Making a recumbent bike "desk" with off-the-shelf parts for under $400. Is it possible? I'm finding out.

I've needed to get back in shape for a while, but I'm working full time, then add 3-4 hours a day for day-care pickups, dinner prep, baths, bed time stories, etc. Then add another 60-90 minutes after the kids are off to bed that I have to be at home because the wife's still at work. The only way to get to the gym is to go at 10 p.m. or 4:30 a.m. The rest of my day is mostly booked.

But I'm sitting at my home office's desk right now, writing a blog post. I'll be sitting at it tomorrow, working on my novel. And I'll be sitting at it next month, working on learning Flash and programming a game. So why not get in some exercise while I'm sitting at my desk?

I could do a treadmill desk but they run pretty expensive, in the neighborhood of 2-4k. Additionally, the point of an exercise desk is that you exercise slowly enough that you can still concentrate on work, but you end up putting in more time because you do it for a few hours.

So, because it was cheaper, lower impact, and it looked more comfortable for putting in hours per day, I picked a recumbent bike. But when I went looking for an office solution, there was nothing. There were some hobbyists and a cheap upright bike with a desk. There were some stand alone pedaling thingamajobbers that go under your desk, but there were no solutions with completely "off-the-shelf" products that guaranteed I would not be bumping my knees whenI pedaled or having to sit too far back from my desk to reach the keyboard.

I started looking for something that I could fit over or around a recumbent bike, adjust to accomodate the movement of my legs, and maybe tilt up a bit in back and down in front to make it more friendly.

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Finally got in a pretty solid core strength and stretching workout on Friday. Good thing, because I needed it on Saturday. Wrangling a 5-year-old and a 19-month-old at the park is a great workout, especially when the 5-year-old wants to kick a ball around with you and the 19-month-old wants to wander off and explore. I was regularly running off to bring back the 19-month-old, then running and kicking with the 5-year-old. Combine that with doing a little upper body strength training on the playground equipment, and it was a fairly solid amount of exercise.

But that put my Saturday afternoon plans on hold when it stimulated a mild attack of sciatica. My plans to power-wash the garage floor while the baby napped turned into Daddy taking a nap too. The best I did was walking a circuit of the neighborhood (about a quarter mile) with the boys to see if there were any other kids out to play with.

The sciatica was better come Sunday, but not good enough for me to feel up to anything strenuous, so I took Sunday easy.

Goals for the coming week are 3 walks of at least 1 mile, 2-3 core strength and stretching workouts, and some small adjustments to my diet to cut some of the excess fat and calories. This morning, instead of my normal breakfast burrito with 6 slices of bacon, 2+ eggs, and 1/2 cup of shredded cheese in it, I had a bowl of Kirkland Cranberry Macadamia Nut cereal and a cup of low-fat milk. Do I feel as sated and warm in my tummy as I used to after the breakfast burrito? No. Do I feel just as sleepy? Yes. So no immediate sense of greater health or vitality from this lighter breakfast, but it's a process. Gotta give it a little time to kick in.

Just gotta keep making little incremental changes each week and hope those changes add up to me being able to run a 5k obstacle course come September.

On Wednesday, I ended up walking a different course than I did on Monday. My wife's car was in the shop, so she borrowed my car and was going to meet me at the Park and Ride to pick me up in the afternoon. When my bus got into the Park and Ride early, I decided not to waste 15 minutes waiting for her when I could get in a little exercise and began hiking home. I got a good half mile or more into my hike before my wife came along, going toward the Park and Ride and picked me up.

This morning, I overslept, and got an unintended mini workout. If I don't get to the Park and Ride before 7, parking gets very difficult to find. I had to park deep in BFE. Counting my paces and multiplying by about a 19-20 inch stride, I parked about 1/8th of a mile further from my stop than I normally do. So getting to and from the car today will add an extra quarter mile to my daily walking.

Remember, I'm seriously out of shape, so the first four weeks is just getting up to a 2 mile walk without significant pain in my back or lower body. Every little bit of extra exercise, stretching, and walking helps.

Next progress blog: Sunday night. See ya then.

For those of you who do not know, I'm planning to run The Warrior Dash in just under 12 weeks. I am 41, very overweight, bad back, and haven't walked more than a half mile in a stretch in over a year. I don't get winded going up the stairs in my house, but if I don't turn things around, that's not far off.

The Warrior Dash is basically a 5k run combined with an obstacle course. I'm going to skip some of the obstacles, like wading through a bog and crawling under barbed wire, but I'm hoping to complete the 3.15 mile course and at least 7 out of the 11 obstacles in an hour or less.

I just did my first training session, a simple 3/4 mile walk with some mild up and downhill components. I finished it in the target time of under 20 minutes without huffing and puffing too much. But my lower back was screaming.

A combo of gaining back the weight I lost last year plus being really lax on core strength exercises since then put the pressure on my lower back, and turned on the pain signals in the last quarter mile. I'd planned to incorporate a little bit of core-strength into the training routine, but I think I'm going to have to be more aggressive with it. If I don't get the abs toned up and taking more of the strain off my back, I'm not going to be able to make it, because my back will fail me before my lungs or legs do.

This isn't about weight loss, though the added activity may prompt some. I'm trying to go from total couch & computer potato to doing a 5k obstacle course in 12 weeks. The numbers I'm going to worry about during the next 12 weeks are not how much I weigh or how much I eat, but how far I can go and how fast I can do it.

Wish me luck.