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Fitness Weekly Discussion
What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?
I ran the London marathon on Sunday.
A day of mixed emotions. It was incredible and breathtaking as you might expect. Running across Tower Bridge a little over half way through will be a core memory for the rest of my life.
Sadly, I injured my knee around 20k in due to someone cutting in front of me during a narrow stretch. It wasn't malicious, they were in their own zone and impatient to get past people. But it caused me to stumble and twist my leg in catching myself.
By 30k, my knee was in agony and I was ready to just stop and cry, feeling I'd wasted my chance and all the training.
Fortunately, my wife and lots of my family came to support me and managed to spot me three times during the run. Approaching them to hug them and have them cheer me was like taking a senzu bean. It's hard to describe how good it felt to see them.
My knee didn't really recover but adrenaline and grit kicked on and I managed to finish.
My goal was 4:00 - 4:15, and I finished in 4:58.
I am, of course, a little sad to have fallen short of a goal I'd trained hard to achieve. But this was my first marathon, and crossing that line was one of the sweetest feelings I've ever felt.
London did an incredible job of selling itself during the event. It was incredibly well organised and the atmosphere was second to none.
I started batch cooking sweet potatoes. I cook like 8 at once, for an hour and half at 400F. Then mash em up with a little butter and put that in mason jars in the fridge. I eat that for snacks or sides.
Sweet potatoes are a great workout snack. My gym is next to an H Mart and they have roasted sweet potatoes on the ready and sold by the pound, so I have made it an occasional treat when I’m hungry after working out and want something easy. They have a bit of protein in them too.
I started walking to get groceries.
It ain't much, but it is better than riding the giant motorized wheelchair.
You should be proud of yourself. Our bodies are made to be in motion, so even small changes like this can make a huge impact cumulatively. Regular walking can reduce the likelihood of getting “old people” diseases like hypertension, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, etc.
I’m on a cruise right now. We are using the gym this time, which is something of a miracle but it’s a positive change even if the food we are eating is more than undoing the things we are doing in the gym. Every single meal….
We - the husband and I - tried a TRX class yesterday since Virgin Voyages offers free fitness classes. We figured that it would be a good way to get started on it. Little did we know that it was actually a super intense class that almost killed us. Today our arms do not work. 😅
Nice! Whereabouts in the world are you cruising?
My family and I are leaving for a Mediterranean Disney cruise soon (we leave May 23rd), and I fully intend to keep up my workout schedule while I'm onboard the ship too. I suspect Disney vessels don't have nearly as good gym facilities as Virgin ones, but the ship we're on (Disney Dream) thankfully still looks to have most of the basics covered. It has lots of different cardio machines, free weights + benches, and a decent amount of weight machines too.
Although my biggest concern is not working out, since even if I don't fully keep up my normal routine we're going to be doing a shitload of walking everywhere we stop. My biggest worry is the food situation onboard. I've heard it's pretty damn hard to eat even remotely healthy on Disney cruises. So 🤞 I can find some reasonably healthy options. :/
We’re out on a Mexico itinerary, but we’re here pretty much exclusively for the ship itself.
Disney Cruise ships have fairly decent gyms to my memory but I wasn’t into lifting at the times I’ve gone. It wasn’t that much smaller than the gym on the ship I am on right now. The thing about cruise ship gyms is that they can vary a lot in terms of maintenance and popularity, so sometimes you’ll get a lot of broken machines and sometimes you’ll get a constantly busy gym, and other times it will be completely deserted.
It is not too difficult to get healthy food on a Disney Cruise Line ship. They are actually one of the most accommodating cruise lines in terms of diet. I have been offered to have “anything” made for me because of my whole food plant based diet. However, that applied to the main dining rooms only. Quick service places offer whatever they offer. That being said the food is so good you should probably just splurge! You are, after all, on vacation.
Yeah, I've heard that about the main dining room too. So I'm not too worried about getting a healthy dinner on the ship. The biggest concerns for me are that there are way too many super unhealthy temptations aboard, and supposedly for breakfast there are very limited healthy options too... unless I'm fine with eating an omelet, yogurt, and a bowl of fruit every single morning for the entire trip. :/
Oh, don't worry. I still fully intend to enjoy myself, and I will no doubt splurge a fair bit. I just don't want to risk totally falling off the healthy diet wagon I've been on for the last year+. And if I can actually manage to eat healthy the majority of the time then that also gives me more room to splurge when I feel the desire to. ;)
I personally find it easier to resist bad things in the morning. Every cruise line I’ve been on makes it really easy to get a big bowl of oatmeal and they usually make it with water instead of milk so there’s no added fat. Just add your choice of fruit and it’s a great way to start the morning.
Good luck with everything else though. 😅
When it comes to overindulging, for me, the real danger is going to be late at night. Vacation time + drinking alcohol + the ability to order room service at all hours is a dangerous combo. :P
Virgin has a number of events where they give away booze, and I will neither confirm nor deny if I’ve had a half-dozen drinks at a time during one. 😅
Hah, nice. I don't think Disney does any events like that since they probably don't want a whole bunch of super drunk adults on the ship. :P
The strength and conditioning coach's last day was supposed to be today, but he messaged me Tuesday apologizing and saying his last day was actually going to be that day. Which is unfortunate because I did want to go back in this week to at least say bye in person (I had sent him a message on IG just in case his last day was before I returned from my trip last week). I may have caught something from the convention last week, as one does from a large gathering of people, so I was in various stages of unwell throughout this week.
My mood has been, again, very up and down... I'm a bit worried because I've been seriously slacking on both strength training and cardio (though I guess there was a fair bit of walking during the con). I'll see if I can put some time on the pull up bar at home this weekend.