Dufisthenics

Over the weekend I managed to badly slice the top of my right ring finger on the very sharp and fast moving propeller of my RC plane.  The cut appeared to be very deep as it bled like mad.  As a result I decided to keep this week’s gym work heavily cardio based as doing any exercise that is putting pressure on my right hand via hanging, pulling or pushing could be just enough to pop the cut open again.

I  need to heavily focus on my cardio anyway since the 10-12 mile Tough Mudder race is barely more than a month away.

Today I did a treadmill 5K.  At first I had it set for my normal 1% incline with a speed of 7 mph which translates to an 8:34 mile.  Somewhere before the half mile mark I realized it was going to be a major struggle for me to maintain that pace for 3 plus miles. I dialed it back to 6.5mph which translated to a more manageable 9:13 pace.

Even with the scaled back belt speed I found completing the run quite challenging.  Running a certain distance on a treadmill for me is much more difficult than running the same distance outdoors.  The belt forces you to keep your legs going at the same uncomfortable speed and the static scenery seems to amplify the misery level.

If I bring headphones and find something on tv that is entertaining it can help the miles pass by a little easier.  At times the swinging headphone cord can become quite annoying as it can get caught on your swinging arms/hands. Regardless, I did not bring them today and as a result only had a silent movie version of Sportscenter to try to take my mind off the discomfort.  It didn’t help much.

To make matters worse, once I completed my 3.12 miles and slowed the belt down to walking pace to cool down I felt some more than casual pain in my always troublesome right knee.   By the time I got back to work I was walking without a limp so I am hoping it was just a temporary glitch.

My cardio endurance just does not feel good.  I think the extra weight (hopefully muscle) I have put on that has helped me do things like dead lift 365 pounds hurts me when I try to do endurance activities like running.  No matter if it is muscle or fat, 182 pounds requires more energy to move and creates more impact on the knees than 170 pounds does, a lot more.