Hey there challenge fans, it may still be quarantine season across most of the world,
but we've found ways to torture- we mean, explore more of the world's mysteries with your favorite
lab rat. We've been concerned with the toll sitting at home all day has had on the health
of everyone's fave guinea pig, and so we're tasking him with keeping his physical fitness
up with 30 days of running! What kind of impact will this have on your health? Is it a good way
to lose weight? Stay tuned and find out! Day 1: Running. I hate running. I believe
I've very famously made that opinion quite clear, and so naturally, Infographics decides that now
I'll have to do it every day for thirty days. Honestly, I should just keep my mouth shut. I
guess the quarantine has seriously sapped the creativity of the Infographics team- how many
challenges can you really do while stuck at home. Alright, we all know that running is healthy,
basically everyone recommends it as a way to lose weight, boost your stamina, and get in shape.
I've done plenty of running in my time, I spent years doing it in the military and I feel that
I've fulfilled my running quota for life, so while the girlfriend goes running every morning five
days a week, I skip the cardio most of the time. Not anymore though, and nobody's happier about me
picking up a serious running habit than the girlfriend, who is constantly pushing me to
join her. Congratulations babe, wish granted. Oh, I've heard that running barefoot like our
ancestors is much better for your health, so stay tuned for week 4 when I try that out.
Alright, I'll start off easy at a mile a day, then gradually tack on more and more distance as I feel
that my stamina increases. I hate to admit it, but I really have been kind of sitting on my butt
during this whole quarantine, so I'm a pretty good test subject for this. My physical fitness
has definitely been lacking. So just how good is running really for your health? Let's find out.
End of Week 1: The thought of waking up early
and running was dreadful, so I decided I wouldn't be joining the girlfriend for her morning runs,
and on the first day I put it off until about noon. That proved to be a mistake,
since summer is officially here and LA is really heating up. The next day I fixed
that mistake and gladly woke up early to run with the girlfriend at about six am.
You know what I hate about running? It's the most boring exercise you can do. I mean it's not like
lifting weights is super entertaining, but you only have to do it for really short amounts of
time- unlike running where you spend twenty or thirty minutes just... running. Maybe if
they could make a VR app where you're being chased by terrorists... or bigfoot, now that could make
running exciting and maybe a little fun. Also, probably terrifying- but seriously, if anyone out
there makes VR apps, you know that a 'running away from Bigfoot' app would be a goldmine. Get on it.
Alright, other than boring, running is absolutely exhausting and I truly do hate it from the
bottom of my heart. The girlfriend always talks about a 'runner's high', and I think she's just
regular old high because I've never so much as experienced a single moment of joy while running.
I've been starting with a modest goal and running for a mile, and that's good too because I'm
practically ready to vomit by the time I get to the mile mark. I didn't even bother to time
myself, no point in embarrassing myself further. I used to run like a six minute mile when I was in
the military, but I was also in far greater shape. One thing I do miss though is singing cadences
while running in formation. It's weird how your brain kind of gets lulled into this sense of
hypnosis when you're with a group and singing cadences as you push yourself from your fourth
to fifth straight mile of running, ofcourse with a ruck full of rocks or sandbags.
By the way, that's a great way to get back problems later in your life, believe that.
So after a week of running I decided to weigh myself and discovered I'd lost two pounds, not
bad for really not having changed my diet at all. I'd put on a little... plush... during quarantine,
and the girlfriend's been having fun poking at it, so I'm looking forward to getting back into
normal shape. I guess I really have been lazying it up while everyone's stuck at home.
See you guys at end of week 2. End of Week 2:
I've started listening to military cadences on my headphones as I run, though I've kept
myself from actually yelling them out and making everyone around me think I'm crazy. What is crazy
though is that I kind of miss the old days, and that's something I never thought I'd say.
The cadences really help, though I don't know what help they would be for you if you've never been in
that situation for real. I think you need to feel that sense of camaraderie and shared anguish to
really 'get it', but I could be wrong. If running is as boring to you as it is to me, maybe try it
out- like I said the rhythm of the cadences really does lull you into a weird hypnosis and you just
sort of keep running despite how tired you are. I really surprised myself, after my first week
I was able to bump it up to 1.5 miles, but after only two days it was clear I could go
a lot further and just jumped straight up to 2 miles. The girlfriend says that it's
muscle memory from my old days, but I'm not so sure that's scientific. She claims that when
she is involved in a really long production and doesn't have time to exercise regularly,
she can bounce back really fast thanks to muscle memory. I just think she has great genes. I told
her that and then followed it up with, “and what's inside them isn't bad either”, and smacked her on
her blue-jeans covered butt, and she punched me in the arm. Really hard, because we were in public.
Alright, other than nursing a bruised bicep, I've been hitting the running track every
day this week and it's gotten a lot easier. I think that's the way with any exercise though,
once you get over that initial hump, it smooths out and exercise gets so much easier to do, and
to want to do. So hey, I know that there's some of you watching this right now that are dealing with
that hump. Just do it, force yourself to do it, push yourself for two or three weeks and I promise
you'll see results, and you'll realize you're over the hump. Don't quit, I believe in you.
