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Comment by wjgilmore | Hacker News Reader

I have no idea why this worked other than I really took to the process of doing the exercises and then logging it all. Once I had a little bit of data I started writing Google Sheets formulas, creating charts, etc and it suddenly became fun. Then when I did get into shape it became a game of beating my previous 5K and 10K times. Lately every few days I go outside and run hard to beat my last time (currently PR is 28:10). I would have smashed this time a few days ago but about 2 miles in I suddenly had a terrible calf cramp that took a few days to get past. Not going to tempt fate again until after completing the Columbus 1/2 marathon on October 19.

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> Lately every few days I go outside and run hard to beat my last time (currently PR is 28:10). [...] a few days ago [...] I suddenly had a terrible calf cramp that took a few days to get past.

As someone with horrible back pain issues after a very intense block of training for a 1/2 marathon at the beginning of this year, I do hope you'll reconsider that first part of the quote above, since it's probably one of the causes of the latter. Took me a while to internalize the "run slow to run fast", but it does make a huge difference for injury prevention.

Not putting words in your mouth but your 10k mark I think coincided with my viewpoint for my own fitness journey. You did it in your living room. The gym is a whole thing. Getting the without gear, the water bottle, the driving, etc etc. Then when you're exhausted and tired you have to drive back or walk back or whatever. Doing push ups in your living room has no barrier to entry or exit. You do them when you want to, you stop when you want to, and you're back on the couch watching tv to recover within seconds. Can do it in hotel rooms, late at night, 5am, whatever. For me, that's the benefit and why such exercises work when gym doesn't. Maybe some of your success is from a similar vein, maybe not

100% yes! Everything you describe is spot on with my experience. Took me a long, long time to realize in order to get into ridiculous shape I need 1) the floor 2) running shoes.

You don't need a water bottle at the gym: they have a fountain. And if you're too exhausted after a gym workout to drive home then you're really doing something wrong.

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