When obsessions collide
Gym motivation is a huge problem for me, which is probably not a surprise. I'm also the rut type of exerciser: I can't quit my relationship with the elliptical trainer, even though I know I'm outgrowing it, so I've resorted to adding treadmill work to my elliptical session, instead of replacement. (Unemployment makes so many things possible.)
Of course, I came to the elliptical after realizing that the exercise bike no longer challenged me (okay, really? It turns out the NewBurb Park District elliptical bikes were all broken). I still try to ride for exercise sometimes, and I needed some way to compare my workouts.
That's where the mental-arithmetic obsession comes in.
See, sort of, I can ride a kilometer on an exercise bike at a comfortable pace that is roughly half the pace I can easily sustain on the elliptical; it's about a third (really 2/7) of the pace I can run on the treadmill (and that pace is more challenging, though I'm not sure if it's athletically challenging or just that I get bored of running). So my current goals are to run a 20K, a kilometer-marathon (26.2K), or 30K using the following formula:
Bike distance is taken as is, plus
Elliptical distance times 2, plus
Treadmill distance times 3.
This workout is also required to burn roughly 450 calories (which means it must contain a treadmill component, in practice); it should take about an hour (so the elliptical is necessary, to move things along).
I'm not sure it's really much of a motivator or that the distances really mean anything, but computing the various combinations of exercise, and figuring out what lengths of time each would realistically take, does take my mind off the sheer monotony of running on a freakin' conveyor belt. Whatever works, eh?
Of course, I came to the elliptical after realizing that the exercise bike no longer challenged me (okay, really? It turns out the NewBurb Park District elliptical bikes were all broken). I still try to ride for exercise sometimes, and I needed some way to compare my workouts.
That's where the mental-arithmetic obsession comes in.
See, sort of, I can ride a kilometer on an exercise bike at a comfortable pace that is roughly half the pace I can easily sustain on the elliptical; it's about a third (really 2/7) of the pace I can run on the treadmill (and that pace is more challenging, though I'm not sure if it's athletically challenging or just that I get bored of running). So my current goals are to run a 20K, a kilometer-marathon (26.2K), or 30K using the following formula:
Bike distance is taken as is, plus
Elliptical distance times 2, plus
Treadmill distance times 3.
This workout is also required to burn roughly 450 calories (which means it must contain a treadmill component, in practice); it should take about an hour (so the elliptical is necessary, to move things along).
I'm not sure it's really much of a motivator or that the distances really mean anything, but computing the various combinations of exercise, and figuring out what lengths of time each would realistically take, does take my mind off the sheer monotony of running on a freakin' conveyor belt. Whatever works, eh?