One of the thing that interests me currently is how to train for a run on a budget. Like a lot of things in life we can tend to think that we can’t do them if we don’t have money. How do you train to run a spring race during the winter if you don’t have the money for a gym membership? Or if you don’t have the cash to drop on YakTrax or all the other gear that will help you run safely outside? Rather than being discouraged from starting right from the get-go, I want to look into how to do it on the really cheap. Here’s what I’ve found.
Living room workouts
Here are a few things you can do in your living room that get your heart rate up and give you that cardio workout you’re looking for. FitnessBlender has some videos on YouTube including this one that is a 17 minute cardio workout. Like they say in the YT comments, there’s no music so that they can keep the videos free, so turn this on and your favourite dance song and go for it. There are lots of other cardio options that you can find online if you’re looking for variety. This series from Shape.com gives you a warm-up of stretches, a bunch of cardio, and then a warm-down of stretches.
The local/municipal pool
If you’re in a city, you probably have a pool that has free swim hours for residents (click here for Montreal). I’m lucky to have one within a 5 minute walk of my house. You can swim laps or pool run (I’ve just learned about this). The best thing is, the worse you are as a swimmer, the better a workout it is for you! So go find out the hours for your local adult swim and get a work out.
Use the local skating rinks
I’m planning on lacing up my skates to get some regular ice time. There are plenty of outdoor skating rinks in Montreal that are free. I don’t think it should be a problem finding a time when no kids are playing shinny. Well, I’ll get back to you on that one. Anyways, you can try skating laps and build your stamina that way. The great thing about skating is that it’s low impact (though not as low as pool running, I imagine) so it should be easier on your legs/knees than running.
Do you have other ideas of how to stay fit for free during the winter? Share them in the comments here.
The last week I’ve been mulling over the concept of vision and how it can motivate us as well as give us drive that we might not otherwise have. In connection with this, I’ve been thinking a lot about the shift that happened in my life that led to me starting this blog. I think it really has to do with a renewed vision of what my life could be. It was through that heart-capturing renewed vision that motivated me to make important changes in my life. Here’s what I mean:
Last fall I blogged these words,
A few weeks ago I was reading the ebook You Are A Writer by Jeff Goins. He wrote something that really got under my skin.
“Not too long after the race, I woke up early one morning, drank some coffee, and went for a five-mile run. After that, I wrote a few pages for my book and went to work.
That evening, I looked back on the day and I was shocked by all I had accomplished. Getting up early, running five miles, writing over a thousand words — where did all this discipline come from?”
Those words really agitated me. I stayed up late that night talking with my husband about it. I hated that I didn’t have the discipline to have the discipline to run. I hated that I cared so much what people thought of me. I hated that I wanted to pursue writing, but there were things holding me back and I couldn’t figure it out. That night as we were talking I realized that my personal idol of acceptance/caring what people thought of me was the biggest problem standing in my way.
“I don’t want to be this person!” I exclaimed. Willy thought I was concerned with my weight, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I was letting things get in my way from getting what I wanted out of life, from achieving my goals. When I was a teenager I decided that I wanted to accomplish some things in life and I was going to do what I could in my power to make those happen. It’s one thing if Providence moves those things out of the realm of possibility, but at least I could say I did my best with my circumstances. That’s what I want to be about.
Those goals acted as a vision for what my life could be. They were things I wanted to be true of me. I imagined the next 60 years flying by and me ‘not having the time’ to make these changes and regretting it. Let me be clear: the things that I wanted to change were accents to my life. They were the pops of colour in a wardrobe, or the jewellery to complete the outfit. I am very happy with my marriage, my work, my life in Montreal in general. It was the “less important” things that I wasn’t happy with: the lack of hobbies (not that I didn’t have ideas of what I wanted to do, I just didn’t have the confidence or self-discipline to start). I will write more on this later.
