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simon gets fit – day #1/365

my very own 365 project

i’ve decided to start a personal 365 project. for the better part of july i was on sick-leave due to a fitness related issue. more accurately a lack of fitness issue. the neurologist and the orthopedic surgeon disagreed on what it was exactly – either thoracic outlet syndrome or an irritation of the C8 nerve plexus.

regardless of what it was, i’m seriously unfit and have been for almost 10 years. so i’ve decided it’s time to sort myself out. so, this is the start of my year of getting fit. i’ve set myself the following personal goals, which i think i can achieve by the end of this 365 project:

• run 10km
• swim 100 lengths (2.5km)
• cycle 100km (on a more or less flat stretch)
• 2′30″ static apnea
• 50m dynamic apnea with fins
• get my weight down to 85kg

so, what am i doing in order to achieve these goals? first step is sorting out my shoulders and neck – i’ve been referred to a physiotherapist. i managed to injure my supraspinatus tendon sometime earlier this year and my right shoulder is severely limited in its movement. most of my other muscles and joints seem to have limited range of motion, something which can be improved with regular exercise and stretching.

the next step is to get to a basic modicum of fitness; for me, the best way to do this is cycling, jogging and swimming. i dug around on the interwebz and found what looks like a sensible program to start running over the course of 3 weeks. while i was browsing around for that, i also found a set of 22 stretching exercises which i’m going to be working on as well.

i also bought an old bike for bumbling around town today – with mud-flaps so i can cycle to work every day, regardless of weather. the problem with my road bike is that there are no mud-flaps, and i refuse to put any on – it’s still a piece of sport equipment, and shouldn’t be a regular daily city transport… so, that’s step two of my plan – cycling to work every day to support my developing running habit.

regarding swimming, the wasserrettung (life-saving association) is currently on summer break, so there’s no regular training at the moment, but that starts again at the beginning of september. by then i should be fit enough to hack 1.5hrs of training – at the end of this training year, i couldn’t. apnea diving training starts again at the beginning of september, i’m sure that as my fitness gets better, my underwater times will go up again as well.

by putting all of this up here on my blog, i’m sticking my neck out a bit – if i fail, then the failure is public. so, i’m keeping my fingers crossed and will be doing my best to achieve my goals. daily or bi-daily reports will follow, except in periods of [forced] internet abstinence.

daily report, day #1

started day 1 of my running program. 10 times 1 minute running, 1 minute walking. in total about 2km in 20 minutes. it was just right to start out with, i probably couldn’t have managed more than that. i cycled there and back to warm up and cool down, in total 4km. stretched everything except for the back exercises. now my quads hurt, but i feel good about starting this project.

[edit 10/8/10: checked again in google earth, it was 3km running]