Swimming v. Running

I was looking up some stuff about relative swimming v. running equivalents. Basically, however much distance you swim in a given time is multiplied by four to give a running/walking time.

I don’t entirely believe it. You see, while my swimming rate isn’t particularly impressive, I do swim about 1000 yards in half an hour. That’s okay for a fitness swimmer who doesn’t give a rip about competition and is just two weeks back in the water after a three year hiatus. Okay, fine.

That would translate into me walking 2.28 miles in half an hour. My best pace, when walking regularly, would be more like 1.53 miles in that amount of time. No, I’m neither fast nor in great shape.

Now, I do have pain issues when I walk that I just don’t have when I swim. Now, I don’t get out of breath when walking, but my hip starts feeling like sandpaper, or my feet cramp up or any of a number of things. Walking just hurts. That stuff doesn’t go away even after months of working out, and no matter what shape I am in. I also walk on a mildly hilly terrain, and I swim in a pool, not open water. That might be enough to account for the difference, but I doubt it. We’re talking a difference of .75 miles in half an hour. That’s a pretty big pace difference from where I am looking.

So, am I really working out that much harder in the water? It doesn’t really feel like it, though I do wind up getting an endorphin high from swimming that I just don’t from anything dryland At least, nothing that’s going to be requiring a specific pace for 30 minutes. 😉

I am trying to account for the difference and the only things I can figure are:

1. Your swimming heart rate is lower, so perceived exertion might be lower. It’s possible I simply DO work harder in the water because it’s just not uncomfortable.

2. I have a very high body fat percentage. That means I float extremely well. I exert NO effort at all to float. All exertion is propulsion, only. I’m not working harder. The workout is actually easier.

3. At a certain point, all swimming success is down to technique, and mine is just there.

4. The 4x dryland distance for equivalent pace is hooey. Forget about it and just work out every day because that’s the part that matters and not the minutiae.

I should probably take four and run (or swim) with it. I like swimming, it feels good and it makes me happy to do it, so who cares about the numbers, because hey, I work out for an hour, get red in the face and get my heart rate up for a half hour every day, so who cares about anything else.

Which does circle around to the fact I find applying high end athletic training techniques to everyday fitness is generally a load of hooey. If you’re competing in races, you’ve gone from everyday fitness to athlete, even if you’re the slowest of amateurs. That’s different from someone whose hobby is not being an athlete, but still lives in a body and needs to keep fit.

Video Chat

When I was a kid in the 1970s, video chat was mostly science fiction. Some high end companies were starting to play with the idea of video conferencing, but it was expensive to set up, and not too reliable. There were some exhibits using it in Futureworld in Disneyworld, then later in EPCOT center. But it was still this really advanced thing.

Flash forward to today. Now, I’ve had video chat capability for about a decade, but I don’t use it much. Goodness knows why, but I don’t. Mostly, I use it to talk to my son as the cheap version of chatting, because videochat over Skype doesn’t use phone minutes, and we both have devices that do it.

I think it’s kind of weird as all get out that we have this total science fiction technology that all the science fiction books and movies said we’d be using on a regular basis. And yet, for the most part, I kinda don’t.

Do you use it? And if so, and you’re an Asimov fan, do you ever get kind of a Naked Sun vibe from doing so?

Playing Games

I didn’t go on a swim the other morning. I had a device problem and was up until around 11. Not going to get up at 5 in the morning and work out, then work all day on six hours of sleep if I can help it. I’m protective of my sleep.

I really did intend to give working out a miss that day. After all, one day more or less really isn’t a big deal.

But I got to thinking.

I’m party of a party fighting a boss monster on Habit RPG. Habit RPG turns the habits you want to build and tasks you want to perform into a role playing game. You have a character that earns points from completed tasks and habits that you program in. In certain categories, non-performance will cause you to take hit points, rather like rolling low in combat in a role-playing game.

Yes, the monster is goofy as all get out, but you know what? I knew if I did not perform the daily things I’d set myself to do, such as exercise, not only would I take a hit, the whole party facing the monster would.

Is it childish that I’m using this game as motivation to get things done?

I don’t really think so.

