30 Day Inline Skating Challenge

[ChaosKiwi]

The main purpose of this challenge is to trial sticking to some form of cardiovascular exercise for an extended period of time. Why Inline skating? Well basically Inline skating is about half the impact of normal running (which my knees really don't like), and I used to enjoy it when I was younger, making the challenge more interesting to me.

I will skate every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Most of the time it will be along a flat path that follows the coast near where I live. I will record my daily time and distance, along with weather and wind conditions in this thread. I may post before and after info, relating to measurements, and weight etc. I figure that as I am making this public, I will try to relate as much info as I can in the hopes that someone may find it of value.

On the final day of the challenge, I will attempt to cycle the entire path (approx. 15.6km) at a speed that is above my best average speed from any day up to that point.

If the weather is really bad and skating in the rain is as I remember it, I will substitute walking up the side of a large steep mountain near my house for a minimum of half an hour.

I will be using some 12 year old inline skates that have small wide wheels and bearings that are in very poor condition. This will probably be reflected in my average speeds and distances. These skates look strangely like snowboarding boots!

[ChaosKiwi]

Today I started by taking some base stats. I measured this with an ethernet cable, ruler, and crappy scale.
Weight: 76kg
Thigh Measurement: 570mm
Ass Measurement: 970mm

Being a national holiday, I got up around 10am (who am I kidding, I always get up at 10). Before starting my exercise routine I was psyched about starting the new challenge. I had that "your body is still asleep feeling" right up until I started skating. I clumsily put on some shorts and a t-shirt to form a horribly mismatched exercise uniform. A joke I often hear is that the hardest part of rollerblading is telling your parents your gay. Well my dress sense sure as hell didn't reflect this.

So anyway I drive to the starting point and put on my skates. And get out of the car ready to glide off into the sunset. Instead I almost fall flat on my ass due to a stick that rudely does not move out of the way!

I start off slowly. Refamiliarizing myself with the physics involved. After about a minute or so I start pushing hard, in a manner that resembles someone pretending to rollerblade infront of a blue screen in an 80s movie. Very mechanical. I try to get myself into a lower position but find my thighs are not happy and will not take this cruel posture.

At about 7 minutes in pretty much everything is starting to fall apart. My heart seems to be auditioning for a super-fast drum and base show in a burning mess that is my chest. I'm pretty sure that if I don't slow down I will die.

Meanwhile it is freezing cold. There is an icy side wind that does not affect my already lackluster performance. It is about this time I turn around and start to head for the car.

On this return journey I skate like a man who is not fully engaged in a fruitful relationship with his limbs. I shuffle past fit, happy people merrily bounding along in a state of pure joy. Bastards.

By the time I get back to my car mucus is streaming from my nose and phlegm fills my mouth. I struggle with the lock and hop into the passengers seat, which is where I stay, unmoving for about as long as the actual exercise took me.

I come to two conclusions. The first is that I am far more unfit than I thought I was. The second is that physical development is hard. I hope it will be worth it.

Total time: 15 minutes
Total distance: Approx 3.2km

Time for Steak and Cheese Pies.

[Gaz]

Good luck with this. Just keep at it and it will get easier. Will be interesting to compare your post from the end of the challenge with this first one. I think you'll find the differences amusing.

[ChaosKiwi]

I think 30 day challenge is confusing, really its 13 days spread over 30. Anywho...

Time: 30mins (approx.)
Distance: 6.7km

Today I woke up in something that could not be described as a positive state. Heavily interrupted sleep, along with the possibility of another exercise experience like monday wasn't exactly inspiring. I lay in bed and tried to think of as many positive things as possible.

Things Improved slightly when I looked out the kitchen window and saw a light fog. I love fog.

I walked my dogs before I started skating. Overall I felt like I was going to vomit. This time I took some water with me so I could hydrate before and after the skate.

When I got to my start site, I realized the conditions were perfect! No one was around, no wind, cold but not freezing. The harbor was picture perfect, the water was glass.

I started of slow. I figured my mistake last time was bolting off with a heroic speed. This worked really well! I got to the point I turned back at last time and was barely breaking a sweat. Interestingly I was slightly faster. This might have been due to the absence of any wind.

I had forgotten my watch. So had to time it by checking the car clock before and after. I think this worked out in my favor, as I had the goal today of going for 20mins, and would have probably stopped at that point had I had a watch.

At about the 2km mark, the path surface quality is pretty poor for about a kilometer. After the session my knees hurt a bit and I think this in part is responsible, along with my tiny hard stunt wheels (which send a lot of vibration up my legs on ruff surfaces). I dosed my legs with cold water once I got home and this eradicated any pain.

An interesting thing happened shortly after I turned around to head back to the car. In the middle of the path in-front of me was $40. I picked it up and looked around to see anyone who would obviously have dropped it. No likely candidates. So I pocketed it and continued on. I'm not quite sure what I will do with it. Part of me thinks I should just give it to charity. Another part of me tells me that I'm broke and finders keepers. Either way, I'm taking it as a sign that rollerblading is a good investment in my future .

I found that as my legs got more and more fatigued, my technique got better and better .

Overall it was a really good exercise session. An added bonus that I have noticed is that my mood is far more upbeat for the remainder of the day after exercising. I am convinced that buying some new rollerblade wheels would greatly increase my speed and comfort levels. Interestingly, a new set of wheels would cost around $40.

[Gaz]

Sometimes the hardest part of any exercise regime is getting out of bed. But god for you you managed it and reaped the rewards.

Keep it up.

[ChaosKiwi]

Originally Posted by Gaz

Sometimes the hardest part of any exercise regime is getting out of bed. But god for you you managed it and reaped the rewards.

Keep it up.

Thanks for the encouragement Gaz, means a lot.

