After almost one whole year I finally did another three laps around my usual walking route earlier this morning.
It has been very challenging for me to get back to working out, and the high intensity interval training I was doing wasn't something I was looking forward to. I decided to finally stop making excuses and try walking around the subdivision in my usual route I used to take.
Of course I was wearing a mask because the pandemic is still around. I was initially worried about any difficulty of engaging in strenuous activity while wearing a mask but it wasn't really bothersome. It was more bothersome that my feet and calves weren't used to the strain and pace that I used to have.
I managed to average around 10 minutes per kilometer during my walk. It was around twenty to thirty seconds off one of my last walks around March last year. I believe I averaged around 9:37 per kilometer then. Today I think I was around 10:05 per kilometer. These stats are off of my adidas Running app. I was able to do one more set of 10:01 per kilometer last year before stopping totally because of the quarantine and the lockdowns that happened.
It felt interesting to go walking again. My calves were aching during the inclined climbs up some of the streets but I was happy that I was able to push myself to a pace I was happy with. Wearing a mask was almost a non-issue except for the times I was breathing through my mouth and the smell was noticeable when I breathed through my nose.
Will I continue walking again? Most definitely. Summer is closing in and the earlier sunrises, coupled with the hotter weather will drive me to wake up earlier and hopefully have no excuses to not exercise. The dark early mornings and cooler weathers during these past few months were really not conducive to me working out.
My plan moving forward will probably involve going on walks on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays will be my HIIT/Tabata sessions. I can do four five-minute cycles that involve 8 20-second workouts, 8 10-second rests, and a minute recovery per cycle. I usually do two cycles of cardio, usually jumping jacks, kettlebell swings, and running in place. Then for the other two cycles it's either a combination of deadlift variations and bent over rows, or squats, lunges, and calf raises for the third cycle. For the fourth it's either shoulder exercises or biceps and triceps exercises. All using one or two twenty-pound kettlebells.
Consistency has always been a big issue for me with regards to working out. I had managed to drop to 86kg during the middle of 2020, but gained weight and am now hovering between 87kg to 89kg. As I wrote before, this is nothing serious because that is usually my trend in weight. I lose, gain, hover, and find the inspiration to lose again.
Out.
