Finding the right fit
Morning
Here’s a profound observation for you; as the body matures it becomes more and more difficult to get back in shape once you’ve slipped or fallen out of it. If you were never athletic to begin with and your main exercise consisted of doing squats in the garden followed by elbow bends with gin and tonic weights, followed by just occasionally dancing until the wee hours at the Georgetown pub, and then you can’t kneel for a while and one dance leaves you breathless, the only thing left is elbow bends and even if you keep changing elbows, that probably doesn’t do much for your overall fitness.
I love strolling around interesting places; I don’t love walking for the sake of walking. I get bored. I don’t want a walking companion because then I might have to talk when I don’t want to. I keep meaning to try being one of those people with earphones and listen to audio books but I haven’t gotten around to actually learning how to do it because I am also mentally unfit (by which I mean mentally out of shape).
So I have signed up for the two-week free trial at the Y. Again. (If you haven’t and you want to, I think you’re too late, but you could try.) I’m not sure how often they have this offer, but this is the second time in as many years that I have signed up for a two-week free trial.
The last time I went, Janine and I tried Gentle Yoga. It was all going fine down on the mats and then we had to stand up and stand on one foot, which sent me head first inches from crashing through a plate glass window because I am unbalanced (by which I mean have I have poor balancing skills). Even without going head first it wasn’t gentle enough for Janine, but I went back for a session of an all-upright exercise routine (on two feet). I really overdid it for one hour and spent more than two weeks recovering, by which time my free trial was over and I wasn’t ready to try it again.
This time I am going to start with Cycle Fit. I have no idea what it is and I’ll probably find myself with a crowd training for the Tour de France, but at least I’ll be sitting down so how bad can it be?
Afternoon
I am just back and ready to share my experience (which left Daughter#1 laughing out loud, or as she would write, lol). Haha to her I say; everyone has to start somewhere.
There were bikes in the Cycle Fit class room and bikes just outside the window in what I would call the main exercise machine room. They were not the same bikes. Lean people were warming up on lean bikes in the Cycle Fit room. After catching my breath from walking up the stairs, I stepped inside and looked around for an instructor for advice.
Bless her; she assured me I was welcome to stay and cycle at my own pace, but I decided the humiliation would do me more harm than the Fit Cycling would do me good and took her advice about starting on the ‘free for all’ bikes outside.
I can’t imagine how the nice man a few bikes down knew I didn’t have a clue what to do once I’d sat down, but with his help I got the tension set and the timer (15 minutes sounded about right) the heart rate monitor and the how many miles you’ve gone thingy and I was on the not very fast track to fitness.
I stopped when I’d gone a mile and a quarter and the timer said five minutes. I didn’t want to overdo it and I thought biking a mile and a quarter in five minutes was not bad for a start. Now I think maybe five minutes was the time left but even so, 10 minutes was better than nothing.
Tomorrow I will aim for a mile and a half.