The Streak Goes On

Today will be day 27 of my walk/run streak.  To recap quickly, I’m committed to walking and/or running a mile or more every day through at least the end of August.  It’s like a running streak, but allows walking in the hopes of avoiding burnout and injury.

And it turns out that walking can be harder than running, particularly on the day after a hard workout.  Running produces a biochemical stew including adrenaline and endorphins that dull pain and tap into energy reserves.  Walking isn’t intense enough to do that, so there’s nothing to stop the sensations of dragging a tired, achy body around.

But walking is enough to loosen up the body and get things circulating, which flushes out waste and gets nutrients into areas that aren’t well served by blood vessels.  It’s restorative without doing further damage.  Other activities such as Yoga are also helpful, but since I can’t track mileage when doing Yoga, I go for a walk.

With a few walk days during the week, there’s now more contrast between my hard and easy workouts.  This seems to be working very well, but since I’m still coming back from injury and bronchitis it’s too soon to tell if it’s the walking or simply my body remembering some of its former level of fitness.  Either way, my pace has improved from glacial to slow at an astounding rate and my resting pulse is back under 60.

By doing something every day, the weekly mileage adds up very quickly.  I’m eager to get back to doing a long run over 10 miles once a week, but right now that would ramp up my weekly mileage too much too quickly.  It’s a completely different experience to be holding back on pace and distance compared to trying to go further and faster than the body is really ready for.  Exercise is fun again.

The streak is almost a month long and becoming established as habit.  Now it’s time to start focusing on adding in some strength training and maybe even some yoga, in addition to maintaining the streak.  Adding variety instead of increasing mileage feels radical.  It’s not something a runner does naturally.

Bought a Prius

Yesterday we picked up our brand new Prius!  Of the cars I have owned, this one by far has generated the largest number of questions, odd comments, and quizzical looks, which is saying something considering I once owned and autocrossed an orange Chevette.  As a convenience for my family, friends, coworkers, and other acquaintances, I present this convenient FAQ:

Q: When did you develop a man crush on Al Gore?

A: I didn’t.  This car is not a political statement.  It’s not going to save the planet.  It’s still consuming resources.  Only rather than burning a lot of oil from unstable countries with despotic governments, it’s made from many rare elements which are mostly concentrated in other unstable countries with despotic governments.  The motto of hybrids and electrics should be “Killing the planet a little more slowly and in different ways”.  If I really wanted to save the planet, I’d move closer to the office and walk/run/bike to work.

Q: So why did you buy it?

A: Two reasons.  First, I have a long commute and typically spend a couple hours each week crawling along slowly in bumper to bumper traffic.  The Prius is ideal for this kind of driving.  It can crawl slowly on electric power alone, which is exceedingly quiet and it doesn’t have a transmission that’s constantly changing gears like a modern 6+ speed automatic.

Second, I’m an engineer, and the technology of the Prius is fascinating.  I tend to avoid complicated cars, but will make an exception in this case.  While it’s complicated, they’ve also eliminated a lot of the failure points and maintenance items in other cars.  There is no accessory belt.  All the accessories (including A/C and water pump) are electric.  This means they can run independently of engine speed, and since they don’t need to function from 600 RPM to 6,000+ RPM are in theory less failure prone.  So how many readers have I lost by now?  Okay, I’ll skip the bit about the lack of a normal transmission.

Q: Why do you need 5 cars?

A: I don’t have 5 cars.  We have 4.  Two are new-ish daily drivers which are reliable and in good condition, and the others are both 17 years old and driven infrequently.  They old ones are a luxury and a means of coping with the long commute.  When I get bored driving the Prius, I’ll hop in a gas guzzler for a couple days, have fun, then at the first traffic jam quickly remember the reasons for getting the Prius.

Q: How much did you pay?

A: About $500 too much, like any other car, so so it feels.  With the internet, there isn’t much negotiation left.  I end up paying at or near invoice price, plus taxes, registration, and dealer fees, minus rebate and trade-in.  I suspect the invoice is slightly inflated by advertising fees and such.  With the holdback, the dealer ends up selling the car “at cost” and pocketing about $800-$1000 dollars, plus whatever other incentives go directly to the dealer.

Q: What’s it like to drive?

A: Surprisingly like any other car, with a couple exceptions.  The first portion of the “gas pedal” travel uses electric power, so to get it to really accelerate you need to push past that, and past the “efficient” zone.  It’s set up for economy, not to feel like a fast car.  Need to get up to speed?  Lead foot it.  Also, the brakes are used to recharge the battery, but the regeneration works best at speed.  As you approach a stop, the regeneration quits working and you need to push down harder to engage the friction (normal) brakes.  It’s a bit disconcerting until you get used to it.

Q: How often does the engine shut off?

A: Any chance it gets.  At speeds below about 45, the engine will shut off every time you take your foot off the gas pedal.  Driving behind someone who is going at an unsteady speed, or in traffic where cars are frequently slowing down to turn, the engine can cycle off and back on many times per mile.  It’s very well done.  Many times, you can only tell if the engine is on or off by the “EV” light on the dashboard.

Q: Is it quiet?

A: Yes and no.  At low speeds, it’s either on electric power or the engine is turning slowly, so it’s very quiet.  At speed, there is a surprising amount of tire noise.  It seems sound deadening would add weight and reduce gas mileage.

Walk Streak

Walking is underrated, but I’ll get back to that in a moment.  First let me document my fall from running grace.

First there was the physical therapy, then the bronchitis, and in between lots of snow and cold.  I’ve had virtually no quality running this year, and now I’m ready to ramp things back up just in time for hot and humid weather.

There something else I must confess.  Even at my peak of fitness a year ago, it was very difficult for me to do an “easy” run.  A slow shuffle on a cool day would put my heart rate in the middle of the “vigorous physical activity” range.  (note: beware the age-based formula for determining maximum heart rate, it’s a statistical average of multiple people and doesn’t work for individuals).

Any attempt to run what feels like a natural pace gets my heart rate well above the vigorous range after a couple miles.  I got very good at running with a super high heart rate, but the reality is that if the heart rate is that high, it means the body is producing a lot of adrenaline and probably cortisol.  This might explain why I never became particularly fast and tend to break down when attempting to train for a marathon.

Thus, I’m starting a walk streak.  I intend to walk and/or run at least one mile every day until the end of August, and then decide if it’s worth continuing.  It’s like starting a running streak, only there’s no shame in walking if the body isn’t ready for a run on a particular day.  And of course, if there are running breaks in the middle of a walk, it still counts as a walk.

Doing this will require checking my ego at the door.  I really enjoy running.  I also enjoy being seen by others as a runner.  But my ego has a tendency to make me push too hard.  To try to keep up with other runners who are either more genetically gifted, or in the process of forming their own chronic injuries.

The real goal here is to establish a habit that can be maintained for decades, and not just for a few years.  Walking is much lower impact than running, but still serves the purpose of elevating the heart rate and getting the bodily fluids circulating (fun fact: there’s twice as much lymph as blood in the human body).

And so I am on day 5 of my walk streak.  Who wants to join me?