UKC

I went for a short walk yesterday - not as far as I'd originally wanted to go, I couldn't seem to get my "second wind" and maybe I hadn't had a big enough breakfast.

Anyway, I've got a tracking app on my tablet which records calories expended, time taken and maximum speeds and average speeds. Yesterday it showed a height gain of 928 feet and a height loss of 987 feet; maximum speed was 2.8 mph; average 2.1 mph. This was over a distance of 3 miles. Calories expended were about 780.

Just wondered if anyone would be unhappy with this performance.

In reply to mypyrex:
depends how often your app samples I guess. You probably were moving faster on any flat or gentle declines but this may have been missed if it were not tracking every second. If you use viewranger to track this, it is a setting somewhere in the options. Often works similarly in many apps. Often the default is once per minute sampling to save battery. It can also clip some short ascents that are quickly lost if it doesn't calculate from the map but only the gps position at each datum.

I didn't get out on any hills after an ankle break for about 9months once. This was when I was still in my late 20s. I was pitifully bad at slogging up hills I had been running up before the first day out. It comes back really quickly. Try and get out at least every couple of weeks

In reply to ultrabumbly:
FWIW the distance and total time taken was not far out from what I measured on Memory Map and the timing via my watch.

(I wasn't unhappy with the recorded data)

In reply to mypyrex:

Since when did hill walking become something to measured and analysed like training for the marathon? Just go out and enjoy the hills.

In reply to Orgsm:

And if the analysing is enjoyable?

In reply to Orgsm:

Hopefully you have not suffered a serious illness that has left you wondering whether you will ever get back to areasonable level of fitness.

In reply to mypyrex:

When your 'performance' gets down to these levels it's really irrelevant. This level of detail is more appropriate to pushing yourself and competing. Just log the walks in non competitive terms. Enjoy the hills for the experience.

In reply to mypyrex:

Well since you gained 12inches it will have done wonders for your BMI

In reply to mypyrex:

If you get a few more data points and do some maths you might be able to create a personalised version of Naismith's Rule, which would be handy for planning!

In reply to mypyrex:

So you walked 3 miles in about an hour an a half, with nearly 1000 ft of climbing?

That appears to be bang on Naismith's rule:
"Allow 1 hour for every 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) forward, plus 1 hour for every 600 metres (2,000 ft) of ascent."

So I'd be quite happy with that.

The tracking apps are facsinating, I use Strava on the bike and for running, but recently recorded a trip up Ben Vorlich - the fine detail of fiddling a way up the through the little hills was really interesting to see, and the total distance covered was much greater than my map measurement would suggest because of the zig zagging about to benefit from easier lines. Despite the increase in mileage, my timings were about what I expected.

In reply to mypyrex:

I'd take the calories burned figure with a serious pinch of salt, the actual figure is likely to be between half and two thirds of the given figure dependant on your weight (I'm assuming your not 20 stone plus).

In reply to mypyrex:

Never bothered much with gagits on the hill or even when out running. I know I'm considerably slower than 30 year back. But it hurts just as much.

In reply to Dr.S at work:





Yes, thinking about it now it wasn't bad. The only "negative" aspect was that I took longer stops than my usual "ten minutes every hour" so that the total elapsed time from start to finish was two and a half hours.

So, for a post chemo seventy year old fart

In reply to mypyrex:

You are rubbish... should be able to do Naismiths with a heavy pack. You will never get in to the SAS using chemo as a crutch

In reply to The New NickB:


What's your evidence? I know that the idea of 3500 calories of work to lose a pound has recently been debunked and that everything is an estimate, but I did hope at least one end of the equation was good as I struggle fighting with hunger as my mileage goes up!

In reply to Dr.S at work:

I use Naismith's all the time, it's an easy calculation and gives you a feel as to how you are doing as well as letting you plan.

In reply to Orgsm:


I very much agree with this sentiment- at least I thought I did until, like mypyrex, something knocked me back which meant I was suddenly having to contend with a lowered level of hill fitness.

In retrospect, it allowed me to see that previously I had enjoyed a level of fitness which meant careful contingency planning was rarely necessary on solo walks. It seemed I had the freedom of the hills, able to outpace other walkers, even with my dodgy hip and rigid big toe.
Although I never kept a hill log, I would look at walk times, once back in the house, particularly if it was a frequent route, and next time make a conscious effort to do it quicker, even if just by a minute or two. Eventually though, I'd tire of the minutiae- if I felt slow, I probably enjoyed it less than on days when I felt in synch. So, in my enjoyment of the hills, the gaining of the fitness I relied upon was not separate but part of the same game. The measuring and comparison of things was integral to this.

Fast forward to this year, post surgery for cancer. I can't just pick up where I left off. Even though I'm now lighter (having had body parts removed), fatigue, pain and a wariness about straining things, require that I go slow and limit my immediate aspirations.
I haven't used an app or a tablet to analyse my short walks, but I'm probably paying much the same game as mypyrex. I guess the main difference is the apparent precision of the data from the app, which might give more opportunity to ponder their significance.

In reply to llechwedd:

>



And speaking from experience I suspect that many who have not had such problems would assume that it IS just a matter of picking up where you left off. Sadly it's not. One has to consider the best part of maybe a year(or longer) of relative inactivity(muscle wastage etc.), the debilitating effects of treatment and the effects of the illness itself. You're almost having to re-establish your fitness from scratch.

In reply to mypyrex:

To give you some encouragement to keep going forward. We have a friend who had breast cancer (operated) is in her 70s and still walking 3000+ miles a year (needless to say walking has always been her life) including still completing the ldwa 100 miler.

Keep going, you will get there.

In reply to digby:


As Bruce Tulloh put it- 'The race we are running is against our weaker selves'.
mypyrex's 'performance' may be dire in comparison to yours, such that you might not have to push at all to achieve similar results. But he's out running his own 'race'. Maybe not supplying the context of 'chemo' meant his data might have misled.

I'm sure we all go through stages of having to prove and improve, whatever our level, taking stock and making an effort to rebuild. A central tenet of rehab is the setting of realistic goals at whatever level you happen to start from. A baseline, entirely personal, to build from. Maybe the apps' faux precision led to your comment about 'this level of detail'?

As a physio', I see a fair few patients who struggle to grasp the fact that they're starting from a different place than they'd like, with capabilities that are at odds with their self image of still being the same person who used to do (insert physical prowess last seen decades ago here..).
They can only begin to build from where they are now. In rehab, there's never a level which your ''performance ' gets down to' when your monitoring is irrelevant, and you no longer push, you just enjoy the experience. Typically, when a person adopts that stance, they will contrast their current experience with what they achieved in their golden years, and unable to see the middle ground, they'll give up because the dissonance causes them distress.

In reply to Moley:

The LWDA lot seem a resilient bunch. This 70 year olds' approach to prostate cancer post op rehab made me smile

https://gunwharfman.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/prostate-cancer/

Having said that, the nature and extent of any cancer varies, the treatment path varies, and treatment outcomes differ between individuals. Because one person diagnosed with cancer demonstrated amazing physical prowess, we shouldn't expect that another person is capable of similar just because they had the 'same' cancer.

In reply to SouthernSteve:

Calories burnt is a function of the activity and weight. An 80kg man might burn 100kCal walking a mile on the flat and 150kCal walking a mile steeply uphill. All I am saying is that unless the OP is 140kg, his app is probably over estimating the bumber of kCal burnt.

In reply to llechwedd:

Not quite sure what you are talking about but this is pretty much what I mean - http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/27/heart-rate-monitors-gps...