Life: Exercise 20150128

My Ankle

My right ankle still bothers me when I jog even after taking the previous day off. I did some lower body workout the day before that with no ankle problems.

This time around I found something interesting though. The discomfort was not as bad as before so I actually tried a faster pace. I found it odd that it takes around the same amount of time no matter the speed I ran at. At 6 - 6.5 mph, I have more of a running form. At this pace, my ankle did not bother me at all. I can do this for 10 minutes with no discomfort whatsoever (except that I was very out of breadth). When I go back to jogging form (5-5.5 mph), the discomfort grows again. Walking and running seems to remove the discomfort.

Walking around 4 degrees seem to cause a little strain to the ankle. At 7 degrees and 3.8 mph, the discomfort becomes similar to jogging. I did not stress it too much this time around by quickly returning back to angles and speed that do not cause the discomfort.

Weight

Oddly, I seem to lose more weight the day after I take a day off. I no longer gain weight after working out and at times I do lose a little bit of weight. Now, I have basically returned back to the weight I was at when I started three weeks ago which is about 5-6 pounds. I do feel leaner in exchange though. So far this has been the basic pattern whenever I start working out, and the inverted pattern when I stop working out for long periods of time (unfortunately more not working than working out).

I also do keep track of my weight on a spreadsheet. I have almost three years of data with many large gaps of data. I have one sheet that aggregates my average weekly weights. I did this because the daily weights changed to much because I did not keep a consistent time of when I weight myself. Interestingly, I noticed there were patterns of me gaining weight over the years. I gained weight when I didn't record my weight for long stretches of time (many weeks).

Basically when I become too busy with other life events, I also stop watching my health. So it seems that trying to keep a regular practice of storing my weight also keeps me more focused on healthier alternatives... or at least reminds me to be.

Running

I plan to run in a 5k race in April, and I am hoping to be under 36 minutes as my safe goal. My primary goal is to be under 30 minutes by end of the year. At my current rate (assuming on a treadmill), I think I should be able to get pretty close to 30 minutes.

I can occasionally do 10 minutes at 6 mph. I can pretty easily do 5.5 for 20 . My limitations currently is my ankle then my breathing. 

Update 2022-11-30

Was just viewing some old posts and stumbled across this. I haven't had a sprained ankle since this time. 7 years of ankle free pain. I honestly cannot remember the pain or discomfort from this experience. I only remember that it sucked but beyond that I don't have muscle memory of the actual feeling. Actually, I probably wouldn't have remembered that it last happened 7 years ago.

I just wanted to note this because I have sometimes wondered if I would someday explain an old discomfort in the future. The main reason is that I have never had a headache except for maybe the one time I had a tooth problem and the pain shot through my head but I can only guess that it should be different because the source was my tooth. That I do remember. The pain was quite severe. I have to remember to ask if it is the same kind of pain. I digress. I bring this up because I was curious if it is possible to explain a pain that someone has never had.

For headaches, it is very difficult because the person usually does not have a way to explain it. I ask questions like is it a dull feeling, a sharp feeling, can they feel it in different areas, etc. I try to ask questions on how I explain pain to the rest of my body like the different being bumped into versus being hit by a stick or a slap, etc. So far, everyone seems unsatisfied with their own explanation to me.