So I was all set last night to swim a few laps in the wonderful salt-water pool that most peeps in VCU's gym fail to utilize since it was my "cross-training" day. All excited, I got home before wifey-poo and whisked through my husbandry chores of emptying the dishwasher, dumping the trash and putting out the bi-weekly recycling that seems to grow exponentially (I can't imagine what my trash would be like if I didn't have a recycling option, but in two weeks we probably recycle more than half our refuse and it is forever overflowing).
She came home a few minutes after me and was dressed for the gym way before me. Meanwhile, I was going through my ancient collection of swimwear, none of which fit very well, and digging through the attic to find the pool bag that I thought contained my super-duper cool-guy-look tinted swim racing goggles. Rather, it contained nothing but ancient pool toys, a variety of mostly used up sun tanning potions and maybe a pound of beach sand and broken sea shells. I guess my kids thought that I would never need those again when last seen in Holden Beach, NC last July. Which means I guess I'm going to Dick's Sporting Goods this weekend and finally use my $50 gift card from Xmas that I forgot I had in my wallet to resupply my swim gear. Disgruntled now, I drove us to the gym a couple miles away trying to figure out what cross training device or apparatus I was now going to have to use. I longingly gazed down at the near-empty pool in passing, bemoaning the fact that my kids lost my goggles and I would have to wait some more before I finally got to take my initial dip.
Wifey had long since settled on the treadmill to walk her miles while I decided to use the elliptical thingy next to her that sorta resembled a bike with arm swinging things attached. Modern technology at it's finest I must say for the pro-grammatical contraption actually had a 10K selection, so once I entered all my weight, age and level data I was pumping along while mesmerized by all the statistical data this thing was spitting back at me on it's big panel right in front of me: Calories burned, time, heart rate, percentages of this and that, miles to go, Mets produced (what the hell is that?), pretty little dots telling me what level of resistance I had to sweat through and for how much longer. All the while I was jamming away on my iPod to Green Day, Oasis and a bunch of other 90's rock stuff intermingled by the occasional country bumpkin tune or top 100 song from the 60's. This was way more my speed than having my legs burn in agony limping along the track trying to imitate Roberto Salazar. Seeing my hockey buddies and talking to them a bit while I explained why they were so shocked to see us in the gym helped kill the time even more.
Don't get me wrong, this machine did make my thighs burn like a mother and I was sweating like a virgin in jail but I was able to churn out six miles in 30 minutes. Don't ask me what the other stats said, I wasn't in the mood to know that all that working out only burned enough calories to equate to eating a Halloween-sized twix bar. It was only when I got up did I realize the extent of the damage I did to my thighs. Yes, I was breathing like a beached flounder but worse was the non-response my thighs were told to do--walk you morons! At least hold me upright! Ok, so I had to sit down again and regroup before my second attempt was successful. Though my calf and back felt better from yesterdays onslaught now I had a whole new joy of dull throbbing leg pain to deal with. This subsided gradually as I sauntered ever so slowly over to our locker to retrieve our belongings. I repeated the painfully slow ritual of putting on my sweatpants and fleece jacket while the wife confessed that her non-stretching had produced tight as hell hamstrings from her treadmill walking. I can only imagine the thoughts going through all the 20-something's heads as they looked at us two decrepit gimps holding onto the stair railings making our way down to the first floor. Oh, we aim to please!
Actually, we seemed to get better the more we walked it off. Staci made a wonderful 20-minute supper since it was getting near 8 o'clock by the time we came back home to the dogs. I fell asleep soon after watching some Cocaine Cowboy documentary on Showtime about some woman Colombian drug-billionaire named the Godmother. I'll tell you one thing, this training program does make me tired and I sleep like the dead, barely flinching for eight hours before the sun wakes me up in the morning. So I have that going for me....
Tomorrow is the dreaded TWO mile run--from the Downtown Y up Franklin Street on VCU's campus to Stuart Circle (Confederate cavalry General JEB Stuart for all you history buffs out there) and back again. We're to go at a steady pace which I pray to God my calf or back or thighs or eyeballs don't shut down prematurely and make me look like a pansy and have to walk with the retirees. This weeks worth of training BETTER start paying off some dividends soon cuz it's only gonna get worse and so far all I've garnered is a bunch of painful reminders anytime I take a step. At least my new tub of Xtend came in the mail yesterday. Maybe if I suck a bunch of that down before, during and after the run I just might be able to make it to the car without crawling? I'll let you all know how that goes over the weekend if my new power cord actually works at charging my laptop which hasn't worked lo these past six months. ( Note: buying rip-off knockoffs that advertise they will work just like the manufacturer at half the price is a bunch of bull! Don't be tempted! )
That's good advice--write that down.
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