I'm 38 years old and other than a couple years of moderate weightlifting with friends in my early 20s, I have never regularly exercised.
This year, I was able to change that. Funny enough, I read "Shoe Dog" for the business story, but finished the book with an interest in running. I think it was just the enthusiasm and lifestyle of running that was pervasive throughout the book. However, I've attempted to get into running before, and it only lasted a couple weeks.
This time, I tried again, but as an old-ass man, my motivations have changed. I just want consistency. I don't have a vision of winning any races, doing 20-mile trail runs, or other big ambitions. I just want to not die of a heart attack when I'm 45. I want to be in generally decent shape.
Laugh if you want, but as a complete novice, ChatGPT set me up with some cushy running shoes (Brooks Glycerins) and a basic goal: run for 30 minutes and try to keep my heart rate between 130 and 160bpm. This is more of maintaining a metric rather than trying to hit a lofty goal. From day one, you can achieve this success metric. It means your getting some moderate cardio. I bought a chest-strap heart rate monitor and linked it to a free app (Heart Graph) on my phone.
I'm now 8 weeks in, and I'm dedicated to the habit more than any goal. I feel a lot better, and by avoiding over-exertion and frustration from too lofty of a goal, I'm able to stay consistent without feeling miserable. I'm able to enjoy the "runner's high" without the cramps and misery that I endured in past attempts.
This is the boring truth for health and fitness: It’s very easy to be top quintile in health and fitness by putting in very little effort. The only requirement is that you do it mostly consistently for a lot of years.
The people cycling between fad diets or doing bouts of extreme Crossift every several years until they get injured or lose motivation have a much harder time with health and fitness, despite putting a lot more pain and effort in during their bursts of activity.
One of my high school friends was always a little overweight and out of shape. Later he thinned out and got into decent shape. Everyone asked him what his secret was, but most people were disappointed with his answer: He said he stopped buying junk food and drink when he went grocery shopping and he started walking a little bit every day.
Everyone assumed he was on some intense diet or getting sweaty at the gym 4X per week. Instead, he was just consistent with good but low effort choices.
EDIT: This was pre-Ozempic. I’m sure today everyone would assume GLP-1 drugs.
I would say that portioning is super important as well. It is very easy if you don’t have calibrated brain to binge eat huge quantities of food while distracted.
Example you have an extra large bag of chips and you watch a show, likely you will finish before realizing. But if you just put in front of you a small plate of chips, you will likely not stand up to refill it while watching your show.
Add a bit of friction to eating more food. Brains are remarkably lazy.
Doesn't work for me. What does work is going to a store with a full stomach, and never buying junk in the first place.
A small amount of exercise daily, along with giving up sweetened drinks was successful for me (and for my friends who asked how I lost weight and kept it off).
In my opinion, how consistently you exercise is more important than how much you exercise, as you will naturally increase your endurance over time.
Learning to cook your own food from scratch is also an effective way to get excess sugar out of your diet.
Even minimal exercise helps cut my worse cravings. It's surprising how much impact it has.
Also cooking food from scratch is very helpful. Yet somehow i always end up going eh I'll just eat out today.
Heart rate training is key for a smoother onboarding. Most beginners (myself included) simply try to do a pace that they simply can't sustain, think running is too hard, and then quit. Building that aerobic base is something I wish I understood far sooner.
This was exactly my experience years ago. I tried and failed to make a running habit several times until I got a heart monitor. When I finally did, I figured out that the pace I thought was what I “should” be running at was actually putting my heart at 185-190 and I was just getting wiped out after a mile or so.
Anyhow I just slowed down to keep my heart more like 140-160 and at the beginning I would even run three minutes and walk one, but I managed to get up to half marathon distance.
These days I don’t go all that far but I do about 3-4 miles 3 times a week. I don’t go very fast either but I feel healthier mentally and physically when I’m consistent.
Honestly it’s not clear to me that trying to go really far or fast is even all that healthy. It can actually lead to heart damage and it’s hard on your joints. Doing something more moderate seems like the sweet spot.
It does not lead to heart damage and it won’t knacker your joints.
It will suck all the time you are doing it, but you physically cannot damage your heart from over exertion.
There's significant evidence that it can: https://press.rsna.org/timssnet/media/pressreleases/14_pr_ta...
