Working out is hard to do

Set that headline to the Neil Sedaka tune, which seems appropriate. After trying to get back into working out the last couple of days, I feel about as macho as Neil Sedaka. Not to cast any aspersions, but I haven't exactly been coming on like Ah-nold. I look in the mirror in the locker room, and I see a flabalanche.

How bad is it? It had been so long since I had worked out — maybe once or twice the middle of last year, I guess — that it took me at least 10 minutes to remember my locker combination. That has never happened to me before since I first learned to work a combination lock in the seventh grade. I've had this lock for years, and there I was sweating over the fact that I knew there was a 35 in there somewhere, and I had a general idea (within two or three numbers) of what another number was, but I had no idea in what order. And as it turned out, I was somewhat wrong about the 35, as I learned on about my 30th guess.

Anyway, on Monday I did 25 minutes on the elliptical trainer, and one circuit of light weights, then some stretches to close, and was worn out. Then Tuesday, I did 35 minutes on the elliptical, followed by five or six minutes on the rowing machine. And I experienced new vistas of being out of shape. That first day, the last five minutes on the elliptical — the cool-down, during which I reverse the action just to work different muscles — was ridiculously hard.

The only good news is that when you're 55, if you go by the charts, it's REALLY easy to reach your target heart rate.

Why do I mention this to you? Because I figure if I mention it to somebody, you'll help hold me accountable. I AM going to work out again today. Y'all hold me to it, please. To paraphrase John Winger in "Stripes," if I don't get into shape, I'll be dead before I'm 30. Or however old I am.

7 thoughts on “Working out is hard to do

  1. Brad Warthen

    Y’all aren’t going to believe this. So I went down to the basement and worked out a little while ago. And I’m on the elliptical trainer, in the middle of my time, and CNN is on with Wolf Blitzer, and he shows a clip from the interview with James Carville on Monday, the one that I managed to grab the remote in time to avoid two days ago!

    There’s only one lesson to learn from this. You remember how the character Chef, after having the daylights scared out of him by a tiger in the jungle, says over and over, “Never get outta the boat!” — a creed by which he has obviously sworn to live henceforth?

    Well, here’s mine: Never turn on the TV “news.” Not even for a few minutes. Not even so you can get some idea, for professional purposes, of how the “spin cycle” works. Never turn on the TV news…

  2. gayguy

    Come on you tub of lard.I’m queer and old as you,and I’m runnin’ 8 minute miles! WUSS!!!

  3. Kiki

    If you need more motivation, consider how fast the twins are getting. We’ve all got to get in better shape just to keep up and catch them before they reach trouble.

  4. peterson

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    peterson

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