I lost another three pounds this week, and again that's without any special diet changes,
literally just running. I imagine that if I was overweight and trying to lose weight with diet and
exercise, the pounds would really be coming off. I guess I can't deny running is great exercise
for losing weight. End of Week 3:
I don't know if I've yet to discover this “runner's high” that the girlfriend speaks of,
but I definitely have gotten to like pushing myself further and further. I decided that the
running track was too boring, going around in circles was driving me nuts, so instead
I jogged over to the beach and thought I'd run along the sand. Thing is, I forgot how hard it
is to run in sand so I very quickly went back to running along the street next to the beach.
On the first day of this third week I decided I would push myself to see where my limits
currently are, and I used my phone to track myself. Running on the street was much better
than running stupid circles at the track, and a lot more entertaining. I was shocked to discover
I had run nearly five miles before reaching what I would call, “absolutely breaking down,
can't take another step” status. Of course it was shortly thereafter that I realized I would
have to either run or walk back those exact same five miles, because I wasn't on a track anymore.
Instead I called an Uber, and I'm pretty sure my driver knew exactly what had just gone down.
So pushing myself to my limits proved to be a terrible idea, as I so often discover long after
the deed is done. My legs cramped hardcore, I'm talking charlie horses on charlie horses,
and if there's a more painful type of muscle cramp please let me know in the comments.
Except of course period pains- that’s right ladies, I got your back… hashtag ladypains.
You know what though, I'm glad I pushed myself to the brink, sometimes you just
have to push yourself as hard as you can and find out exactly where your limits are.
Running the next day however after those severe muscle cramps was bad news,
and I only managed a half mile. I needed time to rest, but I needed to keep up the challenge,
so that day and the next I kept it to a half mile, then settled into a 3 mile run. That's pretty
close to the 3.5 miles to 4 miles the girlfriend runs every day, so I'm catching up and it only
took three weeks. Kind of proud of myself. I lost another pound and a half, and I think
my weight loss is slowing down because I was never overweight to begin with.
I don't really think there's much more left to lose that isn't, well, normal.
End of Week 4: Challenge complete,
four weeks of running every day is in the bag. I did some rough math and I think I ended up running
something like 80 miles this month, that's like a third of the way from LA to Vegas.
My leg muscles are hard as steel rods, and my calfs are absolutely popping like a soccer player.
The girlfriend definitely likes that, I think it's weird how girls are attracted
to calf muscles, but they really are. Go figure. For this final week I settled into a 4 mile run,
and while it never got fun, it definitely got easier. I think the hardest part is just telling
your brain to shut up, it's time to run, and the sooner you do it the sooner it's over.
I don't know about any “runner's high”, I think that's just a myth-
though the girlfriend swears by it. I do have to admit, it feels nice after the run. You feel
good about yourself and your life choices, beats sitting on the couch doing nothing by a long shot.
I did try something new this week though, I ran barefoot. I've always been curious about doing it,
and it's long had a sort of weird appeal for me ever since I found out about the Tarahumara
Indians from Mexico. These guys can run for dozens of miles at a time, apparently even for
hundreds of miles, and they do it completely barefoot or with very basic sandals on.
I did more research and it turns out that most modern shoes are actually really bad for running
in, even those super expensive ones that Nike and Adidas charge you a hundred bucks for.
All that artificial padding and other crap really severely affects the way your foot
and leg muscles interact with the ground, while having just a plain old sandal or just barefoot
can make running safer by avoiding injury, and make it have less impact on your body.
Turns out that nature finely tuned our feet for running over millions of years, and over the
course of like a century we thought we could do a better job. Talk about human arrogance.
Alright, so you know what, I kind of liked running barefoot. The difference wasn't immediately
obvious, and yes, it did hurt running along the street barefoot. Luckily we live in a very nice
neighborhood next to the beach, so our streets aren’t littered with broken glass and other crap,
and traffic is light, but there's still plenty of rocks and pebbles to step on.
But, if you can weather it, you learn to ignore it, just like our ancestors did in the bush
when they chased down prey. By my third day of doing it, I barely even noticed it anymore,
though the girlfriend was very concerned about ringworm and made me scrub my feet
thoroughly everytime I returned. That's a good idea, your feet get crazy dirty.
It's hard to explain, while running barefoot may give you funny looks, it just... feels better.
More natural, and I noticed I was a lot less sore afterwards. I honestly think there's something
to the science of running barefoot, and I'd recommend you try it even if it's just on a track.
So how's my month of running been? Well, I lost a good amount of weight and I'm in pretty
great shape. Hard to argue with the results really. All that quarantine flab is gone,
and my stamina is through the roof. I have to say, I hate it a little less than I used to,
but I really don't think I'll be making it a daily routine anymore now that I don't have to. However,
I kind of think I'm going to do it maybe three or four times a week, and all of it barefoot.
Like I said earlier, the hardest part about any exercise is getting over that hump.
You gotta dig deep and just push through it, but I promise you can get on the other side of it and
nothing feels better than when you start seeing results. So if you're watching this thinking
of starting an exercise routine, or struggling to maintain one, just push as hard as you can,
and take it day by day. I promise after a few weeks you'll start to see results,
and then it kind of becomes an addiction. If you're doing this running challenge, please email
us and let us know how it went! I love hearing all your guy's stories about self-improvement.
For now, I'll catch you guys in the next challenge!
Ready for more fitness challenges? Check out I did pushups for 30 days
and this is what happened! Or check this other video instead!