Fitocracy

[rowyn]

alltoseek sent me an invitation to "Fitocracy", which is sort of a social media fitness game, I guess? I say this as one who's never played a social media game and never used FaceBook, so take with a grain of salt.

I already get pretty regular exercise: I walk about 0.8 miles to and from work five days a week, and 4-5 times a week I've also been doing some form of strenuous exercise, varying over the last 6 years from dance to exercise bike to weightlifting to jogging.

But for the last couple of years, 'strenuous exercise' has dwindled down to 'exercise bike'. Which is fine for cardio, but as detroitfather and trumpet_lily have gently reminded me now and again, strength training would be an excellent addition.

So, I thought, maybe Fitocracy can motivate me to add some weights back into my routine. What the heck. I signed up for it. Hopefully it will not spam my Twitter feed with Fitocracy crap while I'm not looking. 9.9

alltoseek promptly suggested I do some Quests. 'They're a fun way to level up quickly when you're new.'

I poked around the site. 'This place needs a site map. Where are Quests?'

'Cleverly hidden!' She gave me the Super Sekrit hiding spot* (it should be a Quest to find Quests).

I browsed around for a bit, did not see any weight quests I wanted to attempt. ('Let's see ... I have dumbbells, not barbells, so can't do those ... ugh no not squats ... pull-ups? Ahahahahaha!') and went for the first Quest that I know I've done before: jog 5 km. It didn't have a time limit (unlike the "jog a mile in 12 minutes" Quest) and I've gone further than that in the recent past -- back in January, in fact.

I downloaded Cardio Trainer to my phone to track my distance and times, then went outside. I felt extremely sluggish as soon as I started to jog. 88 degrees and 43% humidity seemed to sap my will to move. Also, I hadn't eaten anything but junk food today. Oops. I quickly abandoned any thought of setting a decent pace and perhaps doing a 12-minute mile**. I managed the first hill, jogged along the level/downhill areas without difficulty, hit the next uphill slope, and felt roughly as energetic as I had biking it a few weeks ago. Ugh. I wanted to give up.

But I'm on a Quest! I told myself. And a lame-ass easy Quest at that! Did Frodo get a mile outside the Shire and then tell Sam, 'No, leave me for the Nazguls, jogging up this little slope is just too hard? What kind of hero am I?

Yes, I really thought that.

With that thought in mind, I made it to the top of that hill!

And then gave up because, yeah, that was only 1.1 miles and I was already feeling beat. x_x

Thus, I failed at my first Quest. Rats.

I forced myself to walk the rest of the flat stretch that I had planned to jog, and then back to my house, which turned out to be another .8 miles.

Much to my surprise, it pegged my walking speed for the second half -- where I was dead-dog tired, just trying to putting one foot in front of another, and writing while I walked -- at 2.6 mph. Which is pretty darn slow, but not nearly as slow as I'd've thought.

But it was still fun in a way to make the effort, and Fitocracy did get me out and exercising on a weekend, which is more than I usually do. So maybe I'll keep tracking there. We'll see. If anyone else is on Fitocracy, my userid there is also Rowyn. (My Twitter account is LadyRowyn).

* "In the lower right there's a black box labelled 'Your Stats' with 'Show More' in the right-hand top corner. Click that 'Show More'. Then in the lower left there's a label 'Quests' with a 0 (for you, newbie :-) Click the 0 and the list will show up."

** I think, if I jogged on a flat track, instead of up and down hills, I could manage a 12-minute mile. On a good day. Not today.

Comments

[alltoseek.livejournal.com]

That thought you had of comparing yourself to Frodo and Sam, thinking like a reluctant hero pressed into service, really is the kind of thing Fitocracy was designed to inspire, so you shouldn't feel silly. The developers are trying to reach online gamers, video gamers, etc., by providing a game environment where they have to do actual fitness-improving stuff in RL. Instead of sitting at their monitor all day :-)

They haven't yet incorporated much of the RPG-style game stuff they envisioned (like achieving Paladin status by demonstrating RL strength and stamina through their logged work-outs, etc.) but may yet get there. A lot of their users are still pressing for it. Or maybe some of that is in the paid version, I don't know.

I've completed a bunch of quests, none of which involve running or jogging, since I have a hard time making it to first base during softball, let alone half a mile :-) Quests do include some body weight exercises and dumbbell exercises. There are also some hiking quests, swimming, playing sports. You can check out the list of ones I've completed if you want. Here are some you can look into:

Tour de Neighborhood: bicycle 10 km (about 6 and a quarter miles)
"Push the Earth" and "As Seen on TV": each a set of body weight exercises like push-ups (can be done kneeling) squats, lunges, etc.
Not Very Dumb At All: are for dumbbells - very easy, just need to do one of each of the three mentioned sometime within a week of each other.
Let's Go for a Hike!: as the title says.

Have fun! :D

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Exercise... noooo.... it burns us...

[detroitfather.livejournal.com]

As you may discern, I am reading through your (and everyone else's) LJ posts in reverse order.

I am thrilled to see your continued pursuit of physical fitness.

[rowyn]

It's good to hear from you! I'm glad you've stopped by to check in on us LJers. :)

[rowyn]

Also -- happy birthday! :D