How The Mighty Have Fallen!

Once a week I'm supposed to do a work out that is NOT walking. In other words, I need to mix it up a bit.

Today was mix it up day. The last time I tried this I thought I was going to die on the elliptical. Today I went on the spin bike.

Let me digress a bit. In 2007 I bike commuted to work 60 km a day. I was pretty fit and really enjoyed riding my bike. In 2009 I entered a two day bike tour and 5 miles in I crashed and broke my thumb requiring surgery and effectively ending my season. The next year I barely rode at all due to a back injury and eventually sold my road bike to my sister who could love my bike the way it deserved. Its safe to say I was used to a fair amount of saddle time.

Today I got on the spin bike and almost immediately realized my who-haa has lost all the bike callous it had. Ouch! I persevered for 12 minutes. My who-haa had gone numb, which I was effectively ignoring, when my left quad seized up and refused to turn the pedals anymore.

Searching for something else to do, I decided on rowing. I own a rowing machine and I used to regularly row hard enough that my machine was almost floating in a huge pool of sweat. I hopped on that machine and got going. Wow, made it a whole 3 minutes before my back decided in no uncertain terms that I would not be rowing any longer.

Now I was out of non walking options except for the elliptical, which almost killed me last time. Ha! It wasn't so bad and I wasn't even close to red lining.

So, it smacked me pretty loud upside the head that I used to be fit and now, not so much. Also, just in case I hadn't realized it, my body spoke up pretty loudly that I'm getting a bit decrepit.

Hmm, I'm still going to the gym tomorrow, decrepit, fallen from magnificence weaknesses and all! Come join me at 5:30 am and you can lap me on the track too!

PS, if you consider only role models get imitated, an older gentleman has deemed me worthy. He was going around the track in hiking boots this morning. Maybe next week he'll man up and add in a back pack and trekking poles!