Without elaborating too much, I am going to say I managed three runs this week. Forty-five minutes on Monday, and 30 minutes Wednesday and this morning. Feeling pretty good about them – no exhaustion or out-of-the-ordinary tightness that existed before I received the vaccine.

I have hope.

Okay, since writing my long post the other day, I’ve managed to get two workouts in. The first one on Monday was 45 minutes long. The one today was for 30 minutes. Again, nothing great on my speed or distance. But that is to be expected. I weighed myself today for the first time in a long time: 238 pounds. It’s about the heaviest I have weighed in years. It’s not the heaviest I have ever been – that was close to 250 pounds.

Anyway, despite the weight, I felt good during both workouts, and there was no exhaustion afterward.

And on the schoolwork front – I’m gaining ground already.

I decided to do my run on the treadmill in the basement. There’s just too much slush on the sidewalks and roads. Plus, there’s a lot of traffic this time of day. Finally, it’s dark. I am not in the mood to get hit by a car. My stats may seem off, but I ran with the incline set at 2.

I used my Withings Steel HR watch. It’s not a full-fledged Smart Watch. But it does monitor heart rate (hence the HR), and in conjunction with my iPhone, does GPS. Now, my Strava app is not able to directly link with the Withings watch. However, I can link the Withings Health Mate app to the Strava app. As a result, I get both apps posting my run online!

There is one irritating aspect of the Health mate app – it doesn’t seem to track my heart rate. And yet, the Strava app had my heart rate information. It really doesn’t matter all that much. Strava has a better website that gives me HTML code for posting my map. Withings doesn’t appear to do so.

As can be seen, by each leg’s dates, I’ve not been the most diligent in my running. In my morning post, I know I would take a separate post to explain my lack of motivation for running, but this is not that post. Anyway, below is my catch up on the incremental marathon.

Again, 7 days between runs. I require motivation. Part of my issue is simple: I am not feeling particularly upbeat. This year has kicked my ass – in more ways than I care to share at this time. But, as some say, just getting out there is half the battle. Setting the clock back an hour might make getting up early easier, allowing me to get out and run in the morning.

Not a bad feeling run after having taken a week off from exercising. Anyway, I am pleased. Unfortunately, I’ve gained weight. At my best, I was at 215. Currently, I’m at 231. And I can feel the extra 16 pounds when I run. Hell, I can feel the extra pounds just walking about the house and at home.

It means working harder at maintaining my exercise routine. In addition to feeling the weight in my daily activities, I also struggle with sleep. Again, it’s about maintaining a routine. In this case, it’s about meditating at night before bed. I listen to an isochronic tone set to the low spectrum from the site myNoise.net. There are over 200 different noise generators. Some are great at increasing alertness. Others do an admirable job of creating drowsiness, such as the isochronic tone I mentioned earlier. In the morning, I listen to Neuromodulator. It does an excellent job of eliminating and/or reducing my tinnitus. I donated money to the site, so I have a wide range of sounds available. However, you don’t have to donate money, and you’ll still have a good selection of sounds.

My lower back was aggravated with me so I had to stop and switch to walking.

Of course, I hadn’t ran for 10 days so I’m grateful I managed 2 miles before my back yelled at me.