk 10,000 steps per day or do equivalent exercise at least 5 days a week for at least 5 of the 6 weeks of the challenge. Technically, you had to get in 50,000 steps per week (across all 7 days) for at least 5 of the 6 weeks. Also, they supplied a tool to "convert" various exercises into steps in a way that seemed to overestimate your steps.
I remember at the time calculating how many steps I should get in during my four work days to make sure that I could walk much less than 10,000 steps on my three days off and still achieve 50,000 steps. That's because my baseline for work days is about 6500 steps per day, but on weekends I can be perfectly happy doing less than 500. Or even 200. So I wanted my extra steps to be spread out evenly across all days.
I was able to achieve this. Mostly I paced at bus stops and walked during lunch at work.
Middle Kingdom March to War
Right after that challenge ended, my brother-in-law set up a challenge for his co-players in their local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism. The goal is "To strengthen and train the Dragon Army for War." The war happens at Pennsic, an annual event that occurs about 400 miles from where they live. And so basically you record distances that you travel under own own power over one year and each time you travel 400 miles, you are considered to have delivered a soldier for the battle. Walking counts, running counts, 1/4 of bicycling miles count, and swimming counts, and it can be indoors and/or outdoors.
So that's a little over one mile per day per soldier. The tough part is that "Normal daily activities do not count, only additional planned exercise." So continuing what I'd been doing would put me on track to provide one soldier.
But I decided to start jogging again, Fridays and Sundays. I eventually got up to jogging three miles at a time. I had thought that when the weather cooled off in the fall I might go longer or speed up, but I did not. And when winter came, I actually exercised less. Still, by the end of the year, I had provided a soldier and was on track for 1.75 soldiers by the end of the challenge.
So another thing I wanted to do was to get in the habit of getting up off my butt instead of sitting all day. So at work, I would periodically get up and walk around the building. At home I would walk around the block. Then I decided to walk around the block twice, for a half mile. And now I walk down the street and back for 1.12 miles per trip and try to take three trips per day.
I had thought that when I retired I might spend more time exercising, but that didn't really happen. I'm now up to 779 miles, easily on track to provide two soldiers by the end of the challenge, which is the end of this month.
Employer's Physical Activity Challenge (2015)
By the time this year's physical activity challenge started I was already retired and thus did not have a lot of commuting exercise built in to my day. However, the Middle Kingdom March to War had set me up with some good habits that allowed to to meet this challenge even though I hardly took advantage of the step-translation bias. I've gotten in the habit of taking three of those 1.12-mile walks. With just a little extra activity, I can get to 10,000 steps.
In fact, last year I clocked 361,096 steps; this year, 446,883.
Awards
I don't remember any awards with last year's employer challenge. I did get a free pedometer which I accepted in case Robin wanted to try it. He never did. I tried it when mine broke and it worked except it was made to fall off belts and waistbands and it didn't work in pockets. So finally I got a newer Omron pedometer that I like even better than my last one--it works just the same but is smaller and sleeker!
This year I ended up with a pair of free sunglasses which I keep in my knapsack just in case. They have already come in handy as a prop for our Spanish play to help Robin look more like a pilot. There is also some kind of luncheon for people who finish which I'm hoping will allow for some socialization with ex-coworkers. (There's also a t-shirt and a blanket that I'm not accepting.)
The Middle Kingdom challenge awards a "bronze coin" for the first soldier, a "silver coin" for the second soldier, and a "gold coin" for the third, etc. (So the obvious goal was three soldiers, but that didn't happen.) I'm looking forward to these coins because I assume they will be homemade by some minting enthusiast(s) with a fun medieval design. I will enjoy adding them to my coin collection.
What's Next
I've been realizing that what these challenges are focusing on is being active. This is not really a category that I've thought about before. In the past I have concentrated on aerobic activity, strength and speed exercises, flexibility, balance, and coordination. But this focus on a certain amount of activity per day which can just be walking (which doesn't really feel like exercise to me) is a whole different aspect of exercise which is really just getting off your butt sometimes. And, as someone with a lot of sitting-down hobbies, that's important for me, too.
I am greatly looking forward to to my own personal challenge which will let me count daily activities and not just extra activities meant for exercise. So if I'm walking around all day sight-seeing like on our trip to New Orleans, that counts. So does walking for transportation. And I am also greatly looking forward to subbing out other exercises like my pilates video.
My next goal will be to continue taking those three 1.12-mile walks each day whenever I'm mostly sitting around so that I continue being "active." But I can also replace one or more of them with other activities. For example, I recently learned that Body Flow videos can now be found online.
