I registered for a 3.5 mile run/walk today. It's something that my company is doing, although they aren't paying for it (natch). I don't really care, as long as I have some incentive to get in shape. I'm not concerned, because I can easily walk 3.5 miles, but it would be nice to be able to run a fair bit of it. I'm working my way towards running for 10 minutes at a time, which may not seem like much, but it's a big deal for someone like me.
When I lived and worked in Brooklyn, I had gotten to the point where I was walking a lot every week. I felt pretty good about myself, but when I went to see the cardiologist, he was less enthusiastic. Don't get me wrong--he's a great guy and he was generally very encouraging. He told me I was doing a lot of things right, but he basically said that in the time I was spending walking I could be doing a lot better for my heart, and that the first step was do move on to a more challenging activity--something I suspect any personal trainer would have urged me to do a long time ago.
And it was clear my body needed it. Because even though I could walk 10 or 15 miles with relatively little difficulty, running for 3 minutes left me gasping and hurting. I kept at it, and I had worked up to running almost the whole width of Prospect Park (and felt pretty darn proud of myself) by the time I got this job.
But it's way easier to stay fit when you don't have a job. You can make yourself healthy meals, and it's easy to find time to exercise. Since I've started this job, and particularly since I've been working these punishing hours, I've had a hard time "finding time" to do either. I'm hoping that this minor milestone will give me the motivation I need to make time for healthy meal planning and workouts. Wish me luck....
No comments:
Post a Comment