2013-2014 Exercise Challenge

[Catrin]

I've completed the spreadsheet for the 2013-2014 TE Member general exercise challenge and posted it here. Anyone who has the link can participate and add/edit their own record. Hopefully it is straightforward, I provided a column for each month so you can track your monthly hours of exercise, along with a cumulative and an "hours left" column at the end. I copied the formulas down for the first 29 records, it is an easy thing to copy the formula down for more records of needed. Just enter you name, desired start date, and the total number of exercise hours you would like to shoot for from 12/1 (or whenever you start) until March 1.

If someone sees how to make the spreadsheet better please feel free to make edits, especially if you would like to add anything it. To be clear, this is for whatever you would like it to be - cycling related only or more general exercise. For me it will be general exercise, I want to get 6-7 hours a week - which is just a little more than my norm. I would like to bump it up just a bit this winter.

We could also use this thread to discuss our efforts if we like

[Owlie]

I added a stretch goal. I don't think I'll manage it, but we'll see.

Started out with about an hour this morning on a bike ride with DBF and his parents.

[Crankin]

I'm wondering how to denote partial hours... like today I did 45 minutes of treadmill hill walking and strength/stretches. I'm assuming .5, .7, etc. Catrin, maybe my poor math skills are showing, but if you want to do 6 hours a week, that's 12X6==72. You really want to do 165 hours??? I put down 100, knowing that some weeks, I'll do more, but it might be closer to 70.

[Catrin]

Crankin - I've no idea how I came up with 165, I knocked it down to 100. I can't blame it on a typo either, I was counting weeks on my calendar and probably put the wrong # in my calculator. It's been a busy day but thanks for pointing this out. Your question was a good one, I hadn't thought about that. I changed the display to show 2 decimal points and added .75 to your December column as a test. The cumulative field is a formula - you CAN calculate that manually if you wish - but it will also add the numbers entered in the 3 monthly columns if you wish.


Owlie, I don't see the stretch goal - did you want that in a separate column? If you do and it isn't working for you let me know and I will take care of it.

[roo4]

I'm in with a goal of 60 hours. Owlie, that is my stretch goal.

[Owlie]

Crankin - I've no idea how I came up with 165, I knocked it down to 100. I can't blame it on a typo either, I was counting weeks on my calendar and probably put the wrong # in my calculator. It's been a busy day but thanks for pointing this out. Your question was a good one, I hadn't thought about that. I changed the display to show 2 decimal points and added .75 to your December column as a test. The cumulative field is a formula - you CAN calculate that manually if you wish - but it will also add the numbers entered in the 3 monthly columns if you wish.


Owlie, I don't see the stretch goal - did you want that in a separate column? If you do and it isn't working for you let me know and I will take care of it.

That was what I originally put in. I edited it to a more realistic number and put the stretch one off to the side. Now to figure out how to do this...

[rocknrollgirl]

I am in! I usually do between 7-8 hours in a normal non-training week, so I went for 100 hours as my goal. This will be fun.

[roo4]

Catrin,

Thanks for starting this. I spent an hour on the spin bike today and didn't quit after 32 minutes just so I could post a full hour on the spreadsheet. Hey, whatever works, right?

[Catrin]

Whatever it takes - I did this for me as much as for other members

[Becky]

My goal is 6 hours a week, which may be a reach now that I've cancelled my gym membership. I'm not exactly off with a bang either.

Thanks for putting this together, Catrin

[Catrin]

I've edited the spreadsheet to make it more clear that you just need to enter your hours in the monthly column. The cumulative column is a formula field that will do the rest of the math for you. I've also added a couple of columns to the right to allow for a separate goal if desired. I've decided that I want to track my mobility/correctives work separately from my exercise. I didn't add monthly columns for this so there is no formula, but I DID add a formula column to the right that will sum both your regular and "other" totals together.

Have fun!

[Crankin]

I am counting my PT stretch and strengthening stuff as regular, because it is... some of it is stuff I do in other venues, but now I do it daily. And, it's working. My issue is that some days I don't do a full hour, espeially on a run day, but when I add the stretching, it gets to an hour. I am having a dental procedure Wed. PM, and he told me last summer I shouldn't exercise for a week after... no way. I will wait until Saturday and I will forgo any impact until next Monday, but I have no history of bleeding problems, so be it. I asked my friend who had the same thing and he said he was riding the next day.

[Catrin]

I am only separating mine out because on non-gym days I tend to slack on it. For some reason in my head it is different when I am home

[Catrin]

Kind of cool, I was just in the spreadsheet adding my work for today, and saw someone else in there doing the same thing at the same time Apparently I am easily amused

[Crankin]

OK, I lost some days here, as I couldn't exercise for 3 days, because of my dental surgery. Today is the 3d day, so I just did 30 minutes on the trainer, with 5 sets of one legged drills, and 4 sets of ascending and descending intervals, all in pretty easy gears. Then I did *all* of my exercises prescribed by the PT, which has sort of changed from rehabbing my back (which is much better, but still working on it) to specific strengthening work for cycling. Working on my azz and quads, basically.
Monday is my annual exam with my gyn. My weight is up, right below the danger zone, need to lose 2, really 3 lbs., which just seems to be impossible right now. My eating has been quite good, actually. We are getting a huge storm tonight, so tomorrow will be either x country skiing or snow shoeing, both of which make me ravenous, but I won't give in! I'll be back on track, hopefully, with the exercise.
The periodontist who did my surgery is someone I know from my synagogue. I don't know him well, but his daughter was in the same class with my older son. He is a really nice guy, and not particularly out of shape looking. He always is talking to me (I go there 2X a year) about the "danger" of cycling, how he is afraid of riding on the road, and he was really shocked to hear that I do the same things as my DH, when I first started going there. DH often rides to his appointments there, as it's about 3.5 miles away. Last winter he was shocked to hear that when you x country ski, you are out on the trails, in the woods... "you could get lost" kind of talk. Even when I explained we don't do real back country stuff, we have trail maps, it's marked, we have a GPS, he thought it was too risky. Wednesday he told me winter scares him, as even though he doesn't mind snow, he slipped on ice a couple of years ago. Oy, I finally told him he sounds like an old Jewish guy and that life would be quite boring for me without the stuff I do. This guy is my age, and it seems so sad. It kept me laughing through the surgery.