If you don't think running can mess up your knees honestly all I can say is that obviously you don't know any serious runners.
What heart rate monitor did you get and would you recommend it?
That was a long time ago and it was a Polar watch with a chest strap. These days I use a Garmin watch, but you could just as well use a Fitbit or an Apple Watch or a heart rate strap and your regular phone. Honestly I don't even look at my watch during a run very much anymore, because I know what various heart rates feel like. The biggest thing for me was to realize that I was just trying to go too fast, and the HRM helped me with that.
I think nowadays just about any smartwatch should be fine?
That’s why most beginner programs state “you should be able to have a conversation” as the pace marker. You don’t need a watch or a fitness monitor - just to be able to say a sentence or two
In the UK there is a program called couch to 5km. It's possible for anyone to follow and get to running for 30 minutes. It mostly emphasises running at a sustainable pace - even if that is just above walking.
It was popular here in the US too, and I agree it's a great program.
It's amazing how adaptive the cardiovascular system can be when you focus on the right things and keep it very consistent.
I went from having a resting heart rate of 70-80bpm to the upper 30s with a rowing regimen. The positive effect this has on moment-to-moment existence is really hard to overstate.
Wow, I've never heard of a resting heart rate below 40bpm.
Can you describe some of the effects on your moment-to-moment existence? Do you never run out of breath? Is it easier to "get up and go"? Any mental differences? Appetite & metabolism?
Sounds amazing. Please do share details of how you did it?
No laughing. Heart rate training is the best way to build endurance
GSP’s trainer Firas Zahabi prescribes to this. I remember his mentioning this in a Rogan podcast. His philosophy to training is minimal to 0 pain/soreness.
Instead of doing pull ups till you drop start with 1 and do it daily. I started running after a long time. I’m 49. I work out with weights but needed mild cardio. I started with 0.25 m run / 0.25 m walk cadence. I can easily do that for 5-6 miles and keep my heart rate below 165.
Bottom line is - take it easy. The goal is to burn calories, stay mobile and not get injured or sore.
This realization was what finally allowed me to stop bouncing off exercise. The "no pain no gain" mindset of exercise was baked in and the result was years of smattering short burst of extreme exersion (1-2 weeks of running until my lungs hurt) between months of inactivity because being uncomfortable sucks and motivation is fleeting.
This time I started slow and consistent - run/walk three times per week without pushing myself until I was wheezing and hurting. Over time I got better and eventually I could just run for a while without feeling out of breath or painful.
At some point I actually started to enjoy it. Two years later, running is one of my main hobbies and I do it basically every day. I'll be running my second marathon in October.
A 25cm run / walk sounds way too short.
The m is miles, not meters.
Shoe Dog is a great book. That book + "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" by Murakami also had a similar effect on me.
ChatGPT and Claude are perfectly acceptable for this. I’ve used them along side my training plans in Runna as well as just getting some baseline for my progress in Golf.
Awesome. I agree with the habit building. My knees are shot so I don't run, but I try to walk for 90 minutes a day. I look forward to this every day.
I normally start to wind down around 6pm, so around 8pm I close my computer and go for a walk. Come home and sleep.
Biking (mountain) is my groove. Worth a try if you have some tracks as it does not put pressure on your knees like running.
Used to LOVE mtb.
Unfortunately my knees are busted and I don’t have full range of motion on my right knee. And I’ve broken every toe lol.
I worked out half seriously for years and then fell off the first 10 years of having kids. I just couldn’t figure out how to balance it and being a dad. About 3 years ago I got back into it.
I was 245lbs at 6’1. Big frame but fat. My gym was near a college so just packed with people in their prime. I was able to get back to benching 315lb in the first year back. Set a goal of 405lbs and just been trudging on day by day for ~2 years. Hit it last month at 46 years old and 211lbs.
Just takes time.
In most gyms people start watching when someone unracks 315lb. I tried and failed at 405 4 times over 3 months before I got it. There is something odd feeling about failure in such a public setting. I can only imagine how a professional athlete feels and soldiers on.
For honesty, im also on steroids ;)
I suppose I could be more charitable but I feel like title doesn't really match with the message of the blog. Otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed this feel-good story about persistence and micro-improvements. Most of us mortals aren't talented at everything and diligent practice is required for most of us to get better.