Vision and belief
The first step was having vision or a picture of what things could be otherwise. This is beyond “wouldn’t it be cool if?” and more along the lines of “this is what it could be!” The next obstacle to surmount was to decide whether it was even reasonable. I’m a pretty rational person. I’m often too rational to the point where it can hurt people’s feelings, or I forget the people within the problems I’m trying to solve. I didn’t want to set myself up for inevitable public failure. I wanted to be somewhat sure that I could do these things. As I evaluated, I realized they were pretty reasonable. The one thing standing in my way was fear.
I refuse to let fear run my life.
Recognizing the obstacles
Recognizing the obstacles helped me find the resolve to overcome them after coaching myself into believing that they weren’t as important as I thought they were. Who cared what people thought? Who cared if people laughed and scoffed? Was their opinion more important than my own self-perception? Not a chance. The fact was, I was not happy with the momentum my laziness was gaining. It was humbling and embarrassing to come to terms with the fact that my laziness wasn’t Who I was but more like What I was allowing myself to be. It’s hard to change our nature, it might be even impossible! What we can learn is discipline and grow in maturity as a person if we identify the areas we’re lacking.
But it all started with a vision of the person I could be.
What about you? What do you want to have accomplished in 50 years? Are there things that require changing in your life now to achieve them? Do you believe you can change ? Share your goals or ideas in the comments here.
Wow, I’m seriously, seriously loving The Power of Habit. It’s giving me huge insight into how I can develop the lifestyle I want that will help me reach a bunch of these goals. I’ll post about some of these things later, but one of the things it talked about was how people who are successful in changing lifestyles (recovering alcoholics, people doing physical rehab) are often more successful than their peers because they have a plan for their day/situation/year or whatever. This means that they have an exit strategy or they have mentally rehearsed what to do if a craving arises, or if stress gets piled on (in the case of the alcoholic) or for the physical rehabilitation patient they have a plan for what to do when pain arises that they just need to push through.
I’m pretty sure this the reason why I’m not super bummed right now about my lack of ‘training’ for my 5k at the end of April. This was more or less a part of the plan. Winter run if possible, if not figure something out. I’m definitely figuring something out. I’ve been doing some morning exercises from a DVD at home but I’m taking small steps towards swimming a few times a week in the neighbourhood pool a few blocks from my place.
An example
The other day it was bitter cold out. I had two main goals for the evening: get groceries and buy a bathing suit. It took me all day to psych myself up to drive the 10 minutes to Wal-mart Super Centre where I could buy a bathing suit and groceries at the same time. I’m not exactly at my height of motivation, these days. I almost convinced myself not to step out into the cold and that anyone would understand why I wouldn’t want to go. I did go. I survived and I bought a non-fancy bathing suit. I was one step closer to regular swimming. It turns out the suit didn’t fit me in the end. Wop wop. But at least I tried, right?
Little wins, people.
Now I need to go back to Wal-Mart and I’m so much more motivated to exchange that suit and get one that fits me and hit the pool. I also have a plan. Thursday evening I had planned to go to the pool for a first swim but then I found out my suit didn’t fit. Instead of being bummed that I couldn’t go (but was also pretty uninterested in leaving the house due to icky temperatures) I made a plan to ensure success: I’d buy a combo lock, I’d visit the pool during free swim time today and figure out how the place actually works. That means that after work when I’m planning to go swim, I’ll already know the drill and I can just do it.
It’s kind of embarrassing how easily I can get bummed about something and then give up altogether. In this case, I’m determined enough to anticipate problems and pre-determine solutions so that I can reach my goal.
Guys, I’m kind of excited to flail around in a pool a few times a week! What’s up with that?
What about you? Do you try to plan in order to set yourself up for success? Or does winning not matter much to you? Click here to leave a comment.
I haven’t really written much since Nanowrimo (which I’m so glad I did, by the way). I’m trying to figure out a project to work on to help me develop my writing, save this blog that keeps me at the keyboard a few times a week. I have one small project on the go that I’ve been really enjoying. I was about to write “I need to find a project to do this year” without acknowledging that I’ve been writing this ebook for the past few months. It feels weird to say that. It feels weird to make it real by talking about it here. A few people know I’ve been writing out some vignettes of my life since I’ve moved to Montreal, but talking about it on the internet feels a lot more official. I’m not entirely sure what will come of it save that I have been writing it with the intention of sharing it with people. I do have a specific audience in mind, which is a lot more than I can say for most other things I’ve written. So that’s exciting.
