An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

I'm starting to worry that my running days are over. Well, worry may be too strong a word. I started running after Teddy was born since it was the only exercise I could do on the spur of the monent any time of day or night ... "the baby's asleep, I'm going for a run." I have never considered myself a runner in a "I am a Dancer and a Dancer dances" sort of way. Still, I like it in a lot of ways. It's a highly portable workout. It gets me outside day in and day out. It also is a more challenging aerobic workout than anything else I do. The problem is that it's also very high impact and I suspect that's one of the causes of my current achy back. I actually stopped running for a year and had far fewer back problems. Since I joined an early morning bootcamp class earlier this year (a class which is full of serious runners) I have been going back to it, with a corresponding increase in back issues. Now I have a herniated L3-L4 disk and feel like I...

V bought me a wonderful birthday present: a Garmin Forerunner, which is a combination GPS and heart rate monitor. I have been using it for all sorts of things: keeping myself from slacking off when I run, keeping track of distance when I run in unfamiliar places, and just as a HR monitor on the erg (rowing machine). It's very cool. I love data!!!! I decided to wear my new toy while meditating to see if I could see any physiological effects from meditation. For my first trial I turned on some streaming ambient music and settled in on the couch. The problem was that right after I settled in an announcer came on and started talking up the station's Premium (paid) Service. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of ignoring this disturbance, but the heart rate shows otherwise. Or maybe it's just Heisenberg effect - knowing I was monitoring myself got me a little agitated. Anyway, after a few minutes the announcer finished and I settled into a body check-in: a mindfulness medi...

One of my Channukah presents was a Garmin Forerunner. This amazing little device combines a GPS and heart rate monitor to allow you to track your workouts - distance, pace, heart rate, time. I love it. It's been keeping me honest. Seeing my pace, I've been running harder. I have been using it on the erg and have been rowing harder (in that case I'm using it just for the HR monitor, since the GPS track of rowing in place isn't very useful). I wore it while raking leaves the other day just to see the impact on my heart rate (about 90 - 100 BPM, since you asked). I have even done a quick test of my ability to lower my resting heart rate through meditation. Initial results are positive: got down to 56 BPM. That was just a quick test; I need to collect a longer sample. If anything gets me out of bed in 20 degree weather tomorrow to go running it'll be the opportunity to collect another data set. I love data! The thing does look like a "Dick Tracy watch" (for t...