This is basically my pace when I am not pushing it and i'm ok with that

I have been doing jogging for a while now and I have never really "trained" at doing it. I am not aspiring to get faster and the only time I did actually train with any sort of plan in mind is the few times that I have participated in mini-triathlons or the one time I did a full one. For the most part I get out there, get my heart rate up, and don't really concern myself with how fast or far I am going. To me the objective is to have an elevated heart rate for about an hour without destroying my knees or back.

I'm at the age where my knees are a real concern but I also don't harp on about it. I am one of those guys that gets a little it peeved when I hear people say "oh, I can't go running because I have bad knees." Well unless you were in some sort of accident the reason WHY you have "bad knees" is due at least in part to the fact that you don't do things like go running. If that is the case then go walking but stop making fake injury excuses for your inactivity.

I think exercise is very important. I feel much better about myself just overall when I get some exercise in. I sleep better and other than the fact that my feet hurt when I am in bed, the overall experience is pretty damn rewarding.

That being said, I am not fast at all. At 6 feet tall and around 200 lbs. I have an American football player's physique, although admittedly I am smaller and probably considerably less strong than a real football player.

My approach to fitness is one of you need to not hate what you are doing. If you dread it, you are not going to do it in the future. I think a lot of people make this very terrible mistake when they approach fitness. They feel as though they need to torture themselves when they exercise and unless you are an elite athlete in your 20's I think this is a terrible idea, especially for normies like me that are only exercising so that they can live some sort of excess elsewhere in their lives.

Honestly, if I didn't have a dodgy diet and like to drink beer as much as I do, I wouldn't exercise nearly as much as I do. But seeing as how I want to continue to eat pizza and drink beer, the exercise side of things are absolutely essential for me. This doesn't mean that I need to be trying to beat world records every time I lace up my shoes though.

My "runs" are basically the same every time. I start out the first km trying to figure out my pace, then realize I am wrong about 1.5 km in. Then I over adjust and end up right around a 7-8 minute kilometer.

The last 300-500 meters are always a cool down because I don't want to enter my apartment building dripping with sweat and catching my breath.

On my runs I mostly run, but I also do a bunch of walking. When I start to feel tired, I wouldn't even say that I push myself. When I am tired or my legs start to hurt, I switch to a walk. The idea here is to do more than nothing and to get my butt off the sofa and do something for an hour that elevates my heart rate. I don't have a functioning heart rate monitor at the moment and I don't need one. I can feel it in my chest and hear it between songs reverberating off my earbuds.

I don't think that reaching a level of normie fitness is difficult at all but a big part of this is because I don't do exercise that I hate. Even when I am lifting I will rarely perform an exercise that has any chance of actually hurting me. I made those mistakes in the past and let me tell you, when you tweak your neck or back a few times you learn a lesson. These are horrible things that take a long time to go away and if you are stupid enough, you can create a chronic situation for yourself that you may have to deal with for your entire life.

So I am a 7-8 minute per kilometer runner. There are tons of skinny fuckers that pass me when I am on the trails all the time. I am not upset at these folks nor am I envious. We are all built differently and if I were to try to keep up with them I would regret it very quickly.

Just get out there and do "whatever" that gets your heart rate up for an hour or so a couple of times a week. This little thing will lead to so many added health benefits. Had I had this program when I was in my 30's I never would have gotten fat. But then again, if that hadn't happened I probably wouldn't have bothered to learn any of the things I know today.

Maintaining a normie physique isn't that difficult. You just need some semblance of a plan and you need to stick with it. The rest just becomes a routine that you will eventually enjoy.