I have occasionally exercised. I walked a lot in high school, college, and grad school. I used to have a rowing machine, a Power Rider, and an elliptical apparatus. Occasionally, I've gone running, sometimes doing that every couple days for weeks on end. Inevitably I find an excuse to stop: the weather gets bad, work gets busy, Buffy gets canceled, etc.
When I turned 40, I had a stress test, and everything was great. Blood pressure was high initially, but I pointed out to the nurse that I was about to be shirtless and exercising in front of strangers, so I was under a little stress. BP came down and stayed steady throughout the test.
Somehow I turned that into an excuse not to exercise. I began saying, "My fitness goals as I age are to be able to walk wherever I want and to generally move without pain." But I know that's not good enough. For one, a casual stroll around the neighborhood and a few sets of tai chi aren't remotely aerobic. And also, I'm now on lisinopril because I found my blood pressure was spiking unexpectedly at odd times of the day.
Mel has just started the Couch-to-5K training program, and I'm intrigued. When I've run before, it was because I started slowly and gradually increased my time. This looks like a good program.
Goal for the weekend: buy new running shoes.
Update:
The Brooks Radius 7, found on sale at Columbus Running Company, a great store with very friendly, helpful staff who didn't make me feel like an intruder.
2 comments:
I was amazed that I had no problems with shin splints trying this. Now if I could just sort out my damned knee. I'm fearing a visit to an orthopod may be necessary, but it's likely long overdue.
I did that running program a couple years ago, and it really worked well for me. I had never been able to run, and following the Couch-to-5K I was able to work my way up to an hour of jogging at a time. Just take it nice and slow, and don't worry if you feel a need to repeat a week.
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