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Monday 30 January 2017

PoGo

What did I do in 2016 when I was ignoring my diabetic self?

A lot of exercise.

Pokemon Go was where it was at (ok, its still where I'm at, at least until I find the last 3 non-regional monsters I need to complete my PokeDex collection). I did a lot of walking in the latter half of 2016 trying to hatch distance-based pokemon eggs and find new Pokemons.

It helped to have something to concentrate on as I walked. I have always found exercise to be mind-numbingly boring. Or it made me anxious. PoGo took care of both the boring and the anxiety. I was able to forget how nervous exercise made me (thanks for that, diabetes) when I was concentrating on catching little monsters.

I started off small. I have always walked during my lunch hour, so I increased my single block to 2 or 3 blocks (had to try to get as many PokeStops as possible). Then I started off walking 4km in the afternoon after work, then worked on getting my time down as I got better at catching monsters and not tripping over my own feet. When I had gotten my time down, I added more distance and found a 6km route to walk.

I kept going and as my PokeDex got fuller, I got fitter. My 6km route morphed back into a 4km route when I found an exercise park that I could stop off at and complete a few sets of muscle based exercises. I upped my reps. I stopped catching as much Pokemon and my exercise time ballooned out from around 50 minutes a day to around an hour and a half on weekdays, and over 2 hours per day on weekends.

On weekends I vary my exercise a bit more. I might go for a bike ride, or a longer walk for a few hours. Sundays are Springwood Conservation Park Day, where my husband and I go to do laps. There's a very steep set of stairs followed by a 1.5km circuit that I jog 3 times. The stairs are an absolute killer and going up them 3 times is more than enough to give me the lovely 'going to puke my guts up' feeling that you really want when you're trying to run.

I recently started adding jogging to the mix. At first I was breathless after 100m, but I can now run nearly 2km before I need to stop and walk for 30 seconds before starting up jogging again. Every day I push myself to jog further, even if its just a few meters past where I made it to the day before. The only problem with that is, I cant PoGo and jog very well. So I am just turning on the app and then sticking it in my bag while I jog, so that at least I'm walking my Buddy Pokemon and hatching distance-based eggs.

The plan is to eventually be runnning the full 6km while still adding a stop-off to the exercise park. Or maybe getting a 4th lap of the Springwood Stairs in before I get the shaky 'about to vomit everywehere' feels.

Not everyone understood the appeal of PoGo, but for me its managed to keep me interested and pushing myself to get fitter for over 6 months now. Slowly, but at least I'm getting there, and for the first time in my life I'm actually enjoying exercise. So theres a plus. To everyone who complained that there were too many young people out walking their phones, there's a plus.

2 comments:

  1. My grandson says Pokemon Go is the best thing in his life. I enjoyed your account. He is 6 and his explanation usually involve good guys and bad guys.

    I love good guys and bad guys.

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. This post is full of PokeWin.

    Though I am far, far behind in terms of Pokedex entries and fitness (as the ever-expanding magnificence of my girth demonstrates).

    Hope you continue to enjoy the exercise and it is great to have you back and hopefully posting regularly.

    ReplyDelete