Wii have lift off.

Fiona's sister was the happy recipient of a Nintendo Wii for her 24th birthday last week, and the two of them have been going crazy over it in the time since. Being an addict of racing games and racing games only, I've struggled to find it within me to even look at the Wii. I know it's a somewhat revolutionary concept - and I think that's great - but without the sheer power of the PlayStation 3 or the Xbox 360, I couldn't see how I'm really going to get any great kick out of whatever racing games the Wii may offer up. Consequently, I didn't bother to try it out.

Hot damn, that was a mistake. I tried it this morning, and it's a hoot. That's right, a hoot. The Wii Sports package that comes with the system is simply phenomenal. It has its drawbacks (the movement sensors aren't as accurate as they could be, which can be very frustrating), but all said, it's just great.

For actual fun, Golf has been great, as has Baseball (though it seems all I'm good at is striking out, or hitting foul balls). I'm yet to try Bowling, though I imagine that'll be sweet. Tennis was a bit of a letdown, but I'll give it another try soon.

The real winner though? Boxing. Damn, what a workout. Maybe I'm just a lot more unfit than I thought (a very, very strong possibility), but I was working up a sweat in no time. I found myself getting very frustrated at the sensor's inability to follow my movements properly - often throwing the wrong arm on the screen, or not responding to my punching movements at all - but that was quickly forgotten whenever I managed to land a series of punches in a row, leaving me excited and pumped for more. If anything, the lack of accurate responses from the sensor
merely served to force me to punch twice as often to land all the hits that I needed to land, which in the end resulted in an even heavier workout.

I guess shadow boxing - which is all this essentially is - is no substitute for a punching bag (or a person, if you're actually into competitive boxing), but it definitely classes as a good cardiac workout in my opinion.

If only there was something that would make use of my legs, I could cut back on the actual jogging!

Alright, maybe not. The Wii is no replacement for genuine exercise, but it's definitely a productive way to enjoy yourself and get a good workout all at the same time.

Edit: I've just discovered there's a Fitness Mode. Now we're talking.

Oh the noodles!

Well, it seems I've gotten the running back under control - going at least once a day - but I'm struggling with the diet. I mean... I'm not eating McDonald's, I'm not eating candy, I'm not drinking soda, and I'm not eating chips (known to Americans perhaps as "crisps"). However, I do eat a hell of a lot of instant noodles. And that stuff's bound to be bad, right? Especially if you have say two servings of it each day.

So, you know. It's great that I'm out running regularly, but unless I can get a handle on my eating, I'm not sure just how much of a benefit running is actually going to be. My general fitness and tolerance for running will no doubt improve, but probably not as well as it should.

I need a professional trainer I think!

The Awesome Lunch

How awesome was your lunch yesterday? Mine was this awesome.

I'm trying to find some cool gadgets to make running a little more exciting, like perhaps a GPS watch or a backpack with a water reservoir inside, et cetera. Any suggestions? Ha ha ha, what am I saying, I'm the only one that reads this!

The "Couch to 5km" Method.

Man, this is harder than I thought it would be. The "Couch to 5km" article over at CoolRunning.com describes the Week 1 routine as follows: "Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes." Sounds simple enough, right? Well yeah, it does. I agree.

So why was it so damn hard!

I think that the hardest part for me was waiting for the timer to get to 0 seconds. I used my phone as a timer, with a countdown from 60 to 0, and simply clutched it in my hand as I jogged. When it vibrated, I'd know I could stop running and start walking for 60/90 seconds. The problem was that because I was letting my phone do the counting, and not myself, I was so desperately anticipating the 0-second mark that I'd find myself almost yelling in frustration: "Come on, it has to have been 60 seconds by now!!".

After the first 3 reps of this, I ended up stopping each time at an average of 50 seconds elapsed. For some reason I just couldn't manage the final 10 seconds. On the last one, I made it to 55 seconds elapsed. Wow! Haha. Note the sarcasm.

As Fi pointed out when I sent her an email at work full of my sob story; "Tomorrow is another day, and you'll know what's ahead of you this time". She's a clever girly that one.

So, tomorrow's another day!

I don't want to jinx myself, but...

I may be back. Back in the running, so to speak. After a month or two of rest (this is also known as "I sat around doing nothing, eating very very poorly, and watching the first two seasons of Entourage") to allow my knee to heal, I'm back on track. Well, I'm not sure if I can declare such a thing after only two days, but damn it, it's my blog!

On Friday, I took Buster out for a tentative run to see if there was still much pain in my knee. It's been feeling pretty good lately—I still can't walk up or down stairs comfortably, but it's not as bad as it used to be. So anyway, we went for a run (remembering that when I say "run", I mean "fairly slow jog"), and it felt pretty good. There were a few moments where I could feel a light pain in my knee, which would result in an "oh daaaag" thought to visit my head, but it soon passed.

This morning—Monday—Fiona and I went for a jog up at our usual stomp (a local football field), and while she pushed through three full laps, I managed about 2 laps, based on my own special aggregate recipe. In other words: I ran out of breath a lot and had to walk, haha.

But the point is that my knee now feels okay! I am hoping it'll stay that way, and barring any unforeseen atrocities upon my personage, it should be good. So now I'm back to my only problem being general fitness and health, and not bodily!

Good days are upon us.

Damn knee!

My knee is really starting to piss me off. Just to recap, I came off my motorbike last november, and one of the injuries sustained was to my knee. Nothing horribly bad, but there's some pain when walking up and down stairs and so forth. The weird thing is, I've been jogging since the 8th of January. Every week day, with only a few exceptions. The only gap I've had of more than 1 day was a few weeks ago when I took a business trip interstate and stupidly left my running shoes there. It took two weeks to get them back.

Somehow, in that time, my knee has decided to become an absolute monster. I now have my running shoes back, but I can't jog without getting a shocking pain somewhere in my knee. It feels like it's around the cartilage or patella, but I'm no physio. All I know is that it hurts. I can walk absolutely fine, not even a hint of pain, but if I try to jog or walk up/down a flight of stairs, I get the pain.

I should visit a physio, but frankly I just can't afford it right now. I literally can't. Not because I don't want the cost of a physio interrupting my social life or shopping agenda, I just simply cannot afford it.

Most of the advice I've been getting from friends and peers has been "walk a lot, see if it helps your leg recover". I don't really have the time during the day, so I might have to make it a night thing, try to get some long distances in. Maybe walk to my mum's place (and then get Fiona to pick me up, haha).

Perhaps I should try to get in a few nights of swimming each week? Or maybe I should borrow/lease an exercise bike to get the cardio without the impact? I dunno.

I don't think anyone reads this - I haven't exactly been spreading the URL around - but if anyone has some tips, I'd appreciate it!

Link: 10 Tips for Runners

A great list of tips here, titled "Ten Tips for Completing a Marathon".

Check it out!