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Sometimes I want to have a distance day on the treadmill and sometimes it’s hard to work up to spending 2 hours in the same place. I need to eschew distractions and find a way to push ancillary tasks away.

Today, I hopped on my treadmill, ran about three miles and received a call from a firm I had interviewed with requesting an interview. I fielded the call, explained why I was out of breath and got back on the treadmill. After another three miles I received another call from another firm requesting an interview and again explained why I was out of breath. So now, my initial contact with two HR departments is me having problems with my phone as it was linked to a Blutooth headset and me being out of breath. Joy.

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Today is the Superbowl and somehow that inspired me to run 10 miles.  I set the treadmill to 5.3 MPH which is pretty well the slowest speed that I still consider jogging and set off.  The first hour was unremarkable and passed by watching an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and then by watching short videos on tips and tricks in multivariate calculus.  I was still moving at a fair clip until about mile 8 when I ran out of videos and started listening to music.  At mile 9.64 I had a side stitch and, refusing to stop, did a will-powered turbo-hop for the last 1/3rd of a mile.  My knees felt weak and I looked somewhat drunk while walking even after showering.  My housemate was having a Superbowl party with two score dishes so I decided to celebrate my victory with…. a Caesar salad.

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I’ve ramped up my treadmill speed considerably over the last week, coupled with my headphones I now sweat quite a bit to the point that my eyes are quite irritated at the end of my exercise time.   I realized I could use a sweatband but I don’t know if that’s a leap I’m willing to make.  I already jog in tall white socks while wearing a shark watch.  If I had a Panasonic boom box pushing out “TOO LEGIT, TOO LEGIT TO QUIT” it’d look like I were powering a time machine from the 80s.

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I’ve upped my treadmill time recently, not to accelerate any possible health gains but more to counteract a bout of evening activities that would preclude its usage, and after two days of 50% more than normal  I had significant lower back pain to the point that I had trouble sitting.  This has happened before, although usually due to me moving something larger than I should have and the solution was always to walk it off.  I tried it again in this case and it appears to have worked.  So the cause of my back pain was excessive walking and the solution to my back pain was even more walking.  I think some people have died in the process of learning if coke and whiskey work on the same principle.

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It was dark, my stomach hurt, and my computer speakers were on the floor.  This was the aftermath of the power going out while I was on my treadmill.  I wasn’t done walking, and needed to come up with some defense mechanisms should this happen again.  I settled on putting a towel over the front of my rig and trying to put some distance between myself and the keyboard.  Standing back didn’t quite work well when interfacing with the keyboard so I had to settle for doubling up the towel a couple times to act as a buffer and extra vigilance.

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The advantage to eating while on a treadmill is that crumbs on the track are quickly dropped on the floor where they form a nice pile that my dog Max sucks up like our Dyson.

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I’ve always been a proponent of small actionable resolutions and here are my 10.

1) Pass another actuarial exam
2) Complete new Ockanickon page
3) Learn how to make a yule log (food, not combustible)
4) Remove all dead skin from feet
5) Find job as actuary that doesn’t involve moving to Pittsburgh
6) Re-arrange room and set-up new treadmill arrangement
7) “Box” assistant camp director knowledge
8 ) Scan important documents and old photos

Site specific goals:
1) Cover a logical fallacy every-other week
2) Post Daily Highlights within 48 hours 80% of the time
3) Complete 5 Projects or Joe Baloke trips
4) Add back-log of pictures to Flickr.

What’s your resolution(s)

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I typically watch an episode of Star Trek while using the treadmill and most of my family has gotten used to the 42 minute block of thunder from upstairs.  Today, after about 55 minutes, my dad checked on me to make sure I was okay, he looked relieved that I wasn’t being sanded by the belt but also confused.  I looked at him as said “two-parter” and the confusion lifted.

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I’ve been screwing around with my treadmill and discovered you could set the incline to change automatically at specific times and to test I set the machine to go from a 4 to a 10 degree incline at 5 minutes.  This is what it sounded like:
*THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP* *WHACK* “FUCK!”
Never place an adjustable incline treadmill immediately beneath a low operating ceiling fan.

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I’ve been screwing around with my treadmill and discovered you could set the incline to change automatically at specific times and to test I set the machine to go from a 4 to a 10 degree incline at 5 minutes.  This is what it sounded like:
*THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP* *WHACK* “FUCK!”
Never place an adjustable incline treadmill immediately beneath a low operating ceiling fan.