Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

Thursday (for knowledge) Thursday: Heart Benefits of the Sauna?

>> Thursday, November 12, 2026

I saw this quick "article" shared on Facebook from a doctor with supplements to sell... so possibly fishy. It talks about the benefit of some time spent in the sauna:

A sauna is not a passive activity. Your heart works about as hard as it does during light cardio, and that changes how you should read the survival data.

Sauna gets treated as relaxation, which makes the longevity findings look like magic, but the mechanism is simple. When you sit in heat that intense, your body's main job is to get rid of heat before your core temperature rises. It does this by opening the blood vessels in your skin and sending a large share of your blood to the surface, where the heat can escape. With so many vessels open, your blood pressure would fall, so your heart has to pump faster and harder to hold it steady. Your heart rate climbs and stays up for the whole session.

One study tracked heart rate and blood pressure through a 25-minute sauna session and compared it with an exercise bike test in the same people. The strain on the heart matched light to moderate exercise, roughly the effort of an easy to steady bike ride. Sitting still in the heat was doing real cardiovascular work.

In another study, 102 adults who each had at least one heart disease risk factor did a single 30-minute session. Afterward their arteries were measurably less stiff, and the top number of their blood pressure dropped from 137 to 130. One session moved both in a healthy direction.

I looked up some of the references at the bottom of this article, and they are not mis-representing the facts shared there. But I also have a few questions... first, wouldn't sitting quietly in any room without your phone or computer for 30 minutes drop anyone's blood pressure? It wouldn't have to be a sauna, right?

The survival data lines up with that. In a study of 2,315 Finnish men followed for about 20 years, the more often someone used the sauna, the less likely he was to die during the study. Death rates dropped step by step. They were highest in men who went once a week, lower in those who went two to three times, and lowest in those who went four to seven times a week. Deaths from heart disease followed the same pattern, so the benefit grew with how often the men went, not just whether they went at all.

And another question: could there be a correlation between men who HAVE THE TIME or a GOOD ENOUGH JOB to spend time in a sauna daily just being less stressed and more healthy? With more time to devote to themselves, their body, and their health? It doesn't seem to answer all of those questions, and the article finishes sort of noting that:

This study observed one group of middle-aged Finnish men rather than running a controlled experiment, so it cannot prove that sauna caused the benefit, and the frequent users may have been healthier to begin with. No trial has tested sauna directly against lifespan. What the evidence does show is that heat gives your heart and blood vessels a real workout, and the dose that matters appears to be how often you do it.

References: Laukkanen et al., JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015. Laukkanen et al., Journal of Human Hypertension, 2018. Ketelhut and Ketelhut, Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 2019.

Again, even the image in the article notes that there's "a strong association, not proof." So color me INTERESTED but not SOLD.

For more "Thirsty Thursday" posts that highlight workouts, body science, and all kinds of interesting information, CLICK HERE. As always, back with some "Friday Funnies" tomorrow.

Big Training Week!!

>> Tuesday, November 10, 2026

I've been "building" since the TC 10 Mile and the following day when I had a vasectomy and took a week off. Last week was NICE:

I believe that's only my 2nd time over the past year (using this training log) that I've been over 25 hours for a week of training!

The other time it happened, it was the week before the TC 10 Mile where I didn't have Sunday as a rest day - I moved up my Monday run to Sunday, so I took out an hour+ of core and replaced it with an hour+ run AND 2+ hours of leg work. That sort of "artificially" made that week so big.

Last week, it was because I got in solid workouts all around, including 2 longer trainer rides! (2 hours and 2+ hours.) Runs were all good, and strength time was all NICE.

Everything was pretty normal until Thursday: I couldn't sleep, so I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and finally got out of bed at 3:30. Then I "had time" to hit the trainer for a longer ride. I also did NINE sets for my upper body at the gym later that day! So I woke up with a "training readiness" score of ONE on Friday:

After a fartlek run on Friday morning and some good core and legs, it was ONE again on Saturday morning. Saturday was a longer trainer ride again where I did efforts of 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 minutes:

With 50% the effort time as easy riding in between.

So Sunday morning was still a LOW "training readiness:"

My weekly intensity minutes were climbing... up over 1700:

Only the 2nd time over 1700 minutes since late August.
(19th week over 1700 minutes in 2026, and not any "filler"
commuter bike rides or anything - all "training.")

I also hit 150,000+ steps for the week too.

So after a tiny October and a few "building" weeks, I'm thrilled to have put in some good work last week! This week will have a few more "random" days that will keep it from being as big, but that's OK after such a solid week last week!

A TINY Month: October In Review

>> Monday, November 09, 2026

October was the WILDEST looking month I've had in a long time! Here's what it looked like:

With a brief "visual" explanation, here's that monthly pic with colored blocks:

Here are my meager totals:

• SWIM: 4,600 yards
• BIKE: 37.75 miles
• TRAINER: 5 hours and 26 minutes
• RUN: 70.27 miles
• STRENGTH: 35 hours and 23 minutes

These totals are mainly low from resting up post-vasectomy... even after I was allowed to run, I didn't want to sit on a bike seat, and I still was supposed to not "soak" it in a pool for an extra week as well (so only 2 late-month swims). My strength time was about HALF of what it was the month before!!

I started the month with a GOOD race at the TC 10 Mile. Then the day after the race, I had a vasectomy and had to make sure I healed up to go on a trip the following week. My first runs after the vasectomy were ROUGH - I mean, just look at all of that nothingness the week of the 5th (the yellow week). I finally had a hard run in the Faroe Islands, and some 2x2 intervals later that week. (But my right hammy was really acting up! That was noted by the purple on the 19th.) It was feeling a bit more like a normal week that week... but then I had a HARD fall to start the last week of the month, as in LIMPING for DAYS. I've never done anything like that before. I couldn't even do my normal leg strength work as it hurt too badly. For days. Even though I had to cut back strength work and skip a run on that final week of the month, it still ended up looking OK.

October had 518,137 steps which is the lowest in ALMOST 3 YEARS! December of 2023 had 515k steps, which was the most recent month to be lower than October!

Also, my "rewards" earned on the app "WeWard" show where I had little movement in October as well:

The week+ from Oct 3-11 I missed my steps goal, then picked it up as the month went on.

p.s. If you want to start earning rewards for walking (and it logs a lot of "steps" if you have your phone in your pocket while biking too), download WeWard and use code JUSTFISH6195 so we both earn a bonus. That's where the calendar came from above.