Yeah, somewhat relatedly… I think the real lesson (at least if you grew up near the coast) is that everything is hard for somebody. I can’t really think of a kayak as an easy-to-flip craft, but that doesn’t really matter for this person’s journey.
It depends on the kayak too.
An extreme example, but: I used to watch this channel from a guy that built canoes and kayaks in both modern and traditional styles. He says in some videos that the traditional hunting kayaks are incredibly unstable and uncomfortable to use, because that instability granted them superior agility for hunting.
Have you read The Starship and The Canoe? Interesting book to goes into a good bit of detail about hunting craft (made from animal skin). Book said that they practiced 10 different was to turn a flipped one back over.
I haven't, but I've read "Birchbark Canoe" by David Gidmark. He's written some technical canoe-making books, but this one was the story about how he came to live in Northern Quebec amongst the Algonquin and learned how to make birch bark canoes from William Commanda, with whom he had a fairly turbulent relationship. I saw it in a big library one day and uncharacteristically actually managed to read the whole thing, it was very good!
Huh, neat. Unfortunately that site doesn’t seem to play videos correctly on my system. What do they use the agility for? Traditional hunting, so I imagine… a bow or something, maybe they need to turn quickly to help aim?
Ok, I'll bite. What did you do to make youtube not work?
No idea, iOS + Safari + Firefox Focus + the built-in Apple blockers. The video seemed to randomly freeze when not in full screen, but it would exit full screen when I tried to hop around in the video. I bet there’s an easy fix but I’m not a big video guy anyway.
No who you were replying to, but trying to help.
Something about how they shared the link encoded a preference for the desktop version of YouTube, but since you’re on iOS, I have stripped all of that off their link:
Same principle as aerodynamically unstable fighter jets?
But without the benefit of a computer to make hundreds of micro-adjustments per second!
That was pretty cool surfing that wave on the kayak ha at 1:27
Sit ins are definitely easy to flip, but sit on tops aren't. Especially thin ones. They probably went for the thin, fast one instead of the wide, slow one while being naive to the implications.
kayaks are muchj tipier than canoes but shouldn't be flipping if you're just sitting in them, unless these are highly specialized racing kayaks, which are tougher to navigate.
Interesting! I never felt like I was going to flip a sit-in kayak, but I don’t even remember the first time I went in one really, it is a fuzzy early childhood memory.
Canoes, I’ve been in canoes that are destined to flip whether I want them to or not (although they were overloaded, or may have had some traitors aboard).
That's funny, because I grew up canoeing and have never on my own flipped one - other people in the boat doing dumb stuff, of course, or trying something silly in white water (maybe that counts as "on my own"?), sure - but I feel totally stable and comfortable in a canoe. Kayaks, though? Man, they're trying bite me! I've never felt like even the most stable beginner-friendly of kayaks wasn't trying to throw me off it.
I think the difference is stroke technique? I'm sure I'm instinctively trying to paddle a kayak like I would a canoe, and they don't like that. If I had more opportunity I'd get someone to teach me proper kayak stroke shapes, and then they'd probably feel more friendly.
I think the real message is:
to be okay with repeatedly looking dumb in public
It is the same with going to the gym for the first time.
People can be easily overwhelmed by simple challenges. At some point everyone experiences this and we learn to overcome bigger challenges through life.
Another point that might apply is that OP probably has a high center of gravity which can make kayaking really challenging. They should probably clarify this.
It does feel a little more about psychological courage and grit than doing hard things.
The thing is a lot of what looks like a natural talent from the outside is also just learning on the inside. I won my provinces swimming competition without ever having swum in a competition before against swimmers who were all in a club. Reason: I grew up near a lake and was there every day during my whole childhood.
The thing is that people with "talent" are often just people who did what you're trying to do for fun their whole lifes. So talent then is just code for: "had a natural preference for doing it and both the means and time to do it".
Yeah, maybe the original message sort of got lost along the way. I think there is still some truth in the post when applied to the title.
I think one of the most important things I ever learned is that hard things take time. There is an obvious relationship between the effort required and the size of the undertaking, but also the worthiness of the effort. In other words: rarely, if ever, can you build great things in a short amount of time or with little effort.
