Jogging, Fighting, Surfing, Cake
Apr. 6th, 2012 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebJogging
After I quit my job I starting jogging more often (than once a week). Eventually I got to where I was able to continue for a reasonable number of minutes (over 30). Then I found gmap-pedometer where you can map out your route and see how far it is. Or in my case, how short.
I know you're not supposed to compare yourself to other people. But is it okay to compare yourself to your old self? By which I mean young self? I think so. I have the same genetics, and I've had no injuries or debilitating anything since that time.
Previous records: 10K race in 58 minutes 58 seconds = better than 10-minute miles.
Quickest mile: 8.5 minutes.
Learning those distances I've been running lately let me see that those were 13-minute miles. That's a pretty big difference.
So then I decided to figure out a one-mile course and run it as fast as I could to see how fast I could get a single mile.
Once I got into it, I decided not to run as fast as I could after all. That's because it seemed to me like if I were inhaling on one step and exhaling already on the next step, it might not actually be safe to go faster. But I did make sure to keep breathing nice and hard the whole way. And it did turn out to be faster. A lot faster: an 11-minute mile. Cool.
I decided it might be good to have some of my jogs be one-mile speed-practicing jogs and some be longer distance-practicing jogs. But although my next jog was longer (28 minutes), I also tried to remember to actually jog and not just kind of do a bouncy slog while focusing on my thoughts. And those turned out to be 11.1-minute miles. Weird. And cool.
All of those numbers are kind of vague because I timed myself by just turning on my iToy and looking at the time as I started and as I finished. The time I was looking at did not have seconds. But I have now found the stopwatch function.
So, when I started, just focusing on time and not speed was a good thing. And just measuring in minutes was good enough. And now paying attention to speed is helping me improve, and that's good.
Fighting
I've been playing Backyard Monsters which is an online building game with very cute little weapons made out of tin cans and gears and stuff. And it's also a war game because you can attack each other (or wild monsters) with your monsters and take over outposts.
There's recently been a new rule that no longer makes it harder and harder to take over outposts the more outposts you already have, so huge gangs of players are going out and taking over everything.
My outposts were highly advanced and difficult to take. Yet they are no problem at all for people with infinite resources, though mostly it did take them two or three attacks to take one down and in two cases I went into protection before they could finish me off the first time.
My original plan was to keep re-taking my outposts and making them take them back, and maybe get so annoying that they just quit. But my outposts are way too hard to take back when I have the minimal resources I have now. I also don't have the experience attacking people that my enemies have.
It's a bummer. I guess I should just keep practicing, though.
Surfing
I just found Epbot, a blog by a gal who makes stuff and likes Steampunk and Disney World and sci fi and geekdom and decorating baby rooms and pennies and costuming and cool videos and cakes. I totally wasted/enjoyed several hours reading through it today.
Here's Women's History Month Goes Gaga - an example of her sharing. "This time it's a parody of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, and the subject is the women's suffrage movement - specifically honoring Alice Paul and her contribution to women's rights."
Here's Radio Romance Part II - an example something her family made themselves. Or re-made. From an antique radio.
"To hook our iPod up to the speakers, we simply threaded the wire through a pre-existing hole in the right side of the cabinet. (I think it was originally for a microphone or a crank or something.)
"But I couldn't just leave our iPod sitting out on top of the cabinet, now, could I?
"OF COURSE NOT.
"So I spent six months scouring Ebay for an affordable vintage cigarette case to convert into a small iPod holder."
Cake
Here's a cake the Epbot author might enjoy:
Here is a slightly different and closer view:
After I quit my job I starting jogging more often (than once a week). Eventually I got to where I was able to continue for a reasonable number of minutes (over 30). Then I found gmap-pedometer where you can map out your route and see how far it is. Or in my case, how short.
I know you're not supposed to compare yourself to other people. But is it okay to compare yourself to your old self? By which I mean young self? I think so. I have the same genetics, and I've had no injuries or debilitating anything since that time.
Previous records: 10K race in 58 minutes 58 seconds = better than 10-minute miles.
Quickest mile: 8.5 minutes.
Learning those distances I've been running lately let me see that those were 13-minute miles. That's a pretty big difference.
So then I decided to figure out a one-mile course and run it as fast as I could to see how fast I could get a single mile.
Once I got into it, I decided not to run as fast as I could after all. That's because it seemed to me like if I were inhaling on one step and exhaling already on the next step, it might not actually be safe to go faster. But I did make sure to keep breathing nice and hard the whole way. And it did turn out to be faster. A lot faster: an 11-minute mile. Cool.
I decided it might be good to have some of my jogs be one-mile speed-practicing jogs and some be longer distance-practicing jogs. But although my next jog was longer (28 minutes), I also tried to remember to actually jog and not just kind of do a bouncy slog while focusing on my thoughts. And those turned out to be 11.1-minute miles. Weird. And cool.
All of those numbers are kind of vague because I timed myself by just turning on my iToy and looking at the time as I started and as I finished. The time I was looking at did not have seconds. But I have now found the stopwatch function.
So, when I started, just focusing on time and not speed was a good thing. And just measuring in minutes was good enough. And now paying attention to speed is helping me improve, and that's good.
Fighting
I've been playing Backyard Monsters which is an online building game with very cute little weapons made out of tin cans and gears and stuff. And it's also a war game because you can attack each other (or wild monsters) with your monsters and take over outposts.
There's recently been a new rule that no longer makes it harder and harder to take over outposts the more outposts you already have, so huge gangs of players are going out and taking over everything.
My outposts were highly advanced and difficult to take. Yet they are no problem at all for people with infinite resources, though mostly it did take them two or three attacks to take one down and in two cases I went into protection before they could finish me off the first time.
My original plan was to keep re-taking my outposts and making them take them back, and maybe get so annoying that they just quit. But my outposts are way too hard to take back when I have the minimal resources I have now. I also don't have the experience attacking people that my enemies have.
It's a bummer. I guess I should just keep practicing, though.
Surfing
I just found Epbot, a blog by a gal who makes stuff and likes Steampunk and Disney World and sci fi and geekdom and decorating baby rooms and pennies and costuming and cool videos and cakes. I totally wasted/enjoyed several hours reading through it today.
Here's Women's History Month Goes Gaga - an example of her sharing. "This time it's a parody of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, and the subject is the women's suffrage movement - specifically honoring Alice Paul and her contribution to women's rights."
Here's Radio Romance Part II - an example something her family made themselves. Or re-made. From an antique radio.
"To hook our iPod up to the speakers, we simply threaded the wire through a pre-existing hole in the right side of the cabinet. (I think it was originally for a microphone or a crank or something.)
"But I couldn't just leave our iPod sitting out on top of the cabinet, now, could I?
"OF COURSE NOT.
"So I spent six months scouring Ebay for an affordable vintage cigarette case to convert into a small iPod holder."
Cake
Here's a cake the Epbot author might enjoy:
Here is a slightly different and closer view:
no subject
on 2012-04-07 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-04-07 07:01 pm (UTC)