Me and My Treadmill Day 32

So, once again no treadmill love today. The croupe wins. Exhaustion, frayed nerves, short tempers, and yelly parents prevailed. And yes, 'yelly' is a word that we made up, but use it regularly around our house. We're VERY tentatively hopeful that the baby will sleep in her bed all night so that I might get to do so as well. Tomorrow will definitely bring an attempt to repair the 'mill and get back on it. Til then...

Me and My Treadmill Day 31

So, there was no running today. First, the treadmill remains out of order. I did call the fitness store chain from which we bought it and they concur that I should be able to rebalance and tighten the tread to correct my problem. However, second factor today: my baby has croupe. If you're not familiar: it's a persistent barking cough accompanied by tight throat, congested chest, and basic misery. Thus, we spent all last night sitting up in our recliner with the windows open and humidifier on high, twice visiting the bathroom for a steaming and basically getting only short stretches of decent sleep. As such, I'm a tired man today. I hope to get to repair and return to the treadmill tomorrow but the doctor told us this morning (shortly before our baby received a steroid shot) that the second night is always the worse in croupe, an illness that basically can only be endured for a few days before it goes away. So we will see if I'm in any condition to do much tomorrow!

Me and My Treadmill Day 30

Where and When: My Treadmill, 1:30p

How Long and How Fast: 15 minutes with maximum speed of 3.5 mph

How Far (in miles): Today: .80  This Week: .80  Total Project: 56.26

Status: Uh oh. So my workout was cut short today because at the 15 minute mark there was a strong burning smell coming from the treadmill. My suspicion (and hope) is that I should have immediately addressed the fact that I noticed last week that the tread seems off center (meaning that I need to rebalance the treadmill to level so that the tread doesn't slide off to one side) and behind the treadmill is a bunch of little black detritus indicating to me that the burning smell is coming from the tread rubbing on one side of the treadmill. If that's all it is (and nothing to do with the motor) then I can fix it and keep going. If I need to get a technician involved, pray for me... hard.

MMT Day 28

Where and When: My Treadmill, 10:35a

How Long and How Fast: 1 hour 57 minutes with maximum speed of 5.0 mph

How Far (in miles): Today: 6.5  This Week: 15.02  Total Project: 55.46

Status: I'm trying not to think too much about what today means as I'm hoping to fulfill the 15 miles every week from now on. To accomplish that, I need to go 6.5 miles today alone. Haven't gone that far in a long while. So I'm just walking at the moment, watching my episode of The Biggest Loser (fun inspiration) and will very soon attempt to begin typing on the lesson writing work that I need to do today. Wish me luck.

Oh, and I should take a couple minutes to explain why I didn't get on the treadmill yesterday. We had a family day of adventure. We took a morning train to downtown Chicago. We rode elevators up to the 72nd floor of the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) to visit Grandma. We had lunch with her and then walked a mile through the city to Millenium Park where we had the fun of playing in the water of the Crown Fountain and then took some silly pictures at "the bean" (more formally called Cloud Gate).

Then the kids got a real treat when we all piled into a cab to take us back to the train station to come home. After such a long day of chasing three little ones around downtown Chicago my wife and I crashed pretty hard at home feeling fairly confident that we'd spent a good number of calories on our full fun day.

MMT Day 26

Where and When: My Treadmill, 7:40p

How Long and How Fast: 1 hour 1 minute at 3.5 mph

How Far (in miles): Today: 3.3  This Week: 8.52  Total Project: 48.96

Status: Made some decisions recently about this project. A change in "the rules" is necessary. So, I'm dumping rule #1 in favor of rule #2: thus, no more 15 minutes every day in favor of whatever works to go 15 miles per week. And as for rule #3, instead of 15 minutes of video blogging a week, I've decided to try 5 minutes of creative journal writing every day. These adjustments seem more in line with the reality of my life and in the spirit of what the project is about: increased creative output and greater fitness.

MMT Day 25

Where and When: My Treadmill, 10:00a

How Long and How Fast: 1 hour 45 minutes at 3.0 mph

How Far (in miles): Today: 5.22  This Week: 5.22  Total Project: 45.66*

Status: Slipping into older habits of letting go of intense commitment reappeared in the last few days. But another old habit's getting kicked to the curb: quitting. So today I'm back on the treadmill. I've set up a spreadsheet to the do the math for me and show me the whole project in overview; that's powerfully motivating seeing all 21 days in a glance. Seeing the miles and calories and weight loss. And I'm also learning that, bottom line, I'm older and this exercise project is only half of my fitness needs. We've got to break bad eating habits because the diet we've fallen into is a direct competitor to the exercise; I didn't get on the treadmill the last three days because I was too tired because I've been eating too poorly. It must change if this project is going to succeed.

* If you're into the math, you might note that this number makes no sense compared to the last note. I knew that I'd screwed up the addition at some point when just going from note to note and so set the spreadsheet up to do the math for me. This number represents the actual total, which makes sense given the weeks' numbers.

MMT Day 20

Where and When: My Treadmill, 10:00a

How Long and How Fast: 60 minutes at 3.0 & 4.2 mph

How Far (in miles): Today: 3.13 This Week: 12.5  Total Project: 51.92

Relationship Status: Frankly, today I don't really feel like hanging out with you, Treadmill, so I'm getting it over with early in the day. Obligation and commitment sometimes force us to do things we'd rather not. I know that the time and effort will be worth it, but right now I'd rather be in the  quiet library doing all the work that I've been putting off for days.