And that's where this post makes sense: to build something great or to solve something hard, you have to show up every day and chip away at the problem, piece by piece. The progress will be slow and nearly invisible to you as you experience it, and is usually only clear in hindsight after a year or two (or more), when you can look back and see all that's changed -- hopefully for the better -- since you started.
I think it's more than just "hard things take time". The key sentence for me is this one:
> Kayaking taught me to be okay with repeatedly looking dumb in public.
I had the same thing when I first started running, in my early 50s. I'm sure I looked absolutely ridiculous. (I'm fairly sure I still do, I just stopped caring.) When I first started I would go out around 6am, partly because it was cooler but mostly so I wouldn't be seen. I've chatted to other runners who were the same, even keeping it secret from their family.
Getting over that has been a very positive change, and a generally-applicable one. I've just started blogging publicly, which would historically have triggered the same kind of looking-like-an-idiot phobias.
There was a post (maybe saw it here, maybe on Reddit) about sucking in public being a kind of moat for all sorts of interesting things. Crossing it gets you to places you otherwise couldn't go.
Yes, that was the one, thanks.
The extreme version of that: "Embrace the Suck".[1] By a Navy SEAL with a masochistic streak. SEALs are selected for people who will keep going while suffering, but this guy is into the suffering as an end in itself.
The industrial version: "In Praise of Hard Industries".[2]
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Embrace-Suck-Navy-SEAL-Extraordinary/...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Hard-Industries-Manufacturing-...
Having tried SOF selection myself (once, didn't get selected / quit before it was over), I can say that the selections are almost 100% designed to weed out people on their willpower, not physical strength. The people that aren't cut out physically, tend to be weeded out on the very first day.
And even if you get past the immediate pain stage, sooner or later you'll ask yourself "is this what I really want to do the next [N] years?".
I did a plastering course last winter and spring, and it reminded me about how, when you're young and in high school or college, you are continually confronted with not knowing things and not being able to do things that you would very much love to be able to do, and sometimes having to spend weeks or months without feeling much advancement before you suddenly "get it"... which is a kind of patience and stubbornness you rarely need once gainfully employed. It took months before I finished a wall that looked half decent, but then another month went by and suddenly everything had a mirror smooth finish. Your hands and arms and eyes notice things they didn't notice before. It reminded me that if you are willing to put in the hours, humans can do pretty amazing shit, and that you should never stop learning.
Plaster is so much nicer than drywall. It’s a shame we got away from it.
This is a nice short piece of writing.
The author sets the stage: uncoordinated and unathletic. Then they introduced their challenge: kayaking (or similar) which for them was a hard thing. Then they described the process: practice and improvement over a long period of time. And they closed with a personal success and take-away: it's worth the effort because of the experience regardless of the scale of the outcome.
Nice.
> But I think there’s a quiet dignity in the almost [success] stories too.
The last line hit hard. Need to remind myself of this sometimes
There are things we can do that are externally valuable, and often that work is hard, but not necessarily so.
There is also stuff that is hard, but really has no value to anyone else in the world. I've found I do get enjoyment just in doing things that are hard, and often serve no purpose. For example, I learned how to solve the Rubik's Cube one day. Another time I learned to juggle. I learned to play the piano (OK, not really, I learned enough to learn like five pretty easy songs).
There is something that makes it more enjoyable to do something hard (for me) where if I accomplish it or not has no bearing on the world (even amongst my small circle -- except now they have to watch me solve the Cube in five minutes).
There is one challenge I will take on next -- to start a paragraph without the word "There".
It must be my body type or something but I've often heard people talk about tipping over in kayaks and whenever I am in one it feels actually impossible to me. Is it really that easy to tip over? I don't feel I need to "balance" at all.
It looks like he was using a very long and rather narrow kayak. Those are easier to tip. I once used a friend's friend's sprint kayak. I've never tipped a kayak, but it was very easy to tip the sprint kayak. Any waves and that thing was almost unusable.
Most recreational kayaks are, like you suggest, almost idiot proof and can only be tipped if you're really trying.
The author must be talking about Sprint Kayak, which is incredibly unstable, must be in flat/calm water. Commercial paddling kayaks are incredibly stable, you have to try really, really hard to flip.
