Nose to the grindstone.
It’s Monday, and the miracle is that I am back on the treadmill. My commitment to exercise, which has risen from the ashes more often than any phoenix, has been resurrected once again.
I was never a particularly active kid. ‘Bookworm’ was the term of choice in those days rather than ‘couch potato.’ I guess the term had to change when it became a near certainty that the kid who was not outside running around was also not inside reading a book. TV, Nintendo, iTunes, Netflix maybe–but not many books. That, however, is a subject for another time.
Today’s subject is exercise. Blccch!
In New York, I walked everywhere. Plus, I went to the gym. Then we moved to Florida, and now, the most walking I do is behind the lawn mower around a .38 acre yard once every ten days or so. During the summer. You can’t really say that makes me a candidate for the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. (I also eat more than I need to because a snack is always a good excuse to stop painting, or mowing, or cleaning, or writing. [Almost anything is a good excuse to stop writing. That is going to have to change! One step at a time, however.])
I thought I would walk a lot down here. It’s the Sunshine State, right? Decent weather year-round. My plan was to wander the neighborhood every day. Even, perhaps, walk to local stores or the library. Nobody really does that here, but it is certainly possible. They are no further away than many of my NY destinations were. No reason I couldn’t take a hike.
I was reckoning without the humidity, however. All those places are walk-able, but holy cow! I never intended to do laps in a sauna. Plus, there are two big dogs roaming my neighborhood that are bigger than the Shetland ponies my grandfather raised. They seem friendly, but… And there’s another dog—smaller, but ferocious—that charges the fence in an extremely loud and business-like way every time I walk by his house. (I like dogs. I just prefer their owners to be around when they are taller than I am and I am encroaching on their territory. The first time, at least. And that fence—it looks awfully low when there is a snarling, snapping and all-too-powerful bundle of unfriendliness on the other side.)
Outdoor rambles were clearly not going to become a regular thing.
So, after a week or two of mining Craigslist, I acquired a treadmill and an elliptical. We set them up in the laundry room. (We have a big laundry room.) And we already had weights, which my husband had set up in the garage.
Our own gym!
Kind of cool, right?
The trick, of course, is not only to have the equipment but to use the equipment.
Anyway, a few weeks ago, I decided that I was going to walk to work–like in the old days. The idea was that I should get up, have breakfast, spend 20-30 minutes on the treadmill and only then check my email and Facebook and all the million other time-wasting sites I lived without for an unspecified number of decades but which are now indispensable.
It was working.
Then I went to Maine.
Even in Maine, I managed to get to the fitness room at the hotel twice. Twice! That, in itself, was a miracle.
But I came back from Maine, and the fitness schedule fell apart.
I’m back on the treadmill, though. As of last Wednesday.
This is a good thing. In and of itself, it’s a good thing. I feel better, and I will probably live longer. (No cracks, please, about it just seeming longer.)
It’s also a good thing because discipline in one area reinforces discipline in others. I heard an acting career coach once talk about how the actors who were working were all actors who went to the gym. Her point was not that they looked better, although they probably did, or had more energy, although they almost certainly did–but that the same things required to make it in show business are the same things required to keep you going to the gym.
Commitment, discipline, a willingness to suffer. Dedication to a result that isn’t immediately apparent.
With apologies to the lyricist of New York, New York,* if you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere.
And if you don’t make it the first 800 times, that’s no reason not to try again.
So…I’m back on the treadmill.
* Fred Ebb of the fabulous
Kander & Ebb.
