Started Running and Keeping a Logs of my Media, Food, and Exercises

1:19 AM (of Monday, May 18th, 2026)

Today is Sunday, May 17th, 2026, and I started running every day. At a bit before 6 AM, I would go outside and walk to the nearby park, which has several soccer fields, some tennis fields, and 4 baseball fields. I do think there is a single half-court basketball court, next to what I consider is the "maintenance building", because I do see several work trucks and blue collar workers there, but I just haven't taken a good enough look. There is also a giant kid's playground, the largest I have seen anywhere, at this park. It's a large enough playground that jogging from one end to the other, probably takes me like 1-2 minutes, at a 5mph pace, so 1/12th to 1/6th of a mile in length. The width only takes like 2 seconds to jog through. So it's this long playground with the a lot of amenities, again the most I have seen anywhere, it has very large structures too, some might be considered 1.5 stories high.

There's also this trail, that goes around 2 miles in one direction inside this forest, but it's actually endless if you take a detour through any of the other trails. Oh, there is also a giant golf course nearby, and also a place to enter the Potomac river. Man if we are going to include that entire area with the golf course, there are also a lot of camping areas, camp buildings, even a waterpark, lots of picnic spots. So this is a pretty huge park. I just want to focus on the area where I do my running laps.

There is this large circular road that surrounds these 4 baseball fields. The baseball fields themselves are in a sort of clover or "D-Pad" shape, in the interior part of the circle, with a two-story wooden building in the center. The area between the baseball fields are large sidewalks essentially, that lead to the center. There is a lot of grass in this area due to the soccer fields and baseball fields, and the mowers are there often.

So this sports complex is quite large. I can go on and on about the details. But essentially I just do laps in this circular road. There is also a cyclist there that I have noticed, that is also there every day. He doesn't go very fast though. He wears a black jacket and pants, and has these reflective straps around his upper body, that are sort of like suspenders, making a Y shape. Whoa. I just heard the weirdest engine noise as I type this, 1:39 AM. It was like a mix between a whine from a biological creature and an engine. I've heard a lot of engine startup noises from cars and motorcycles, all sorts of vehicles, but that was a weird one. It might just be all the alien content I've been seeing that is making me paranoid.

Anyway, I see this cyclist also circling this area with me every morning. It's a straight up nearly perfect circle around this sports complex. There is one part where it is a straight line and there is not much of any curve, I noticed that when I was running and also see it on the map when I view my workout run, but other than that part, the entire thing still looks circular. When you are running, it's not a straight line, you are basically running "inwards" or at an angle inwards, the entire time, except for that one straight part.

I have been running 2.5 miles daily, and walking around 20 minutes daily. It takes 10 minutes to walk to this park from my parent's home, and then another 10 minutes back. It takes me about 12-13 minutes to run a mile, I run in zone 2, at around a 150-160 heart rate. I try to actually run below 150bpm, but I can only maintain that for a few minutes maybe, and then I go above 150 at the same speed. Today I ran above zone 5, or over 170 bpm. My current age is 32, so I do 220-332, which is 188. My zone 2 is 70-85% BPM, so 131 to 159 bpm. Lame, I was thinking that these are too close to each other, searching it online right now, apparently Zone 2 is supposed to be 60-70%, so below 140bpm for me. So I am not even running in Zone 2.

I'm going to try running a lot slower now. I have to keep my BPM to below 140, so today I will run my slowest. Probably a 15 minute mile or slower. That's the pace I have to go for a few months. It's recommended I run this for 6 months before turning it up to Zone 5 and doing HIIT. HIIT is really where my VO2Max will improve. Right now the calculations for my VO2Max based on my recent runnings and walkings range from 37.5 to 40, according to my Apple Watch, which is quite low. It's because I don't do any HIIT exercises and also I am overweight.

I get all these different calculations and data from Medium articles that I have read one time. I read it once, gather this information, and just have it stored in my memory. Although I did learn about Zone 2 back in 2019 or 2018 or so, from Rich Roll's book Finding Ultra. I basically should start off doing zone 2 only for a few months, to condition my body to be able to run at a higher intensity later. Technically I do Zone 2 workouts whenever I am playing LesMill's BodyCombat.

The metrics I want to improve the most are my VO2Max and my weight. I don't even know how much I weigh right now, but I just want to be lighter again for a variety of different reasons. Being faster at running and everything are just minor reasons to be lighter.

I want to be able to do Cooper's Test and do well. Cooper's Test is basically run as far as you can in 12 minutes, and using a calculator online, determine your VO2 Max. I can probably run 1.4 miles in 12 minutes, based on the VO2 Max calculations from my Apple Watch. There is such a huge difference in score from just 1.4 miles to 1.6 miles. Literally 39 VO2Max to 46 VO2Max, just from a 1.4 to 1.6 miles. And only being able to run 1.2 miles in 12 minutes gives an abysmal score of 31.9 VO2Max, which is horrendous.

Actually, I don't even know if I can run 1.4 miles in 12 minutes. According to the calculations online, that is an 8:34 mile. WOW. I typically just jog 12-13 minute miles, and even that puts my heart rate above 150. 2:10 AM, I just heard that weird whining engine noise again, for a few seconds this time. I opened up the voice memo app on my phone in case it happens again. Again, it's a very weird "engine" noise, that's like a whining and a startup sound. It sounded biological.

Yeah I don't think I can run an 8:34 mile. That's too fast for me, I think. Going all out, maybe. That will put my heart rate above 180 or so for sure though. I might try it out tomorrow (Monday). Nah, I will just keep it Zone 2 until I lose weight.

Throughout the day I have been doing exercises and logging what I ate and the media I consumed as well. It's all in the logs page. There's a lot of junk that I consume. My body is very sore, mainly from jogging. It's great.