I used to. Even used to feel embarrassed with myself that I didn’t just want to do what I was supposed to and had to make a damn game out of everything. I got over it when I realized that a consistently clean house doesn’t trip my reward circuits like a dramatically messy house becoming clean. I will do what trips my reward circuits as easily as a rat in a maze, and the paradigm of feeling good at dramatic change sets up a cycle of requiring a stage where the house is messy. From a purely logical point of view, I certainly don’t want that. But a house that’s consistently clean because I’m earning points in a game does give the reward jolt. I don’t do stuff that doesn’t trip the reward circuits. (No-one does, by the way, but how they’re activated can vary from individual to individual.)

I like Habit RPG because it engages on several levels. It put you in a group of people who choose to be productive (peer pressure can be used for good!), it gives quick and immediate rewards for good behavior and it’s silly.

Don’t discount the quick and immediate rewards. It may take weeks or months to get in shape, but getting those points for avoiding junk food or working out are rewards that happen right away. This system makes it easy to get some artificial immediate jolt to the reward part of the brain while working on goals that might have long-term or abstract rewards.

If you were ever into RPGs, I gotta recommend Habit RPG as a system to check out.

The One You'll Do

After about a three year hiatus, I’ve gotten back into the pool.  Now, for a while after I left a gym job that got me a membership as one of the perks, I turned to walking as my primary exercise.

This isn’t going to be some rant about the superiority of any particular exercise.   In reality, there’s no such thing, no matter how much the steroid monkeys throw poorly understood research articles at each other.

Unless you are a professional or world-class competitive athlete, the answer for the perfect exercise is really is simple.  It’s the one you can do that you’ll choose to do on some pretty regular basis.

That’s it.

Sure, sure you might make a hobby out of your chosen activity.  To keep up interest, you might measure progress or learn about the activity.  It’s no coincidence that the physical activities I have loved best are extremely skill and form based.  But that sort of thing doesn’t matter as much as you think.  At a certain age, you’re only going to progress so far, and you’re only going to choose to devote a specific amount of time to being active (and by the way, half an hour a day and you’re good.  That hour a day stuff is about weight loss without diet change, not cardiovascular fitness).

The person who goes for a half hour walk every day, doesn’t measure distance or make a hobby out of performance, but Just Does It over a long period of time is actually in a better exercise position than the person who goes hammer and tongs at working out every few months for a few weeks, but then gets sick of it.

Heroic effort might be more interesting while you’re doing it, but I challenge anyone who does than (*looks sternly in the mirror*) to measure how that holds up against consistency.

Aunt Noël’s Chicken-n-Dumplins

We just spent the week at the beach. As we often do the first night, we had rotisserie chicken, and various summer produce. (God, fresh corn and tomatoes just taste better when they’re grown in Virginia, they really do).

So, we had chicken carcasses left over. Now, Mom brings a crock pot, and neither of us likes to waste good material for stock, so I suggested a chicken soup or maybe chicken-n-dumplins.

I knew my husband and kids liked it, and was pretty sure that that adults would, but I was dubious my nephews were going to be all that into it. Well, one of them talked all week about it, so I promised my brother that I’d send him the recipe. He’s also an excellent cook, so this is not going to be the dumbed down version, but more suitable to a cook trained by Boo. (Our mother’s childhood nickname and grandmother name)

Aunt Noël’s Chicken-n-Dumplins

(this is more or less how I made it last week. Really, this is one of those dishes where you use up what you have on hand)

In the morning, pop the carcass in the crock pot, and cover with COLD water. Put it on low and do your day.

When you’re getting ready to get dinner on the table, sauté about a cup and a half of mirepoix, and a clove or two of garlic in a bit of olive oil. Add to large soup pot and drain stock into it. Add a bit of rosemary. Let simmer.

When the carcass has cooled enough to handle, pick out the meat, toss the bones. Add the meat to the soup with some salt and pepper.

Prepare dumplins according to the directions on the Bisquick box (look we were at the beach. We didn’t bring flour, shortening and all the rest! I have another recipe for dumplins when the kitchen is properly stocked), and roll into balls of about an inch in diameter. Drop in boiling stew, cover, reduce heat and let simmer for about 20 minutes. Serve and accept the ecstatic compliments of the kids.

Dumplins when the kitchen is properly stocked

(I would have doubled this recipe for the 11 or so of us, by the way)

  • 1 c. flour
  • ¼ c. shortening
  • 1/3 c. milk
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • Dash salt

Mix dry ingredients, cut in shortening until it resembles coarse crumbs. Mix in milk. Prepare as above.