Distance: 8.4 km
Time: 38mins

Had a good morning, was looking forward to getting out there.

Basically I just did it. Summoned up the will power to push a little further than last time. On the return journey felt I was going a little slow, so I really sprinted the last 700 or so meters. I was really impressed by this pair of 50+ runners. On my return journey they were right behind me up until my sprint. There jogging was so fast and steady.

I was a little surprised that I was slightly slower. Overall I'm happy I'm past the halfway point, distance wise on my 3rd day. Maybe I'll look into extending the final challenge a couple more kilometers.

[Gaz]

Looking good so far. just be careful about pushing too hard in the beginning. One of the big things in endurance running while building up the mileage is not to increase your total distance by more than 20% a week, as this gives your body time to adjust. But I suspect with skating you can go more than that as it's lower impact.

And those old runners are incredible, I know a few, and wish I could run like them now, never mind in 20 or 30 years.

[ChaosKiwi]

Dist: 3.5km
Time: 17 mins

Today was short for 2 reasons. Firstly after day 3 I started feeling hugely fatigued. This lasted for the following 2 days! I think I must have pushed way to hard. Secondly there was a really strong head wind. This meant I was struggling big time heading away from the car but then ended up making the return journey super fast!

Gaz your spot on about giving my body time to adjust. I'm gonna pay attention to what my body is telling me.

[ChaosKiwi]

Today was the first day it was too wet to use my skates, so instead I did the steep hill walk for 35 mins. I got a good cardio workout.

I took the family dogs with me but this added a lot of stress to the workout. One is a very strong, friendly staffy cross that is always pulling ahead, and the other is a overly aggresive little dog that stops constantly and refuses to move until she's ready. Combined with a total lack of training it makes a simple walk incredibly frustrating.

Everyone in the house is coming down with the flu except for me! (touch wood) Maybe its the workouts?

[mikemann1991]

I hope you're keeping it up, Chaos. Here's to staying healthy for the duration and keeping your dog walks separate from your workout

[ChaosKiwi]

Hey I became a senior forum member without even realizing it! Only took two and a half years! That is like 76 in forum years.

Raining again, so did the hill climbing. Much better without the dogs. Was able to push harder and faster for longer! Unfortunately forgot to time it.

I wasn't looking forward to todays exercise as I only got around 3 hours sleep last night and was feeling really dizzy today because of it. But it turned out fine! In fact it seems to have made me feel much better.

I think its working!

[ChaosKiwi]

Another day of hill climbing! I think the weathers changing for the better though.

Dist: Hill Climbing
Time: 25 mins

Charging up and down a steep wet slippery hill is a very different workout to the skating. The skating is steady and sustained, where as the hill climbing goes from quite gentle one minute to killer the next! Interestingly more balance is needed on the hill.

Day 7 is a day late. Yesterday I could not bring myself to exercise. I had a string of really late nights and bad sleeps, along with a whole bunch of other things on my mind. Instead I decided to write out the areas where I feel I'm falling down in life, my biggest fears, things that are most frustrating to me, and things that feel really urgent. Then I rated all these things on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the worst). Following this I linked any like items using symbols, and added up the total scale scores for each symbol (by now this is probably making no sense). Using this system I can see that the biggest things are troubling me are too much escapism, and letting fear paralyze me. By doing this I can really zoom in on what actions will bring the most return in my life currently. I tell you this because, well, this is a PD website after all.

[ChaosKiwi]

Yay! Finally I could do some skating. Who would of thought that by the end of my exercise today I would be a hero to a bunch of senior citizens!

Dist: 4.9km
Time: 20 mins

I had a really good technique going that pushed out a lot of speed, I tired quite quickly though, but think this is related to another 30 day trial I started 4 days ago (not posted on this forum). I seem to be working my back and shoulder muscles quite a bit somehow as well, as they ache today.

At the halfway point I stopped and had a small rest (taking my pulse like the fitness yuppie I am) and a lady starts yelling "help... need help". At first I thought she was asking me if I needed help, cause I was taking my pulse. So I rolled over to her, where she explained that a man had fallen over on the senior citizen bus and they weren't strong enough to to lift him up and put him in his wheelchair. So I took my blades off hopped on the bus and lifted him and his wheel chair up, plonking him in it! I exited to the thundering applause of wrinkled hands and thankyou's.

To be honest they probably did more for me today than I did for them. I speed back to the car positively beaming.

Going to have to give the skates a good clean, as they are covered in grass, mud and sand from taking them off half way.

[ChaosKiwi]

Dist: 7.8km
Time: 35 mins

Today is the first day I saw other people rollerblading.

[ChaosKiwi]

This trail is over. I ended up missing 4 days of inline skating. Part of the reason was that I had a very tough short term physical labour job and was too worn out to do anything when I got home. The other part was that after the job I came down with a nasty cold.

Was this trail successful? Yes and no, but not in the ways I'd expected.

On a fitness level the results have been mixed. One day I'll feel fantastic skating along, and yet other times its like I'm using my legs for the first time. My legs still burn when I climb stairs, but at the same time I climb them at a sprint now. I think the biggest change has been that my recovery time from exercise is a lot shorter, which is great.

In terms of the goals I set for myself in this trial, I have come to realize most were largely inane. The only one that was important was doing it consistently, which I did. Things like making it to a certain point each session, or doing it in such and such a time seemed to detract from the most enjoyable aspects. And in the end if its not enjoyable you probably won't do it for long. I gave up on my 15.6 km final session half way through the 30 days. While I'm sure I could achieve it, its just not worth feeling like crap for the 3 days afterward.

I think the biggest success was the random stuff that happened. Finding $40, becoming a hero to a bus full of senior citizens, a bunch of people trying to fish a big slab of wood/door/raft out of the water, these things were unexpected but made for some good feelings and interesting stories!