Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Surviving the Day (all 30 minutes of it) at the Gym

First of all, if you don't already know, I am 
                     NOT A MORNING PERSON!
I know that all the productive go-getters in the world get up early but not me. I can stay up all night but I hate mornings. In an ideal world, I would shove the kids on the bus and go back to sleep for a couple hours. Sometimes I do.

That being said, I had to get up at 4:30 am today to go to work. It takes me an hour to drive to work and I was scheduled 6:30 am to 3pm. What that usually means is that I'll get to leave at 3:30 if I'm lucky but it's more like 4 by the time I actually get to leave and if it's been an absolutely horrid day it's 5 or so.

So today, the stars were all in alignment and maybe the front door to triage was jammed shut because I got to leave at 2:30!! when my replacement doc came in. My family wasn't expecting me home til 4 or 5 so I hurried myself to the gym to try and get a workout in on my "stolen time."

Today is cross-training day. My plan was to do 30 minutes on the bike. Problem is my gym only has 2 stationary bikes and they were both signed up for when I got there. BUT, no one was on one of them. The next person on the sign up sheet was starting at 3:45. It was 3:35 and no one on the bike. I signed myself up to ride til 3:45.

10 minutes. 3 miles. Averaged 101 rpm. I think the goal on the bike is to keep your rpms around 100 so I felt pretty good about that.

Got off the bike at my appointed time, walked a lap around the track, and tried to figure out what to do next since 10 minutes was obviously not long enough of a workout. Checked the bikes again and there were people on them. That left the elliptical. I can count on one hand the number of times I've used the elliptical. I really have no clue on how to use it properly. I always get the feeling I'm running with my butt sticking out when I'm on it. Anyway, it was open and I needed a workout so I hopped on - like literally hopped. So I figured you're supposed to push down with your feet but everytime the pedal rotated up, my foot wanted to jump off so I was doing (and really trying NOT to do) this hoppy thing. Then I didn't know what settings to choose so I picked one at random and 5 minutes in found myself "climbing" up this graphic that looked like a mountain. I decided this was NOT the thing to do the day before a speed workout. I tried to change the program while pedaling but that didn't work. Then, I'm not sure if I hit "STOP" or if I just decided to stop but I stopped - and about fell off, spent a rotation wildly balancing on one foot, and almost knocked my teeth out with the arm thingy that was swinging at my face since I was no longer holding onto it. I finally regained my composure, stared straight ahead - since I'm sure the two people next to were sure I was going to fall on them - pretended to know what I was doing, and reset the machine on some very low manual setting. OK, 15 more minutes. With 5 minutes left, I felt like the whole machine was moving and I was getting motion sick and wanted to pass out. I think I got up to early today.

I survived. 20 minutes. 1.5 miles. 115 strides per minute - whatever that means!

Got done at 4:15 and was sitting outside the high school by 4:30 to pick my daughter up from dance team practice.

Dinner tonight was leftover White Chili that I made last night. It's delish! It's got the goodness of white meat chicken and white beans but enough heavy cream and sour cream in it to make it a heart attack in a bowl. It was love at first bite. You can find the recipe here.




Well, it's off to my daughter's freshman class scheduling meeting tonight. See everyone tomorrow!here

2 comments:

  1. Who HASN'T played Baby Seal Hunter & nearly clubbed themselves to death with those swinging elliptical handles??!! If you don't get at least one black eye, you've not paid your dues. So funny, made me laugh out loud. Ahhh...memories.

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  2. I am so happy you are as clumsy as I am....needless to say I have had similar experience at the gym! Fell flat on my face so many times on invisible objects it's ridiculous. Chili sounds yummy!

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