Ok so I’ll tell you a little more about it: a little hope I have is to publish it for Kindle. If you’re familiar with my Bucket List, publishing an ebook is on that list. Wow, I can’t describe how scary it is to talk about this. Now you might ask me about it. Now you might want to read it!
So maybe it isn’t any more scary than me announcing I’m going to do my best to run a 5K in April. Or a 10K in Sept. Those are scary announcements too but they’re far, far less personal.
Anyways, that’s what’s going on in terms of moving towards my writing goals. I may never speak of this again until it’s about to get real. We shall see.
This week has been unseasonably warm. It’s basically April up here right now this strange week of January. So I’ve been motivated to run again because the sidewalks are free from ice and snow. Three out of the last four days I said to myself before going to bed “tomorrow, you’re going to get up and go for a run right away.”
Didn’t happen. Any of those days.
Both yesterday and today, about thirty minutes after I had gotten out of bed, I noticed I regretted the fact that it was too late for me to go for a run.
So what’s the deal?
I realized this morning that my decision-making skills were non-existent. My grogginess factor was so powerful that if that continues in the morning, I will never ever accomplish anything until I wake up. That’s when I realized I was having all this success last fall because I had never once tried to get up and go right out the door for a run. The plan was always wake up, do light therapy, journal, then go for the run. By the time I had spent that 30 or so minutes waking up, I was awake and enthusiastic enough to grab the shoes and go.
According to EasyWake.me‘s 12 most important facts about sleep inertia (the grogginess after being woken up), “within the first three minutes of waking, decision-making performance can be as low as 51 percent of the person’s best decision-making ability before sleep. Decision-making performance may still be 20 percent below optimum performance 30 minutes after waking. Sleep inertia may affect cognitive performance for up to two hours.”
This is a super helpful realization for me because it’s the difference between me tweaking my plans and feeling demotivated and wanting to quit. Realizing I need at least 15 minutes where I get vertical (out of that comfy bed) or do light therapy. Then I will maybe be rational enough to make the right choice to go run or another form of exercise.
Here’s to tomorrow morning and outrageously warm weather for January!
What about you? Do you now have a little bit more hope for your morning routine with this information? Share your thoughts in the comments here.
So I’ve started a lot of new things the last few months. I started a morning routine that I hoped would become habit. I started running using the Couch to 5K program. Then New Years came and I added to the list things I wanted to accomplish this year.
How’s that going?
Well. Notice how in the Resolutions, I only said “exercise” 3x a week? That’s because winter running is scaring me. So much snow! And my neighbourhood does not get salted very well. But today I felt some motivation and I did some research. I’ve found some places (allegedly) that are always salted by the city. So I think I’ll try to keep running at least once a week on weekends, mostly because that’s much easier to do in daylight because it’s not work hours.
Reading is a little on the harder side right now because I’m not all that motivated by any one book. Tonight I had a huge craving for a food memoir, found an electronic copy I could borrow from the library and then realized I had lent out my Kobo charger to a friend only hours before so I couldn’t transfer it to my Kobo. I couldn’t bear reading it on the computer. Sigh. I’ll make good headway on that this weekend.
Crafting has been a complete no-go until now. It requires so much organization and preparation. Again, a Saturday project.
Morning routine has been a gong-show all of december. A huge reason is because I stopped using my LAMP (bad idea) in december and had stopped exercising (another bad idea). So basically, my life falls to pieces when I stop exercising. Noted. How did I ever survive until 26?
Pressing on
I’m not giving up, though. I know habits take a long time to form. I remember how great I was functioning last fall when I was doing those things and so I’m motivated to figure out how to continue. So there’s that.
Two weeks in, are you still keeping up with your New Years Resolutions or goals or (whatever you call them to make yourself believe you’ll actually do them)? I wanna know I’m not in this alone! Leave your comment here.
