11:58 PM
Today was pretty much the same as yesterday, with the main difference being that I ran outside today. I didn't just jog, I actually ran 2.4 miles, with my fastest mile split being 11:23. I'm actually surprised at how slow I am. I need to work on endurance a lot more, because this is pretty slow. I could use the excuses that it was raining outside and I was carrying a closed umbrella, but I was pretty much giving it my all today.
I ran at a zone 2 pace in the beginning, running at a 13 minute mile pace, but after a bit over a mile, I sped it up and ran at a zone 5, 8 minute mile pace at my fastest. I had my motivations for doing so. I was jogging in the forest and about a minute after reaching the checkpoint where I normally turn around and start running back, I passed by this jogger heading towards that checkpoint. There's a bit more of a stretch after this checkpoint to reach the end of the forest path, where there's this fence that says no trespassing, maybe after about another 5 minutes or so, but I always turn around well before then.
So I pass by this jogger going the opposite way of me, and I didn't get fired up initially, but after about 5 minutes after I had passed by the jogger, I imagined him reaching the end of the forest, turning around, and coming up from behind and passing me. He was very thin and looked like he ran all the time, this was also at around 1 PM and it was raining, so there was no one else in the forest except for me and one elderly person walking their dog, and this young jogger wearing a hat. I imagined this person lapping me and I didn't like that idea, so I picked up my speed and to me, it felt like I sprinted out of there.
According to my Apple Watch Ultra 2, my fastest speed was an 8:13 pace, an 8 minute mile if I kept up that pace for a whole mile. That's unbelievably slow, yet it felt like I was sprinting at my maximum. I really need to improve my endurance because that's unbelievably slow. In college there was someone on my dorm floor who could run under a 4 minute mile. I can't believe I actually remember his full name, and just looked it up just now. Nick S. (I'm intentionally not writing his full last name). Very cool dude, but like most of us, basically disappeared from the face of the earth after college.
He could run a 4 minute mile, so if he kept up his running and competed in running events, I'm sure he could have made a name for himself in that field. Yet, like most of us, we abandon what we're good at if it doesn't involve making money. I don't think there's much to be made in being a fast runner. There's one-time Olympic events that only the top 0.000001% take part in, and that sort of money only lasts a short stint (although the fame can last forever). I think even winning marathons and ultramarathons doesn't involve much money either, just some fame, mainly with other runners, or vegans if you happen to be a top athlete and vegan.
I want to run to improve my health and see how fast I can run. Can I eventually run a 5 minute mile? Possibly. First I have to lose like 40 pounds. I want to run long distances, but I want to be able to run at fast speeds too. It just takes so much work and effort to accomplish, though I guess running is one of the easier exercise activities out there. There's not much complexity in running, it just involves endurance basically, of repeating the same actions of one foot in front of the other, for miles and miles.
Masters competitions for sports start at 40. That's crazy. I'm only 9 years away from Masters. Masters is basically old people competition. It's not as intense as sports competition for people in their teens and 20s, the times and records for feats and are significantly lower.
I'm just thinking about the difficulty it is to really excel and do well at any sport. It is so hard and requires so much. Let me look up the workout routine for the person who set the world record for the plank back in 2020. I remember reading this article and the guy did like 1500 push ups a day, 1000 squats a day, or something like that. So I found it. George Hood, 62 years old. Amazing record. Here are some notes:
This is the kind of work and effort needed to break a world record. He was already 62 and retired, so he had plenty of time to exercise like this every day. It's still incredibly hard work. The reddit page r/neet has teens and people in their 20s and 30s who have all the free time in the world, they are Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET), and yet none of them have broken any world records.
Even though I do work, I am still in school, I am also "training" every day (if training meant either self-learning or exercising), I do feel like a NEET at times. I'm a YEET, Yes in Education, Employment, and Training. I just made this YEET thing up. I make my own time for anything. I literally just went out and ran today in the afternoon because I felt like it. I could take a day off any time I want to, or a week off, a month off, a year off, or whatever, any time. I feel like a NEET because I feel unaccomplished. I haven't done anything in my life and I'm already in my 30s.
It is pretty incredible how young I look I think. I like looking as young as I do. A couple of months ago, some "kids" in their early 20s asked me what school I went to, they thought I was one of them. Last year there was also some 19 year old girl who thought I was 22 (I was already 30 at the time). Though, there was this 24 year old girl who thought I was in my 30s (I was exactly 30), she was rude imo, I "guessed" she was 19 as a compliment knowing she was already 24, and yet she was like "30s" when she guessed my age, that's rude! A week or two ago though, my cousin's girlfriend said I don't look like I'm in my 30s as a compliment when she met me for the first time.
There's this one website where people can upload face photos of themselves at different ages, like there's a page for age 30, 31, 32, etc. Looking through these, it really doesn't look like people start to look "old" until 45ish. Even then, there's still some youngish looking people in their 50s. At 60, it starts to become extremely obvious these people are older, but not that old. I need to start making photos and videos of myself daily again. I want to track how I change over time, and I want to see if I can remain looking as young as I do indefinitely.
I think I look as young as I do because all my hair is black. I have one white mustache hair that is really hard to spot unless you know where it is. It still takes me a few seconds to find it, and I know exactly where it is. Can I make it turn black again? How? I don't think there's a way. Well, thankfully there's the Internet we can search on. Pretty much everything is made possible thanks to the Internet (with a lot of exceptions of course like "humane animal torture and killing for meat" which there's no such thing).
Apparently stress can cause hair to turn white, and removing stress can add color to it again. That's not my situation, so I'm not there. Nutritional deficiencies can also cause hair to whiten, and getting more nutrition can cause it to come back, again that's not my situation. According to Chronometer, taking no supplements, I get 94-98% of my nutrition needs met per day, eating a fully vegan diet, the few missing % are minor like getting only 80% zinc or something for example. If I take a supplement, like a vegan multivitamin, then yeah getting 100% nutrition needs met per day is easy, but I get pretty close to that without logging taking anything. I do take a B12 supplement though, and recently this "immunity" vegan multivitamin I bought from Big Lots.
So, I'm pretty much perfectly healthy other than my weight, which is the biggest detriment, so it's surprising I'm still healthy regardless of my weight. My resting heart rate when I go to sleep is normally in the 50s and sometimes in the 40s That's pretty incredible. I sleep at 3 AM and wake up at 9 AM, getting only 6 hours of sleep per night, which is not efficient at all, yet I sleep well and I have a low resting heart rate. My VO2 max is really low at 38 though, I think it's because I'm overweight.
Anyway, I really have to fix my life. There's so much wrong with it. I have to fix my sleep, I have to fix my weight, I have to fix my workouts and workout schedule. I need to focus and pay attention to what's going on with my life.
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