The Daily Blog 2010-05-05

I've got this thing on my mind. It seemed the best thing to do was to express it. And since no one really reads this blog anyway, I'm just gonna use this thing. I am exercising this summer. Actually, there's a diet/exercise thing going on. So, this is me working through that...

A few weeks ago, I went to buy some running clothes. I don't want to look like a slob or an idiot-- not in public, anyway. One of the things the salesperson talked about was specific undergarments that provide "compression." Basically, they are very stretchy but are supposed to fit tightly so as to avoid chaffing while running. I had never thought about chaffing. The distances I run were never a problem before.

Guess what happened last night?

Chaffing. And not chaffing under my shirt, either. So, now I'm being irritated by a mild abrasion in the upper thigh area. What's up with that? Compression clothes are expensive, by the way.

A word about the diet side: Running at 6mph burns about 1,000 calories per hour. Useful bit of trivia, there. Here's another: to burn 1lb of fat requires about 3,500 calories. So, if a person were to run, say, 3 miles per day at 6mph, 7 days a week, that would net 1 less pound each week. Whether that is encouraging or not depends on how much you want to lose, I guess. Of course, you can also run farther, and/or faster and/or eat fewer calories to net more gain.

One of the people that I acknowledge as an inspiration to run is someone I worked with at the job where I ended up with back surgery. She runs marathons. With an "s." Plural. Competitively. And she's much older than me. But, when asked what her favorite food is, she replied "beer and pizza." Which, she points to as one of the reasons that she bothers with all the running-- so she would not have to watch the dieting side so carefully as to take all the fun out of life.

I really like that idea.