Low Fitness (Fe)Male

I have no idea why anybody runs in a gym without wearing headphones. I suppose there are a few exceptions. Maybe you went with a friend and you’d like to banter with them throughout your sweat sesh, like you’re in a pharmaceutical commercial or something. Maybe there’s an incoming natural disaster and you want to keep your ears open to the sound of someone screaming, “Beware! An incoming natural disaster!” in case visual cues wouldn’t be enough for you in that scenario Apart from that, a standard gym or fitness center is a miserable Pine Sol-scented dungeon, and if the goal is to experience it as painlessly as possible, headphones are the only way to go, particularly if you’re running. There’s a reason there are rows of TVs planted right in front of the cardio machines, and it’s not because there’s a substantial overlap between “people who use the elliptical” and “people who like experiencing Fareed Zakaria’s face but not his voice.” It’s because running on a treadmill su...

The short explanation for why I’m writing this post is that I never pass up a discount. The long explanation isn’t much more interesting, frankly, but you’re already here, so you may as well make yourself comfortable and get the most out of your click. (It’s all about the clicks here, baby. We’re angling for that Under Armour sponsorship and we don’t care who knows it) High School Me was a moderately in-shape fellow played a lot of sports and tag/manhunt, marched with a sousaphone (core strength!), and ate whatever he damn well pleased. College Me was very similar, except for where High School Me supplemented his incessant eating with general adolescent frolicking, College Me paired his incessant eating with additional incessant eating and, eventually, an equivalent amount of drinking. Professional Me didn’t exactly make things better by securing a desk job that did everything but stamp “SEDENTARY” on my work badge, and developing a new football superstition that require...

Hello. I am going to make a confession. I have never successfully run a mile. The first time I was asked to run a mile was 5th grade.  There was no preparation for this, and I can only assume this was by design.  For whatever reason, during the 2001-2002 school year, the "President's Challenge" program required that 5th grade students be asked to run a mile once at the beginning of the year and a second time at the end of the year. The school would post everyone's finishing times on a bulletin board in order to honor (read: shame) them. Now, as a young pudgy child with anxiety, this plan did not do a lot to set me up for success. Actual photo of myself in 5th grade (right) The actual directions we were given were "run." So, I started out running as fast as I could.  Of course, by this I mean as fast as I could without looking silly or allowing any part of my body to jiggle or drawing attention to myself in any way whatsoever. Pretty soon, I started t...