Re-Training the Brain

In my previous entry regarding weight-loss, I mentioned a feeling that has altered quite a bit in the past two or three months:

I said I HATED exercising and, yes, that capitalized emphasis was certainly on purpose. I genuinely did hate exercising.

Notice the "did"?

Now, this is not to say that I LOVE exercising at this point - my feelings do not shift quite that drastically - but I definitely no longer HATE it.

For the moment, let me hedge and sit on the fence between "mildly dislike" and "somewhat enjoy" exercise. Yes, in the previous post I mentioned that I "enjoy" biking, but that was before the onset of winter weather. Apparently I am more of a wimp than I thought.

A while back, my girlfriend and I decided to begin triathlon training. Every June in Red Deer, a sprint (1/3 of a full) triathlon is held and we are hoping to enter the 2012 event. We want to do this to challenge ourselves. We are both getting older, but neither of us believe that age is a detriment. We can be as healthy and as active as we choose to be.

So, my "training" and exercising journey began with swimming.

Red Deer has quite a few pools, but the local Rec Centre is the closest to my living quarters. The indoor pool is 25 metres and the outdoor 50 metre pool is only open for a few months in the summer (and was probably open all of 10 days last summer due to rain).

The required swim distance for a sprint-triathlon is 750 metres - 30 lengths or 15 "there and back again(s)" (to borrow a phrase from Tolkien) of the 25 metre pool.

The first few swimming sessions were brutal. I could not believe how physically demanding it was and I could barely manage to swim 200 metres without being exhausted. However, some new section of determination opened up in my brain and I kept trying. Kept going a little further each swim session, kept taking shorter breaks, kept bringing my times down to something reasonable.

I am still not a particularly fast swimmer, but my times are still improving and I am almost to the point where I look forward to going. Something has changed in my brain. It no longer finds the experience "tedious" or "boring". I have always enjoyed a challenge and it seems my brain is beginning to agree that this whole "working out" thing is somewhat enjoyable.

Running was still a problem. My brain would see the treadmill and cringe. Ugh, plodding along to an unattainable destination with nothing to think about except the droning of the machine and thudding of shoes.

However, a couple of weeks ago something clicked when I began to see results from the weight-training I have been doing. My brain thought, "Hey, something is working. Weird. Maybe I should try other things too."

So, last week my brain coerced me onto the treadmill when it thought that getting my heart-rate up before my weight workout would be a good idea. 5-minutes later my heart-rate was up and I felt really good and had a good workout.

"Let's see," says my brain, "the sprint-triathlon distance is 5 kilometres (3 miles). How about we try to run a mile?" it asks me.

I hopped on the treadmill, did a brisk warm-up walk and turned the machine up to a 6 mile-per-hour jogging pace.

After a half-mile my brain is saying, "Okay, I'm done now."

My body and I disagreed and the treadmill speed went up to 6.2 miles-per-hour.

After three-quarters of a mile my brain is really wanting to stop, "I'm BORED, okay? Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump."

I told it to start drum-counting eighth-notes to my foot-speed and the treadmill speed went up to 6.5 miles-per-hour.

When the mile finished, I felt great and my brain felt good too (though relieved that the tedium was done with).

I am to the point now where I enjoy compromising and challenging (blackmailing) my brain to do some of the physical exertions. My latest foray onto the treadmill netted a 1.5 mile jog at 6.6 miles per hour. My brain was really begging to stop at 1 mile and 1.25 miles, but I pushed on each time.

My brain grudgingly admits that these moments of boredom are "good for us" so I think it is on-board with this whole exercise lifestyle thing.

Just never ask us if we LOVE it.