Employer's Physical Activity Challenge (2014)
Last spring, my employer had a physical activity challenge. The official goal was to walk 10,000 steps per day or do equivalent exercise at least 5 days a week for at least 5 of the 6 weeks of the challenge. Technically, you had to get in 50,000 steps per week (across all 7 days) for at least 5 of the 6 weeks. Also, they supplied a tool to "convert" various exercises into steps in a way that seemed to overestimate your steps.
I remember at the time calculating how many steps I should get in during my four work days to make sure that I could walk much less than 10,000 steps on my three days off and still achieve 50,000 steps. That's because my baseline for work days is about 6500 steps per day, but on weekends I can be perfectly happy doing less than 500. Or even 200. So I wanted my extra steps to be spread out evenly across all days.
I was able to achieve this. Mostly I paced at bus stops and walked during lunch at work.
Middle Kingdom March to War
Right after that challenge ended, my brother-in-law set up a challenge for his co-players in their local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism. The goal is "To strengthen and train the Dragon Army for War." The war happens at Pennsic, an annual event that occurs about 400 miles from where they live. And so basically you record distances that you travel under own own power over one year and each time you travel 400 miles, you are considered to have delivered a soldier for the battle. Walking counts, running counts, 1/4 of bicycling miles count, and swimming counts, and it can be indoors and/or outdoors.
So that's a little over one mile per day per soldier. The tough part is that "Normal daily activities do not count, only additional planned exercise." So continuing what I'd been doing would put me on track to provide one soldier.
But I decided to start jogging again, Fridays and Sundays. I eventually got up to jogging three miles at a time. I had thought that when the weather cooled off in the fall I might go longer or speed up, but I did not. And when winter came, I actually exercised less. Still, by the end of the year, I had provided a soldier and was on track for 1.75 soldiers by the end of the challenge.
So another thing I wanted to do was to get in the habit of getting up off my butt instead of sitting all day. So at work, I would periodically get up and walk around the building. At home I would walk around the block. Then I decided to walk around the block twice, for a half mile. And now I walk down the street and back for 1.12 miles per trip and try to take three trips per day.
I had thought that when I retired I might spend more time exercising, but that didn't really happen. I'm now up to 779 miles, easily on track to provide two soldiers by the end of the challenge, which is the end of this month.
Employer's Physical Activity Challenge (2015)
By the time this year's physical activity challenge started I was already retired and thus did not have a lot of commuting exercise built in to my day. However, the Middle Kingdom March to War had set me up with some good habits that allowed to to meet this challenge even though I hardly took advantage of the step-translation bias. I've gotten in the habit of taking three of those 1.12-mile walks. With just a little extra activity, I can get to 10,000 steps.
In fact, last year I clocked 361,096 steps; this year, 446,883.
Awards
I don't remember any awards with last year's employer challenge. I did get a free pedometer which I accepted in case Robin wanted to try it. He never did. I tried it when mine broke and it worked except it was made to fall off belts and waistbands and it didn't work in pockets. So finally I got a newer Omron pedometer that I like even better than my last one--it works just the same but is smaller and sleeker!
This year I ended up with a pair of free sunglasses which I keep in my knapsack just in case. They have already come in handy as a prop for our Spanish play to help Robin look more like a pilot. There is also some kind of luncheon for people who finish which I'm hoping will allow for some socialization with ex-coworkers. (There's also a t-shirt and a blanket that I'm not accepting.)
The Middle Kingdom challenge awards a "bronze coin" for the first soldier, a "silver coin" for the second soldier, and a "gold coin" for the third, etc. (So the obvious goal was three soldiers, but that didn't happen.) I'm looking forward to these coins because I assume they will be homemade by some minting enthusiast(s) with a fun medieval design. I will enjoy adding them to my coin collection.
What's Next
I've been realizing that what these challenges are focusing on is being active. This is not really a category that I've thought about before. In the past I have concentrated on aerobic activity, strength and speed exercises, flexibility, balance, and coordination. But this focus on a certain amount of activity per day which can just be walking (which doesn't really feel like exercise to me) is a whole different aspect of exercise which is really just getting off your butt sometimes. And, as someone with a lot of sitting-down hobbies, that's important for me, too.
I am greatly looking forward to to my own personal challenge which will let me count daily activities and not just extra activities meant for exercise. So if I'm walking around all day sight-seeing like on our trip to New Orleans, that counts. So does walking for transportation. And I am also greatly looking forward to subbing out other exercises like my pilates video.
My next goal will be to continue taking those three 1.12-mile walks each day whenever I'm mostly sitting around so that I continue being "active." But I can also replace one or more of them with other activities. For example, I recently learned that Body Flow videos can now be found online.