K1 (racing) kayaks are unstable and very narrow, most other types are fairly stable tho.
Depends on the waters you're moving in I guess?
> immersive calibration of self to environment
I felt this when I had to ride a bike to a job 3 hrs a day. It was nice biking through some street covered in trees being in the moment.
I also went through a lot of audio books
This part stood out to me too.
I got into spearfishing years ago, and I knew I wanted to see under water and eat fish, but wasn't really prepared for how hard it is and how common it is not to eat fish.
Like the author, despite numerous failures, bad choices, and sometimes suffering very cold British Columbia ocean temperatures, I kept showing up. My dives went from 7 or 8 metres to 10, to 15, to 20, and sometimes deeper. My breath hold went from a panicked 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
Initially when I saw a legal fish I'd take it every chance I got, because I could be certain I wouldn't find another. These days when I get in the water, due to that sort of immersive calibration, I find a lot more fish. Ironically, I don't shoot any of them despite being so much more capable of it now.
The ocean is such a complex, powerful, and simultaneously soothing yet deeply engaging environment. It gets incredibly cold, and it works with such incredible force that you constantly have to operate on its terms rather than your own. The qualia of the medium and your surroundings is so rich, it almost feels like a part of you. The same as a tool in your hand becomes an extension of you, the ocean becomes one as well, yet completely out of your control. It's really beautiful.
Kayaking is similar in how you're largely at the whim of this incredible body of water. Your success depends so much on how you read it, understand it, and respond to it accordingly.
I think humans are meant to be deeply engaged in environments like this. The easier we make it, the less we need to care about our environments (such as with this 21°, still, quiet room I'm in), the less engaged and stimulated we are, then the less we're challenged to adapt and endure in ways we probably should.
> spearfishing
I like watching this guy's videos https://youtu.be/4VoTY8Ae4CE?si=8h7t-SKzV39UzWfm&t=283 from Japan
Funny last time I swam in the ocean it is nasty, so salty the taste
Haha, it's incredibly salty, yeah. I kind of like it. After 4 or 5 hours in it, it's often all through your nose and throat, too. If I've been away from it for a while it can seem kind of harsh, but it grows on me again pretty quickly.
Talking about kayaking, I as a beginner (but would love to do some serious sea kayaking if allowed) would love to hear some advices:
I sometimes hope there are kayaks with deeper hulls so my legs can rest more easily. They can numb easily after just 5 mins of padding and I gave it up a long time ago after a few trials. I know there are sit-on kayaks but I think they are mostly for fishing.
As a tall individual who enjoys kayaking, you're going to spend a lot more money and research to find good kayaks. Depending on your location in the country you may not even be able to find a retailer near you with them in stock.
With that said, this is probably going to be the most available and comfortable kayak for most tall people. For me as a 6'4" 220 (mostly fat, little thigh muscle) I've used it and it's good.
https://wildernesssystems.confluenceoutdoor.com/en-us/produc...
Thanks. I'm actually quite short (160cm) so I think most of the numbness came from some other reasons.
Nice article, reminds me of boss fights in difficult games. You incrementally improve until almost suddenly, you're able to overwhelm the boss.
I am planning to resume Judo, i only learnt it as a kid and now planning to start again. I never kind of was the best but it helped me build some life skills around focus, being in tough scenarios. So yes the point of doing hard things is not about winning only
> I never kind of was the best
Who cares? You only need to be slightly better than you yourself were last week.
Not everything has to be done for competitive purposes. Or the one person you are really competing with is just yourself.
Very well written!
I completely agree, so many people miss out on great experiences simply because they’re afraid of looking dumb.
One big advantage many athletes had growing up was a parent who taught them a skill [basketball, soccer, biking] early, someone they felt safe failing in front of.
That’s one of the things I find so cool about learning with AI, you get to try, mess up, and improve without judgment.
> I find so cool about learning with AI, you get to try, mess up, and improve without judgment
I agree. There is no judgement in going very deep in as simple concepts as you need, whereas with real people you'd feel like you are wasting their time and that you should know that already, or at least find out on your own.
Nice, I starter rowing at 50. Same feeling on the water.
Effort matters
great article. short and precise.